23. Questions
While at CromCorp, Roth was positioned behind his desk already fast at work on the latest business deal occupying his time, when the knock came at the door. Before he had the chance to question who was disturbing him it opened up for Aaron to sail through the door, shutting it closed behind him. He plopped down in a chair. “Sup boss?”
Roth glared at him. “What the hell do you want? I'm already up to my neck in paperwork and don't have time for whatever you want.”
Aaron arched a brow at his surly tone. “Here I thought you'd want this info but seeing how you don't need it I'll just throw it in the garbage.”
Instantly reminded of the important task he'd given to him Roth instantly straightened in his seat, giving him his complete focus. “What'd you find out?”
A file was tossed in front of him.
He ignored it.
Understanding the man wasn't going to make this easy on him, he never did, Aaron sighed. “Your wife is a very peculiar person, to say the least. When I had picked up the file even Dorian was a little startled, it had taken quite a bit of effort and time for him to dig up the info on her. Normally, he could find anything in a matter of minutes, it took him all night to dredge up the file.”
Roth stared at him coldly.
Picking up the file that he'd ignored, he went through the information. “Her name is Paige Juliette Emberly-Asherton, she'll be twenty-two in a few months, she was born to William and Charlotte Emberly.”
Roth frowned. “Her mother's name is Sierrah.”
He bobbed his head. “Yes, she's adopted. She was about five years old when her mother was killed and her father split town, she became a ward of the government and bounced around. That is until she was around ten years old she was adopted by her adoptive mother Sierrah, at the age of nineteen. Apparently, Sierrah was an old friend of her mother's, who now that she was of legal age wanted to take on guardianship of the girl.”
Aaron skimmed through the information he'd been given from his brother. “Following their departure, there isn't much information about them. In fact there's no information about either of them for an extended duration, the two of them completely vanished off of the face of the earth. No information could be found on them until more than a year later, when Sierrah Asherton arrived in the city with her daughter, working at Burmington Electronics. Not much found on the girl.”
His boss growled, irritated.
He continued on. “Upon her arrival in the city the girl was enrolled in an excellent school, where she met her best friend, Amber Sinclair, she was a straight-A student. No significant friendships beyond the Sinclair girl, never dated from what I gather. She graduated at the top of her class at the age of seventeen, she received a full scholarship to an Art school in Oxford, but dropped out after the first semester. The girl then came back to Whitehaven where she worked a few odd jobs here and there, helping out her mother, until two years ago she found steady employment at Magicka I guess.”
Roth latched onto the confusion marrings his friend's face as he spoke the last of the information, wondering what the man could be thinking. “You guess? As in you're not certain?”
Snapping the folder closed he stared at him. “On the surface she maintained full employment as a clerk at Magicka, yet Mrs. Sinclair has been depositing large amounts of cash into her payroll card.”
“How much?” he wondered.
“Depending on the month, between fifteen to twenty thousand dollars.”
“That sounds more like store profit, not a paycheck.”
“Exactly,” Aaron declared when his friend finally understood. “I'm under the mind to believe the girl isn't a clerk at all, but rather potentially the owner or part owner.”
“So it's safe to say the girl made a decent income on her own.”
“Definitely,” he agreed without pause. “She actually has a side business, an online store from what I gather, making an assortment of different designs. Judging from the tax papers uncovered by the business she seems to be doing pretty damned good, her online business makes nearly the same profit as the store.”
Leaning back in his seat Roth became even more curious about his wife at the discovering that the woman brought in close to thirty thousand dollars a month. Of course, that was mere pennies compared to what he brought in a months time, he made millions from one business deal in a single day.
“Thank you, Aaron.”
Left alone in the solitude of his office Roth found himself thinking about his wife, wondering if she was really the gold digger he thought her to be. On the low end his wife managed to bring in an annual revenue of around three hundred thousand dollars, though with a potential of close to four hundred thousand. She definitely wasn't wanting for money. His nana had tried to assure him that he was wrong about her, that she wasn't after his money as he thought, but he was confident she was wrong. Any minimum wage worker would hit the jackpot of marrying into the Cromwell family, that would take them away from the working field. Yet, that didn't seem to be the case when it came to Paige, as she made several hundred thousand dollars a year, that was sure to have built up in the time of living with her parents.
His phone rang.
“Hello my sweetling,” his grandmother's voice came over the line. “How are things going with my granddaughter-in-law.”
“I wouldn't know,” he grumbled.
“Still investigating her I see,” Nana accurately deduced the course of her grandson, knowing him better than anyone ever could. She'd raised him after all. “If you're so curious to find out more about her, then wouldn't it be smarter to spend some time with her and get to know her, to actually see the type of person she is.”
Of course, she was right.
A thought dawned on him. “Do you know that Paige has an online store?”
“Yes,” Nana informed him after a moment. “I go into her store Magicka all the time to have lunch with her and the darling girl Amber. I've bought quite a few of her pieces, your cousin Dean even has one of her figurines in his office.”
He paused. “What do you mean her store? Doesn't the store belong to her friend and she's just the clerk.”
Nana burst out laughing. “Yeah that's the story those two give everyone, but I promise you that store belongs to Paige. I've seen it for myself, she runs that store on her own, knows it like the back of her hand and has even made some business decisions without even consulting Amber.”
“Why would she pretend to be the clerk, if it's her store?”
Nana chuckled. “Curious aren't ya? I know a way for you to get all that information.”
“I know,” he grumbled. “Start asking questions and spend time with her.”
“That's my boy.”
He growled. “Hag.”
“Brat,” she returned.
Hurriedly disconnecting the call before his grandmother had the chance to say more, growling at the sound of her laughter, he went back to work.