Ch. 511..515: Forbidden Heat R18 Chapter 511-515

Chapter 511: Reiner - Unexpected Working Holiday

His hands slid under my short night gown and began stroking my naked thigh as my body started squirming a little at his seductive caresses. Wet warmth trailed along my neck as he started licking me there. I whimpered his name softly as his caresses got bolder and more demanding. My eyes flickered opened when I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened my eyes to find Reiner’s blue eyes staring down at my face observantly and I blushed a little.

I wondered what time it was now. It wasn’t unusual for Reiner to wake me up to his passionate love making but we had work to do today. The work would probably extend late into the night for Reiner as well. Although he always told me to go home before him, I never wanted to leave the office before him. I rather we go home together and if that meant that I had to wait for him, that was exactly what I was going to do.

“R...Ahhh...You have to go to...work...” I protested softly in between my lewd moans.

My body reacted so strongly to him like always. His hands never stopped caressing the naked skin of my thighs and soon I knew that he would be playing around with my little wet pussy.

“No, I don’t...” Reiner replied confidently.

“You don’t?” I asked in confusion.

“I’m taking a week off,” Reiner announced before his fingers started caressing the sensitive nub in between my legs.

Ahhh...it feels so good...

“Huh? A week off?” I exclaimed in shock as my hand reached for his to stop him from caressing my swollen clit for a moment.

Am I hearing him right? I needed to focus on this first.

“Yup, starting from today...” Reiner reaffirmed before he smiled down at me.

I looked up at his face in pure confusion. How can he possibly take a one-week break? We just came back from our holiday and his work was so crazy busy.

“But what about your work? You were so busy so how can you take a whole week off just like that?” I asked in pure disbelief. None of this was making any sense to me.

My eyes widened at him as my mouth hung open. I stared into his smiling face as I demanded silently for an explanation of what was really going on.

“Why else do you think I was working so hard?” Reiner asked before he flashed a charming smile my way.

His large hand patted my head lovingly before he placed a kiss on my forehead. All the while, I had a confused expression on my face along with a slight frown.

“You mean...” I murmured as it began to sink in.

Had he been working so hard to clear the work so that we could go on a holiday? Really?

“Let’s go on a holiday starting tomorrow and let’s roll around in bed all day today...” Reiner suggested his gameplan cheerfully.

He hugged his arm around my waist and pulled me on top of him while he laughed at my surprise at his sudden attack.

“R! Wait...explain to me what is going on properly!” I demanded but instead of getting my answer I got his hot kisses on my lips instead.

...

After spending the entire morning in bed together, I finally managed to crawl out of the bedroom at around noon for lunch. Reiner was in a very good mood, and it seemed like all the fatigue that he had accumulated over the past weeks have already evaporated into thin air. He seemed refreshed and as happy as always.

“Where are we going for our holiday?” I asked cluelessly.

Reiner did mention that he wanted to go on a holiday starting tomorrow for around a week, but he never ended up telling me where we were headed.

“The same place we went for our honeymoon,” Reiner replied casually as he sipped on his tea.

“We’re going back there? Really?” I asked in pleasant surprise.

We just got back but I didn’t mind going back to that island again. It was surely a lot of fun and maybe we can visit the orphanage again too this time around. Without realizing it, I had already factored in a visit to the orphanage to our plans.

“Yup...we’re going back there...” Reiner confirmed.

“But I didn’t take any days off...” I murmured in sudden realization.

Although Reiner had many days to take off because he was a senior manager, I didn’t have that many days to take off for holiday. This is going to be a problem.

“You don’t have to because you’re going to be working while we’re away,” Reiner clarified as if he could read my thoughts.

“I don’t follow, sorry...” I apologized for my lack of understanding.

He just told me that we’re going on a holiday to that island so how am I supposed to work while we’re there?

“The thing is, I had a chance to talk to King about our visit to the orphanage when we got back from our honeymoon. Of course, I tried my best to convince King to increase their funding,” Reiner explained.

“Really?! You tried to convince him, really?” I exclaimed excitedly.

Reiner gave me a pointed look before he sighed.

“Yes, I did...because you asked...” Reiner confessed softly.

“Oh wow, thank you so much, R!” I cried out gleefully before smiling a very bright smile at him.

“Listen first. In the end, King decided to approve and increase the funding for the orphanage; however, he had some conditions put in place along with his approval,” Reiner said before his blue eyes rested squarely on my face.

Why do I have a feeling like this has something to do with the work that Reiner mentioned just now?

“And...?” I prompted for him to tell me more.

“King is worried that the funds won’t be managed properly or used more effectively for the children’s benefit, so he placed a condition that he wants you to help work with the orphanage manager to allocate the budget and present to him a plan on that. Then, you’re also responsible for ensuring that the funds are utilized according to the approved plan,” Reiner explained before smiling a little at me.

Chapter 512: Reiner - On a Mission

Did King just give me a job?

My eyes widened in excitement. King has personally given me my first job and it also meant that I got to work with the orphanage in helping the children. Suddenly, it just felt like everything was starting to click and fall into place.

“You should have told me earlier!” I cried out in excitement as I stood up from my seat.

I just couldn’t believe it. I should have known that the thing that I wanted to do was staring me right in the face. If I can help improve the orphanage and the lives of the children, wouldn’t that be great. Plus, this also counts as me working for King and the company. Two birds with one stone, indeed!

“Sorry, I thought it would be a cool surprise. Was I wrong?” Reiner asked teasingly.

“No...you’re not wrong. I am surprised...but still you should have told me!” I exclaimed.

“You’re not making sense. How would it be a surprise if I told you about it beforehand?” Reiner mocked me with a shake of his head.

“I guess you’re right...” I was forced to admit.

...

The flight to the island was a good reminder of our honeymoon trip and I had to say that I was over the moon happy to be on another holiday with Reiner so soon. The weather was just as nice as the last time that we were here when we landed on the island. Something told me that this trip was going to be a meaningful step forward for us and my career.

After studying the documents, I found out that it actually required a pretty huge sum of money to run the orphanage. This wasn’t a project that should be randomly taken on on a whim. The reports showed many cost buckets there were huge and most of the expenses were recurring. In other words, King must be very committed to this project in order to keep the orphanage running. It all made sense considering that each child would be at the orphanage for many years before they grew up into young adults.

Taking in more children also added to the expenses. I couldn’t help but sigh at the depressing reality that the orphanage was very good at burning money. Either I must find a way to spend the money more efficiently or I had to ask King for even more funding in the future. The second way was probably not the best way, so I had to work something out in terms of savings and optimization.

“Don’t stress out, Natalia. Your brows are in a knot,” Reiner teased me as his large fingers tried to pull my brows away from each other.

“Stop that...” I murmured in slight annoyance as I tried to shake my head the other way to escape his fingers.

“You’ve been obsessed with those reports ever since I gave them to you,” Reiner said knowingly.

“I can’t help it. It just feels like there’s so much that needs to be done, you know...” I muttered before heaving another depressing sigh.

“Anything that I can help with?” Reiner offered with a smile.

“This is supposed to be your holiday so I would feel guilty if I asked you to work,” I replied stubbornly.

Plus, I was quite certain that he worked so hard to clear his schedule so that he could accompany me here. This project didn’t involve Reiner in anyway, so if he had to work at the company, I would be the only one shipped out to work on this island on this project. It was already great that he was here with me to keep me company. He also worked so hard, so I wanted him to get his well-deserved rest.

“I’ll feel guilty if I leave my wife to do all the work too...” Reiner countered with a charming smile.

I didn’t know what else to say to that and I found his smile to be so disarming that I decided to let him have his way. Apart from being such a loving husband, I also found out from personal experience that Reiner was also a good boss, and it was always fun to work alongside him.

“I don’t want you working too much. This is my project and I’m going to prove myself to King this time,” I said with wholehearted determination.

Reiner responded by laughing but he did nod his head in agreement. This may be the first of many projects that King might decide to send my way and I was determined to surprise him with some very outstanding results. I can do this!

We stayed at the same place that we did during our honeymoon, and we even slept in the same room after being greeted by the exact same staff member. It really was a scary overload of déjà vu one after another. After settling down, we agreed to take it easy for the day while we came up with a gameplan on how to tackle the problem at the orphanage tomorrow.

“So, tell me, what have you got so far?” Reiner asked as he sat down next to me on the sofa.

I turned to smile at him before scooting away from him just enough so that I could lay down and pillow my head comfortably in his lap. Reiner laughed and shook his head a little at how lazy I must have looked. I glanced up at his face before I beamed a smile at him.

“See this...” I said as I held up a paper towards his face.

Reiner shook his head once more at my laziness before taking the paper from my hand. I cleared my throat before I started to explain what I had in mind. Trust me, I didn’t just get Reiner to fly me all the way over here without having put some thought into this matter.

“I actually did some prep work, believe it or not. I got hold of all the historical files related to the orphanage especially those that had to do with expenses, financials and even the line-by-line accounting. Then I had a look at all the big cost buckets to understand what the orphanage has been spending so much money on.

Chapter 513: Reiner - Morning Together

It’s not that surprising actually when you look into it; however, just like everything else, there’s always room to improve,” I explained before pausing to glance up to gauge Reiner’s reaction.

“Aha...and?” Reiner prompted for me to go on.

That was a good sign. The fact that he hadn’t asked me any challenging questions meant that so far what I said still made sense to him.

“I think the basic idea is to reduce the cost per head in taking care of a child. That comes down to optimizing the cost for food, educational materials, and this suspicious bucket here that is labeled as ‘others’,” I explained further.

“Others...” Reiner murmured as his eyes fell on the bucket of costs that I had been referring to.

“Exactly. No one really knows what goes into that ‘others’ bucket and that is going to be one of our priorities to find out tomorrow when we make our visit to the orphanage,” I said before giving Reiner a pointed look.

“I see. Sounds like something...” Reiner replied thoughtfully as his eyes scanned through the paper once more.

“If we can reduce the cost per child then we can take care of more children at the same cost. On top of looking at the variable cost, I’ve also taken a look at the main buckets of fixed costs,” I continued to explain.

“And?” Reiner prompted once again for me to share my insights.

“Frankly, the building maintenance cost doesn’t make sense. When we went there the building was all nice and pretty, the gardens were well maintained as well, but I still can’t imagine the recurring sum to do all that to add up to this much. What do you think?” I asked as I pointed to the cost figure on the paper.

Reiner’s blue eyes followed my finger before he sucked in a breathed and sighed. I could tell from his expression that he also thought that it was unreasonable.

“Unless labor is super expensive on this island, I don’t think a facility of that size should have a maintenance cost that is this high. Oh, and this is also a recurring maintenance fee. Like really?” I said with clear suspicion.

“Another thing to look into. If the gardens are so expensive to maintain, maybe the orphanage doesn’t even need a garden...” Reiner said before nodding his head in agreement.

“Whether this is just loose management or something more suspicious, we’ll probably find out tomorrow or while we’re here this week,” I pointed out before heaving a sigh.

Celine and her team members were so nice and welcoming to us the last that we were there that it was hard for me to believe that something fishy was going on with their management of the place. All the staff seemed to care deeply for the children, so I didn’t want to believe that they were unethically benefitting from this.

“We’ll see...” Reiner murmured as his large hand patted my head before he started to stroke my hair.

“Yeah. It’s not fair to doubt people without some thorough investigation first. There may be very good reasons for this that we don’t yet know or understand,” I said before I smiled up at him.

Reiner smiled down at me and his blue eyes were so gentle and kind. The way his hand stroked my hair tenderly made my eyelids feel so heavy. If he doesn’t stop soon, I’m going to fall asleep...

...

“Do you want me to cook something, or would you rather grab something on the way?” Reiner asked.

I trudged out of our bedroom with a blurry mind and even more messed up hair. Getting sleep last night was a challenge. I wasn’t sure if I was too excited about getting to work on cracking this problem or I was too worried about catching Celine being up to something nasty in her management of the orphanage. Whatever it was, the result was the same: I couldn’t really go to sleep at all last night. My body and mind were already starting to pay the prince for that.

“What about coffee?” Reiner quickly offered once he had laid eyes on my zombie state.

“Yeah...coffee...” I agreed absentmindedly.

“What about taking sick leave for the day?” Reiner suggested with a small laugh.

“No...no sick leave...” I muttered before making my way to the dining table.

Reiner quickly got up from his seat and helped me onto a chair. I gave him a weak smile as I wondered if I looked like I was about to fall flat on my face and then realized from Reiner’s reaction that that was probably the case. How pathetic have I become?

“I’m ok...really...” I told Reiner before I smiled bravely at him.

At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was saying it to reassure him or to reassure myself. Reiner shook his head at me before he left me there to make me some coffee.

“You’re such a great husband...do you know that?” I told him when he placed a mug of coffee on the table in front of me.

“You’re not making any sense. Drink your coffee and go take a shower, Natalia...” Reiner replied curtly.

I watched as he took the seat next to me before I reached for the coffee mug. What would I do without him?

Because Reiner felt like I wasn’t fit to do my job starting in the morning, we ended up heading to the orphanage in the afternoon instead. Just like the last time, Celine was there to greet us warmly as if she had been expecting us. The state of the orphanage had not changed at all from the last time that we were here which was to be expected since not that much time had passed. After sharing polite greetings, Celine led us to a meeting room where we could get down to business with what we needed to discuss.

Honesty, when I first came to this place, I never thought that I would be put in charge with auditing and improving the operations of this place. Although this charity project had nothing to do with the main business of the company, I felt extremely motivated to work on it because it had monumental impact on the children’s lives.

Chapter 514: Reiner - Doesn’t Add Up

“I’ve taken a look at the past financial records of this place over the years, and I have a few questions for you. It would be great if you could give more clarification on some of the cost buckets and cost items,” I informed Celine politely.

I tried to pick my words carefully so that I wouldn’t come across as being too offensive to her. Although I was here to audit her and she probably knew that as well, I didn’t want to accuse her any wrongdoing until I had solid proof. Internally, I prayed that there wasn’t anything unethical going on here. Innocent until proven guilty, right?

“Of course, I’m more than happy to answer your questions. Some of the labelling of the costs may not be so clear,” Celine replied with a smile.

Reiner and I sat side by side across from Celine at the meeting table. Since she seemed willing to cooperate, I started asking the questions on the list that I had prepared beforehand right away. Just as I just discussed with Reiner before, there were a few unclear points that needed clarification. At that point, I didn’t want to call them suspicious before we had a better understanding of things.

“Let me show you around the kitchen and equipment room so that you’ll get a better idea of how things work,” Celine suggested as she got up from her seat.

After answering all of my questions quite flawlessly, we decided to follow Celine for another tour of the facility. Unlike the tour from last time where we were focused on evaluating the well-being of the children living here, this tour was focused purely on cost utilization.

I glanced over at Reiner’s face as he walked along side me. His expression was unreadable and guarded and that told me that he found Celine’s responses to my questions suspicious or unsatisfactory. Reiner did not appear friendly or relaxed and I knew that he was thinking of something. Hopefully, we’ll see something on this trip that would either clear or solidify our suspicion. Whatever it was, we had to face it head on for the sake of the children.

“The garden and the playground seem extremely well maintained. You use a professional company for this, right?” I asked when we made it outside into the gardens.

“Oh yes, that’s why it looks so clean and perfect all the time,” Celine replied with a smile.

“Is that truly necessary, though? The cost for this maintenance is quite high on the reports,” I voiced my honest opinion.

“Well, this is a small island so there’s not that many companies to choose from that provides this service and it’s not like we can allow weeds to grow everywhere in the garden...” Celine replied followed by a small laugh.

I smiled back while thinking that if it was this expensive to maintain, maybe this place didn’t really need to have such a large and elaborate garden. No offenses to the trees and the flowers but perhaps the money would be better spent on food, clothing, and educational equipment so that the orphanage could take in more children.

After Celine left us alone to do our own investigation of the place, I suggested that we cross check some of the educational tools and equipment in the storeroom while Reiner suggested that we also take a second look in the kitchen.

“Storage room first or kitchen first?” I asked for his preference.

“You’re the leader here. So, you can decide...” Reiner replied with a teasing smile.

He seemed to be in a slightly better mood now that we were alone. Celine must have sense that we are truly questioning and auditing her work. Hopefully she doesn’t take personal offense about this. After all, we’re just doing our job and we’re going to be very thorough about it.

“Storage room first. According to the reports, there’s supposed to be so much stuff in there. Like so much that I wonder why they have to stockpile so much in advance,” I said as I flipped through the thick wad of paper that I held in my hand to arrive at the sheet that showed the list of tools that were supposed to be in stock.

“Sure, the stockroom is this way,” Reiner said as he took my hand in his and began leading the way.

Reiner’s sense of direction was much better than mine for sure. After walking on a tour just that once on our first visit, he seemed to already know where everything was and had absolutely no problem in navigating the place. That wasn’t something that I managed to pick up after walking around the place a few times.

“I think we should talk to the kitchen staff about the sourcing of the raw materials used for cooking,” I suggested as I followed Reiner.

“You think that that’s suspicious too?” Reiner asked before he sighed.

“Let’s not call it suspicious for now, ok? Let’s just say that...we just need to check it out...” I tried my best to reply in a light tone.

“That’s exactly like calling it suspicious. Something smells very fishy about this place just from seeing the numbers on the account. I wonder how long this has been going on and why King never looked into it before this,” Reiner muttered.

“Maybe he was just too busy with the other things,” I guessed.

“True...could be...” Reiner murmured in agreement as he continued to lead the way.

When we arrived at the storage room, there was no one around. Because we had permission from King, Celine had to give us all the keys to the place so that we could access and check everything at will. Reiner helped unlock the storage room door for us. The room was much larger than I thought but what was more shocking was how empty the room was.

“Well, I was expecting a lot more stuff in here...” I mumbled as I stepped deeper into the room.

Reiner followed close behind me as our eyes took in the various educational equipment in the room. My eyes immediately went to the inventory report in my hand. Reiner came to stand close behind me and I knew that he was looking over my shoulder at the report that I held in my hand.

“It clearly doesn’t match up. We don’t even need to do any manual counting. Just eyeballing this is more than enough,” Reiner surmised confidently.

Chapter 515: Reiner - Fraud

I hated to admit that he was probably right. There was no way that this unfilled room held as much inventory as the report claimed. Was there another storage room? I highly doubt it.

“What do you want to do?” Reiner asked as he wrapped his strong arms around my waist from behind.

I felt a slight pressure on top of my head as he rested his chin on the top of my head and held me tighter from behind. There wasn’t that much that we could do. The stuff that was supposed to be here, isn’t here and that was just that.

“Let’s select a few line items from here and count the actual thing to compare the number with the number on the report. I know that it won’t match up at all, but let’s do it so we have some concrete cases as illustrative examples of just how much is missing,” I suggested before I sighed softly.

Although I knew that it didn’t make sense in the first place for an orphanage anywhere to hold this much stuff of educational materials, I still harbored some hope that this was all just a misunderstanding or a mistake. That didn’t seem to be the case with what we were dealing with here.

“Alright. Let’s quickly get this done so we can go to the kitchen...” Reiner said as he hesitantly let go of my body.

...

Little did we know back then that a very similar story was waiting to unfold right in front of us in the kitchen.

“What do you mean...you don’t know about this?” I asked in wide-eyed confusion.

The middle-aged old man with greying hair that stood in front of me scratch his head and also gave me a very confused look like he really had no idea what I was talking about.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about what you just said...” he repeated again.

“Don’t you use some special dietary supplements to help under developing children or children who are malnourished?” I asked again in case he didn’t get my question from before.

As the man gave me another confused look. I struggled to find some other words that were simpler for him to understand. Please, don’t let this be another case of fraud.

“According to these reports, there’s supposed to be special powder that you mix in with the food that you cook that will help children grow faster or become healthier...are you familiar with this?” I tried asking him again.

“I understand what you’re referring to but I’m telling you that I’ve never seen any of those special powder or supplements that you mentioned. We just cook and serve food. Normal food, you know, nothing fancy like that mixed in...” the man repeated firmly.

“I see...” I murmured softly.

“What about the ingredients for your cooking? Where do you get that from?” Reiner asked quite sternly.

The man’s gaze shifted to Reiner, and I could tell that he immediately became uncomfortable. I guess Reiner can look very scary when he’s serious about something.

“I buy it from the local market. I go to the market with my team, and we help each other pick out the stuff...” the man replied.

“You mean, it’s not delivered here?” I asked in surprise.

Yet another thing that doesn’t match with the report at all. In the report, there is a company that was supposed to sell and deliver food ingredients to the orphanage.

“Nope. We buy it at the market, and we shove it into a small truck and drive it up here,” the man clarified.

“How do you pay for the food? In cash?” I asked for more details.

“Yes. Celine gives us cash and we use that to buy from the market. Of course, I give her back the change...” the man replied.

“Thank you. That’s more than enough. Let’s go,” Reiner tugged on my hand after thanking the man politely.

“Sure...” he mumbled as he watched the two of us retreat from his kitchen.

The door to the kitchen closed behind us and I immediately let out a loud sigh of depression. Although the evidence that we’ve collected are just circumstantial, it was already clear that our suspicions were spot on. Celine and perhaps other members of her management team have been mismanaging the funds allocated to the orphanage. From assets that are recorded but in fact non-existent to over stating on food and nutrition supplementary costs, there were many cases of fraud going on.

“Do you want to contact the company that handles the gardening and building maintenance?” Reiner asked, although he probably already anticipated that we would find similar issues.

“I’ll do that. I doubt that it’ll be any good news, though,” I replied softly.

“Should we head back for the day? You need to write up some reports on this, right?” Reiner suggested knowingly.

“Yeah. Let’s just head back for today,” I replied before taking the initiative to walk towards the exit.

Reiner followed silently behind me. He could probably sense my stress and my disappointment. Although I knew that I was being overly emotional about this, I couldn’t stop all the negative feelings that had started to boil up inside of me. When I first came to this place, I marveled at how well everything seemed to be managed. I truly liked Celine and admired her generosity and kindness in devoting her time and effort to help support the children in need.

I never imagined that the second that I came back here, things would turn out so differently. The child-loving Celine turned out to be a fraud who had most likely been pocketing money from the orphanage to line her own pockets at the expense of the children’s welfare. Worst of all, was the fact that I got Reiner to help put in a good word and King ended up increasing the funding for this place.

My emotions were a mess inside as disappointment, guilt, and anger battled together to take over my mind. The ride back to our place went by in silence and I appreciated the time that Reiner gave me to think things over. I’ve never handled a case of auditing and flagging for fraud before, and I wasn’t sure how to go about it.