Gee Peta, throw a little romance in there, and you got yourself a great short story! I worked in accounting for years, the #1 rule always, is that you never allow one person control in ANY area without checks (other people) in place. Not even the boss/owener or VP had a way to do anything with the money without it going through other people. Ya got ya some funky kiwi accounting goin on thar! For the life of me, I will never ever understand folks that know how to manipulate AND get away with stuff like that. This sounds like that one family member everyone has that should be prosecuted, but no one wants to make waves or something.

I have a cousin that screwed my uncle out of $10,000 - borrowed it and never repaid him (I didn't even know we had that kind of money in my family!). Well, to me, at family get togethers everyone should say, "so, when ya paying Uncle so and so back" so she'd feel social pressure to do it, but like, no one says anything. Not even my uncle. I don't get it. I mean, I get the 'discomfort' factor, but don't get why you'd let that stop you. Right is right.

Wittsea, that's VERY sad to imagine people having their retirement funds gambled away and gone.