Acquiring Mr. Right
Acquiring Mr. Right
Laurie Paige
Brilliant and beautiful executive Krista Aquilon was shocked when the struggling appliance company she'd slaved over for years was sold in a surprise takeover bid. And even more surprising was her new billionaire boss, corporate raider Lance Carrington. Decisive and dominant, ruthless businessman Lance always put his work first. But as impressed as Lance was with Krista's sharp financial mind and innovative ideas, there was another reason he couldn't get his newest employee out of his mind.What sizzled between him and Krista was more tantalizing—and complicated—than any white-knuckled negotiation. Now it was up to Lance to make sure things weren't strictly business…
Acquiring Mr. Right
Laurie Paige
For my pal, Alison, and the many treks through
the desert near her home and to the trip we’ve
planned down the Grand Canyon…someday.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Coming Next Month
Chapter One
Krista Aquilon parked close to the entrance of the Heymyer Home Appliances Company. The shiny red compact sedan was the first new auto she’d ever owned, and she was rather proud of the birthday present she’d bought for herself.
That thought usually cheered her, but not today. She unlocked the door and went into the silent building.
It was Sunday, the second day of April. The day after her birthday. Sometimes she wondered if the Fates had been laughing when they planned her birth date. She’d been an April Fool’s baby, a fact that had gotten her a lot of teasing while growing up.
At any rate, she tried to keep Sundays free of work in order to maintain the illusion of a personal life, but today was an exception. The health of the company rather than her own well-being was foremost in her mind. As chief financial officer, she had a lot to worry about.
The place wasn’t doing well. And all her suggestions for reviving it had been ignored, for the most part.
Pausing in the act of locking the entrance door behind her, she realized there was a red sports car under the portico at the side of the building, a space strictly reserved for James M. Heymyer, her eighty-year-old boss and a stickler for protocol.
His concept of protocol, she thought. She was more egalitarian in her views.
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips as she pictured the stunned outrage on his face at the audacity of anyone parking in his place. Not even Mason, Heymyer’s son and heir, would be that bold. However, since it was Sunday, the boss wouldn’t be in, so it probably didn’t matter.
Returning to the original concerns that had brought her into the office, she sighed as she crossed the atrium-type lobby and went up the steps to the second floor.
All the executive offices were located on this level. “VIP Row,” the other employees called it, as if the initials were a word. She’d gone from the plant production lines as a student on a work/study program during her college years to a “VIP” three years ago. After getting a business degree, she’d been promoted to accounts supervisor, then manager of the accounting department. She’d landed the head financial position last fall after earning her MBA.
At twenty-five, that could be considered quite a feat, but she was pretty sure the old man hadn’t been able to get anyone else to fill the slot, which had been empty since the former CFO retired eighteen months ago.
One look at the books and anyone with a grain of sense would have run the other way, she grimly reminded her conscience, or whatever it was that wouldn’t let her give the place up as a lost cause.
However, unless someone came up with a solution—and fast—Heymyer Home Appliances was gasping its last.
While the company marketed products under its own name, it also manufactured appliances for other brands. In fact, that was the bulk of their income. They had lost a major contract last week. Without it, they wouldn’t have the cash flow to meet the payroll by the end of July.
In a town the size of Grand Junction, Colorado, population fifty thousand, a business failure leaving a thousand employees out of work would have a serious impact on the community. The city would lose one of its important revenue sources. The many mom-and-pop stores in town would struggle. Some might have to close. Even professionals—doctors, lawyers, bankers—would be affected.
Worst of all, families would suffer. Fear and tension caused quarrels and broken marriages. Children would be hurt. And that bothered Krista most of all. She knew how it felt to be frightened and helpless in a world that didn’t seem to care.
She stopped at the top of the stairs. A light was on in the end office, the one belonging to the president and CEO. Some instinct warned her this wasn’t good.
Or perhaps the boss was taking her warnings about bankruptcy seriously and had come in to study her idea to take a bold new tack.
But James Heymyer driving a red roadster? No way.
So who was in his office?
As she walked down the carpeted hallway, she heard voices. Male voices. One she recognized as belonging to the boss. The low, rich timbre of the other wasn’t familiar to her.
She paused at her door, listening to the tone. The depth and resonance of the voice were almost like a caress.
Krista had barely sat down and pulled up the latest balance sheet on her computer when Heymyer appeared at the door.
“James, good morning,” she said warmly.
As soon as she was made a department head, she’d started calling the owner by his given name. A mental image of his eyebrows nearly flying off his forehead the first time she’d done so came to her.
But he hadn’t said anything.
Too bad. She’d had her points lined up about being on equal footing with the other managers—all men, who called the big boss “James”—and being taken seriously by them.
And the owner.
“What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t know you planned to come in today,” he now said in accusatory tones.
“The place is usually empty on Sundays,” she said, her tone level. “It’s quiet, and I wanted to go over the financials before the staff meeting tomorrow.”
She kept her expression pleasant and her mouth closed. He’d long since made it clear he didn’t want any further ideas from her on saving the company. However, when she reported the cash flow problems tomorrow, he was going to have to face the fact that bankruptcy was looming.
A helpless anger ran through her, making it harder to hold back the recitation of all they could have done to save the business. If he had listened.
“I guess you may as well meet Lance today,” James told her in a resigned tone.
Lance?
The guy with the sleek red car, she decided. The one who’d brought the old man to the office, an act so unusual she couldn’t figure out what it might mean.
That instinctual alarm rolled through her again. She reluctantly shut down the computer and headed for the end office with James. Annoyance filled her now. She’d expected to be alone and so was dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with sneakers. No makeup.
Oh, well. It didn’t make a bit of difference. In a small, home-grown company like this, everyone dressed pretty casual, even James…unless he was meeting with the bankers. Then the executives were alerted to dress the part of successful businesspeople.
They crossed the secretary’s office and went into the inner sanctum, where heads sometimes rolled and shattered egos splattered the walls. She’d seen grown men nearly cry as Heymyer picked their reports apart. She’d also been on the receiving end of his sharp tongue.
She stopped in the middle of the huge office when a man, standing at one of the many windows, turned to them.
“Lance, this is the financial officer I was telling you about,” James began the introduction. “Krista, this is Lance Carrington.”
“How do you do?” Krista smiled politely and tried to keep the anxiety out of her expression. She had an eerie feeling about all this. Just what had James told this man about her? And why?
“Fine, thanks,” the man replied. “Krista…Aquilon, isn’t it?”
She nodded and, without thinking, spelled her last name as she’d had to do all her life with teachers and other officials. Most people didn’t know how to translate the pronunciation—Ah-KEE-lon—into the correct spelling.
The smile widened on the handsome face. His gaze seemed warm and…and intimate, as if he knew her well.
Her insides gave a startled lurch, which interrupted her mental processes.
She stared wordlessly at the newcomer. He was dressed casually in navy slacks and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. His nearly black hair had a healthy sheen, highlighted by the sunlight streaming through the window behind him, and an attractive wave in front. His eyes were gray, like winter rain, and his gaze was direct. She looked away.
“Have a seat,” James told them, taking his place behind the antique desk. An odd expression flicked across his face. “Well, I guess you should be sitting here now,” he said to his guest.
Puzzled, Krista glanced from James to the stranger and back.
“Tomorrow, at the staff meeting,” James continued, meeting her eyes with a harsh scowl on his face, “I’ll be announcing the sale of the company to Lance.”
The news hit her like a sneaky punch to the head, leaving her reeling with a thousand questions. Like times in the past when her future had been rearranged without her consent, she felt the old familiar uncertainty caused by life’s nasty little tricks.
But she wasn’t a child any longer. Instead of fear, anger bubbled beneath her self-control at this announcement.
“To CCS, actually,” the visitor explained, his gaze piercing, as if he could see right into her brain and knew all the confused, conflicting emotions whirling there.
The man’s name rang a bell. Lance Carrington. Corporate raider. Facts unfurled in her mind with the speed of light.
There had been an interview with him in a financial magazine last year. His company, CCS—which stood for Computer Control Systems—was actually a holding pen for all the shares of other companies he’d raided over the years.
Under the CCS banner, he bought ailing businesses, took them apart, remade them, then sold or merged the remains into his other operations.
She didn’t need a magnifying glass to read the writing on the wall: it was the end of Heymyer Home Appliances.
A thousand employees out of work. Frightened families with no means of support. All because of one stubborn old man and his damned indifference.
And there was her own spent labor. Days and nights poring over books and ledgers, researching, then arguing for changes, trying to fix things, anything to bring the company out of its long, slow decline.
All that work. All for nothing.
White-hot anger speared through her as she stared into gray eyes as emotionless as a mountain lake in winter.
She tore her gaze away and looked her boss—her former boss—in the eye. “The entire plant was sold?”
“Yes.”
His tone was aggressive, informing her she had no part in the decision. The company was private and entirely owned by James, his wife and their son. While she wasn’t on the governing board, she was the chief financial officer. She should have been included in the discussion.
“Your wife and son agreed?”
“They had no choice,” the old man said. He slumped into the chief executive chair, which to her seemed a mockery of the position.
“I seem to have missed the meeting when this was decided,” she said, unable to keep the frost out of her voice.
“It was by teleconference. Weekend before last,” he added when she continued to frown at him without saying anything.
Krista quickly reviewed her recent schedule. She’d visited her family back in Idaho that weekend. It was the one and only vacation she’d taken in months, and had coincided with the special dedication of a sculpture done by her beloved uncle Jeff, which had been part of a city-wide celebration of spring and renewal.
Renewal. How ironic. And how convenient that she’d been out of town during that momentous meeting. With James holding the controlling shares, his wife and son would have had to go along with him.
“Do you know who he is?” she demanded, speaking in a very soft, very controlled tone. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Unable to sit still, she strode to the window and spun toward the men, her hair lashing the side of her face at the abruptness of the move.
“I did what I had to do,” the older man told her. His lined face now held only weariness.
She felt his grief, recognized the anger and despair in his eyes. Pity slowly supplanted the anger. She knew how it felt to be forced into unwanted circumstances by an unchangeable fate. Oh, yes, she knew…
Except he could have changed it, some part of her that was harder and less forgiving chimed in.
If the ideas she’d come up with had been implemented a year ago, things might have been different. For all his protests about saving the company, she realized James was perhaps too tired or his vision too narrow to picture a different future.
Young blood. That’s what was needed. Renewal.
She studied Lance Carrington carefully. He was young, mid-thirties probably.
But renewal wouldn’t happen with a corporate raider. That type was only interested in a quick profit, not the long-term investment it would take to turn things around.
She met his level perusal with one of her own and got the feeling he was amused by the situation.
Okay, it was a done deal. She’d learned a long time ago that people had to move on when life dealt them a new hand. A thousand people would have to adjust. Including her.
“You know, James,” the corporate raider said, his eyes narrowed as if he were thinking aloud, “Krista is an officer of the company. She can introduce me to the staff in the morning, if you prefer. That way, you wouldn’t have to come in,” he added, his gaze on her again.
“That’s a great idea,” James said, obviously relieved to be let off the hook.
Coward, Krista thought. When the going got tough, a lot of supposedly tough people got going as fast as their feet would carry them…in the opposite direction.
Well, surprise, surprise. This was one time when she wasn’t going to stay and try to pick up the pieces. Neither was she going to be the flunky who assured the employees, people she’d worked with for over six years, that everything was going to be fine when she knew it wasn’t.
“So I’m going to be stuck introducing the man who’s going to close down the plant and cost us all our jobs?” she inquired in a mockingly amused manner.
She studied each of them for a long moment to let the question sink in.
“No, thanks.” She headed for the door. “I quit.”
“Be back in a minute,” Lance said, then strode down the corridor just in time to see the top of the CFO’s head disappear down the stairs. He followed, taking the steps two at a time, and caught up with her at the front door.
She muttered a distinct one-word imprecation while trying to get the key into the lock. Her hand was trembling, not much, but enough to make her awkward. The fury still gleamed in her eyes.
“Hold on,” he said.
She didn’t have to tilt her head upward very much to give the impression she could stare him down. She was a tall woman, probably five-nine to his six-one. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she had a kind of grace and elegance he found very attractive.
When she added a ferocious frown to the silent treatment, he stopped the wayward thoughts and suppressed a smile. Now wasn’t the time. Okay, he could concede she had a right to be angry, at least from her point of view.
From his, it was a different matter. Based on all the company records he’d read during the two months prior to entering negotiations to buy the firm, he’d been prepared to be impressed upon meeting the financial guru. That was an understatement.
While he’d known about the clarity of her thinking, the ideas she’d developed and the sheer business acumen for one of her age and experience, what he hadn’t known, hadn’t even considered, was the physical package that went with the brilliant mind.
That sweep of hair, those big brown eyes, the tawny skin with the natural blush across the high cheekbones—
She gave a soft snort of exasperation, turned the key in the lock and sailed out the door before he’d quite got his thoughts in order.
Bringing himself back to the situation at hand, Lance hurried to catch up with her as she made a beeline toward her car.
“I want to explain something to you.”
“Explain away,” she invited airily without slowing her pace. As they neared the vehicle, she clicked the button on her key chain. The doors unlocked.
She turned to him when she stopped beside the modest car, the bright April sunlight filling her face until she seemed to glow from within. Her eyes were dark at the outer edges, he saw, but golden around the pupil. Her hair was a very dark brown, nearly black in hue. It lay against her shoulders in a smooth, shiny curtain.
He found he wanted to touch it. To touch her.
“What is it?” she demanded, interrupting the images running through his mind.
“No one’s going to lose his or her job,” he said, surprised and a little irritated at the persistent track of his wandering thoughts.
“Right.”
This was said with such sarcasm, it made him smile. Her lips whitened as she pressed them together, probably to hold in other, more scathing words.
“It’s true. If the employees are capable and reliable,” he added, qualifying the statement, “then they’ll have nothing to fear.”
“For how long?” She hooked her hair behind one ear and tilted her head to the side as she perused him. “How long until you sell the profitable operations and close down the rest, selling off the plant and equipment to the highest bidder so that there’s nothing left of Heymyer Home Appliances? Except the name, which you can also sell since it has an established reputation in the market.”
“There are no plans to do that.” Although he did have plans concerning the place, he wouldn’t discuss those with her until he was sure she was on board. She had to agree to stay and work with him first of all.
“Fine. I’m sure you’ll make the place a huge success.”
“As you’ve tried to do for the past three years,” he added softly.
She stiffened as resentment flared in her eyes and was gone, then she stared at him, her face a careful blank. “Not me,” she denied. “I just kept the books.”
The ensuing silence hummed like busy bees around them as they sized each other up. Around them, the desert bloomed from recent spring rains, filling the air with the pleasing aroma of sage and cedar and hidden woodland flowers along the riverbanks. The world seemed fresh and new. From the company’s vantage point near the forks of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, he could hear the muted roar of the merging water. It added a pleasing ambiance to a day that had started off triumphant and now was merely trying.
Heymyer had been on target when he’d said the CFO was headstrong.
Lance was willing to let her have her way…to a certain extent, the limits being that she cooperated rather than hindered his efforts to come out of this deal with a viable, profitable company.
“I expect to see you in the office at eight in the morning,” he told her, his tone harder.
“Sorry, but I no longer work here.” She opened the car door, nearly striking him in the chest.
He sidestepped, then moved forward so she couldn’t close it. The heat from their bodies radiated over each other, making him once more aware of her in a physical way.
He sensed the merging of their individual energies and felt it as a mighty force, like the joining of the two rivers. “I don’t accept your resignation.”
The eyelashes swept up and he caught the golden sparkle as anger flashed anew. She was all fire and brilliance, he mused, like a perfectly cut gem. He wanted to capture that fire, to claim that brilliance.
For the benefit of CCS, of course.
When he was involved with business, no other aspects of life entered into it. Passion was part of his personal time and not on his corporate agenda.
However, his body reacted with a sudden, sharp and unexplained need that surprised him. The hunger held passion, yes, and other things mixed in with it, things he couldn’t name, things that ignited from the sparks thrown off by this very bright, very alluring woman.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “You can’t force me to stay.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to.”
That caused her to blink. “No.”
He shrugged and stepped back one pace as she slid into the driver’s seat of the wagon. “So it was a lie.”
“What was?” Her manner was wary.
“All your concern about the place closing and people losing their jobs.”
“No. It wasn’t. I do care.”
“Then stay and help me make it a successful operation. James said you had plenty of ideas. I want to hear them.”
She laughed, a sudden, sexy sound that had his insides clenching up. “He called them dingbat notions. Still want to hear them?”
“Yeah.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels as he smiled at her, one cohort to another. “I believe we can turn this company around and make it one of the best in the country. How does that sound to a CFO with bulldog tenacity, or so James warned me, and lots of ideas?”
Wariness returned. “Great. If you mean it.”
“I do.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”
She held both hands up, palms out as if to hold him off. “What deal?”
“You’ll stay for a minimum of six months, and work with me to put the company back on track.”
“As CFO?”
“Maybe,” he answered.
She put the car key in the ignition. “I don’t play games,” she said coldly.
“Sorry. Truly,” he added at the dismissive glance. “I’m serious. You’re a valuable asset to the company, but I’m not sure yet just what the new job titles will be. For now, you’re still the CFO. So, will you come aboard?”
He found himself anxious for her reply. He was banking on her already considerable investment of time and energy in the company, and also her curiosity about him and the future, to convince her to stay. He knew the moment she decided in his favor by the slight smile that curved her lips, displaying two barely discernible dimples in her cheeks.
“Yes. I will.” She held out a hand. “Six months…and then we’ll see,” she added.
Electricity flowed up his arm as they shook on the agreement. Six months, he thought as he watched her drive off. A lot could happen in six months. A working team could be built. A company could be turned around. An attraction—any attraction—would have to be stamped out.
Chapter Two
Krista considered her wardrobe for several minutes on Monday morning before selecting black slacks, a blue cotton sweater and a matching bouclé jacket.
She applied her makeup carefully and left her hair down, then pulled on ankle boots with one-and-a-half-inch heels. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
Driving from her town house apartment complex to the office, she marveled that the day could look so normal. The sun was shining, no clouds marred the sky and the traffic flowed without any delays. To her mind, there should be thunder and lightning to herald the momentous event—the takeover of the company by a man who had no ties to the community, no motivation for its success except profit.
Or maybe the change was momentous only to her, she mused sardonically.
Memories of other changes in her life flooded into her mind. When she was nine, her mom and stepfather had divorced. On a snowy night that same winter he’d died in a car crash. Six months later her mom had gotten in the way of a stray bullet when one angry neighbor shot another and had also died. As a runaway from foster care, her tenth year had been a period of uncertainty, always looking over her shoulder, never knowing what was going to happen next and feeling that life was as tenuous as a cobweb.
While she couldn’t exactly define the reasons, she felt somewhat like that now—unsure and anxious about the future.
She was no longer that child, she grimly reminded herself as she pulled into the parking lot at the plant. No one could push her around. And no corporate raider was going to intimidate her.
Nodding her head decisively, she parked in her usual place under the shade of the oak tree in the far back corner of the large lot and strode to the office.
Upstairs, VIP Row was unusually quiet.
When Krista entered the CFO office suite, her secretary was hanging up her jacket. “Good morning, Tiff.”
Krista had inherited the secretary from the last CFO. After a rocky start, Tiffany Adams—late forties, divorced, one grown son—had transferred her loyalty to the new boss and now they worked together as a close-knit team.
Tiff nodded toward the end office. “Something’s going on,” she said in a low, ominous manner.
“I know.” Krista checked the wall clock. She had twenty minutes before the staff meeting. “I’m going to introduce the new owner to the managers this morning.”
“New owner!” the other woman said in a shocked whisper.
“Shh,” Krista warned, nodding toward the open door. “I’ll tell you all about it after the meeting.” She went into her office.
Frowning, she realized she’d forgotten to lock her desk after the shock of meeting Lance Carrington yesterday. She gathered the financial reports, the cash flow estimates and projected earnings before exiting through the private door that connected the conference room to her office.
The elegant meeting space with its carved walnut table and twelve executive chairs separated her suite from that of the chief executive’s. Coffee, she noted, was brewing in the silver urn on the credenza.
She wondered if Thea, the CEO’s secretary, was in yet and if James had warned her of the pending changes. The woman was in her sixties and had worked there for more than forty years. Totally loyal to the big boss, she’d watched out for his interests like a pit bull.
A light was on inside the end office and Krista could see the outline of a person moving about in there through the frosted glass of the adjoining door.
She stopped in the act of placing copies of her reports at each manager’s seat and stared at the masculine figure who seemed to alternate between pacing and staring out the windows at the scenery.
Was Carrington…Lance, she corrected…nervous about the meeting?
Hmm, she couldn’t picture that. He was hard-edged and confident. Besides, he held all the winning cards in this venture, whatever it was to him.
While she was still staring at the indistinct figure through the glass, the door swung inward. He filled the opening like the hero in a movie close-up, backlit by the windows behind him and appearing bigger than life.
“Good morning,” he said, coming into the conference room and closing the door.
The odd impressions—that of him being nervous or being a super screen hero—fled. He was once more just a man, handsome and dynamic, yes, but not overpowering.
Well, not totally overpowering.
“Good morning.” She finished her task, then hesitated, not sure where she should sit.
“Here’s where you sit,” Lance said, as if reading her mind. He pulled out the chair at one end of the table.
That was Mason’s place, when he deigned to be present, but she didn’t say anything. She supposed, like his father, he was now out of the company.
Lance pulled the chair back for her as she approached. Closer to him, she became aware of him in a whole new way.
In fact, her senses seemed keenly in tune today. First of all, he smelled really, really good. Visually, he looked cosmopolitan in a suit of medium gray with a thin navy blue stripe, a navy shirt and a silk tie of silvery gray. Looking at him almost made her dizzy. It was the oddest sensation.
Frowning at the reaction, she quickly placed her folders on the table and went to the coffee urn. He followed right behind her.
Ignoring the pastries on a silver server, she filled a china cup and returned to her seat.
The new boss also rejected the rich Danish rolls and muffins. Taking his cup, he sat at the opposite end of the table. “Nice day,” he said.
“Yes. The sunshine is…nice.” At that brilliant start, she almost groaned aloud.
Glancing down the shining length of the conference table, she detected a gleam in his eyes. A smile swept over his face, changing him from the serious tycoon to a coconspirator in an intrigue still to be played out.
His eyes no longer seemed wintry to her as they had yesterday. Instead they were cordial.
Inviting.
Intimate.
The warmth in those depths reached inside her, making her aware of things she hadn’t considered in a long time…a sense of security, the way she’d felt as a teenager growing up in Uncle Jeff’s home. And something more…
She shook her head to rid herself of the new sensation. While James had listened when she explained the financial situation, he had been impatient with her ideas for change. Maybe this new CEO would think her suggestions brilliant and let her try some of them.
The absurdity of that idea hit her. A corporate raider, who’d probably leveraged the buyout so that the company was now also in debt up to its neck, letting her have her way?
She forced her gaze to the documents she’d prepared while her heart pounded out a salsa beat in her ears. The arrival of the eight managers helped still the sudden, unexplained tumult.
From their quick glances at Lance, then her, she knew they’d already heard about the new man in the boss’s office and knew something unusual was up. Following ritual, they filled their coffee cups and took their seats. They, too, ignored the treats that were usually a big hit and gone before the meeting was over.
“Good morning,” she said with a calm smile, standing and taking charge as Lance shot her a glance down the table that told her to do so.
Right. She was to introduce him. Which made her feel rather like some kind of Judas to the old order of things.
“By now, each of you are aware of changes in the company, so I won’t keep you in suspense.”
She introduced Lance as the head of CCS and announced the sale of Heymyer to the other company. Varying degrees of shock and alarm flashed into the men’s faces and were gone. They could have been statues, they sat so still.
Starting on Lance’s right, she introduced the six general managers, who had charge of specific production areas, and the two marketing managers, who reported to the vice president, which had been Mason up until yesterday.
Krista glanced at the two empty chairs. James’s secretary normally sat on his left side and took notes at the meetings. Had Lance told her she wasn’t needed today? And was Mason still the VP? She could see similar questions in the men’s eyes.
Changes. Sometimes they were for the good. If Lance meant what he’d said about not closing the place, then all would be well. Maybe.
“I’ll turn the meeting over to our new CEO,” she finished and sat down.
All eyes turned to the other end of the table.
“Acting CEO,” he said, still seated, his manner casual. “Heymyer will be a subsidiary of CCS, the same as Applied Controls.”
Krista recalled the original computer control company had been spun off CCS as its own corporate entity, its shares retained by the parent company, and renamed.
“As with our other companies, Heymyer will have its own CEO. First of all, no changes are imminent. Rumors will abound, but each of you should assure your employees that there are no plans to close the plant. The work schedule will continue as usual. I know the change of ownership will be unsettling to a degree, but I don’t expect production to drop during the transition,” he told them.
His manner was as reassuring as his statements, which were delivered in a confident, decisive tone. Whatever had caused him to pace his office earlier like a restless tiger was well hidden. Or put out of his mind altogether.
She tended to do that—concentrate so fiercely on one thing that everything else disappeared—much to the annoyance of some men she’d dated. Her one serious relationship had ended in failure. Truth was, she wasn’t sure what men wanted, but she wanted someone who really meant forever when he spoke of love.
Her glance went to the new owner. Not someone like him, she quickly asserted, as if he’d been put forward as an example. By nature, a raider was a hit-and-run specialist.
“For the foreseeable future,” Lance was saying, “there will be lots of meetings between this team and the CCS board and executive staff while we work out the integration of goals and procedures.”
And then, she thought, his staff will know the company inside out and can dispense with us.
She studied the eight managers, all listening with serious expressions on their faces. Six had been there long enough to retire with full pensions. The other two, one in his late forties, the other in his mid-fifties, hadn’t. Where would they go?
For the next three hours, Lance asked for reports from each person at the table. When she explained the cash flow problems resulting from the lost contract, she knew by his questions and the keen intelligence in his eyes that he understood the situation at once. Also that James hadn’t mentioned this latest bit of news.
“They canceled the order the day before the breach-of-contract penalties kicked in?” he asked.
Understanding flashed between them as they exchanged glances. She would share her concerns about that contract when they were alone.
Shortly after eleven, the new boss seemed satisfied with the reports. “I have one other announcement,” he said, his gaze on her.
A startled throb jolted to life inside her.
“Krista, will you come here, please?”
Her first thought was that he was going to fire her, right there in front of everyone. The next was that he wouldn’t do a thing like that. He’d asked her to stay six months, and they’d shook on it. He was too much the smart businessman to renege on a deal or shake up the managers in that way.
She rose and walked to the other end of the table, eight pairs of eyes burning holes in her head the whole way. If the men were half as confused by this request as she was, then they were all in for a surprise.
When she stood beside Lance, he smiled that megawatt smile that changed him to movie star handsome. It was a total contrast to the serious, probing manner exhibited during the long meeting.
She smiled back with a lot more confidence than she felt. She didn’t like the unexpected, and she felt she was in for more aftershocks from him.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. Krista felt the heat burning into her flesh. It spread along her arm, her back, down into the innermost parts of her. Taken aback, she shifted away. The fingers tightened, just a fraction, just enough to hold her.
“While I’ll be the acting CEO at present, Krista will be the Chief Operating Officer in addition to her other duties,” he said. “She’ll handle all day-to-day decisions and you’ll report to her as of now.”
For the second time in two days, she was taken completely off guard.
Lance glanced at Krista after he parked at the Rosevale Grand Inn. When he’d told her he’d arranged lunch for them at the inn so they wouldn’t be interrupted while they talked, she’d agreed readily enough. However, like the elderly secretary who guarded the CEO’s door, she hadn’t exactly been thrilled at his plans.
“This way,” he said, placing a hand in the small of her back to guide her to the garden pathway that led to the terrace, now used as an extension of the restaurant. It was his favorite place to dine and think things through.
The waitress, a friendly redhead who’d joked with him during the many weekends he’d spent there of late, smiled as he went to his usual table, glanced at Krista, then gave him a mock scowl as if reprimanding him for arriving with another woman.
Krista, he saw, noted the byplay but kept any reaction to herself.
“I’ve been staying here almost every weekend while deciding whether to add Heymyer to our holdings, also during the negotiations.” He explained the familiarity, then wondered why he had.
He rarely justified his actions and choices to anyone anymore, figuring that was his private business.
His grandfather’s tyrannical voice suddenly echoed in his head. “Just what is the reason for this B on your report card?”
“What is the meaning of this speeding ticket?”
“You’re taking who to the dance? She’s nobody—”
“So was my mother,” Lance had dared to say at seventeen, as he headed for the door. “But your son still married her.”
“He was a fool,” Claude Carrington had shouted after him. “I warned him…”
But Lance hadn’t heard the rest. He’d left the hated library where his grandfather called him on the carpet at regular intervals, and he’d never looked back.
Glancing at the lovely woman across the table, he realized if he’d kowtowed to his grandfather’s wishes to join his investment firm, he would never have started his own company, might never have met this woman.
Now that would have been a shame, as she was easily one of the most intriguing people he’d met in a long time, whether male or female.
“I looked you up on the Internet last night,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of information in the financial magazines. You’ve only given one in-depth interview that I could find.”
“That damned article,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “I should never have allowed it.”
“So why did you?” she asked, openly curious.
“It was for a friend. He needed to prove he had access to people the editor couldn’t otherwise get. We were roommates at college so I agreed.”
“An Ivy League college. Honors. Top ten percent of your class,” she reiterated as if reading his accomplishments on a tickertape.
A slight shifting in that cold place that existed deep within his psyche ruffled his enjoyment of sparring with this woman who watched him as closely as he did her.
He shrugged. “My grandfather’s alma mater. I had no choice.”
Into his mind’s eye sprang an image—that of a young woman, one who’d once been beautiful beyond compare but now looked weary and worn out.
His mother.
Sober for the first time in months, his parents had stood silently in the corridor outside the courtroom where his grandfather had just won custody of him.
His mother had stooped and looked directly into his eyes while his dad had stared stonily at his grandfather. “We’ll get you back,” she’d said. “Your father and I…we’ll change. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” he’d said, believing her.
“Be a good boy,” she’d whispered, squeezing his shoulders. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. You and Dad.”
She’d hugged him and kissed him, her tears spilling all over his face, until his grandfather had pulled him away and marched him out of the courthouse.
He would never forget that day. His tenth birthday. The last time he’d seen either of his parents alive.
Lance pushed the image into the place that, as a child, he’d imagined as a cold storage locker, a place where old memories could be safely hidden.
“CEO of your own company at twenty-two,” she continued. “Fortune has smiled on your every endeavor.”
Returning to the present, he assumed a mockingly cheerful air. “Yeah, I’m used to getting my own way. Don’t cross me. A tantrum isn’t a pretty sight.”
After the waitress gave them menus, his guest studied him for a minute. “I don’t think you’re the type for tantrums. You’re much more subtle than that. Like now.”
“Now?”
“You used a change in subject to distract me from further probing into your life. This morning you got exactly what you wanted, too. By having me introduce you to the managers, it sounded as if I’d checked you out and approved of the changes.”
She saw more than he liked, but then he’d already figured out how sharp she was. “So why did you let me?”
She shrugged. “My choice was walking out or sticking it out. I agreed on the latter.”
“And you keep your word,” he concluded.
“I try. Do you?”
Her manner was a cover, the surface amusement hiding her doubts about him. He reached across the table and laid a hand over hers for emphasis. “Always.”
When he settled back in his chair, he realized he wanted to touch her, to take her up to his room—
Damn, maybe it hadn’t been the most brilliant idea to bring her to the inn. This was where he spent his private hours, even if most of that time was dedicated to reading reports. Their lunch was business, part of his public persona. Those two things, the personal and the public, should never merge, in his opinion.
“Why am I now chief of operations as well as finance?” she asked, her mind obviously having no problem focusing on work and its problems.
The answer was easy. “You know the company.”
“So do all the other executives, six of whom have been there thirty years or more.”
The waitress placed tall glasses of raspberry iced tea on the table and told them the day’s specials.
“I’ll take the salmon. Mixed green salad, house dressing on the side,” he ordered, impatient with the interruption.
“The same,” Krista said in an identical tone.
The redhead rolled her eyes, jotted the info on her pad, took the unopened menus and left.
“Do you always order like that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“With little thought.”
She studied him as if this might be a trick question, then she shrugged. “I enjoy good food, but it isn’t my reason for living.”
“But work is?”
“It’s a large part of most people’s lives. It helps keep body and soul together, you might say.”
The droll smile that touched her lips caused the slight dimples to appear. Her eyes were darker in the shade of the terrace’s white-glazed glass roof and mysterious, her true thoughts hidden as she observed him.
“So, do I get a raise along with the added responsibilities?” she questioned, a challenge in the amused tone.
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows went up at the flat statement.
“I believe in paying people what they’re worth,” he said. “I think you’re going to be worth a lot. To the company.” He wasn’t sure if the clarifying phrase was meant for her or himself.
The interest that had begun while studying her orderly financial statements and the many memos outlining her ideas for the company had blossomed into an attraction upon meeting her yesterday. Today her professional and personal sides had combined into one very interesting package.
He wondered if she kept those two parts as separate as he did…as he usually did. He mentally frowned and forced his thoughts to Heymyer Home Appliances, which was the reason they were here.
“If you could do anything you wanted at the company,” he began, “what would be the first change you would make?”
She was silent for a moment before she said, “There wouldn’t be one thing. Several changes would have to work together. New product lines. New equipment. New production processes.” She paused, her eyes on the tiny rosebuds in a vase on the table. The long, lovely sweep of lashes lifted as she looked at him. “New money.”
“Work up a proposal. I want the business turned around in six months.”
She stared at him, then a slow smile started at the corners of her mouth and ended with a sparkle in her eyes. “I can give it to you now verbatim.”
During the next two hours, they went over several of her ideas. As he listened, Lance found he liked her spunk, her enthusiasm, her wide-ranging intelligence.
If the owners of the company had listened to some of her “dingbat notions,” they might have saved the business from his takeover.
As far as Lance could determine, Heymyer’s wife, who held the title of secretary, was in Florida visiting her mother and sister. Their thirty-nine-year-old son operated out of their New York office. He’d been the vice president and in charge of marketing. Neither had done much good for the business that furnished their living, or so it appeared to him.
From going over the company’s records before making an offer, he’d concluded that only Heymyer and the CFO were avidly involved. The home appliance manufacturer needed modernizing, a fact that Krista understood well.
“New lines,” she now told him in her earnest manner. “I’m thinking of a hip name, like Uptown. Anyway, the shapes would be modern. And the colors, we should go wild with the colors—jewel tones, pastels, retro shades.”
Her graceful, expressive eyebrows rose as if she had her arguments down pat in case he disagreed. She drew outlines in the air as she described new items.
When she hesitated, he nodded and smiled encouragement. The new company would fit in nicely with the original one he’d acquired, with the help of a sizable inheritance from his grandmother, shortly after he’d graduated from college.
His grandfather had been furious, but Lance had made that business a success and therefore hadn’t had to accept any help from his only living relative. Only a sense of duty pushed him into visiting the old tyrant a few times a year.
For a second, he drifted back in time to those months when he’d thought his parents would come for him, when he’d believed in them with all his heart and soul. But his father had run off a bridge, his blood alcohol level twice that allowed by law, two months after the custody battle. And his mother…
The pain of the moment when he’d learned of her death swept over him. She’d died of pneumonia that winter, alone and forgotten by everyone but him.
From that day forward, he’d kept his feelings under wraps. He’d loved his grandmother, a gentle woman who’d tended her house and gardens with quiet joy, but he’d never let himself become dependent on anyone again—
God, he didn’t know why those old memories had returned to haunt him at this late date. At thirty-four, with nearly thirteen years’ experience behind him, he’d taken five failing companies under the CCS banner and made them into viable projects. He would do the same with this one.
None of the other five had been as interesting as this one promised to be, though. Perhaps because of the CFO and her brilliant mind and very feminine allure?
James had thought she should stick to balance sheets and leave the ideas to him. “She wants to put computers in toasters, for God’s sake,” the old man had said, shaking his head. He’d thought her ideas foolish because she’d wanted to make the appliances more versatile, to put computer chips in them to control the temperatures and cook times and make it possible to add features the old owner had never dreamed of.
Lance let his gaze drift over her as he listened, her lovely face filled with enthusiasm and energy. He liked her ideas and the way she challenged him, making him see the possibilities through her eyes.
Most of all, he liked being surprised by those little dimples that appeared when she smiled….
Chapter Three
Krista arrived at work thirty minutes later than normal, thanks to a flat tire. The low-slung red sports car was already in the CEO spot. Her heart thumped like a mad drummer, which quite annoyed her as she crossed the parking lot.
She halted with one foot on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. A sign was attached to a post supporting the cover over the red car. It had her name on it.
Frowning, she changed direction and went to the covered parking area. While there was space for two vehicles under the portico, no one had dared challenge James’s exclusive right to the middle of the spot. Lance had left plenty of room for another car.
Disgruntled at yet another change, she marched into the building and up the stairs. Her secretary gave her a warning glance when she arrived at the door of the CFO suite.
“Good morning, Tiff. Is something up that I should know about?” she asked, pausing by the other’s desk.
“Mason came in about fifteen minutes ago and headed straight for the big office.”
Krista was taken aback by this information. Mason in town was a surprise, and his being at the office was a shock, especially in light of the new ownership. “Trouble?”
Tiff shrugged. “Mason raised his voice once, but since then I haven’t heard anything.”
Krista nodded and continued into her office. After storing her purse in the credenza, she stopped in front of an ornate wall mirror and studied her reflection.
A tiny frown of tension was evident in two little lines between her eyes. She forced the muscles to relax.
This morning she wore one of her power suits, as Uncle Jeff’s wife Caileen called them. As a Family Services counselor, her aunt—step-aunt, actually, since Jeff Aquilon had been a brother to Krista’s and Tony’s stepfather—had helped her select clothing for the business image she’d wanted to project when she’d had to do a senior presentation in college.
Deciding against all black for her first day as the COO, she’d chosen black slacks with a gray pinstripe. The pinstripe had a touch of red running through it. The tailored blouse was also black, but the suit jacket was a buttery soft leather in brilliant power red.
She looked, she thought, like a woman who knew what she was doing, who knew where she was going—like a woman who was used to taking charge.
Fortunately, only she knew her knees were knocking.
Her intercom buzzed. When she answered, Tiff told her she was wanted in the CEO’s office.
Going into the corridor, she reflected that James had always opened the conference room door and bellowed her name so that it could be heard clear out to the parking lot. A polite request through the secretary was another change, one for the better, in her opinion. She hated yelling of any kind.
Before she reached the end office, she came face-to-face with Mason, who was leaving it. “Hello, Mason,” she said in a friendly fashion.
He stopped in front of her, his smile more of a sneer than a greeting. “My, you certainly move fast when you put your mind to it, don’t you?”
She tried to figure out just what his remark meant. When she’d first been promoted to head of the accounting department, the heir-apparent had tried to put a move on her, but she’d acted obtuse, as if she didn’t catch on that he was trying to start something.
Even at twenty-two, she’d known it was bad judgment to get involved with someone who could derail her fledgling career. There was also the fact that he didn’t appeal to her in any way, shape or form.
“I try,” she said lightly, assuming he referred to her now being the chief operations officer and aware that all around them others were straining their ears to hear what was being said between them. “I wasn’t sure you would be with us anymore.”
“Where did you think I would be?” he demanded in a definite snarl.
“I thought you might decide to retire and live the life of a rich playboy,” she told him, knowing he liked to imagine himself as a jet-setter.
“Not with my father controlling the purse strings,” he said, anger overriding the earlier sarcasm. “And now, you’re the one in charge. Maybe the new CEO will let you try some of your ideas.”
His tone implied he shared his father’s views of her notions. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” she said calmly.
He snorted and walked away whistling “Hail to the Chief.”
At times she would really like to give him a good smack across the mouth, she acknowledged, going into Thea’s office. “I understand Mr. Carrington wants to see me.”
Without answering, the secretary pushed the button on her phone set. “Krista Aquilon is here.”
“Ask her to come in, please,” Lance said politely.
Thea nodded at Krista.
As far as Krista could remember, Thea had managed to never call her by her title or even Ms. Aquilon, as if this was beneath her lofty position. Strange woman. Krista went into the inner office.
Lance rose and came to her, hand out. Krista shook hands with him, more than a little wary. Even so, she wasn’t quite prepared for the jolt of electricity that rushed up her arm and to all parts of her body.
Gray eyes flicked over her. “You look stunning this morning,” he said with an approving nod.
“Actually I was going for ‘person-in-charge’ rather than stunning,” she told him. “I blew it, huh?”
“You look like a person of immense authority,” he assured her. There was laughter in his eyes. “Coffee? I just made some—apparently Thea doesn’t do coffee—and it’s good, if I do say so.”
“Please, with one sugar.” She smiled when he did, a real smile, and felt some of the tension drain out of her shoulders as she took her usual chair at the side of the big desk. “I met Mason in the hall. For some reason, I assumed he would no longer be with the company.”
Lance settled behind the desk. They sipped the excellent brew in silence for a few seconds. “Did he give you any trouble?”
“Not really. He may have been a tad disappointed that he wasn’t named the COO.”
The new boss shrugged. “Then he should have shown some real interest in the company at some time during the past twenty years. If he gives you any problems, fire him.”
Krista nearly choked on her coffee.
Lance continued. “I felt like doing that this morning when he walked in here unannounced. He was supposed to have been here yesterday for the staff meeting.”
“He has a tendency to be late,” she explained. “Or not show up at all. I guess he thought he could continue his old ways. My secretary said she heard him raise his voice. If he was insubordinate, why didn’t you tell him to clear out?” The question was pure curiosity on her part.
“I told Heymyer I’d give everyone who wanted it a chance to stay on.” Lance’s dark eyebrows rose slightly. “You’re the boss. You say who stays and who doesn’t. If Mason doesn’t work out, then he goes. Although I wouldn’t toss anybody out on the first day,” he offered as a suggestion. “It’s unsettling for the other employees.”
“Mason’s the vice president—”
Lance shook his head. “The Heymyer officers are gone. You and I are the big bosses now.”
She did a mental double take on that idea. “So what’s his title?”
“Whatever you decide.” The winter-gray eyes bored right into her. “It’s your job to run the company, so that’s your call. I will need an organizational chart as soon as you can get one done so my people will know who’s who.”
After she’d absorbed Lance’s information, she asked, unable to keep the facetious tone completely under wraps, “And what will you be doing while I’m drawing up charts, checking production runs and making sure the company is running smoothly?”
“Envisioning the big picture, coming up with clever ways to integrate the operations and devising strategies to make it all mesh like clockwork.”
His grin was…sardonic? Definitely.
“Well,” she said, “that explains the division of labor. I’m so glad we had this chat.”
“You have a smart mouth, but that’s okay. I like a woman who speaks her mind.”
“Good, because I have a couple of hundred questions.”
For the next hour, they discussed the changes that would be necessary to save the business. It was obvious he’d had experience in smoothly melding new enterprises into CCS’s operations. Krista tried not to look too naively impressed by his acumen.
“We might move some parts of production to another location,” he told her, his eyes on the middle distance as if he could see those parts being transferred already.
“You said you weren’t shutting down here,” she reminded him with a fierce frown. “You said no one would lose their jobs, that we’re going to put the company back on track. That’s why I agreed to stay.”
“I’m not talking about shutting down, but things aren’t going to stay exactly the same. That’s why the company was going downhill—it was static.”
He held her gaze until she was forced to acknowledge the truth in his words. She sighed. “I know. Sorry. I’ll pull in my claws.”
He leaned toward her. “Sometimes claws are useful.” He lifted her left hand. Her nails were short and buffed to a shine rather than polished. “With these, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
Her skin burned everywhere he touched her. Maybe he didn’t have anything to worry about, but maybe she did. Shaking off the sensation, she continued their planning session.
“One other thing,” she said some time later, preparing to leave. “Someone put up a sign with my name on it in a parking space next to your car. Who authorized it?”
“I did.”
“Have it taken down. I already have a space I like.”
“You’re the COO. Don’t you think you’re entitled to a few perks?”
She was aware of his keen gaze on her as if she were some newly discovered pest under study. “Not that kind. It irritated me when I worked on the production line for the VIPs to assume they had more rights than anyone else. Even Mason, who was rarely here, had a reserved space.”
“So where are the signs now?”
She grinned. “When I became CFO, I told the executive staff there wasn’t money in the budget to replace the old signs when they needed repair. James agreed. After that, parking near the door was a perk only to those who got here early. It greatly improved the timeliness of the staff’s arrival.”
When he chuckled, she again found herself spellbound by the sound.
“What time do you usually come in?” he asked.
“Seven-thirty or thereabouts. I had a flat this morning, picked up a nail in a brand-new tire. There’s a lot of construction going on in my neighborhood.”
“Who changed the tire?”
“I did. My uncle says people need to be self-sufficient regarding minor emergencies such as flats. He taught us basic car maintenance and simple household repairs.”
“Smart man.” He paused, then added, “James said your mother died when you were a child.”
She heard the slight upward inflection and had to decide how much she wanted him to know about her personal life. “Shortly after I turned ten.”
“So you went to live with an uncle?”
Krista felt the familiar tightening inside, the shutting down of emotion when someone delved into her life. “Actually he was my stepfather’s brother. He took me and my brother Tony in as well as Jeremy, his nephew. Then Social Services found out and moved me and Tony to a foster home. They said the four of us couldn’t share a two-bedroom home. I slept on the sofa while Jeremy and Tony shared the spare room. At the foster home, Tony and I had our own rooms.”
“It wasn’t a happy experience,” Lance concluded, his expression becoming grim, as if he could see the unhappiness of those children.
Unwanted memories flooded her mind. She’d broken a plate at dinner one night. Her foster father had beaten her with his belt. She’d stared into the distance and imagined escaping, running to her mother. At one point she’d felt moisture on her legs and trembled with fear, not knowing what the man would do if she’d wet her pants. But it had been blood running down her legs into her socks.
That’s when Tony had sneaked out into the night and gone to their step-cousin for help.
Not wanting to disclose any emotion that those keen gray eyes would surely detect, she went to the window and gazed out at the desert land. “The foster father beat us, so we ran away with Jeremy. He was seventeen. We sort of lived off the land that summer. In the winter, Jeremy got a job at a grocery and we lived in an abandoned gas station that had had living quarters on the second floor.”
“How long did you live like that?” Lance asked, his voice fathoms deep with a stillness at its center that she found oddly comforting. His reflection appeared in the windowpane next to hers. His heat swept over her, all the way to the hidden place inside.
“We were caught the following summer on a ranch. The family there went to bat for us and we were returned to our uncle, Jeff Aquilon. He became our legal guardian, and we lived happily ever after.” She cast Lance a saucy grin to show him she was still living that good life.
His manner was thoughtful, as if he was connecting all the dots while he studied her. “You and your brother took your guardian’s name?”
“Well, he made it legal, but our mother started using Aquilon for all of us when she married his older brother.” Anticipating the next question of his very logical mind, she added, “My father walked out when I was a baby and Tony was three, so it’s the only name he or I have ever known.”
“I see. It must have been difficult, hiding out from the authorities all that time.”
She carefully held all the old emotion in check while planting a smile on her face. “Nah, that was the fun part. The hard part was getting up the courage to run away.”
“But you did it.”
“Because of Jeremy. He’s the one who figured out what to do. He took care of us, but he didn’t have to. He wasn’t kin to us by blood or legal ties. When his father, the oldest Aquilon brother, died, Jeremy came to live with us. About six months after my mother and stepfather divorced, my stepfather died in an auto accident, so Mom told Jeremy to come back to us. Jeff, the youngest of the three brothers, had been in the hospital at that time.”
Silence surrounded them like a blanket. Krista felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if she were being smothered as the past pushed past her defenses and closed in on her.
Then a big, warm hand touched the back of her neck. Strong fingers massaged the tense muscles in her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I made you remember.”
The gentleness of his touch, the sympathy she sensed in him, caused her eyes to burn. But she’d learned long ago that tears didn’t help. She managed to shake her head as if it didn’t matter, to make herself not care. “Everything came out okay. Uncle Jeff got a bigger house, so that satisfied the family services people. When he married Caileen, who was the new counselor from the county welfare office, we became one big happy family. Caileen had a daughter, Zia, so I got a big sister out of the deal. That was nice.”
“Ten years old,” he murmured. “That’s an impressionable age. Things happen that can never be forgotten.”
His hand glided down her back, stopped at her waist. A need to lean into him, to feel his strength as well as his heat, alarmed her. It was time to end this conversation.
“Well, you don’t forget,” she admitted, stepping away from him, “but you move on.” She glanced at her watch. “Speaking of which, I’d better get those organizational charts done, then I have some ideas to run by two of the production managers about merging their lines.”
To her surprise, laughter erupted from him.
“Go for it,” he said.
Later, in her own office while waiting for a new spreadsheet to come up on her computer, she studied her hands. There was the faintest tremor in them.
In helping her practice for her presentation, her aunt Caileen had told her to act calm and assured in uncertain situations and it would follow that she would become calm and assured. With Lance Carrington, Krista wasn’t sure that would work. Something about him reached right down into her inner equilibrium and shook its moorings.
“What is going on over there?” Marlyn asked on Thursday when Krista met her for a quick lunch.
Krista smiled as her best friend’s expression mirrored the shock of other residents upon learning about the company changes. “Heymyer sold us out without a word.”
It was through Marlyn, whom she’d met in her freshman year at college, that she’d gotten the job with Heymyer Home Appliances. She and Marlyn had both used the work/study program to pay their way through school. They’d shared apartments, clothes and books during those years of work, study and counting pennies.
“And the new guy wants you to stay on?”
“Right.”
“I thought raiders always fired all the executives and put in their own people.”
“He asked me to stay six months, I guess to help with the transition. Then he’ll fire me.”
“You think?”
Krista shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not worried about finding a new job, but for others who’ve lived and worked their whole lives in this town, what happens to them?”
They both thought this over.
“His picture was in a big spread the paper did on him and CCS.” Marlyn tilted her head and studied Krista. “He’s only thirty-four. Rich and handsome.”
When she waggled her brows, Krista had to laugh. “He’s also strictly business.”
For the briefest instant, she recalled how she’d felt when he’d stood behind her at the window, as if he’d sensed the turmoil his questions about her past had caused. His touch had been comforting.
It had also been exciting, reaching right down and stirring something inside her. A hunger, she realized, a need for touching, caressing…for fulfillment.
Enough, already, she warned her libido, or whatever it was that kept sending forbidden longings through her.
“So how are things going with your business? Does everyone in town want the famous Marlyn Reynolds of Reynolds’ Interior Design to redo their homes?”
“Oh, yeah.” Marlyn sighed, then smiled. “Actually things are going well with business. I just wish I could say the same about my personal life. Or lack thereof.”
“Come on,” Krista said, “you and Linc are solid.”
“Are we?” Marlyn finished her salad and peered out the window at the mesas and rugged canyons cut by eons of wind and water erosion. “He called and said he wouldn’t make it home this weekend. I told him if he didn’t, not to bother coming at all, ever.”
“Marlyn, you didn’t!”
To Krista’s consternation, tears filled the other woman’s dark brown eyes. “I mean it, Krista. I’ve had it.”
“But you’ve loved him since third grade. You told me it was love at first sight for both of you.”
“Well, I saw him more in school than I have since we married. I’m tired of it.”
“You need to talk to Linc. Surely you two can work things out.”
There was a troubled silence. “I don’t know,” Marlyn admitted. “I’m not sure how I feel about Linc and marriage and making it as a couple anymore.”
Krista couldn’t conceal her shock. “Go to a counselor,” she urged. “Don’t give up, not without trying something.”
“I’ll think about it,” Marlyn said halfheartedly, “but I’ve been so miserable lately. I’m married and I’m lonely as hell. I have a husband I see only when he can work me into his schedule.”
Linc was a civil engineer. He worked for a big company that had a contract with the government for a new dam across a stream up in the mountains east of town. It was a two-hour drive over a winding road to get to town. He stayed in an RV trailer during the week and came home on weekends.
Sometimes, Krista added truthfully. Lately, he’d been tied up at work more and more on weekends. She could understand Marlyn’s grief with that.
“How can he know how you feel if you don’t tell him?” she asked with great practicality. “If you talk honestly with each other, that could help get your marriage back on track.”
She recalled those were the words Lance Carrington had used with her. Together they were going to get the appliance company “back on track.” Studying her friend, she thought things were changing in both their lives.
Change. One of the big C-words.
From her experience, change had often meant confusion—and chaos.
Chapter Four
Lance threw down the pen and looked at the clock. “Time to quit,” he said. “I think a fourteen-hour day is long enough, don’t you?”
Krista glanced at him, then back at the diagram she was working on. “Merging these two production lines will be much more efficient,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I want everyone cross-trained so that each person can do every job. I want them to learn to work as a team, to cover for each other if one person is out sick…or needs to take personal time—”
“Earth to Krista,” he said loudly. “It’s time to quit.”
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Laurie Paige
Brilliant and beautiful executive Krista Aquilon was shocked when the struggling appliance company she'd slaved over for years was sold in a surprise takeover bid. And even more surprising was her new billionaire boss, corporate raider Lance Carrington. Decisive and dominant, ruthless businessman Lance always put his work first. But as impressed as Lance was with Krista's sharp financial mind and innovative ideas, there was another reason he couldn't get his newest employee out of his mind.What sizzled between him and Krista was more tantalizing—and complicated—than any white-knuckled negotiation. Now it was up to Lance to make sure things weren't strictly business…
Acquiring Mr. Right
Laurie Paige
For my pal, Alison, and the many treks through
the desert near her home and to the trip we’ve
planned down the Grand Canyon…someday.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Coming Next Month
Chapter One
Krista Aquilon parked close to the entrance of the Heymyer Home Appliances Company. The shiny red compact sedan was the first new auto she’d ever owned, and she was rather proud of the birthday present she’d bought for herself.
That thought usually cheered her, but not today. She unlocked the door and went into the silent building.
It was Sunday, the second day of April. The day after her birthday. Sometimes she wondered if the Fates had been laughing when they planned her birth date. She’d been an April Fool’s baby, a fact that had gotten her a lot of teasing while growing up.
At any rate, she tried to keep Sundays free of work in order to maintain the illusion of a personal life, but today was an exception. The health of the company rather than her own well-being was foremost in her mind. As chief financial officer, she had a lot to worry about.
The place wasn’t doing well. And all her suggestions for reviving it had been ignored, for the most part.
Pausing in the act of locking the entrance door behind her, she realized there was a red sports car under the portico at the side of the building, a space strictly reserved for James M. Heymyer, her eighty-year-old boss and a stickler for protocol.
His concept of protocol, she thought. She was more egalitarian in her views.
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips as she pictured the stunned outrage on his face at the audacity of anyone parking in his place. Not even Mason, Heymyer’s son and heir, would be that bold. However, since it was Sunday, the boss wouldn’t be in, so it probably didn’t matter.
Returning to the original concerns that had brought her into the office, she sighed as she crossed the atrium-type lobby and went up the steps to the second floor.
All the executive offices were located on this level. “VIP Row,” the other employees called it, as if the initials were a word. She’d gone from the plant production lines as a student on a work/study program during her college years to a “VIP” three years ago. After getting a business degree, she’d been promoted to accounts supervisor, then manager of the accounting department. She’d landed the head financial position last fall after earning her MBA.
At twenty-five, that could be considered quite a feat, but she was pretty sure the old man hadn’t been able to get anyone else to fill the slot, which had been empty since the former CFO retired eighteen months ago.
One look at the books and anyone with a grain of sense would have run the other way, she grimly reminded her conscience, or whatever it was that wouldn’t let her give the place up as a lost cause.
However, unless someone came up with a solution—and fast—Heymyer Home Appliances was gasping its last.
While the company marketed products under its own name, it also manufactured appliances for other brands. In fact, that was the bulk of their income. They had lost a major contract last week. Without it, they wouldn’t have the cash flow to meet the payroll by the end of July.
In a town the size of Grand Junction, Colorado, population fifty thousand, a business failure leaving a thousand employees out of work would have a serious impact on the community. The city would lose one of its important revenue sources. The many mom-and-pop stores in town would struggle. Some might have to close. Even professionals—doctors, lawyers, bankers—would be affected.
Worst of all, families would suffer. Fear and tension caused quarrels and broken marriages. Children would be hurt. And that bothered Krista most of all. She knew how it felt to be frightened and helpless in a world that didn’t seem to care.
She stopped at the top of the stairs. A light was on in the end office, the one belonging to the president and CEO. Some instinct warned her this wasn’t good.
Or perhaps the boss was taking her warnings about bankruptcy seriously and had come in to study her idea to take a bold new tack.
But James Heymyer driving a red roadster? No way.
So who was in his office?
As she walked down the carpeted hallway, she heard voices. Male voices. One she recognized as belonging to the boss. The low, rich timbre of the other wasn’t familiar to her.
She paused at her door, listening to the tone. The depth and resonance of the voice were almost like a caress.
Krista had barely sat down and pulled up the latest balance sheet on her computer when Heymyer appeared at the door.
“James, good morning,” she said warmly.
As soon as she was made a department head, she’d started calling the owner by his given name. A mental image of his eyebrows nearly flying off his forehead the first time she’d done so came to her.
But he hadn’t said anything.
Too bad. She’d had her points lined up about being on equal footing with the other managers—all men, who called the big boss “James”—and being taken seriously by them.
And the owner.
“What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t know you planned to come in today,” he now said in accusatory tones.
“The place is usually empty on Sundays,” she said, her tone level. “It’s quiet, and I wanted to go over the financials before the staff meeting tomorrow.”
She kept her expression pleasant and her mouth closed. He’d long since made it clear he didn’t want any further ideas from her on saving the company. However, when she reported the cash flow problems tomorrow, he was going to have to face the fact that bankruptcy was looming.
A helpless anger ran through her, making it harder to hold back the recitation of all they could have done to save the business. If he had listened.
“I guess you may as well meet Lance today,” James told her in a resigned tone.
Lance?
The guy with the sleek red car, she decided. The one who’d brought the old man to the office, an act so unusual she couldn’t figure out what it might mean.
That instinctual alarm rolled through her again. She reluctantly shut down the computer and headed for the end office with James. Annoyance filled her now. She’d expected to be alone and so was dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with sneakers. No makeup.
Oh, well. It didn’t make a bit of difference. In a small, home-grown company like this, everyone dressed pretty casual, even James…unless he was meeting with the bankers. Then the executives were alerted to dress the part of successful businesspeople.
They crossed the secretary’s office and went into the inner sanctum, where heads sometimes rolled and shattered egos splattered the walls. She’d seen grown men nearly cry as Heymyer picked their reports apart. She’d also been on the receiving end of his sharp tongue.
She stopped in the middle of the huge office when a man, standing at one of the many windows, turned to them.
“Lance, this is the financial officer I was telling you about,” James began the introduction. “Krista, this is Lance Carrington.”
“How do you do?” Krista smiled politely and tried to keep the anxiety out of her expression. She had an eerie feeling about all this. Just what had James told this man about her? And why?
“Fine, thanks,” the man replied. “Krista…Aquilon, isn’t it?”
She nodded and, without thinking, spelled her last name as she’d had to do all her life with teachers and other officials. Most people didn’t know how to translate the pronunciation—Ah-KEE-lon—into the correct spelling.
The smile widened on the handsome face. His gaze seemed warm and…and intimate, as if he knew her well.
Her insides gave a startled lurch, which interrupted her mental processes.
She stared wordlessly at the newcomer. He was dressed casually in navy slacks and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. His nearly black hair had a healthy sheen, highlighted by the sunlight streaming through the window behind him, and an attractive wave in front. His eyes were gray, like winter rain, and his gaze was direct. She looked away.
“Have a seat,” James told them, taking his place behind the antique desk. An odd expression flicked across his face. “Well, I guess you should be sitting here now,” he said to his guest.
Puzzled, Krista glanced from James to the stranger and back.
“Tomorrow, at the staff meeting,” James continued, meeting her eyes with a harsh scowl on his face, “I’ll be announcing the sale of the company to Lance.”
The news hit her like a sneaky punch to the head, leaving her reeling with a thousand questions. Like times in the past when her future had been rearranged without her consent, she felt the old familiar uncertainty caused by life’s nasty little tricks.
But she wasn’t a child any longer. Instead of fear, anger bubbled beneath her self-control at this announcement.
“To CCS, actually,” the visitor explained, his gaze piercing, as if he could see right into her brain and knew all the confused, conflicting emotions whirling there.
The man’s name rang a bell. Lance Carrington. Corporate raider. Facts unfurled in her mind with the speed of light.
There had been an interview with him in a financial magazine last year. His company, CCS—which stood for Computer Control Systems—was actually a holding pen for all the shares of other companies he’d raided over the years.
Under the CCS banner, he bought ailing businesses, took them apart, remade them, then sold or merged the remains into his other operations.
She didn’t need a magnifying glass to read the writing on the wall: it was the end of Heymyer Home Appliances.
A thousand employees out of work. Frightened families with no means of support. All because of one stubborn old man and his damned indifference.
And there was her own spent labor. Days and nights poring over books and ledgers, researching, then arguing for changes, trying to fix things, anything to bring the company out of its long, slow decline.
All that work. All for nothing.
White-hot anger speared through her as she stared into gray eyes as emotionless as a mountain lake in winter.
She tore her gaze away and looked her boss—her former boss—in the eye. “The entire plant was sold?”
“Yes.”
His tone was aggressive, informing her she had no part in the decision. The company was private and entirely owned by James, his wife and their son. While she wasn’t on the governing board, she was the chief financial officer. She should have been included in the discussion.
“Your wife and son agreed?”
“They had no choice,” the old man said. He slumped into the chief executive chair, which to her seemed a mockery of the position.
“I seem to have missed the meeting when this was decided,” she said, unable to keep the frost out of her voice.
“It was by teleconference. Weekend before last,” he added when she continued to frown at him without saying anything.
Krista quickly reviewed her recent schedule. She’d visited her family back in Idaho that weekend. It was the one and only vacation she’d taken in months, and had coincided with the special dedication of a sculpture done by her beloved uncle Jeff, which had been part of a city-wide celebration of spring and renewal.
Renewal. How ironic. And how convenient that she’d been out of town during that momentous meeting. With James holding the controlling shares, his wife and son would have had to go along with him.
“Do you know who he is?” she demanded, speaking in a very soft, very controlled tone. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Unable to sit still, she strode to the window and spun toward the men, her hair lashing the side of her face at the abruptness of the move.
“I did what I had to do,” the older man told her. His lined face now held only weariness.
She felt his grief, recognized the anger and despair in his eyes. Pity slowly supplanted the anger. She knew how it felt to be forced into unwanted circumstances by an unchangeable fate. Oh, yes, she knew…
Except he could have changed it, some part of her that was harder and less forgiving chimed in.
If the ideas she’d come up with had been implemented a year ago, things might have been different. For all his protests about saving the company, she realized James was perhaps too tired or his vision too narrow to picture a different future.
Young blood. That’s what was needed. Renewal.
She studied Lance Carrington carefully. He was young, mid-thirties probably.
But renewal wouldn’t happen with a corporate raider. That type was only interested in a quick profit, not the long-term investment it would take to turn things around.
She met his level perusal with one of her own and got the feeling he was amused by the situation.
Okay, it was a done deal. She’d learned a long time ago that people had to move on when life dealt them a new hand. A thousand people would have to adjust. Including her.
“You know, James,” the corporate raider said, his eyes narrowed as if he were thinking aloud, “Krista is an officer of the company. She can introduce me to the staff in the morning, if you prefer. That way, you wouldn’t have to come in,” he added, his gaze on her again.
“That’s a great idea,” James said, obviously relieved to be let off the hook.
Coward, Krista thought. When the going got tough, a lot of supposedly tough people got going as fast as their feet would carry them…in the opposite direction.
Well, surprise, surprise. This was one time when she wasn’t going to stay and try to pick up the pieces. Neither was she going to be the flunky who assured the employees, people she’d worked with for over six years, that everything was going to be fine when she knew it wasn’t.
“So I’m going to be stuck introducing the man who’s going to close down the plant and cost us all our jobs?” she inquired in a mockingly amused manner.
She studied each of them for a long moment to let the question sink in.
“No, thanks.” She headed for the door. “I quit.”
“Be back in a minute,” Lance said, then strode down the corridor just in time to see the top of the CFO’s head disappear down the stairs. He followed, taking the steps two at a time, and caught up with her at the front door.
She muttered a distinct one-word imprecation while trying to get the key into the lock. Her hand was trembling, not much, but enough to make her awkward. The fury still gleamed in her eyes.
“Hold on,” he said.
She didn’t have to tilt her head upward very much to give the impression she could stare him down. She was a tall woman, probably five-nine to his six-one. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she had a kind of grace and elegance he found very attractive.
When she added a ferocious frown to the silent treatment, he stopped the wayward thoughts and suppressed a smile. Now wasn’t the time. Okay, he could concede she had a right to be angry, at least from her point of view.
From his, it was a different matter. Based on all the company records he’d read during the two months prior to entering negotiations to buy the firm, he’d been prepared to be impressed upon meeting the financial guru. That was an understatement.
While he’d known about the clarity of her thinking, the ideas she’d developed and the sheer business acumen for one of her age and experience, what he hadn’t known, hadn’t even considered, was the physical package that went with the brilliant mind.
That sweep of hair, those big brown eyes, the tawny skin with the natural blush across the high cheekbones—
She gave a soft snort of exasperation, turned the key in the lock and sailed out the door before he’d quite got his thoughts in order.
Bringing himself back to the situation at hand, Lance hurried to catch up with her as she made a beeline toward her car.
“I want to explain something to you.”
“Explain away,” she invited airily without slowing her pace. As they neared the vehicle, she clicked the button on her key chain. The doors unlocked.
She turned to him when she stopped beside the modest car, the bright April sunlight filling her face until she seemed to glow from within. Her eyes were dark at the outer edges, he saw, but golden around the pupil. Her hair was a very dark brown, nearly black in hue. It lay against her shoulders in a smooth, shiny curtain.
He found he wanted to touch it. To touch her.
“What is it?” she demanded, interrupting the images running through his mind.
“No one’s going to lose his or her job,” he said, surprised and a little irritated at the persistent track of his wandering thoughts.
“Right.”
This was said with such sarcasm, it made him smile. Her lips whitened as she pressed them together, probably to hold in other, more scathing words.
“It’s true. If the employees are capable and reliable,” he added, qualifying the statement, “then they’ll have nothing to fear.”
“For how long?” She hooked her hair behind one ear and tilted her head to the side as she perused him. “How long until you sell the profitable operations and close down the rest, selling off the plant and equipment to the highest bidder so that there’s nothing left of Heymyer Home Appliances? Except the name, which you can also sell since it has an established reputation in the market.”
“There are no plans to do that.” Although he did have plans concerning the place, he wouldn’t discuss those with her until he was sure she was on board. She had to agree to stay and work with him first of all.
“Fine. I’m sure you’ll make the place a huge success.”
“As you’ve tried to do for the past three years,” he added softly.
She stiffened as resentment flared in her eyes and was gone, then she stared at him, her face a careful blank. “Not me,” she denied. “I just kept the books.”
The ensuing silence hummed like busy bees around them as they sized each other up. Around them, the desert bloomed from recent spring rains, filling the air with the pleasing aroma of sage and cedar and hidden woodland flowers along the riverbanks. The world seemed fresh and new. From the company’s vantage point near the forks of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, he could hear the muted roar of the merging water. It added a pleasing ambiance to a day that had started off triumphant and now was merely trying.
Heymyer had been on target when he’d said the CFO was headstrong.
Lance was willing to let her have her way…to a certain extent, the limits being that she cooperated rather than hindered his efforts to come out of this deal with a viable, profitable company.
“I expect to see you in the office at eight in the morning,” he told her, his tone harder.
“Sorry, but I no longer work here.” She opened the car door, nearly striking him in the chest.
He sidestepped, then moved forward so she couldn’t close it. The heat from their bodies radiated over each other, making him once more aware of her in a physical way.
He sensed the merging of their individual energies and felt it as a mighty force, like the joining of the two rivers. “I don’t accept your resignation.”
The eyelashes swept up and he caught the golden sparkle as anger flashed anew. She was all fire and brilliance, he mused, like a perfectly cut gem. He wanted to capture that fire, to claim that brilliance.
For the benefit of CCS, of course.
When he was involved with business, no other aspects of life entered into it. Passion was part of his personal time and not on his corporate agenda.
However, his body reacted with a sudden, sharp and unexplained need that surprised him. The hunger held passion, yes, and other things mixed in with it, things he couldn’t name, things that ignited from the sparks thrown off by this very bright, very alluring woman.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “You can’t force me to stay.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to.”
That caused her to blink. “No.”
He shrugged and stepped back one pace as she slid into the driver’s seat of the wagon. “So it was a lie.”
“What was?” Her manner was wary.
“All your concern about the place closing and people losing their jobs.”
“No. It wasn’t. I do care.”
“Then stay and help me make it a successful operation. James said you had plenty of ideas. I want to hear them.”
She laughed, a sudden, sexy sound that had his insides clenching up. “He called them dingbat notions. Still want to hear them?”
“Yeah.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels as he smiled at her, one cohort to another. “I believe we can turn this company around and make it one of the best in the country. How does that sound to a CFO with bulldog tenacity, or so James warned me, and lots of ideas?”
Wariness returned. “Great. If you mean it.”
“I do.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”
She held both hands up, palms out as if to hold him off. “What deal?”
“You’ll stay for a minimum of six months, and work with me to put the company back on track.”
“As CFO?”
“Maybe,” he answered.
She put the car key in the ignition. “I don’t play games,” she said coldly.
“Sorry. Truly,” he added at the dismissive glance. “I’m serious. You’re a valuable asset to the company, but I’m not sure yet just what the new job titles will be. For now, you’re still the CFO. So, will you come aboard?”
He found himself anxious for her reply. He was banking on her already considerable investment of time and energy in the company, and also her curiosity about him and the future, to convince her to stay. He knew the moment she decided in his favor by the slight smile that curved her lips, displaying two barely discernible dimples in her cheeks.
“Yes. I will.” She held out a hand. “Six months…and then we’ll see,” she added.
Electricity flowed up his arm as they shook on the agreement. Six months, he thought as he watched her drive off. A lot could happen in six months. A working team could be built. A company could be turned around. An attraction—any attraction—would have to be stamped out.
Chapter Two
Krista considered her wardrobe for several minutes on Monday morning before selecting black slacks, a blue cotton sweater and a matching bouclé jacket.
She applied her makeup carefully and left her hair down, then pulled on ankle boots with one-and-a-half-inch heels. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
Driving from her town house apartment complex to the office, she marveled that the day could look so normal. The sun was shining, no clouds marred the sky and the traffic flowed without any delays. To her mind, there should be thunder and lightning to herald the momentous event—the takeover of the company by a man who had no ties to the community, no motivation for its success except profit.
Or maybe the change was momentous only to her, she mused sardonically.
Memories of other changes in her life flooded into her mind. When she was nine, her mom and stepfather had divorced. On a snowy night that same winter he’d died in a car crash. Six months later her mom had gotten in the way of a stray bullet when one angry neighbor shot another and had also died. As a runaway from foster care, her tenth year had been a period of uncertainty, always looking over her shoulder, never knowing what was going to happen next and feeling that life was as tenuous as a cobweb.
While she couldn’t exactly define the reasons, she felt somewhat like that now—unsure and anxious about the future.
She was no longer that child, she grimly reminded herself as she pulled into the parking lot at the plant. No one could push her around. And no corporate raider was going to intimidate her.
Nodding her head decisively, she parked in her usual place under the shade of the oak tree in the far back corner of the large lot and strode to the office.
Upstairs, VIP Row was unusually quiet.
When Krista entered the CFO office suite, her secretary was hanging up her jacket. “Good morning, Tiff.”
Krista had inherited the secretary from the last CFO. After a rocky start, Tiffany Adams—late forties, divorced, one grown son—had transferred her loyalty to the new boss and now they worked together as a close-knit team.
Tiff nodded toward the end office. “Something’s going on,” she said in a low, ominous manner.
“I know.” Krista checked the wall clock. She had twenty minutes before the staff meeting. “I’m going to introduce the new owner to the managers this morning.”
“New owner!” the other woman said in a shocked whisper.
“Shh,” Krista warned, nodding toward the open door. “I’ll tell you all about it after the meeting.” She went into her office.
Frowning, she realized she’d forgotten to lock her desk after the shock of meeting Lance Carrington yesterday. She gathered the financial reports, the cash flow estimates and projected earnings before exiting through the private door that connected the conference room to her office.
The elegant meeting space with its carved walnut table and twelve executive chairs separated her suite from that of the chief executive’s. Coffee, she noted, was brewing in the silver urn on the credenza.
She wondered if Thea, the CEO’s secretary, was in yet and if James had warned her of the pending changes. The woman was in her sixties and had worked there for more than forty years. Totally loyal to the big boss, she’d watched out for his interests like a pit bull.
A light was on inside the end office and Krista could see the outline of a person moving about in there through the frosted glass of the adjoining door.
She stopped in the act of placing copies of her reports at each manager’s seat and stared at the masculine figure who seemed to alternate between pacing and staring out the windows at the scenery.
Was Carrington…Lance, she corrected…nervous about the meeting?
Hmm, she couldn’t picture that. He was hard-edged and confident. Besides, he held all the winning cards in this venture, whatever it was to him.
While she was still staring at the indistinct figure through the glass, the door swung inward. He filled the opening like the hero in a movie close-up, backlit by the windows behind him and appearing bigger than life.
“Good morning,” he said, coming into the conference room and closing the door.
The odd impressions—that of him being nervous or being a super screen hero—fled. He was once more just a man, handsome and dynamic, yes, but not overpowering.
Well, not totally overpowering.
“Good morning.” She finished her task, then hesitated, not sure where she should sit.
“Here’s where you sit,” Lance said, as if reading her mind. He pulled out the chair at one end of the table.
That was Mason’s place, when he deigned to be present, but she didn’t say anything. She supposed, like his father, he was now out of the company.
Lance pulled the chair back for her as she approached. Closer to him, she became aware of him in a whole new way.
In fact, her senses seemed keenly in tune today. First of all, he smelled really, really good. Visually, he looked cosmopolitan in a suit of medium gray with a thin navy blue stripe, a navy shirt and a silk tie of silvery gray. Looking at him almost made her dizzy. It was the oddest sensation.
Frowning at the reaction, she quickly placed her folders on the table and went to the coffee urn. He followed right behind her.
Ignoring the pastries on a silver server, she filled a china cup and returned to her seat.
The new boss also rejected the rich Danish rolls and muffins. Taking his cup, he sat at the opposite end of the table. “Nice day,” he said.
“Yes. The sunshine is…nice.” At that brilliant start, she almost groaned aloud.
Glancing down the shining length of the conference table, she detected a gleam in his eyes. A smile swept over his face, changing him from the serious tycoon to a coconspirator in an intrigue still to be played out.
His eyes no longer seemed wintry to her as they had yesterday. Instead they were cordial.
Inviting.
Intimate.
The warmth in those depths reached inside her, making her aware of things she hadn’t considered in a long time…a sense of security, the way she’d felt as a teenager growing up in Uncle Jeff’s home. And something more…
She shook her head to rid herself of the new sensation. While James had listened when she explained the financial situation, he had been impatient with her ideas for change. Maybe this new CEO would think her suggestions brilliant and let her try some of them.
The absurdity of that idea hit her. A corporate raider, who’d probably leveraged the buyout so that the company was now also in debt up to its neck, letting her have her way?
She forced her gaze to the documents she’d prepared while her heart pounded out a salsa beat in her ears. The arrival of the eight managers helped still the sudden, unexplained tumult.
From their quick glances at Lance, then her, she knew they’d already heard about the new man in the boss’s office and knew something unusual was up. Following ritual, they filled their coffee cups and took their seats. They, too, ignored the treats that were usually a big hit and gone before the meeting was over.
“Good morning,” she said with a calm smile, standing and taking charge as Lance shot her a glance down the table that told her to do so.
Right. She was to introduce him. Which made her feel rather like some kind of Judas to the old order of things.
“By now, each of you are aware of changes in the company, so I won’t keep you in suspense.”
She introduced Lance as the head of CCS and announced the sale of Heymyer to the other company. Varying degrees of shock and alarm flashed into the men’s faces and were gone. They could have been statues, they sat so still.
Starting on Lance’s right, she introduced the six general managers, who had charge of specific production areas, and the two marketing managers, who reported to the vice president, which had been Mason up until yesterday.
Krista glanced at the two empty chairs. James’s secretary normally sat on his left side and took notes at the meetings. Had Lance told her she wasn’t needed today? And was Mason still the VP? She could see similar questions in the men’s eyes.
Changes. Sometimes they were for the good. If Lance meant what he’d said about not closing the place, then all would be well. Maybe.
“I’ll turn the meeting over to our new CEO,” she finished and sat down.
All eyes turned to the other end of the table.
“Acting CEO,” he said, still seated, his manner casual. “Heymyer will be a subsidiary of CCS, the same as Applied Controls.”
Krista recalled the original computer control company had been spun off CCS as its own corporate entity, its shares retained by the parent company, and renamed.
“As with our other companies, Heymyer will have its own CEO. First of all, no changes are imminent. Rumors will abound, but each of you should assure your employees that there are no plans to close the plant. The work schedule will continue as usual. I know the change of ownership will be unsettling to a degree, but I don’t expect production to drop during the transition,” he told them.
His manner was as reassuring as his statements, which were delivered in a confident, decisive tone. Whatever had caused him to pace his office earlier like a restless tiger was well hidden. Or put out of his mind altogether.
She tended to do that—concentrate so fiercely on one thing that everything else disappeared—much to the annoyance of some men she’d dated. Her one serious relationship had ended in failure. Truth was, she wasn’t sure what men wanted, but she wanted someone who really meant forever when he spoke of love.
Her glance went to the new owner. Not someone like him, she quickly asserted, as if he’d been put forward as an example. By nature, a raider was a hit-and-run specialist.
“For the foreseeable future,” Lance was saying, “there will be lots of meetings between this team and the CCS board and executive staff while we work out the integration of goals and procedures.”
And then, she thought, his staff will know the company inside out and can dispense with us.
She studied the eight managers, all listening with serious expressions on their faces. Six had been there long enough to retire with full pensions. The other two, one in his late forties, the other in his mid-fifties, hadn’t. Where would they go?
For the next three hours, Lance asked for reports from each person at the table. When she explained the cash flow problems resulting from the lost contract, she knew by his questions and the keen intelligence in his eyes that he understood the situation at once. Also that James hadn’t mentioned this latest bit of news.
“They canceled the order the day before the breach-of-contract penalties kicked in?” he asked.
Understanding flashed between them as they exchanged glances. She would share her concerns about that contract when they were alone.
Shortly after eleven, the new boss seemed satisfied with the reports. “I have one other announcement,” he said, his gaze on her.
A startled throb jolted to life inside her.
“Krista, will you come here, please?”
Her first thought was that he was going to fire her, right there in front of everyone. The next was that he wouldn’t do a thing like that. He’d asked her to stay six months, and they’d shook on it. He was too much the smart businessman to renege on a deal or shake up the managers in that way.
She rose and walked to the other end of the table, eight pairs of eyes burning holes in her head the whole way. If the men were half as confused by this request as she was, then they were all in for a surprise.
When she stood beside Lance, he smiled that megawatt smile that changed him to movie star handsome. It was a total contrast to the serious, probing manner exhibited during the long meeting.
She smiled back with a lot more confidence than she felt. She didn’t like the unexpected, and she felt she was in for more aftershocks from him.
He laid a hand on her shoulder. Krista felt the heat burning into her flesh. It spread along her arm, her back, down into the innermost parts of her. Taken aback, she shifted away. The fingers tightened, just a fraction, just enough to hold her.
“While I’ll be the acting CEO at present, Krista will be the Chief Operating Officer in addition to her other duties,” he said. “She’ll handle all day-to-day decisions and you’ll report to her as of now.”
For the second time in two days, she was taken completely off guard.
Lance glanced at Krista after he parked at the Rosevale Grand Inn. When he’d told her he’d arranged lunch for them at the inn so they wouldn’t be interrupted while they talked, she’d agreed readily enough. However, like the elderly secretary who guarded the CEO’s door, she hadn’t exactly been thrilled at his plans.
“This way,” he said, placing a hand in the small of her back to guide her to the garden pathway that led to the terrace, now used as an extension of the restaurant. It was his favorite place to dine and think things through.
The waitress, a friendly redhead who’d joked with him during the many weekends he’d spent there of late, smiled as he went to his usual table, glanced at Krista, then gave him a mock scowl as if reprimanding him for arriving with another woman.
Krista, he saw, noted the byplay but kept any reaction to herself.
“I’ve been staying here almost every weekend while deciding whether to add Heymyer to our holdings, also during the negotiations.” He explained the familiarity, then wondered why he had.
He rarely justified his actions and choices to anyone anymore, figuring that was his private business.
His grandfather’s tyrannical voice suddenly echoed in his head. “Just what is the reason for this B on your report card?”
“What is the meaning of this speeding ticket?”
“You’re taking who to the dance? She’s nobody—”
“So was my mother,” Lance had dared to say at seventeen, as he headed for the door. “But your son still married her.”
“He was a fool,” Claude Carrington had shouted after him. “I warned him…”
But Lance hadn’t heard the rest. He’d left the hated library where his grandfather called him on the carpet at regular intervals, and he’d never looked back.
Glancing at the lovely woman across the table, he realized if he’d kowtowed to his grandfather’s wishes to join his investment firm, he would never have started his own company, might never have met this woman.
Now that would have been a shame, as she was easily one of the most intriguing people he’d met in a long time, whether male or female.
“I looked you up on the Internet last night,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of information in the financial magazines. You’ve only given one in-depth interview that I could find.”
“That damned article,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “I should never have allowed it.”
“So why did you?” she asked, openly curious.
“It was for a friend. He needed to prove he had access to people the editor couldn’t otherwise get. We were roommates at college so I agreed.”
“An Ivy League college. Honors. Top ten percent of your class,” she reiterated as if reading his accomplishments on a tickertape.
A slight shifting in that cold place that existed deep within his psyche ruffled his enjoyment of sparring with this woman who watched him as closely as he did her.
He shrugged. “My grandfather’s alma mater. I had no choice.”
Into his mind’s eye sprang an image—that of a young woman, one who’d once been beautiful beyond compare but now looked weary and worn out.
His mother.
Sober for the first time in months, his parents had stood silently in the corridor outside the courtroom where his grandfather had just won custody of him.
His mother had stooped and looked directly into his eyes while his dad had stared stonily at his grandfather. “We’ll get you back,” she’d said. “Your father and I…we’ll change. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” he’d said, believing her.
“Be a good boy,” she’d whispered, squeezing his shoulders. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. You and Dad.”
She’d hugged him and kissed him, her tears spilling all over his face, until his grandfather had pulled him away and marched him out of the courthouse.
He would never forget that day. His tenth birthday. The last time he’d seen either of his parents alive.
Lance pushed the image into the place that, as a child, he’d imagined as a cold storage locker, a place where old memories could be safely hidden.
“CEO of your own company at twenty-two,” she continued. “Fortune has smiled on your every endeavor.”
Returning to the present, he assumed a mockingly cheerful air. “Yeah, I’m used to getting my own way. Don’t cross me. A tantrum isn’t a pretty sight.”
After the waitress gave them menus, his guest studied him for a minute. “I don’t think you’re the type for tantrums. You’re much more subtle than that. Like now.”
“Now?”
“You used a change in subject to distract me from further probing into your life. This morning you got exactly what you wanted, too. By having me introduce you to the managers, it sounded as if I’d checked you out and approved of the changes.”
She saw more than he liked, but then he’d already figured out how sharp she was. “So why did you let me?”
She shrugged. “My choice was walking out or sticking it out. I agreed on the latter.”
“And you keep your word,” he concluded.
“I try. Do you?”
Her manner was a cover, the surface amusement hiding her doubts about him. He reached across the table and laid a hand over hers for emphasis. “Always.”
When he settled back in his chair, he realized he wanted to touch her, to take her up to his room—
Damn, maybe it hadn’t been the most brilliant idea to bring her to the inn. This was where he spent his private hours, even if most of that time was dedicated to reading reports. Their lunch was business, part of his public persona. Those two things, the personal and the public, should never merge, in his opinion.
“Why am I now chief of operations as well as finance?” she asked, her mind obviously having no problem focusing on work and its problems.
The answer was easy. “You know the company.”
“So do all the other executives, six of whom have been there thirty years or more.”
The waitress placed tall glasses of raspberry iced tea on the table and told them the day’s specials.
“I’ll take the salmon. Mixed green salad, house dressing on the side,” he ordered, impatient with the interruption.
“The same,” Krista said in an identical tone.
The redhead rolled her eyes, jotted the info on her pad, took the unopened menus and left.
“Do you always order like that?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“With little thought.”
She studied him as if this might be a trick question, then she shrugged. “I enjoy good food, but it isn’t my reason for living.”
“But work is?”
“It’s a large part of most people’s lives. It helps keep body and soul together, you might say.”
The droll smile that touched her lips caused the slight dimples to appear. Her eyes were darker in the shade of the terrace’s white-glazed glass roof and mysterious, her true thoughts hidden as she observed him.
“So, do I get a raise along with the added responsibilities?” she questioned, a challenge in the amused tone.
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows went up at the flat statement.
“I believe in paying people what they’re worth,” he said. “I think you’re going to be worth a lot. To the company.” He wasn’t sure if the clarifying phrase was meant for her or himself.
The interest that had begun while studying her orderly financial statements and the many memos outlining her ideas for the company had blossomed into an attraction upon meeting her yesterday. Today her professional and personal sides had combined into one very interesting package.
He wondered if she kept those two parts as separate as he did…as he usually did. He mentally frowned and forced his thoughts to Heymyer Home Appliances, which was the reason they were here.
“If you could do anything you wanted at the company,” he began, “what would be the first change you would make?”
She was silent for a moment before she said, “There wouldn’t be one thing. Several changes would have to work together. New product lines. New equipment. New production processes.” She paused, her eyes on the tiny rosebuds in a vase on the table. The long, lovely sweep of lashes lifted as she looked at him. “New money.”
“Work up a proposal. I want the business turned around in six months.”
She stared at him, then a slow smile started at the corners of her mouth and ended with a sparkle in her eyes. “I can give it to you now verbatim.”
During the next two hours, they went over several of her ideas. As he listened, Lance found he liked her spunk, her enthusiasm, her wide-ranging intelligence.
If the owners of the company had listened to some of her “dingbat notions,” they might have saved the business from his takeover.
As far as Lance could determine, Heymyer’s wife, who held the title of secretary, was in Florida visiting her mother and sister. Their thirty-nine-year-old son operated out of their New York office. He’d been the vice president and in charge of marketing. Neither had done much good for the business that furnished their living, or so it appeared to him.
From going over the company’s records before making an offer, he’d concluded that only Heymyer and the CFO were avidly involved. The home appliance manufacturer needed modernizing, a fact that Krista understood well.
“New lines,” she now told him in her earnest manner. “I’m thinking of a hip name, like Uptown. Anyway, the shapes would be modern. And the colors, we should go wild with the colors—jewel tones, pastels, retro shades.”
Her graceful, expressive eyebrows rose as if she had her arguments down pat in case he disagreed. She drew outlines in the air as she described new items.
When she hesitated, he nodded and smiled encouragement. The new company would fit in nicely with the original one he’d acquired, with the help of a sizable inheritance from his grandmother, shortly after he’d graduated from college.
His grandfather had been furious, but Lance had made that business a success and therefore hadn’t had to accept any help from his only living relative. Only a sense of duty pushed him into visiting the old tyrant a few times a year.
For a second, he drifted back in time to those months when he’d thought his parents would come for him, when he’d believed in them with all his heart and soul. But his father had run off a bridge, his blood alcohol level twice that allowed by law, two months after the custody battle. And his mother…
The pain of the moment when he’d learned of her death swept over him. She’d died of pneumonia that winter, alone and forgotten by everyone but him.
From that day forward, he’d kept his feelings under wraps. He’d loved his grandmother, a gentle woman who’d tended her house and gardens with quiet joy, but he’d never let himself become dependent on anyone again—
God, he didn’t know why those old memories had returned to haunt him at this late date. At thirty-four, with nearly thirteen years’ experience behind him, he’d taken five failing companies under the CCS banner and made them into viable projects. He would do the same with this one.
None of the other five had been as interesting as this one promised to be, though. Perhaps because of the CFO and her brilliant mind and very feminine allure?
James had thought she should stick to balance sheets and leave the ideas to him. “She wants to put computers in toasters, for God’s sake,” the old man had said, shaking his head. He’d thought her ideas foolish because she’d wanted to make the appliances more versatile, to put computer chips in them to control the temperatures and cook times and make it possible to add features the old owner had never dreamed of.
Lance let his gaze drift over her as he listened, her lovely face filled with enthusiasm and energy. He liked her ideas and the way she challenged him, making him see the possibilities through her eyes.
Most of all, he liked being surprised by those little dimples that appeared when she smiled….
Chapter Three
Krista arrived at work thirty minutes later than normal, thanks to a flat tire. The low-slung red sports car was already in the CEO spot. Her heart thumped like a mad drummer, which quite annoyed her as she crossed the parking lot.
She halted with one foot on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. A sign was attached to a post supporting the cover over the red car. It had her name on it.
Frowning, she changed direction and went to the covered parking area. While there was space for two vehicles under the portico, no one had dared challenge James’s exclusive right to the middle of the spot. Lance had left plenty of room for another car.
Disgruntled at yet another change, she marched into the building and up the stairs. Her secretary gave her a warning glance when she arrived at the door of the CFO suite.
“Good morning, Tiff. Is something up that I should know about?” she asked, pausing by the other’s desk.
“Mason came in about fifteen minutes ago and headed straight for the big office.”
Krista was taken aback by this information. Mason in town was a surprise, and his being at the office was a shock, especially in light of the new ownership. “Trouble?”
Tiff shrugged. “Mason raised his voice once, but since then I haven’t heard anything.”
Krista nodded and continued into her office. After storing her purse in the credenza, she stopped in front of an ornate wall mirror and studied her reflection.
A tiny frown of tension was evident in two little lines between her eyes. She forced the muscles to relax.
This morning she wore one of her power suits, as Uncle Jeff’s wife Caileen called them. As a Family Services counselor, her aunt—step-aunt, actually, since Jeff Aquilon had been a brother to Krista’s and Tony’s stepfather—had helped her select clothing for the business image she’d wanted to project when she’d had to do a senior presentation in college.
Deciding against all black for her first day as the COO, she’d chosen black slacks with a gray pinstripe. The pinstripe had a touch of red running through it. The tailored blouse was also black, but the suit jacket was a buttery soft leather in brilliant power red.
She looked, she thought, like a woman who knew what she was doing, who knew where she was going—like a woman who was used to taking charge.
Fortunately, only she knew her knees were knocking.
Her intercom buzzed. When she answered, Tiff told her she was wanted in the CEO’s office.
Going into the corridor, she reflected that James had always opened the conference room door and bellowed her name so that it could be heard clear out to the parking lot. A polite request through the secretary was another change, one for the better, in her opinion. She hated yelling of any kind.
Before she reached the end office, she came face-to-face with Mason, who was leaving it. “Hello, Mason,” she said in a friendly fashion.
He stopped in front of her, his smile more of a sneer than a greeting. “My, you certainly move fast when you put your mind to it, don’t you?”
She tried to figure out just what his remark meant. When she’d first been promoted to head of the accounting department, the heir-apparent had tried to put a move on her, but she’d acted obtuse, as if she didn’t catch on that he was trying to start something.
Even at twenty-two, she’d known it was bad judgment to get involved with someone who could derail her fledgling career. There was also the fact that he didn’t appeal to her in any way, shape or form.
“I try,” she said lightly, assuming he referred to her now being the chief operations officer and aware that all around them others were straining their ears to hear what was being said between them. “I wasn’t sure you would be with us anymore.”
“Where did you think I would be?” he demanded in a definite snarl.
“I thought you might decide to retire and live the life of a rich playboy,” she told him, knowing he liked to imagine himself as a jet-setter.
“Not with my father controlling the purse strings,” he said, anger overriding the earlier sarcasm. “And now, you’re the one in charge. Maybe the new CEO will let you try some of your ideas.”
His tone implied he shared his father’s views of her notions. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” she said calmly.
He snorted and walked away whistling “Hail to the Chief.”
At times she would really like to give him a good smack across the mouth, she acknowledged, going into Thea’s office. “I understand Mr. Carrington wants to see me.”
Without answering, the secretary pushed the button on her phone set. “Krista Aquilon is here.”
“Ask her to come in, please,” Lance said politely.
Thea nodded at Krista.
As far as Krista could remember, Thea had managed to never call her by her title or even Ms. Aquilon, as if this was beneath her lofty position. Strange woman. Krista went into the inner office.
Lance rose and came to her, hand out. Krista shook hands with him, more than a little wary. Even so, she wasn’t quite prepared for the jolt of electricity that rushed up her arm and to all parts of her body.
Gray eyes flicked over her. “You look stunning this morning,” he said with an approving nod.
“Actually I was going for ‘person-in-charge’ rather than stunning,” she told him. “I blew it, huh?”
“You look like a person of immense authority,” he assured her. There was laughter in his eyes. “Coffee? I just made some—apparently Thea doesn’t do coffee—and it’s good, if I do say so.”
“Please, with one sugar.” She smiled when he did, a real smile, and felt some of the tension drain out of her shoulders as she took her usual chair at the side of the big desk. “I met Mason in the hall. For some reason, I assumed he would no longer be with the company.”
Lance settled behind the desk. They sipped the excellent brew in silence for a few seconds. “Did he give you any trouble?”
“Not really. He may have been a tad disappointed that he wasn’t named the COO.”
The new boss shrugged. “Then he should have shown some real interest in the company at some time during the past twenty years. If he gives you any problems, fire him.”
Krista nearly choked on her coffee.
Lance continued. “I felt like doing that this morning when he walked in here unannounced. He was supposed to have been here yesterday for the staff meeting.”
“He has a tendency to be late,” she explained. “Or not show up at all. I guess he thought he could continue his old ways. My secretary said she heard him raise his voice. If he was insubordinate, why didn’t you tell him to clear out?” The question was pure curiosity on her part.
“I told Heymyer I’d give everyone who wanted it a chance to stay on.” Lance’s dark eyebrows rose slightly. “You’re the boss. You say who stays and who doesn’t. If Mason doesn’t work out, then he goes. Although I wouldn’t toss anybody out on the first day,” he offered as a suggestion. “It’s unsettling for the other employees.”
“Mason’s the vice president—”
Lance shook his head. “The Heymyer officers are gone. You and I are the big bosses now.”
She did a mental double take on that idea. “So what’s his title?”
“Whatever you decide.” The winter-gray eyes bored right into her. “It’s your job to run the company, so that’s your call. I will need an organizational chart as soon as you can get one done so my people will know who’s who.”
After she’d absorbed Lance’s information, she asked, unable to keep the facetious tone completely under wraps, “And what will you be doing while I’m drawing up charts, checking production runs and making sure the company is running smoothly?”
“Envisioning the big picture, coming up with clever ways to integrate the operations and devising strategies to make it all mesh like clockwork.”
His grin was…sardonic? Definitely.
“Well,” she said, “that explains the division of labor. I’m so glad we had this chat.”
“You have a smart mouth, but that’s okay. I like a woman who speaks her mind.”
“Good, because I have a couple of hundred questions.”
For the next hour, they discussed the changes that would be necessary to save the business. It was obvious he’d had experience in smoothly melding new enterprises into CCS’s operations. Krista tried not to look too naively impressed by his acumen.
“We might move some parts of production to another location,” he told her, his eyes on the middle distance as if he could see those parts being transferred already.
“You said you weren’t shutting down here,” she reminded him with a fierce frown. “You said no one would lose their jobs, that we’re going to put the company back on track. That’s why I agreed to stay.”
“I’m not talking about shutting down, but things aren’t going to stay exactly the same. That’s why the company was going downhill—it was static.”
He held her gaze until she was forced to acknowledge the truth in his words. She sighed. “I know. Sorry. I’ll pull in my claws.”
He leaned toward her. “Sometimes claws are useful.” He lifted her left hand. Her nails were short and buffed to a shine rather than polished. “With these, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.”
Her skin burned everywhere he touched her. Maybe he didn’t have anything to worry about, but maybe she did. Shaking off the sensation, she continued their planning session.
“One other thing,” she said some time later, preparing to leave. “Someone put up a sign with my name on it in a parking space next to your car. Who authorized it?”
“I did.”
“Have it taken down. I already have a space I like.”
“You’re the COO. Don’t you think you’re entitled to a few perks?”
She was aware of his keen gaze on her as if she were some newly discovered pest under study. “Not that kind. It irritated me when I worked on the production line for the VIPs to assume they had more rights than anyone else. Even Mason, who was rarely here, had a reserved space.”
“So where are the signs now?”
She grinned. “When I became CFO, I told the executive staff there wasn’t money in the budget to replace the old signs when they needed repair. James agreed. After that, parking near the door was a perk only to those who got here early. It greatly improved the timeliness of the staff’s arrival.”
When he chuckled, she again found herself spellbound by the sound.
“What time do you usually come in?” he asked.
“Seven-thirty or thereabouts. I had a flat this morning, picked up a nail in a brand-new tire. There’s a lot of construction going on in my neighborhood.”
“Who changed the tire?”
“I did. My uncle says people need to be self-sufficient regarding minor emergencies such as flats. He taught us basic car maintenance and simple household repairs.”
“Smart man.” He paused, then added, “James said your mother died when you were a child.”
She heard the slight upward inflection and had to decide how much she wanted him to know about her personal life. “Shortly after I turned ten.”
“So you went to live with an uncle?”
Krista felt the familiar tightening inside, the shutting down of emotion when someone delved into her life. “Actually he was my stepfather’s brother. He took me and my brother Tony in as well as Jeremy, his nephew. Then Social Services found out and moved me and Tony to a foster home. They said the four of us couldn’t share a two-bedroom home. I slept on the sofa while Jeremy and Tony shared the spare room. At the foster home, Tony and I had our own rooms.”
“It wasn’t a happy experience,” Lance concluded, his expression becoming grim, as if he could see the unhappiness of those children.
Unwanted memories flooded her mind. She’d broken a plate at dinner one night. Her foster father had beaten her with his belt. She’d stared into the distance and imagined escaping, running to her mother. At one point she’d felt moisture on her legs and trembled with fear, not knowing what the man would do if she’d wet her pants. But it had been blood running down her legs into her socks.
That’s when Tony had sneaked out into the night and gone to their step-cousin for help.
Not wanting to disclose any emotion that those keen gray eyes would surely detect, she went to the window and gazed out at the desert land. “The foster father beat us, so we ran away with Jeremy. He was seventeen. We sort of lived off the land that summer. In the winter, Jeremy got a job at a grocery and we lived in an abandoned gas station that had had living quarters on the second floor.”
“How long did you live like that?” Lance asked, his voice fathoms deep with a stillness at its center that she found oddly comforting. His reflection appeared in the windowpane next to hers. His heat swept over her, all the way to the hidden place inside.
“We were caught the following summer on a ranch. The family there went to bat for us and we were returned to our uncle, Jeff Aquilon. He became our legal guardian, and we lived happily ever after.” She cast Lance a saucy grin to show him she was still living that good life.
His manner was thoughtful, as if he was connecting all the dots while he studied her. “You and your brother took your guardian’s name?”
“Well, he made it legal, but our mother started using Aquilon for all of us when she married his older brother.” Anticipating the next question of his very logical mind, she added, “My father walked out when I was a baby and Tony was three, so it’s the only name he or I have ever known.”
“I see. It must have been difficult, hiding out from the authorities all that time.”
She carefully held all the old emotion in check while planting a smile on her face. “Nah, that was the fun part. The hard part was getting up the courage to run away.”
“But you did it.”
“Because of Jeremy. He’s the one who figured out what to do. He took care of us, but he didn’t have to. He wasn’t kin to us by blood or legal ties. When his father, the oldest Aquilon brother, died, Jeremy came to live with us. About six months after my mother and stepfather divorced, my stepfather died in an auto accident, so Mom told Jeremy to come back to us. Jeff, the youngest of the three brothers, had been in the hospital at that time.”
Silence surrounded them like a blanket. Krista felt as if she couldn’t breathe, as if she were being smothered as the past pushed past her defenses and closed in on her.
Then a big, warm hand touched the back of her neck. Strong fingers massaged the tense muscles in her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I made you remember.”
The gentleness of his touch, the sympathy she sensed in him, caused her eyes to burn. But she’d learned long ago that tears didn’t help. She managed to shake her head as if it didn’t matter, to make herself not care. “Everything came out okay. Uncle Jeff got a bigger house, so that satisfied the family services people. When he married Caileen, who was the new counselor from the county welfare office, we became one big happy family. Caileen had a daughter, Zia, so I got a big sister out of the deal. That was nice.”
“Ten years old,” he murmured. “That’s an impressionable age. Things happen that can never be forgotten.”
His hand glided down her back, stopped at her waist. A need to lean into him, to feel his strength as well as his heat, alarmed her. It was time to end this conversation.
“Well, you don’t forget,” she admitted, stepping away from him, “but you move on.” She glanced at her watch. “Speaking of which, I’d better get those organizational charts done, then I have some ideas to run by two of the production managers about merging their lines.”
To her surprise, laughter erupted from him.
“Go for it,” he said.
Later, in her own office while waiting for a new spreadsheet to come up on her computer, she studied her hands. There was the faintest tremor in them.
In helping her practice for her presentation, her aunt Caileen had told her to act calm and assured in uncertain situations and it would follow that she would become calm and assured. With Lance Carrington, Krista wasn’t sure that would work. Something about him reached right down into her inner equilibrium and shook its moorings.
“What is going on over there?” Marlyn asked on Thursday when Krista met her for a quick lunch.
Krista smiled as her best friend’s expression mirrored the shock of other residents upon learning about the company changes. “Heymyer sold us out without a word.”
It was through Marlyn, whom she’d met in her freshman year at college, that she’d gotten the job with Heymyer Home Appliances. She and Marlyn had both used the work/study program to pay their way through school. They’d shared apartments, clothes and books during those years of work, study and counting pennies.
“And the new guy wants you to stay on?”
“Right.”
“I thought raiders always fired all the executives and put in their own people.”
“He asked me to stay six months, I guess to help with the transition. Then he’ll fire me.”
“You think?”
Krista shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not worried about finding a new job, but for others who’ve lived and worked their whole lives in this town, what happens to them?”
They both thought this over.
“His picture was in a big spread the paper did on him and CCS.” Marlyn tilted her head and studied Krista. “He’s only thirty-four. Rich and handsome.”
When she waggled her brows, Krista had to laugh. “He’s also strictly business.”
For the briefest instant, she recalled how she’d felt when he’d stood behind her at the window, as if he’d sensed the turmoil his questions about her past had caused. His touch had been comforting.
It had also been exciting, reaching right down and stirring something inside her. A hunger, she realized, a need for touching, caressing…for fulfillment.
Enough, already, she warned her libido, or whatever it was that kept sending forbidden longings through her.
“So how are things going with your business? Does everyone in town want the famous Marlyn Reynolds of Reynolds’ Interior Design to redo their homes?”
“Oh, yeah.” Marlyn sighed, then smiled. “Actually things are going well with business. I just wish I could say the same about my personal life. Or lack thereof.”
“Come on,” Krista said, “you and Linc are solid.”
“Are we?” Marlyn finished her salad and peered out the window at the mesas and rugged canyons cut by eons of wind and water erosion. “He called and said he wouldn’t make it home this weekend. I told him if he didn’t, not to bother coming at all, ever.”
“Marlyn, you didn’t!”
To Krista’s consternation, tears filled the other woman’s dark brown eyes. “I mean it, Krista. I’ve had it.”
“But you’ve loved him since third grade. You told me it was love at first sight for both of you.”
“Well, I saw him more in school than I have since we married. I’m tired of it.”
“You need to talk to Linc. Surely you two can work things out.”
There was a troubled silence. “I don’t know,” Marlyn admitted. “I’m not sure how I feel about Linc and marriage and making it as a couple anymore.”
Krista couldn’t conceal her shock. “Go to a counselor,” she urged. “Don’t give up, not without trying something.”
“I’ll think about it,” Marlyn said halfheartedly, “but I’ve been so miserable lately. I’m married and I’m lonely as hell. I have a husband I see only when he can work me into his schedule.”
Linc was a civil engineer. He worked for a big company that had a contract with the government for a new dam across a stream up in the mountains east of town. It was a two-hour drive over a winding road to get to town. He stayed in an RV trailer during the week and came home on weekends.
Sometimes, Krista added truthfully. Lately, he’d been tied up at work more and more on weekends. She could understand Marlyn’s grief with that.
“How can he know how you feel if you don’t tell him?” she asked with great practicality. “If you talk honestly with each other, that could help get your marriage back on track.”
She recalled those were the words Lance Carrington had used with her. Together they were going to get the appliance company “back on track.” Studying her friend, she thought things were changing in both their lives.
Change. One of the big C-words.
From her experience, change had often meant confusion—and chaos.
Chapter Four
Lance threw down the pen and looked at the clock. “Time to quit,” he said. “I think a fourteen-hour day is long enough, don’t you?”
Krista glanced at him, then back at the diagram she was working on. “Merging these two production lines will be much more efficient,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “I want everyone cross-trained so that each person can do every job. I want them to learn to work as a team, to cover for each other if one person is out sick…or needs to take personal time—”
“Earth to Krista,” he said loudly. “It’s time to quit.”
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Laurie Paige
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Brilliant and beautiful executive Krista Aquilon was shocked when the struggling appliance company she′d slaved over for years was sold in a surprise takeover bid. And even more surprising was her new billionaire boss, corporate raider Lance Carrington. Decisive and dominant, ruthless businessman Lance always put his work first. But as impressed as Lance was with Krista′s sharp financial mind and innovative ideas, there was another reason he couldn′t get his newest employee out of his mind.What sizzled between him and Krista was more tantalizing—and complicated—than any white-knuckled negotiation. Now it was up to Lance to make sure things weren′t strictly business…