“Is that Mr. Stone?”
LDStone: Tonight.
Nadia closed her laptop with a snap. “Yes.”
“I can’t wait to meet him. Having him recommend you to us was such a blessing.”
An icy finger of unease traced a path down Nadia’s spine.
Coincidences happen.
“Lucas recommended me for this job?”
“Yes. And what a life saver that was since our chairperson had chosen to quit just hours before his phone call.”
That icy finger turned into a cold clenched fist.
You’re just letting Rand’s phone call rattle you. No one is out to get KCL or you.
But Rand’s warning echoed in her head. “If he betrayed you once, he’ll do it again.”
She took a deep breath. “Is there any chance we can get the committee together before dinner instead of after?”
Because she really needed to talk to Lucas and put her mind at ease.
Nadia knew she’d bowled over the committee with the amount of work she’d achieved in one short week.
But she couldn’t care less.
Well, okay, yes, she did care. Her success or failure in Dallas depended on her efforts. Not her father’s nepotism or his interventions. No one here would pick up after her if she made a mess of her life. And while that was scary in many respects, it was also strangely liberating and empowering. The possibility of failure didn’t terrify her the way it would have just a few weeks ago.
But she wanted—no, needed—to see Lucas. Her toe tapped impatiently as the elevator inched toward the fiftieth floor.
Lucas had somehow managed to get her the fund-raiser job, but how and why was still a mystery. Mary must have realized she’d leaked something she shouldn’t have because she’d clammed up and refused to offer more information when Nadia pressed her.
Finally the elevator doors opened. Nadia surged forward, but jerked to a halt midstep when she nearly crashed into Lucas’s housekeeper entering the cubicle.
“Hi, Ella. Is he home yet?” During her nine-week exile she’d become friendly with the woman.
“Hey, Nadia. He is and he’s expecting you. Shall I tell him you’re here?”
Nadia shifted her laptop case from one slick palm to the other. She hoped talking to Lucas would make the rolling-rocks feeling in her belly go away. “Could you just let me in? I’ll surprise him.”
Mischief twinkled in Ella’s brown eyes. “I guess I can do that. The caterers have already delivered your meal. The hors d’oeuvres are in the refrigerator and dinner is warming in the oven. Dessert’s in the freezer and it looks yummy. I’ve set the table. Mr. Stone said you’d feed yourselves. Would you like for me to come in and pour the wine?”
Nadia followed Ella back to Lucas’s door. “I can handle it. But thank you. I know you want to get home to your boys.”
“Before they wreck the place and eat everything that isn’t fur-covered and meowing.” The housekeeper punctuated the sentence with a smile as she turned the key and pushed the panel open. She stepped aside but didn’t follow Nadia in.
Ella had the life Nadia had wanted with Lucas. She had three young sons who ran her ragged with their school and sports activities, and Ella and her husband loved every minute of it.
“If you change your mind about me cleaning your apartment, just tell me or Mr. Stone and I’ll pop right over.”
“Thanks. I will. But I’m determined to show everyone that I can cook and clean for myself. So far, thanks to that list of tips you gave me that first week, I’m winning.”
“I understand.”
She couldn’t possibly. Because Nadia didn’t completely understand the postmortem games her father was playing herself. “Have a great night.”
“I will. You, too.” Ella waved and headed for the elevator.
Nadia let the door close behind her and dropped her satchel next to Lucas’s ostrich case beside the hall table. “Lucas?”
Silence greeted her. She checked the living room then the kitchen. Both were empty. She wandered down the hall toward his bedroom, her heels tapping on the hardwood floors. “Lucas?”
When she reached the door the sound of the shower filled her ears. A smile tugged her lips. She should join him.
But after the day she’d had, she’d rather unwind with a glass of wine first. She’d join him after that if he was still showering. She pivoted and headed for the kitchen. She found the corkscrew, opened the Zinfandel and poured a glass. The cool raspberry-flavored liquid rolled easily over her tongue and down her throat.
The man knows his wines.
She took a few more sips, poured a second glass for Lucas then headed for the bedroom. If she wanted to surprise him, she’d have to lose the noisy shoes. She kicked off her sandals by the hall credenza. After another sip of wine, she set down the glasses, peeled her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the glossy cherry surface. The movement set off an avalanche of mail that had been stacked on the far end of the table.
She jumped forward to catch the cascade, but only ended up scattering the pile far and wide. Kneeling, she collected the letters.
Andvari . The familiar name stopped her mid-reach.
The letter was addressed to D. Stone. Andvari, In C.D. Stone. Daniel.
With shaking hands she gathered the remainder of the mail and, swallowing the bile burning in her throat, she rose on unsteady legs and flipped through the stack of letters. One after the other was addressed to D. Stone, Andvari, Inc.
She hadn’t done an Internet search on Daniel Stone. She’d only looked for Lucas Stone.
Lucas had said he owned “a few” companies. Judging by the volume of mail, Andvari was apparently one of them. And if Andvari owned Teckitron…As if to prove her point, the only letter that hadn’t fallen off the table was from Teckitron’s CEO.
She wanted to open it and read it to see if it contained information on the purchase of KCL’s loans, but another envelope that had slid farther down the hall caught her attention. She took three shaky steps to retrieve it. Her hand stopped inches short and an arctic chill deluged her. The return address was Mardi Gras Cruising.
Dark spots danced in her vision.
Mardi Gras. The company poised to get everything Everett Kincaid owned.
All of KCL’s enemies tied to one man. Lucas Daniel Stone.
She had the proof in her hands that this was exactly what Rand had claimed.
A personal vendetta.
Very personal since her position was the one that suffered the most headaches from Andvari’s machinations. She had been the one to slog through sleepless nights and eighteen-hour days to find alternative providers for the supplies their cruise ships needed.
But why? Why would Lucas do this?
Her father may have broken up their marriage, but he’d given Lucas two million dollars. Two million that Lucas had apparently multiplied and used to make a very nice life for himself.
If it had been because he’d believed she’d betrayed him eleven years ago, then why up the stakes now and go after the entire company after he’d discovered the truth?
Why would her husband want to destroy her?
Did he hate her that much?
Ten
T he shower door flew open.
Startled, Lucas pivoted and opened his eyes.
“Nadia.” He’d missed her. More than he wanted to admit.
She stood outside the glass stall half-dressed and entirely too desirable in a skimpy peach-colored bra, a skinny, short skirt in a darker shade and bare feet. He grinned and opened his arms. “Going to join me?”
“You bastard.”
The words brought his gaze back to her face. Her furious face. She flung whatever she held in her hands at him. It took him a second to identify the items raining down.
Letters?
He killed the dual shower heads with a twist of his wrist.
An envelope addressed to Mardi Gras circled the drain.
Damn.
She’d found the stack of mail his assistant had left in the entry for him—a stack he hadn’t dealt with yet because he wanted to shower away the jet lag first and he wasn’t expecting Nadia for hours. Ella must have let her in.
“Nadia—”
“Don’t you dare ‘Nadia’ me, you lying son of a bitch.”
“I can explain.”
“How can you explain making my life a living hell? You started eleven years ago and then repeated the process over and over for the past four years and again this week when your stupid company bought up KCL’s loans. Did you ever once think of me or were you in this for your own personal gain the entire time? Or is Rand right? Is this a personal vendetta?”
Rand was on to him, too?
“You are a selfish sadistic prick, Lucas Daniel Stone. And it sickens me that I named my son after you.”
Her words hit him like a fist to the gut, winding him, making his head spin. He braced a hand against the cool tiles. She’d named their son after him. Knowing that made the loss more real.
She didn’t hang around for him to catch his breath or recover his wits. She spun and stalked out of the bathroom.
Stepping over the wet mail, he grabbed a towel from the rod, hitched it around his h*ps and took off after her. He caught up with her by his front door. She’d put on her shirt, but hadn’t tucked it in. One hand held her briefcase and the other clenched the doorknob in a white-knuckled grip. She yanked the door open.
He slapped a palm against the wood slamming it closed again. “Nadia, let me explain.”
Although how he’d make her understand the need to destroy her father, or her family in lieu of Everett , escaped him at the moment.
“Get away from me. I don’t ever want to see you again.” Pure venom dripped from her words. But the quiver in her voice and her bottom lip called her a liar.
He’d hurt her. The knowledge sliced his chest like a knife. He lifted a hand to her cheek. She flinched out of reach and swung her briefcase at him. He dodged and let his hand drop.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“You’ve done nothing but hurt me. You show me how good something can be then you take it away. And this time, you deliberately set me up. You made love to me and you made me love you all over again. At the same time you were plotting to take everything important to me away. Again.”
She loved him. And she wasn’t lying. The bruised look in her eyes confirmed her statement. He sucked a breath through the noose squeezing his throat.
“My vendetta, as you call it, was against your father. Not you.”
“He’s dead! And now, so are my feelings for you.”
A lie. She’d screamed the words at a spot past his left shoulder.
She had that closed look on her face. But he had to find a way to keep her here until he could fix this. Because he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. “What are you going to do? Run back to Miami and hand it all to me on a platter?”
Her spine snapped straight. Her chin hiked and her eyes found and burned his like lasers. “Bastard.”
She had no idea how true that was.
“You’re better than that, Nadia. Stronger than that. Show me the guts and the smarts of the woman who outmaneuvered me at every turn when I bought up KCL’s suppliers. Show me the fighter inside you. I know she’s there.” His shoulders were so stiff it’s a wonder he didn’t dislocate something when he feigned a casual shrug. “Unless you’re willing to cost your brothers everything.”