Czytaj książkę: «The C.e.o. and The Secret Heiress»

Chapter One

France, December 9

“You are a work of art,” the groom-to-be said, and the words were definitely not a compliment for the bride-to-be. “You think the world revolves around you. Well, news flash, Brittany. It doesn’t!”

Brittany Lewis stared at Sean Briggs, the son of a top businessman in Paris, a man her father, Robert Lewis, had introduced her to six months ago. Sean—darkly handsome, gentle, fun, and the man she’d thought she loved until a few hours ago. Now, he looked like what he was, a stranger, a very angry stranger in a monochromatic gray suit and shirt, a stranger that she’d wish away in the blink of an eye if she had the power to do it.

Another wish would have been to go back in time and stop this fiasco before it began. But she couldn’t do that, anymore than she could cancel out any of her past mistakes. So she was doing the next best thing—canceling the engagement three weeks before the planned New Year’s Eve wedding in the old chapel on the grounds of the chateau just south of Paris.

“I can’t do this,” Brittany said, her tense voice echoing slightly in her father’s study on the ground floor of the chateau. It had been her favorite room until that moment. With its rich wood and leather, the scent of books all around, memories of sitting in here when she was little, reading while her father worked.

“What do you want me to do, go ahead and marry you, then destroy everyone’s life when it doesn’t work? Because it’s not going to work.”

Sean came closer to where she stood by the inlaid wood desk near the French doors. He was only two inches taller than her own five foot, ten inches, but she felt very small right then. He took a breath, making an obvious effort to talk rationally. “Can’t we rethink this and try to work it out some way?”

She knew the repercussions of her decision were going to explode all around her, and for a fleeting moment it was tempting to think of stopping it before it did. But she knew that things would only be worse if she let it go on. And it would hurt her father even more than this all would now. How could she have thought she loved Sean, that she loved him enough to marry him, to do the “forever” thing with him? “I don’t see how we can work this out,” she said, her voice sounding small and uncertain in her own ears.

But Sean wasn’t going to be put off. He came closer to her. “Brittany, love, this is a wedding. It’ll be fun, and we can deal with other things when they come up. It’s all in place, all arranged. And any arrangement can be worked out.”

Brittany felt fire stain her cheeks. An arrangement? And here she’d been worried about realizing that she loved Sean, but wasn’t “in” love with him, while he’d been looking at their wedding as an “arrangement?” Arrangement?

“Sweetheart, what did you think the prenup was all about? There’s a lot of money involved in this, the Lewis and the Briggs money. But just because we’re practical doesn’t mean that we can’t or won’t have fun, and a really good time.”

She stared at him. “Fun?”

He was even closer, his voice getting more and more intimate all the time. In his gray-on-gray shirt and suit, he looked even darker and even more like a stranger, a stranger she’d almost married. He didn’t touch her, but his gaze flicked provocatively over her, skimming over her loose cotton shirt, her jeans, all the way to her bare feet before it lifted to her face framed by her flaming hair drawn up into a simple ponytail. “You’re lovely to look at, even in these clothes. You’re intelligent, well connected, sexy as hell, and we can make this work.”

His words sank deeply into her. No wonder she didn’t love him. He didn’t even make a pretense of loving her. And she suddenly felt more bold, more justified in what she was doing. There wasn’t anger, just relief, and all she wanted right then was to have him gone. Her first broken engagement had been wrenching, filled with tears and pain, easing only with a trip to Switzerland for almost six months to forget her foolishness. Her second engagement had been easier to walk away from, after a flashing moment when she’d realized what a mistake she’d been making. Her then-fiancé had been almost as relieved as she’d been with the cancellation, and she’d gone off to enroll in art school in Vienna. But this was horrendous. Number three was not the charm, and Sean wasn’t giving up gracefully or any other way.

“We can’t make this work,” she said, trying very hard to keep her voice even.

“Tell you what, this is prenuptial nerves, and I think I know what to do. We’ll go away for a few days, someplace remote and private, and you can let me show you how good things can be. If we’re together, I know you’ll feel better.” His voice dropped. “Much, much better.”

She swallowed sickness at the idea of being alone with Sean. “No,” she said, shaking her head as she backed away and twisted the ring off her finger, a five-carat creation of diamonds and sapphires that felt like a millstone to her at that moment.

“Come on, Brit, everything’s in place.” His tone was starting to edge with exasperation now. He wasn’t used to not being able to talk a woman into anything he wanted. “It’s too late. Everything’s in place. All the invitations have gone out, the parties have begun and my mother’s got her gown on order from Dior.”

“I’m sorry about your mother’s gown, and everything else,” she said as she held out the ring to him. “It’s over. I’ll explain everything to the others. I’ll take care of it.”

His expression hardened with each passing second. “I guess you have plenty of experience doing that very thing,” he muttered.

“I said I’m sorry.” She opened her hand, offering him the ring on her palm. “Just take this.”

He reached for the ring, snatching it out of her hand, but he didn’t keep it. Instead he stared at her, then very deliberately dropped it in a leather trash container by her father’s desk. “That’s where it belongs,” he muttered, then turned on his heels, crossed the room and left, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him.

The sound cracked loudly in the study, followed by total silence for a long moment before the door opened again. Bracing herself, she looked at the door, afraid Sean was back for a second round, but her father was there. “I just passed Sean in the hallway.”

“He’s leaving.”

He stepped inside, a tall, slender man with a shock of white hair, wearing a dark suit he’d put on for what was supposed to have been an engagement dinner. “I take it it’s over?”

He’d always been able to read her mind, or maybe he just knew her too well. “Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry.”

“What was it this time?” he asked, closing the door quietly behind him as he came into the study. “What was the sign that came to you that told you not to get married?”

She turned from him, moving to the French doors and staring out into the early evening, across the stone terrace to the rolling hills of the centuries-old vineyard on the property. “I had a dream last night, and I couldn’t shake it. I knew this was all wrong.”

“A dream,” he said from behind her somewhere. “That’s a new reason. I laughed at the first excuse, the ‘he eats steak and animal products’ one, considering you’re a vegetarian and all. Not compatible at all, of course. Then the second time, there was the ‘it came to me in a blinding flash when I was getting fitted for my bridal gown’ reason. That was more dramatic, and who could ignore a blinding flash?”

“Dad,” she muttered, staring hard at the distant hills. “Daniel not only thought I was ridiculous for being a vegetarian, he raised beef, for heaven’s sake. At first I liked him too much to let it bother me, but then, well…And William, well, I just knew suddenly that it was wrong.”

He was right behind her now. “What a mess,” he said in a low voice.

“I wouldn’t exactly call this a mess,” she said quickly, but knew it was exactly that…a mess.

“Three broken engagements in four years,” he murmured. “A third wedding gown put in storage. I don’t know what you’d call it, but I’d say this is becoming a full-time job cleaning up the fallout, a real father-child thing, I guess.”

“I’m twenty-seven years old, and hardly a child,” she muttered.

“You could have fooled me.”

It had been just him and her for years, ever since she was nine and her mother had “gone away for the weekend.” The story of the small plane crashing in upstate New York, had made the news for days. He’d always been so supportive, so steadfast in being there for her no matter what she did. But this very real tone of disapproval shook her and she wasn’t all that steady to begin with at the moment. She turned, and he was sitting on the corner of the desk, his arms folded on his chest, his dark eyes studying her intently. “What did you want me to do, Dad, marry Sean and be miserable? To look at him in five years and wonder how I could have ever thought I loved him? I’m just thankful that I came to my senses before that happened.”

“What did you want to do?” he asked, answering her question with another question.

She bit her lip. “I wanted what you and Mom had, to be really in love, to know it and to have it forever.”

His expression tightened and, even after all these years, she could see a touch of pain in his eyes. “We were lucky, very lucky,” he said in a low voice. “The thing is, what are you going to do now? Another repeat of what just happened?”

“No, I’m no good at finding love. I know when to admit defeat.”

“Maybe that’s your problem. You’re looking for it. Maybe it has to find you.”

“Semantics,” she muttered.

“So what direction is your life going to take now that you’ve sworn off love?”

“Direction?” She had never thought about directions for life, just living it. “What do you mean?”

He raked his fingers through his thick hair. “Well, as you pointed out, you’re twenty-seven years old. Sane, at least in most things. Intelligent, or you should be after all your forays into higher education. Talented, if you applied yourself, and you’re my daughter. The genes have to be there somewhere.”

“Dad, I—”

“Shhh, just listen to me for a minute.” He stood and came closer to her. “I’ve made a decision. You either have to get direction for your life or I’m out of it. I probably should have done this before, but…” He sighed. “Better late than never, I guess.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Being an indulgent father, as if I could make up for your mother not being here for you. Giving you what you wanted, when you wanted it. Going along with everything you did or wanted. That’s over. I knew this thing with Sean wasn’t going to work. I could tell. So, I made some plans. You can take them or leave them. But know if you leave them, you’re going to have to make it on your own.”

“This is crazy. I’m just breaking an engagement, not doing drugs or embezzling from the company.”

“No, you’re just drifting. You’ve got a smattering of knowledge about a lot of things, but you don’t have any knowledge about accomplishment or challenges.”

She pulled out the high-backed leather chair at the desk and dropped down into it. She tugged her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, then rested her chin on her knees and looked up at her father. “Where’s this all going? You want me to get a degree in something? How about art? I could get a degree in that if you want. I can go to the university in the city, get into D’Angelo’s classes, take private lessons. I’ve got all the time in the world. How about three or four years? Is that what you want?”

“No.” He pressed his hands flat on the desk and leaned toward her. “Just six months, Brittany, six months to try it my way, and if it doesn’t work, you can take classes in art for years if you want.”

“Six months, to do what?”

“I’ve had a few phone conversations with Matthew Terrel at LynTech in Houston.”

They’d both accepted the fact ages ago that she was hopeless at business and wouldn’t step in to take over when he retired from the company he’d founded. That had been a great disappointment for him, but a truth. She didn’t have a business head. She didn’t care about business at all, but she cared about him, and LynTech had been very important to him ever since she’d been old enough to remember. “Terrel’s the guy that’s working with the other one, the one who was going to split up LynTech, then decided to stay on and develop the company?”

“Zane Holden and Matthew Terrel. Terrel is operating it at the moment, so he’s the one I contacted.”

“Why were you talking to him? Is there trouble at the company?”

“No, it’s transitional, but it’s doing fairly well,” he said. “I was talking to him about clearing it for you to go back to Houston.”

“What does this Terrel person have to do with me going back to Houston?”

“He’s going to set you up at LynTech to work. You are going to show up at nine and go home at five for six months. You’re going to make a difference. You are going to finally have more of a challenge than trying to figure out which art discipline is superior.”

She lowered her feet to the stone floor and looked right at her father. “Me, at LynTech?”

“Yes. You’re not going to run away this time. You’re going to work.”

“Dad, I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you, but that’s crazy. I’ll destroy the company in a week.”

“You’re not that good,” he said with the shadow of a smile as he stood back. “And I’ve got a feeling that Mr. Terrel won’t let that happen.”

“So, you want me to head to Houston, and let this man, Terrel, babysit me?”

The smile was getting a bit larger. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Dad, you’re in shock. I am, too. I mean, I know I’ve upset things. But to think that I should go and work at LynTech, well…” She almost shuddered. “That is not a good idea.”

“All I’m asking from you is six months of work and no engagements.”

She had always felt so independent, but she knew that she would never be independent of this man, of his good opinion of her, or the fact that she felt as if she’d failed him in so many ways. She knew she owed him so much. “Just go to LynTech?”

“And give yourself a break. Stay away from men, from situations. Give yourself a breather so you can really think about things. If you find out there isn’t a place for you there, then we’ll call it even, and you can go to any university you want and study anything you want to study.”

A break? Time to breathe and think? Even if this Terrel person was looking over her shoulder she could do six months. And for some reason she wanted to see Houston again. To see the house there. She hadn’t been back for over two years. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

She didn’t know what she expected. Him to smile, hug her, say he was happy? No matter what she thought, she didn’t expect him to hold out his hand to her. “We’ve got an agreement. Work, no complications. Agreed?”

She took his hand, and felt as if she was sealing her fate. “Agreed,” she whispered.

“Terrel is expecting you at two in the afternoon, Houston time, day after tomorrow.” He tapped her chin. “Don’t look so bothered. Just do your best. That’s all I ask.” He hugged her, and, as he stood back, he said, “We’ll talk in the morning and get things straight,” then he was gone.

Brittany slowly sank back in the chair again. Evening was coming, shadows creeping into the room, and in that moment, she felt very, very alone.

Houston, Texas, December 11

MATTHEW TERREL trusted very few people in his world. And he wasn’t going to start by trusting the man he had hung up on in his offices at LynTech. Welsh thought he was going to buy into the company on borrowed money, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Trust me,” the man had said three minutes ago. “I can make this work.” Matt had told him to rethink his offer, hung up and walked out of the office.

He went down the empty corridor on the executive level, went through his partner Zane Holden’s darkened office and right to the executive elevator. He relished the silence all around him, thankful for the lack of voices and no ringing of the telephone. Since Zane had taken off on his honeymoon right in the middle of the transition with the company, there had been no peace at LynTech, not for him, that was for sure.

Matt hit the button, stepped into the small elevator car, then pressed the button for the parking garage and leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes, shutting out his own image in the reflective doors in front of him. He shut out a large man dressed all in black, from the collarless shirt to the trim slacks, leather boots and black briefcase in one hand. He knew that his sandy-blond hair needed a trim, that the beginning of a new beard was starting to shadow his strong jaw, and that by all rights, his dark-blue eyes should be bloodshot from lack of sleep.

He exhaled, felt the car slide downwards and didn’t open his eyes until the soft chime announced the doors were going to open. He stood straight, raked his fingers through his hair, then as the doors opened, he stepped out into the cavernous parking garage. The heels of his boots struck the cement, the sound echoing off the low ceiling and thick walls as he started over to his car, one of very few left in the structure.

Peace. God, he craved it sometimes.

As a kid he’d been alone a lot, and most people thought that was why he’d gotten in such trouble back then, because he was a loner. That was only partially true. The fact was, he stayed away from his father, avoided his mother and had no brothers or sisters. He made his own way and didn’t want to change that. He didn’t have much that was permanent in his life. He neared the car he’d finally bought when he’d agreed to stay in Houston for a while to help Zane get the business grounded. The large black Jeep gleamed in the low light, riding high on heavy tires and with tinted windows. He’d sell it when he left.

He got within ten feet of the car, but stopped when he glanced ahead to the left. A security door in the back wall was ajar. The door shouldn’t have been open at all. There had been renovations going on, changing the original conference complex into an expanded day-care center, but that door was always locked. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone, punched in the number for security, and it was answered right away. No one was supposed to be in that area after five, and they’d send someone to check it out within ten minutes.

He told them to hurry, then shoved the phone back in his pocket, and started for the door himself. He knew what damage could be done in ten minutes, heaven knew he’d done enough damage in ten minutes when he was a kid. He approached the door, never a fan of confrontation, but more than able to take care of himself. He’d never developed a love for fighting, the way a lot of his old friends had, the friends who had ended up dead or in prison. But he could take care of himself.

He reached the door, pulled it farther back, hesitated as he looked into the broad hallway that lead to the center of the complex and saw nothing but shadows. He listened, then stepped inside. He knew the area by heart, a hallway with rooms off it, leading to a large central space with more private rooms off it, another hallway that led to the front of the building and the reception area. It was all being redone for the day-care center, with painting and restructuring. Right now it was in shadows. He felt for the wall switch, flicked it, but nothing happened.

He waited, then continued through the hallway, a faint glow coming from somewhere ahead. He went toward it. The smell of paint was heavy in the still air. He went farther, strange shapes materializing before him, something that looked for all the world like a tree of dark shadows. He was about to step into the large central area, nearing the tree-looking thing, when he sensed movement to his left. He spun around, and the next thing he knew someone was running into him, hands striking his middle and he was being pitched backwards.

Things he’d never forgotten from his misspent youth came back in a rush, and he grabbed at his attacker, catching at flailing hands, jerking the person back with him. He twisted and as they hit the floor together, he was on top with his body weight pinning his attacker under him.

“Fire, fire!” someone was screaming at the same time he realized that the hands he’d captured were fine-boned, and the body under his was slight, although tall, and the scent of flowers and something else were infinitely female. Soft, warm, breathing as rapid as his, and a woman’s voice still screaming over and over again, “Fire!”

The woman was twisting without stopping, and as his hold grew slack from shock, her hands were free and striking out at him. He let go completely, scrambling back to get out of reach of the stinging slaps on his face, arms and chest.

With a man it would have been different. He would have decked him. But a woman? He might have been a hoodlum when he was younger, but he’d never hit a woman and never would. So his only recourse was to try to grab at her hands again, to capture them to stop the blows. Despite the fact that he was battling a blurred shadow, he got the suggestion of wild curls, slenderness and real strength.

He grabbed for her hands, but before he could make contact, he was blindsided by someone on his left, the impact sending him reeling to his right, his head and shoulder striking an ungiving wall. He ignored the jarring impact, spun around, scrambling to his feet and took a punch to his middle.

As he lurched backward, he heard what sounded like a kid’s voice screaming at him. “Hey, you jerk, you let her go!” And the owner of the voice was running at him again. “You stop hurting her!”

Kids and women, Matt thought at the same time he managed to catch the kid by his shoulders and hold on for dear life while he managed to evade most of the punches and kicks coming at him. Then the woman was there too, grabbing at him, jerking hard on his arm, still yelling, and the madness of the moment seemed to be suffocating him.

The screams echoed all around him until his own screams were mixed with them. “Stop it!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, then pushed the kid away from him. He felt the wall behind him, relieved that he wouldn’t be attacked from the rear. “That’s enough,” he yelled, “That’s enough! Stop. I give up.”

There was a sudden silence as Matt managed to make out the shape of the child to his right, then the woman, not more than three feet in front of him. Even in the shadows, he could see her standing with both hands up, but not in surrender. She looked ready to deliver a karate chop as she spoke at a thankfully reasonable level in a husky, very female voice, “You’d better not move. Not one move.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Matt muttered.

The kid moved and Matt turned to protect himself, but instead of another blow being delivered, the kid turned on the overhead lights. The flash of brightness blinded Matt for a moment. Then he finally saw his attackers.