by Tessa Radley
“If any of you refuses to put Kingdom first—and fails to show loyalty to me—you’ll forfeit the right to stock in Kingdom and immediately have to clear out your desk and be escorted off the premises by security.” Kingston’s eyes were colder than the ice that covered the Hudson River in mid-winter. “You will no longer be welcome in my business, in my home...or in my life. You will cease to exist.”
The air whooshed out of Georgia’s lungs, as terror blinded her.
“I’m not going to be a part of this insane scheme, Father.” Charis’s eyes burned great dark holes in her pale face.
Georgia was startled by the sudden urge to give her sister a hug. Neither of them had ever been the touchy-feely type.
“You can split your stocks between Roberta and Georgia however you choose.” Charis stormed past them to the door. “Because...I quit.”
* * *
Georgia was aware of a ghastly hollow feeling of rejection in the pit of her stomach.
Nothing would ever be enough to make her father proud of her.
Even if she hadn’t lost her mind, along with a chunk of her memory, on that disastrous night a little over two years ago when she’d discovered Ridley in bed with another woman.
Even if she’d been perfect.
Unable to help herself, she blurted out, “You don’t believe I can run and manage the Kingdom brand, do you, Kingston?”
Roberta leaned forward to murmur, “He doesn’t think any woman can run his precious Kingdom!”
But Georgia couldn’t summon up a smile. There was only a deep, aching hurt—and endless bewilderment.
What about Jay’s role in this? They spent all their working hours arguing, negotiating, talking about every single facet of Kingdom’s business, but he hadn’t been watching her back. He’d been in on her father’s plan...and he hadn’t tipped her off.
How could she have allowed him to render her so vulnerable? She’d grown lax and complacent. She hadn’t even seen this ambush coming.
“What does Kingston think we’ve been doing all these years?” she said softly, for her sister’s ears alone.
Roberta shrugged. “Who knows? He’s always thought women are nothing but pretty decorations.”
“That’s not true!”
Roberta gave her a long look, and then shrugged again. “At least I had a break from working with him every day while I was in Europe. But you and Charis...” She flipped back her strawberry-red hair with her hand. “I don’t know why the hell I ever came back to New York.”
Georgia’s gaze flickered to her father. But he wasn’t paying them any attention. Already on his feet, his face scarlet, he headed toward the exit, chasing after their younger sister with Marcia tottering in his wake.
“Charis!” he bellowed through the open set of double doors. “Get Charis, Marcia. Fetch her back!”
Her father’s PA scuttled to do his bidding, and he swung around. Georgia fell back at the ugly fury on his face. “After everything I’ve done for her!”
It hurt to acknowledge that Charis had always been her father’s favorite...
A strange croak sounded.
Georgia stared at her father. Where his face had been red moments before, now it had turned ashen. He clutched at his chest.
Her breath caught. “Father...?”
As she watched, his knees crumpled.
“Jay, help him!” Georgia shoved back her seat and rushed around the table.
Jay got there first, grasping Kingston beneath his shoulders as he sank to his knees on the carpet.
“The resolutions...” her father gasped.
“Stop worrying about the company,” Georgia said.
“Who’s going to look after Kingdom if—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.” Fear caused her voice to crack. “Don’t even think it.”
Kingston Kinnear was immortal—a living legend. He couldn’t die.
Her father was struggling to say something.
“Please. Don’t talk.”
“I’m not going to die.” A groan. “I’m more worried about...a takeover.”
Georgia bit back her response. She should’ve guessed he considered himself immortal. “There’ll be no takeover. We’ll take care of—”
His next moan struck terror into her heart.
“Oh, no!” She dropped down next to him, panic making her breathless. His pasty skin had broken into a sweat.
Then Roberta was beside her.
Their father lay on the carpet. Jay had helped him onto his side and was pushing his jacket open, ripping his tie undone.
“Oh, God, he’s having a heart attack!”
Roberta’s gasp rooted Georgia to the ground. Her brain stopped working. All she could think was that she hadn’t done the first aid course she’d sent the rest of the administrative staff on—because she hadn’t had time. She should’ve done it...then she’d have known what to do—instead of kneeling on the sidelines like some kind of lost soul.
“Roberta, can you get his cuff buttons undone and check his pulse?” Jay instructed her sister.
Jay looked as coolly competent as ever—which only made Georgia feel more inadequate. She was falling apart at the seams, and he was as steady as a rock.
She looked around wildly. “Can anyone help with CPR?”
“He doesn’t need it yet—he’s breathing.” Jay’s fingers had moved from her father’s wrist to hover over his mouth.
“Oh.” She hadn’t even known that. Her sense of helplessness increased.
“Call an ambulance,” Jay instructed, his hand still over her father’s mouth.
Frozen, she couldn’t take her eyes off Jay’s fingers. Was he still breathing? Georgia didn’t dare ask.
“Call now,” Jay ordered.
Adrenaline surged through her. She shot to her feet and hurried over to where her cell phone still lay on the boardroom table beside the Montblanc pen her father had given her for her twenty-first birthday.
Daddy.
It was a silent scream. The shaking was worse than before, and her fingers fumbled as she attempted to grasp the phone. He hadn’t been Daddy for decades. Kingston at work—which was most of the time. Occasionally Father. But never Daddy.
The glass face of her phone swam before her. She was crying. Dammit! A tear dripped onto the screen. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely punch the emergency dial button.
She couldn’t fall apart. Not now.
Not when Kingston—the only real parent she’d ever known—was about to die.
Three
Jay paused in the hospital lobby as he spied Georgia’s unmistakable silver-blond hair. She was tucked up in the farthest corner of a space that doubled as a coffee shop and gift shop.
If he hadn’t been so concerned about her, he might have chuckled. He’d known he would find Georgia in the coffee shop, driven by her craving for the mule-kick of caffeine. Black gold, she called it.
He took his time studying her. She’d pulled a short black blazer over that sexy saint-and-sinner vintage YSL blouse. The stark color made her hair look like sunlit-silver in contrast. A coffee mug sat less than three inches away from her right hand. It appeared empty. In front of her, her laptop stood open, and she was hunched down behind the dull silver lid.
Working...even in this time of crisis.
Then his gaze took in her motionless fingers against the keyboard.
No. Georgia wasn’t working.
She was hiding, Jay realized. Using her computer to block out the world.
Pity filled him.
She hadn’t spotted him yet, so he detoured to the counter laden with bunches of flowers to order a couple of double-espresso shots. He suspected it was going to be a long night.
She looked up as he wound his way through occupied tables, her norm
ally clear sky blue eyes clouded by worry.
The unexpected air of fragility that clung to her tugged at Jay’s heart. “May I join you?”
A range of complex emotions flickered in her eyes, including the animosity that often sparkled there. “Would it make any difference if I said no?”
Their intermittent sparring had been going on since the day she’d returned from sick leave after her car accident to find him ensconced in the office beside hers—the office that had belonged to Good-riddance Ridley. His predecessor had done him no favors. It had taken Jay less than a day to realize that she considered him the latest in a series of yes-men hired by her father to usurp the place she one day expected to accede to. A competitor. A threat. He should’ve handed in his notice and quit then and there, and let her legendary father hire someone else to drive her crazy.
But he’d never been a quitter.
“Tell me to leave, if you’d rather be alone.”
She hesitated, and then let out a sigh. “Actually, I’m not sure that I want to be alone.” Georgia shut the lid of her laptop and slid it into the black patent leather Kingdom tote perched on the seat beside her. “Roberta’s taken Marcia home. And I haven’t been able to reach Charis to let her know Kingston...um, father...has had a heart attack.”
“We don’t know for certain that it was a heart attack.” Jay pulled out a chair, sat down and placed the two cups on the table between them, while he searched frantically for appropriate words of comfort. “The EKG looked good. And the first round of blood tests indicated that his enzyme levels were normal—let’s wait for the next set of tests before we jump to conclusions.”
“There’s definitely something wrong.” Her expression was bleak. “He collapsed.”
Jay wanted to let her drop her head against his shoulder and pull her close into his embrace, until her face hid in the junction between his collar and his ear. There, he knew, she would find sanctuary. She would tremble, and the tears would come...as they had once before...and no one would ever know of her pain.
Except for him.
He’d held her during a night she’d never remembered, during a night he’d never told anyone else about—not even Georgia. On Jay’s first day at Kingdom International, he’d promised himself he would never touch her...not until she remembered that night. But she never had. Jay had known he had to tell her about that night, but it had gotten harder to come clean with each passing day he spent working with her.
There was a permanent entry in his monthly task list: Buy Coffee & Tell Georgia the Truth Today. Yet, every month he moved that sole uncompleted task forward to the next month. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because he was a coward. So this last month, he’d added a second drawn-in-sand deadline to the daily deadline he’d avoided for too long: to tell her the truth before he went on leave. And now that deadline was almost upon him.
But how the hell was he supposed to burden her with the truth now? With her father’s life still in danger?
Maybe tomorrow...if Kingston’s prognosis was good.
Finally, he said, “He’s going to be okay.”
She glanced around and, apparently reassured that no one at the nearby tables could overhear, she responded, “We don’t know that.”
Jay nodded, acknowledging the emptiness of his clumsy platitude. “We’ll have a better idea once the chest X-rays are done.”
She let out a breathy sigh, despair darkening her eyes. She reached for the nearest cup and took a long sip of the richly aromatic liquid before setting it down. “Back in the boardroom, I thought he was dying.”
He could tell that soft heartfelt admission to him had cost her.
“Your father is as tough as boot leather.”
Jay couldn’t bear to see her like this...hurting. She always took care to appear capable and in control. “He’s a fighter. He’s not going anywhere—and especially not until the annual general meeting has been held.”
Georgia choked. “I hadn’t even thought about that. When will—”
“Don’t worry. Your father has.” Back at the office, as the gurney had been wheeled past, Kingston had reached out from under his blanket to grab Jay by the jacket. “I’ve been tasked with making sure Jimmy and Norman are back at work tomorrow.”
The smile he’d half hoped for didn’t appear.
“Roberta and I—”
Jay halted her with the shake of his head.
“You’re both under enough strain at this time.” He thought better of telling Georgia to let up on being the control freak for once in her life. The mocking humor he normally employed to make her examine her decisions—and make sure he kept his distance—would be out of line. “Take whatever help you can get.”
Her chin lifted, and she pushed back a silver strand of hair. “Kingston wouldn’t.”
“You’re not your father.”
Georgia gave him a narrow-eyed look. She prided herself on being a chip off the old block. It made Jay want to shake her. She was worth ten of the icy man who rarely noticed her—and who certainly never listened to her. She could be so goddamned blind!
Her father could learn a thing or two from her.
“I keep getting nightmarish flashes of what happened. He was ranting one moment, furious as only he can get. The next, he was on his knees. I’ve never felt so helpless.” Georgia dropped her face into her hands. “I can’t imagine going to work at Kingdom without him there.”
Again, Jay ached to put his arms around her, draw her close. But he knew she’d hate that he’d seen her so vulnerable. So, he did what he knew worked best: he leaned back...and waited.
At last, her hands fell away from her face, and she straightened. Jay could see her silently lambasting herself for showing any weakness.
“Jay, what if he needs surgery?” The words came out in a rush.
“Whatever he needs, he’s in the right place to get it.” He forced a grin. “His recovery is going to be hell. He’s going to be a first-class pain-in-the-ass patient.”
“Oh, God.” Georgia looked appalled. “You’re no help.”
“I’m a great help—you couldn’t do without me.” He winked at her.
That look of haunting helplessness faded to be replaced with a glint of irritation.
Much better. He could tolerate blue sparks of annoyance...anything was better than that desolate little-girl-lost look.
“If you wanted to help, you’d offer to take care of him yourself.” She took another gulp of coffee.
“No, thanks. Kingdom couldn’t afford the danger pay I’d demand.”
She choked.
“But you could hire someone else to do it,” he suggested.
She set the cup down. “Then they’d need danger pay!” A flush of shame slid across her face, dousing the spark of amusement that had lit her eyes for an instant. “I shouldn’t be joking. Surgery always carries risks. What if...” Her voice trailed away.
Jay instantly stopped grinning. “We don’t even know that he’s going to need surgery. They’re still running tests.”
“I know. I know. I shouldn’t be jumping ahead. But it’s awful being so powerless. All that chaos and then...nothing. I detest this waiting.”
Georgia was used to dealing with crises on a daily basis—and solving them. Sitting around like this would be driving her nuts.
“I know this is hard for you,” he said softly.
Her eyes flooded with emotion. Jay glimpsed fury...and fear. For a brief moment, her bottom lip quivered. Then she squared her shoulders.
“I’ve just remembered.” Her tone was brisk, the chink of vulnerability vanquished. “You wanted to meet after the annual general meeting. We could do that now. What did you want to discuss?”
He’d planned to tell her about the night that they’d first met.
Placing one hand on top of hers, J
ay discovered her silken smooth skin was unexpectedly cold to his touch. Was she in shock?
“Georgia, it can wait.” No way was he about to dump that on her now.
Beneath his hand, her knuckles grew rigid. “But—”
He laced his fingers through hers, and cupped his free hand over the top of their intertwined fingers. He’d just broken his promise to himself not to touch her. There was a tightness in his chest.
He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Everything can wait until we have more definitive word on your father’s condition.”
“You’re right.” Her hand convulsed under his. “You’ve been a rock, Jay. Thank you for coming—for asking the doctors all the questions Roberta and I were too scared to voice. And thanks for the coffee.”
Her eyes, naked and exposed, sought his; Jay felt the jolt of impact right to his toes. Her thanks made him feel like the worst kind of fraud. But he couldn’t bring himself to lighten the mood, to joke about watering down her coffee. He was too hyper-aware of her hand cradled within his larger hand, of the silkiness of her skin, of her unexpected vulnerability—and the shame of his own deceit.
On a soft exhalation of breath, she said, “Most of all, thank you—thank you!—for saving my father’s life. I can never repay that.”
He didn’t want her gratitude. He was a jerk. An utter jerk.
He looked at their hands, linked together. He should never have touched her. Not until she had all the facts. God! What would happen then? After that, who knew if she’d ever let him this close again?
And who would blame her?
Shutting that miserable thought out of his mind, Jay did what he always did—sought escape from a wretched situation in humor.
“I never thought I’d be using Kingston as a dummy model for my first aid refresher course.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Another coffee?” But he didn’t really want to get up, because then he’d have to let go of her hand.
Beep. Shaking her hand free of his, Georgia leaped for her phone, her eyes frantically scanning the text message. When she looked up, the wild panic had returned to her eyes. “He’s back from X-rays. I have to go.”
