by Addison Fox
Why are you doing this?
Why can’t you see reason?
Why are you so insistent on this stubborn, unrealistic path?
The same questions flashed in the dark depths of Keira’s eyes.
“I don’t have to explain anything.”
“After all we’ve shared, that’s all I get?”
“I make my own decisions and I stand by them. In the end, that’s all that matters.”
“Even when it hurts the ones you love?”
“Why does it always come down to that?” The words ripped from his throat and he’d be damned if he’d feel bad for them. “Why am I judged for my actions and not for who I am? I never made any bones about who I was or what I wanted. I want your company as a business investment. I want you as a man wants a woman. Now I’m the villain in this set piece and it’s more than a little hypocritical to start getting upset about it.”
“You’re right,” she said simply before moving toward her closet, dragging his shirt off as she went. When she reemerged a few moments later, she had on a smaller T-shirt that fit to her frame. She extended her hand and as he grasped the shirt, the material was still warm from her body. “Here. You’ll need this to leave.”
Chapter Twelve
“Do you have a minute?”
Keira glanced up from her computer screen to see Sally standing in her doorway. “Of course. Come on in. You’re early this morning.”
“I could say the same for you.”
Although she had spent another sleepless night and desperately craved rest, Keira had gotten to work at the crack of dawn once again. “It’s amazing how motivating the chance to avoid small talk can be. The halls were blessedly empty when I walked in.”
Sally took the chair opposite her desk. “The phone will be ringing soon enough.”
“Too true.”
A glance at Sally’s face, and the clear evidence she was struggling with something, had Keira up and out of her chair. “Sally. What’s wrong?”
“I think I owe you an apology.”
“What can you possibly owe me an apology for?” Keira leaned down and wrapped an arm around the woman who had been as much a substitute mother as a professional sounding board.
“Camryn confided in me about your conversation last night at the event.”
If it were anyone else, she might have been tempted to get upset, but Sally was a part of them, and she was as much a mother figure to Cam and Mayson as she was for Keira. “About Mom and Dad?”
“Yes.” Sally nodded. “I’m afraid I’ve painted your mother as some sort of paragon and that’s not fair. Not right. I loved her like a sister, but I never understood her choices when it came to your father.”
Keira took the seat next to Sally and patted her arm. “The truth is, I never did, either. I loved her. Love her still. But I can’t respect how she stayed in her marriage to Dad. And I certainly don’t respect the choices he’s made with his life.”
Sally brushed at a lone tear before she pressed a hand to Keira’s. “Don’t make her mistakes. Fight for the love you believe in and understand when it’s okay to walk away.”
Keira couldn’t hold back the slight tease. “So is that stay with Nathan or walk away?”
Sally’s husky laugh confirmed the worst of the storm had passed. “I’m not going to make it that easy on you. What do you want?”
“I want him and I want to make a life with him. More than anything, I want that.” She fought to hold back the sigh because the older woman’s gaze conveyed such love and warmth and support. “But I can’t be with someone who can’t accept his own ability to love. And the responsibilities that come with that love.”
…
The dull roar of the lunch crowd ebbed and flowed around him like a wave, but Nathan heard none of it. He was so wrapped up in his misery, a tank could have driven clear through the center of Le Cirque and he’d likely not have noticed.
“Nathan?” Holt called his name. “You with me, buddy?”
“Of course.” He took a bite of salmon, the normally exquisite dish dry and bland on his tongue.
“I closed two more tenants this week on the Vegas property despite you flaking out on our dinner with one of them. You’ve nearly sold out the first level of the promenade.”
“Excellent work.”
“Thanks. And just so you know, your enthusiasm is contagious.”
“You wanted to have a briefing. I’m briefed. Next topic.”
“How are things going with McBride?”
Nathan laid his fork over his plate, indicating his completion of the meal. “That one’s off the table for discussion.”
“I’m putting it back on. You knew the press was going to have a field day with this the moment word got out you and Keira were an item.”
“And with my father’s voice added to the mix, the story is too juicy to resist.”
“So make a statement and cut him off at the knees. It wouldn’t be the first time the two of you were adversaries in the press.”
Nathan folded his napkin and rested it next to his plate. “I’m waiting until after the board votes on the takeover.”
“Make a statement now. You care for her, don’t you?”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
Holt’s harsh bark caught the attention of a few nearby diners. “That’s seriously the angle you’re taking on this one?”
“There’s no angle, Holt. It’s the truth.” He stood and dropped several large bills on the table. “I need to leave.”
Whatever else Holt Turner might be, good friend sat at the top of the list. “There are ways around this if you want to change course.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
…
Nathan stomped to his car, his lunch with Holt only adding to his irritation with the day instead of assuaging it. He’d only agreed to meet in the hopes the news of the Vegas property’s development would make him feel better.
It hadn’t.
“Sir.” His driver nodded as Nathan approached the car. The man looked distinctly uncomfortable, a pained expression filling his normally bland face. “You have a guest.”
“Where?”
“In the car, sir.”
“Why’d you let anyone get in?”
The door flew open and Booth stared up at him, a cocky grin riding his features. “Nice lunch?”
The urge to drag Booth out of the car and wage a pitched battle right on the sidewalk played out in a hard, satisfying series of images in his imagination.
“Quit being an ass and get in, will you?” When Booth’s smile fell and what looked to be real, honest compassion filled his brother’s eyes, Nathan reconsidered and got in the car.
“What do you want?”
“I want to understand why you’ve ruined the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Keira and I are on opposite sides of a problem that can’t be solved.”
“Nope. Not buying it.”
“You don’t have to buy it. It’s the truth.”
“Then answer a different question. Why are you letting Dad have a field day shitting all over your relationship with Keira?”
Nathan turned toward his brother, the urge to pummel him rising to the fore once more. “You know, you’re doing it again.”
“What’s that?”
“Talking like you know anything.”
“I know far more than you think I do. I live with West Harrison’s influence each and every day.”
“As his legitimate son, Booth, not as his bastard!”
The explosion caught him so off guard, Nathan sat back and leaned his head against the dark leather of the plush seat. He’d never meant to say that, hadn’t even known the thought was inside before it came out in a haze of anger and disappointment.
“You’ll never win his approval, Nathan. No one can.”
He shot Booth a sideways glance without lifting his head from the seat. “Come on. You’re the chosen one
.”
“No, I’m just the unlucky SOB who got stuck with him. Which is why—” Booth sat forward. “I can’t allow you to let him win.”
“He’s not winning.”
“Can you really and truly tell me you want to take over McBride Media?”
And with that one simple question, his brother had shot to the heart of his dilemma.
…
Keira walked back to her office with a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. The day had dragged on interminably, despite two meetings with legal on the Jupiter Auto issue and a budget planning meeting that had taken more than two hours.
Heavy footsteps thudded on the plush carpet and she heard her name echo down the hall. “Keira!”
She turned to find her assistant, tottering on a pair of sky-high heels and out of breath from running.
“Stacy. What’s the matter? And why are you running?”
“There’s a massive TV crew in the lobby and they’re here for you.”
“Well, I’m not going down there.”
“Nathan Cooper is there, too.”
Mayson ran down the hall to join them. “Nathan’s downstairs.”
“So I heard.”
Barely winded, her sister put her hands on her hips in an expectant gesture Keira had seen throughout her life. “Well, get down there.”
“I’m not giving him the satisfaction.”
“He brought the crew, Keira.” Stacy’s words punctuated the sisterly standoff.
“What?”
“Nathan brought the film crew. He says he has an announcement.”
“The takeover didn’t go through.” Mayson’s face fell. “It couldn’t have.”
“No, it couldn’t have,” Keira quickly reassured her, even as she wasn’t sure she was correct. Was her here to gloat? To rub in her face that he’d moved forward with the takeover, despite what was between them?
Or had been between them.
Besides, someone would have told her and Camryn and Mayson. Right?
The flash of fear vanished as she realized what would happen if the worst did come to pass and they lost McBride Media.
They’d start a new company and build it from scratch. What she couldn’t build was a new relationship with Nathan. She used to think McBride Media was everything. Now she finally understood just how wrong she had been.
“I guess I’d better get down there.”
…
Nathan had never fully appreciated his status as a mover and shaker in the New York business community until he managed to assemble every major news crew in less than an hour.
Of course, Booth had helped, but Nathan wasn’t planning on telling him that.
“Are you sure she’s coming?”
“Yep.”
“With her sisters?”
“No, Nathan, I’ve been lying for the last hour about securing Camryn McBride’s help.”
The urge to strangle Booth had hit him a few times in the last few hours as they’d pulled together a plan. Despite the annoyances, Nathan had to give his brother credit. The man did have a sense of the dramatic. And it was Booth’s idea to use the lobby of the McBride Media building for what he was about to do.
“You look like hell, you know that.” Booth slapped him on the back before gesturing toward a podium the building manager had procured from somewhere in the bowels of the building. There was still a layer of dust on the top. “I am definitely the better-looking brother.”
“Screw off.”
“And I’m the nicer one, too.”
Nathan shot him a dark look before moving to the microphone. Shouts rose up from the crowd and Nathan didn’t miss the gaping stares of curious onlookers as they shuffled around the perimeter of the lobby.
“Mr. Cooper! Are you here to make it official?”
He lifted his hands in a quieting gesture, pleased when the assembled reporters stopped shouting immediately. “It’s only fair that I make my announcement with the McBride sisters present.”
Whispered murmurs floated through the lobby once again as heads immediately turned to look for the women.
And then the press quieted as the three women stepped off the elevator. Camryn and Mayson came out first and he could see Keira following behind. The wall of reporters parted for the trio and as he stared at Keira, Nathan knew he’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
Why had he been so stupid? And would his actions be enough to fix what he’d ruined through stubborn arrogance and injured pride?
“Now that Keira, Camryn, and Mayson McBride are here, I’d like to begin.”
Keira’s dark gaze never moved from his as he began speaking, and Nathan took a small measure of hope that it meant she still cared.
“There have been some very recent allegations from my father. In addition to meddling in my business affairs, my father felt it was his right to make some rather crass suggestions about my relationship with Ms. McBride. A relationship that I thought, rather erroneously until recently, was something I could keep separate from my business decisions.”
A light rumble of voices murmured through the crowd at the evidence he was going to hit the issue head-on.
“The McBride sisters have brought their family business back from the brink of failure. A once-thriving media conglomerate, it was nearly demolished by poor decision making over a period of two decades. But in half that time, Keira, Camryn, and Mayson McBride have restored the company to its former glory.”
He paused for a moment, allowing the praise to hover in the minds of the assembled reporters.
“I thought I could sweep in and take the company, parceling it off as I’ve done for most of my career. And up until earlier today, I was planning on doing just that.”
The crowd erupted again in loud whispers at the evidence of his change of heart, but it was the questions in Keira’s eyes that kept him pushing forward.
“I am no longer interested in buying McBride Media, but I’m not interested in allowing someone with the same business plan as me to step in and attempt the same. Therefore, it is my great pleasure to announce Maverick Capital’s revised investment strategy with respect to McBride Media. No longer an acquisition target, McBride Media is an investment target. The McBride sisters, with an equal distribution of shares, will be loaned enough money to purchase a majority of holding stock in their company.”
Keira’s eyes widened as a smile spread across her face.
Nathan shot Booth a quick glance. “In closing, I can only be grateful for some recent financial advice that suggested I’d be far smarter to invest in McBride than to buy it outright.”
With a nod to the crowd, he asked, “Are there any questions?”
…
Keira raised her hand at Nathan’s invitation to questions.
He pointed at her, his tone serious even as a smile played around the corners of his mouth. “Yes?”
“What if my sisters and I don’t want to take you up on your offer of an investment?”
The poor man sputtered for a moment, her question such a surprise he clearly had no answer. She reveled in the ability to catch him off guard and hoped she’d be doing it for the rest of her life.
“Why wouldn’t you want it?”
“McBride has always been a family operation. You’d be an outsider.”
“Maybe there’s something I can do about that, too.”
Nathan moved from behind the podium and came to stand before her, his warm gaze never leaving hers, and just as the unreality of the moment registered, she watched him drop to one knee. His big hands enfolded hers and she took comfort in the warmth of his touch.
A touch that up until ten minutes ago, she’d never thought she’d feel again.
“Would you do me the honor of making an investment in our future and becoming my wife?”
“Yes, Nathan. Yes, I will marry you.”
He stood and pulled her close, and she heard the happy shouts of her sisters, overlaid with the heavy roar of the rapidly filling lobby.<
br />
His mouth covered hers, and the touch of his lips offered a lifetime of promises. In that moment, Keira knew, every single thing she was and ever would be lived right here in the solid strength of his arms.
He lifted his head and the shouts grew louder while camera flashes captured the moment. With a carefree laugh, she pulled him down once more and pressed her lips to his ear.
“You know, investing in my company is an awfully expensive wedding present.”
“Consider it a down payment.”
She pulled back to look into his eyes. “On what?”
“Forever.”
About the Author
Addison Fox can’t remember a time when words weren’t a part of her life. An avid reader, her love of the written word started at the tender age of 1 with “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear (a poem she could recite by heart to any family member who would listen).
Shortly after college, Addison decided to try her hand at writing her own novel and it only took about eight pages until she was hooked. Several manuscripts followed and in 2008 she sold her first book. She enjoys writing across romance sub-genres, from contemporary to paranormal to romantic suspense.
Addison lives in Dallas. You can find her at her home on the web at www.addisonfox.com or on Facebook (facebook.com/addisonfoxauthor) and Twitter (@addisonfox).
