“Did you read this?” she asked.
Dana nodded. “Scary stuff.”
“I can’t believe it, but even as I say that, there’s a part of me that isn’t surprised. Jed’s ruthless. He’s always been that way. He pretties it up when he has to, but it’s there. Still, he could have killed his own daughter. Did he even care that Izzy was on the oil rig? What about the other lives? But hey, winning is all that matters, right?” Her voice rose as she spoke, her tone got more shrill.
Dana moved to the desk and looked at her. “Deep breaths. Baby on board and all that. Try to stay calm.”
Lexi nodded and exhaled slowly. “I know. I’ll be okay. I’m just in shock. Jed doing all this. Treason.” She sighed. “I need to think about this. We need a plan. The next step. I’m going to need a little time.”
Dana settled across from her desk. “Take all the time you need. You have a lot going on.”
Lexi leaned back in her chair. “I’m having a baby. Women do it every day.”
“I don’t care about them, I care about you. You’re my friend.”
“Thank you. I’m doing okay. This is a stunner, but I’ll get through it. We’re working together and that makes me feel better.”
Dana eyed Lexi’s growing belly. “Just remember what’s important. We can go after Jed anytime.”
“We’re not stopping because I’m pregnant. I’m taking excellent care of myself and Cruz practically hovers.”
“Skye mentioned something about a baby shower.” Dana managed to get the sentence out without shuddering. She wasn’t really a baby-wedding shower kind of person. What was up with the strange games? And why did the food have to be cute?
Lexi grinned. “You’ll be there, honey, if we have to drag you. Don’t think you’re getting out of it.”
“Oh, joy.”
“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“There could be balloon animals.”
“I happen to like balloon animals.”
Lexi laughed. “It won’t be too horrible, I promise. No color-coordinated mints.”
“Is Skye planning the shower?” Skye might run a nonprofit foundation but she was also an expert party planner. Her system of organization rivaled any battle plan the Pentagon put out.
“Yes. Okay. You’re right. The mints might match. But it will still be fun.”
“If you define the word very loosely.”
“Poor Dana,” Lexi teased. “My baby shower is only the start. Skye’s talking about getting married.”
“We all knew that was going to happen,” Dana grumbled. Skye was madly in love. No one would be surprised when she and Mitch set the date. “You’ll be next.”
“After the baby is born,” Lexi said. “I never planned to be unconventional, but here I am, having a baby and then getting married. I’m sure my mother is horrified. Cruz and I are talking about late spring. So you’ll have time to recover.”
Which she would need, Dana thought. “At least Izzy is more the type to simply run off some weekend and show up Monday with a wedding ring and a new last name. She was always my favorite.”
Lexi laughed again. “How you suffer for us all.”
“I know. That’s me. The suffering friend.”
“Maybe you’ll meet someone you want to marry.”
“No, thanks.”
“Not ever?”
“When pigs fly.”
The next words were spoken softly, hesitantly, as if Lexi were treading carefully. “Not all men are like your dad.”
She and her friend had never talked about what it had been like, but Dana also wasn’t surprised that Lexi had figured it out. What did startle her was having the subject brought up twice in two days.
“Garth knows about my father,” she said. “I don’t know if he put the pieces together and got lucky or if he’d spoken to someone.”
“You talked about it?”
“He did mostly. Last night. I think he was making a point—that he knew a whole lot more than I’d realized. I hate it when men are insightful. It upsets the balance of power.”
“What do you think of him?” Lexi asked. “A card-carrying member of the evil empire?”
Dana shook her head. “Nothing that simple. He’s so damn sure of himself. Confident he’s going to win. And just when I think he’s barely human, I remember those scars.”
Izzy had told them both about Nick and Garth’s time in the jungle. Lexi could only imagine what the scars looked like, but Dana had seen them for herself.
“What does he think of Izzy’s plan to bring him into the family?” Lexi asked.
“It confuses him. Of course that’s just a guess on my part. We aren’t exactly sharing secrets.”
“Do you like him?”
Dana glanced at her. “I don’t hate him.”
“Izzy would say that’s progress.”
“It depends on how you look at the situation. I still don’t trust him. But he’s not the devil.”
There was more. He made her uneasy. His casual touch on her back had seared her down to her bones. She’d felt each of his fingers, the pressure of his palm. She’d wanted to move toward him.
Garth made her aware of her weaknesses and that terrified her.
“What happens now?” Lexi asked.
“I wait for him to make a mistake.”
“What if he’s no longer our enemy?”
“Then everything changes.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JED TITAN HAD KNOWN Brock Lyman since college. Nowadays they were both tall men with graying hair and a taste for the good life. They’d played football together and Brock had introduced Jed to his first wife. Something Jed never held against him. Now some thirty-plus years later, Brock was the chief financial officer at Titan World and the only person Jed was willing to trust.
Which didn’t mean he had to like what his friend said.
“He’s bought even more stock,” Brock said from his place across the conference table.
Jed and Brock were having their morning meeting. In the past, the time had been more about sports scores than any real business, but in the past few months, they’d been scrambling to manage what seemed like a new crisis every other week.
“Did he file with the SEC?” Jed asked, even though he already knew the answer. Damn Garth Duncan. He was always careful to follow the rules. Once he’d crossed the threshold of stock purchases, he’d done all the paperwork required. Just once Jed wanted him to make a mistake.
Brock nodded. “Filed on time and correctly. He’s up to fifteen percent ownership in Titan World. More in a few of the subsidiaries. So far we’ve been able to keep the news out of the media, but I don’t know how long that will go on. A few major stockholders have taken notice.”
Which was Garth’s plan, Jed thought, annoyed by how well he was being played.
By buying large blocks of stock and holding on to them, a case could be made that Garth was planning to take over the company. That made other stockholders nervous. SEC rules required public filings when a shareholder reached a certain amount of ownership, which Garth had done. He wasn’t hiding what he was doing, and that made Jed uncomfortable. He couldn’t go after someone who wasn’t breaking the law.
“If he wants to buy the company, why doesn’t he approach us?” Brock asked, obviously frustrated.
“It’s not his way. He’s waiting until the time is right.”
It was all a game and whoever had the most at the end won. Jed could almost be proud of Garth. After all, the man was his son. But things had gone too far. Garth had to be stopped.
“What about the investigation of the oil rig explosion?” Brock asked. “Why hasn’t Garth been arrested for his involvement in that?”
“I don’t know.” Jed couldn’t figure it out, either. Enough evidence had been planted to indict Garth. What had gone wrong? “He’s smart. Maybe smarter than we gave him credit for. We have to find his vulnerable spot. No target is off-limits.”
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br /> “First we have to find one,” Brock grumbled.
“We will. In the meantime, we have to buy back shares. He owns too much of the company.”
“There’s no money.”
“We’ll find it. Borrow it, whatever. I want to start buying back shares from anyone who will sell.”
“If word gets out,” Brock began, then shook his head. “No one can know, Jed. People will think the company’s in trouble and that’ll start a stampede of shareholders trying to sell. Any panic will drive down the price of stock.”
“Then we’ll keep it to ourselves.”
“We’ll need a bunch of cash. I don’t know where we’re going to get it. Unless you’re willing to start selling some of your assets.”
Something Jed had always refused in the past. There were dozens of choices but only a few worth tens of millions. His racehorse farm, the shipping company and Glory’s Gate, the family home.
It was all about winning. Defeating the upstart bastard who was trying to take him down.
“This is war,” Jed said at last. “Sacrifices have to be made. Start making discreet inquires about potential buyers. But remember, this isn’t a fire sale. I want top dollar.”
Brock stared at him for a long time. “It may not be enough.”
“Then we’ll figure out something else. I don’t care what it takes to beat Garth. I want him crushed and swept up with the trash.”
DANA DID HER BEST to sit quietly in the lobby of Garth’s condo. Usually she enjoyed a good stakeout. She found it relaxing. It gave her time to think. But today her brain was not her friend, not when it kept racing from subject to subject, the most annoying of which was the anticipation she felt at the thought of seeing Garth again.
She was actually worried about what she was wearing. She’d thought about changing her clothes. Worse, she’d gone home and put on mascara, which happened to be the only makeup she owned. Mascara. Like she was a sniveling teenaged girl nervous about a date.
This wasn’t a date—it was surveillance, dammit.
She shifted on the comfortable bench, thought about leaving, then tensed when the elevator doors slid open and Garth stepped into the foyer of his condo building to pick up his mail.
He looked good. The stubble on his jaw, the slightly loosened tie all suited him. There was a weariness in his eyes, as if it had been a long day. She felt a definite quiver low in her belly and did her best to ignore it. She wasn’t the type of woman to quiver for any man and if she pretended it wasn’t happening, eventually it would go away. At least that was the plan.
“Hope you like Italian,” he said, holding up two shopping bags.
He’d stopped for dinner. One part of her brain said it was no big deal. He wasn’t the kind of man to cook for himself and he’d known she would be here. The other part of her brain wanted to know if he’d bought dinner with her in mind. If he’d thought about what she might like. As if this were…
Nothing. It was nothing. He was nothing, they were nothing. That’s the way it was going to be.
She stood and walked toward him without saying anything. Garth collected his mail, then walked back to the elevator. She took the food from him and followed. George wished them a good night.
The elevator ride was silent. When they reached his floor, he pulled out his keys and they stepped into his condo. She collected plates while he chose a bottle of wine. She set the table, he flipped on a CD. Their actions were familiar, which should have been comfortable but instead made her nervous. It was only the second night. There was no way she could be comfortable around Garth.
Finally they sat across from each other. He poured the wine, then toasted her silently before taking a sip.
He watched her, as if assessing her. She felt the weight of the mascara on her lashes and wondered if he’d noticed. If he thought it was about him, which it was, but she would rather die than have him know. Which made her feel like a girl. Time to get the attention back on him.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” she asked. “I’ve been here two nights in a row. Aren’t I getting in the way of something?”
“If you’ve done your homework, you know there isn’t a girlfriend.”
“Just a string of willing beauties,” she said, remembering what she’d read. “You favor smart and pretty, but if you have to pick just one, you go with pretty. Typical and a little disappointing.”
He pulled out covered containers from the bags and passed her one. “Be careful, Dana. Do you really want to talk about our personal lives? I’m not the only one with a string of easy conquests. What about the men you date?”
Touché, she thought, refusing to apologize for her romantic choices. Maybe she did like men who weren’t especially powerful or challenging. Maybe she did find them just a little boring. But that was her business, not his.
“I gave the information to Lexi,” she said, to change the subject. “She wasn’t happy.”
“Neither is Jed, if that’s any help,” he said as he opened a carton of salad and passed it to her.
He’d brought lasagna and salad. The delicious scent made her stomach growl.
“I’ve been buying up stock,” he continued. “Large blocks of stock. It’s all legal.”
“Are you sure? You love the gray area.”
He smiled. “More than most, but not this time. I’ve filed the paperwork. The only thing I haven’t done is announce what’s going on. But word will get out and the other stockholders will get nervous.”
“Is that your plan?”
“Yes. I’m going to back Jed into a corner and force him to do something stupid.”
“He’s a dangerous man when cornered.”
“I’m dangerous all the time.”
“You forgot modest,” she said before taking a bite of the lasagna. It was so good, she nearly moaned.
“I don’t care what people think of me. I want to win.”
This wasn’t a moment she could have predicted—having dinner with Garth in his penthouse. She could see all the lights of Dallas glittering around them. The meal was excellent, the man more interesting than she could have imagined. If his dark eyes seemed to see too much, she would just have to learn to keep herself disguised.
“What happens if Jed starts to buy back stock himself?” she asked.
“To do that, he’ll need cash and right now he doesn’t have any.”
“Do I want to ask how you know that?”
“Not really.”
“Okay. So he’ll sell something to raise…” She got the big picture. “That’s what you want. Him selling off assets. Then you’ll buy them, one by one.”
“A Titan yard sale.”
She thought about Jed Titan’s holdings. Which would Garth covet most? The shipyards? The oil field? “You want Glory’s Gate,” she said. “It’s been in the family for generations.”
“I’m family.”
His sisters had grown up there. It was home to them. Well over a thousand acres of prime pasture and cattle. A huge house and all the prestige that went with owning it.
“Jed will never risk Glory’s Gate.”
“You may be right.”
Garth didn’t sound worried.
“You think he will?” she asked.
“It depends on how much he wants to win.”
“How much do you want to win?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
He didn’t have to. She knew. She could feel it. Garth would do anything to settle the score. Lethal and ruthless—a dangerous combination.
“I’m surprised all this talk doesn’t scare off your women,” she said. “Or do they like this side of you?”
“They don’t see it.”
“Because they can’t handle it? But it’s who you are.” She picked up her wineglass. “Is that the trick? Don’t let them inside?”
“Do your conquests see the real you?”
“We weren’t talking about me.”
“We are now.”
&
nbsp; His gaze was predatory, his expression knowing. She shivered, then did her best to conceal it by shifting in her seat. She knew she could hold her own with him, as long as he didn’t touch her.
Something happened when she had felt his skin on hers, even through a protective layer of clothes. She didn’t like it and couldn’t explain it. Therefore the only logical solution was to avoid it. Not that Garth was begging for a little one-on-one time. But caution was always smart.
The CD ended. He got up and walked over to the player concealed in the buffet. He moved stiffly, as if his leg bothered him.
“Are you all right?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Old war wound,” he said, putting in another CD.
Not exactly. She remembered the scars she’d seen and that both his legs had been broken while he’d been held hostage all those months.
“Did you have to have surgery on your legs after you and Nick escaped?”
“Some. The breaks had started to heal badly, so they re-broke my legs and set them.”
“What did they do for the knife wounds?”
“Treated the ones that were infected and left the others alone to heal.”
“A big price to pay for oil.”
“Nick would tell you it was the price we paid for being wrong.” He returned to the table and sat across from her. “Did Izzy tell you what happened?”
“Some,” she said. Izzy had told her pretty much everything but she wanted to hear Garth tell the story.
“We knew there was oil in the jungle, but it was nearly impossible to extract. That’s always the bitch of it. People think it’s hard to find, but it’s a whole lot harder to get it out of the ground. Nick had some ideas on new ways we could drill.”
“Did it involve raping and pillaging?”
Garth grinned. “Not my style. I prefer a nice, quiet seduction.”
Her throat seemed to close in a little. “Back to the story, please.”
“You’re the one who changed the subject.”
“I won’t do it again.”
For a second, she thought he might continue to challenge her. Instead he started talking.
“The land was owned by a guy named Francisco. He was the head of the village and while he told his people and family he would never negotiate with us, he really wanted the money. He had a fair idea of the value and pushed for every penny. Local legend said not to take the oil, but Francisco dismissed that as bull and cashed the check. We started work. A few weeks later, we realized we were poisoning the water. By then it was too late—three people had died.”
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