by BETH KERY
“What?”
“Until I can rest assured you’re his daughter, that Lincoln was of sound mind when he drew up the new will, and that you had no part in coercing Lincoln’s actions in the last days of his life, I plan to contest the will.”
She flinched as if he’d just slapped her. Regret spiked through his awareness, the strength of it catching him off guard. She’d gotten under his skin. He could understand why Lincoln had been so taken by her. But the fact remained, the way things stood, there was a good chance Deidre and he would be sitting across a courtroom from each other sometime in the near future. He had no right to find her fascinating.
“You just don’t get it,” she said, her low voice shaking with fury. “I nursed and cared for Lincoln with every ounce of compassion and skill I possess. Ask any of the servants, or the hospice nurses, or Dr. Leland. Everything I did, I did with the hope of having him for another day...another minute.”
“That may be true. I’m suspending judgment on the matter.”
She gave an incredulous bark of laughter. “Suspending judgment until when?”
“Until I have the opportunity to observe you, understand your character, your motivations, your life. I’ll be staying in Harbor Town for the next few days or weeks or however long it takes to do that.”
“Who says I plan to stay in Harbor Town?”
He shrugged. “I’ll make a point to go wherever you go. I hope you’ll cooperate with this. If you’ve got nothing to hide, why should it matter if I spend time with you and get to know you better?”
“Why don’t you just get that private investigator you hired before to do it?” she asked scathingly.
“I don’t trust his powers of observation as much as I do my own.” He held her stare. He watched as her expression went slack in disbelief as she realized he was dead serious.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“No,” he corrected. “I’m determined. And I’m committed to the health and well-being of DuBois Enterprises and its thousands of employees.”
She made a sound of disgust, but Nick was undaunted. He studied her in the dim light. She’d combed her short, golden blond hair behind her ears, where it curled in gleaming waves. It looked silken soft. She was clearly a beauty, but it wasn’t her physical attributes that made him want to touch her—at least not entirely. It was the way Deidre carried herself, the way she moved with a careless grace and bone-deep confidence. Without ever trying, she was a classic American beauty with an edge. A perfect, prickly, long-stemmed rose...
...Grace Kelly with a serious attitude.
Beautiful, fierce and fascinating Deidre may be, but he’d come here with a mission. Either he’d determine that Deidre was somehow unworthy of Linc’s estate or he’d gain her compliance. It just wasn’t an option to be left at the helm of DuBois Enterprises without any real control, watching helplessly while the great company crashed, taking thousands of employees and dependents down with it.
“What are you really doing here, Nick?” she asked warily.
“I’ve told you. I’m here to learn more about you. If I’m given the opportunity to get to know you for a period of time without you avoiding me, I’ll come to a conclusion about you. We can move on regarding Lincoln’s last will and testament.”
“So what...you plan to investigate me? Stalk me? Harass my friends and family? Lurk around and take pictures of me through a telephoto lens?”
“Would I catch anything interesting?” he asked, hiding a smile.
“I’d make sure you did,” she promised so menacingly he raised his eyebrows. Seeing her slender, elegant figure swathed in a sophisticated dress had temporarily made him forget Deidre was a warrior. The background report he’d commissioned had painted a picture of a courageous, headstrong, fiercely independent woman who refused to settle down into any traditional path. She was not only a collegiate championship diver; she’d been an expert trick skier, financing much of her college education by performing in water shows. Her military record was stellar. She’d even been awarded a medal for entering an active area of combat to save one of her patients when a field hospital had been unexpectedly attacked.
“You can’t plan on staying in Harbor Town,” she continued, looking at him like he was possibly mad. “It’s hardly a place for movers and shakers.”
“I’ll manage. I work on the road all the time. The hotel is offering me decent business facilities. I’ve made it clear at company headquarters that we’ll keep my presence here under wraps for a while. I don’t want the press getting hold of the story about the will yet. It’s going to become a media frenzy when they do find out.”
“This hotel?” Deidre asked, pointing at the building behind them.
He nodded.
She closed her eyes and he sensed it again, her extreme fatigue, her vulnerability.
“There’s another reason we should spend some time getting to know each other better, Deidre.”
She opened her eyes. He couldn’t see their hue in the dim light emanating from the dashboard, but he knew they were an unusual blue-gray color. He could clearly see the line of her jaw and the delicate shell shape of her ear.
Was she made so perfectly everywhere?
“I’m afraid to ask,” she murmured.
“Lincoln wrote me a letter before he died. He specifically asked me to get to know you better.”
“Why?” she demanded. She leaned toward him, her fatigue seemingly disappearing at the mention of the man she believed to be her father. Her curiosity bordered on hunger. It struck him as understandable, but sad, that she was so desperate for information about Linc. Again, he inhaled her clean, floral feminine scent. His muscles clenched tight in restraint.
“Linc knew I had my doubts about your claim to be his child. Maybe he thought us spending time together would put those doubts to rest. He likely also knew that no one else could teach you about your inheritance as well as I could.”
“Can I read the letter?”
“No.”
She started at his abruptness.
He shut his eyes briefly when he saw her hurt, incredulous expression. Lincoln’s letter had been heartbreakingly honest, almost childlike in its plea. Nick had been moved deeply by that letter, but at the same time, it’d made him question whether or not Lincoln was of sound mind when he’d changed his will. He couldn’t tell Deidre that, though. She’d just accuse him of causing his prejudice against her to influence his opinion about Lincoln’s motivations and state of mind.
“Not now you can’t, Deidre,” he said quietly. “I have my reasons for saying that. Don’t take offense. Please.”
But she had taken offense, he realized. Her backbone went ramrod straight.
“May I ask why it is that you believe you have the right to constantly call my morals and character into question, why you have the right to investigate me like a common criminal, when I don’t even have the right to ask a simple thing of you?”
“I didn’t mean you can’t ask me things,” he grated out.
“It sounded that way to me,” she said, picking up her evening bag from her lap and retrieving the centerpiece from the floorboard. She reached for the car door and then suddenly went still, her hand outstretched. She turned, her brow crinkled in consternation. Her mouth fell open as if something had just dawned on her.
“Wait a second...” she muttered.
“What?”
“The other half of Lincoln’s estate—he left it to you, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Nick admitted.
The weighty silence was shattered by Deidre’s desperate bark of laughter.
“Do you mean to tell me—”
“That’s right,” he said more calmly than he felt. “My hands are tied without you. There’s a major acquisition deal I’ve been brokering now
for months, for instance, and even though the time is ripe for DuBois Enterprises to buy, I’m powerless to act without your consent. The way things stand legally right now, I can’t make a major decision on behalf of DuBois Enterprises without your agreement. So for the time being, we’re partners. Whether we like it or not.”
Chapter Two
The next morning Deidre called Colleen, in much need of some sisterly commiseration and support. They met up at Jake’s Place, a popular Harbor Town hangout, for brunch. Colleen’s fork halted in midair when Deidre told her all the bizarre, gory details from her meeting with Nick the previous night.
“Lincoln left you half of his estate and fifty percent controlling interest in his company?” Colleen asked, clearly flabbergasted.
Deidre nodded and sipped her coffee.
“But he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. That means...you’re bloody rich, Deidre.”
Deidre chuckled at her sister’s bald statement. “Not if Nick Malone has his say in the matter. He told me he plans to contest the will if he decides I coerced Lincoln in any way.”
“Coerced,” Colleen said, looking insulted. “You mean he suspects you took advantage of Lincoln? What’s he think? That you drugged him and stuck a pen in his hand, telling him to sign a new will? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You’re a skilled nurse and a compassionate woman. I’ve never seen someone so dedicated and concerned about another human being as you were that sweet, fragile man. Doesn’t Nick even know you?”
Deidre smiled, heartened by her sister’s show of faith in her. She would have been lost if it weren’t for Colleen being at her side after Lincoln had died. She was the perfect confidant, since she’d witnessed firsthand Nick’s suspicion of her.
“According to Nick, he doesn’t. That’s the whole problem,” Deidre sighed, setting a forkful of pancakes down on her plate. It was hard to eat when her life felt like an out-of-control carnival ride.
“And Nick said he’s here to investigate you?” Colleen asked as she resumed eating.
“Not exactly, no,” Deidre admitted. “He said he needs an opportunity to observe me, determine my character. But it all amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? He’s already convinced I’m a gold digger, so I’m sure he’ll see whatever he expects to see.”
She noticed Colleen’s pensive expression as she ate her omelet. “What?”
“Why did Lincoln do it?” Colleen wondered. “Why would he split his estate and the control of his company equally between you and Nick?”
“I have no idea. Especially when I specifically told him I didn’t want or expect anything from him. I have a hard enough time balancing my checkbook. How in the world could I possibly make decisions about a multibillion-dollar conglomerate?” Her gaze sharpened on her sister. “Do you think he did it because he wasn’t in his right mind?” she asked in a hushed, worried tone. If that were the case, it was possible Lincoln’s faith that she was his daughter was part of a demented delirium, as well.
“We both know Lincoln’s level of consciousness fluctuated because of the tumor. He was sharp as a tack at times, but in others he was really out of it. It’s my understanding that for the will to be binding, his attorney and other witnesses would have to attest he was in his right mind when he signed the document. But that’s not what I was wondering about just now. You don’t suppose there’s any possibility that Lincoln arranged things this way so that you and Nick were forced to spend time with one another, do you?” Colleen asked tentatively.
“Why would he do that?”
Colleen’s shrug was a little too nonchalant for Deidre’s liking. “Maybe he noticed the sparks between you two and was doing a little matchmaking with his will.”
Deidre rolled her eyes. “Those sparks are purely from dislike on my part and outright suspicion on Nick’s. He suspects I manipulated a vulnerable, sick man into leaving me billions of dollars. How can you think he would be remotely interested in me in the romantic sense?” Deidre asked, her cheeks heating.
Was the fact that she found Nick attractive really so evident for everyone to see? Colleen’s comment had called to mind Nick’s reference to the letter Lincoln had left him. She hadn’t told Colleen about that letter yet. For some reason, Lincoln making the request of Nick to get to know her better struck her as highly significant...highly intimate.
“So you’re definitely not attracted to Nick Malone?” Colleen asked, her eyelids narrowed as she studied her.
“It’s sort of hard to be attracted to someone when they’re looking at you like you’re a slimy criminal,” she sidestepped.
“Yeah, I see what you mean. Well one thing is pretty straightforward. Nick Malone is gorgeous. He’s at the top of every most eligible bachelor’s list.” She gave Deidre an I’m just stating the truth glance when Deidre looked at her incredulously. “You don’t believe me? I looked Nick up online while we were staying at The Pines.”
“Colleen,” Deidre chastised, grinning. She’d frequently teased her sister while they were in Tahoe that she should surgically get her hand grafted to her iPad for convenience sake. Living in the Middle East and Europe for as long as she did, Deidre didn’t share her fellow Americans’ reliance on personal modern technology.
“Check this out,” Colleen said, reaching inside her bag and withdrawing her iPad. A few seconds later she handed the tablet across the table. Deidre took it with a mixture of doubt, amusement and curiosity.
An image of Nick was on the screen. He was leading a sophisticated brunette with legs that went clear to her armpits out of the back of a black sedan. The woman wore an elaborate hat that probably had cost the equivalent of Deidre’s annual salary as a nurse. Beneath the photo, Deidre read the inscription, Churchill Downs—Nick Malone, chief executive officer of DuBois Enterprises, and Danielle Geddy, of the Geddy Banking Trust, attend the Derby Festival Preview Party. The woman’s smile was like headlight beams. Nick looked somber, as usual, and perhaps a tad irritated as he pinned the photographer with his icy stare.
“There’s more,” Colleen said wryly from across the table.
Deidre swiped her finger along the screen, her curiosity growing despite herself. Here was another photo, this one in profile, of Nick at a charity function, this time with an attractive blonde on his arm. Another showed him behind a podium wearing a suit and addressing a crowd. The caption said the occasion had been his acceptance of an honorary doctorate in business from a prestigious East Coast university. Nick didn’t appear surly in this photo, as he had in the first. He did look somber, intent...and drop-dead gorgeous.
“He looks especially good in that one,” Colleen observed, reading Deidre’s mind.
Deidre laughed. “What’s your point, Colleen?”
“I’m just saying that most of the world sees Nick Malone in a completely different light than you do.”
“Given the strange circumstances, that’s not too surprising, is it?”
“No, I understand that. I’m just pointing out that Nick is considered by most to be a brilliant businessman, not to mention a heck of a catch. And...”
“And what?” Deidre asked warily when she noticed her sister’s significant glance.
“It occurred to me on one or a dozen occasions while we were at The Pines that there was an attraction between the two of you. I used to notice Nick watching you quite a bit, Dee,” Colleen said, grinning. “You light a fire in him. He’s got an itch for you.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Deidre exclaimed, stabbing her fork into her sausage patty with undue force.
“Am I?”
“If you’ve noticed any sparks of that variety coming from him, I’m willing to bet the reason isn’t unquenchable lust.”
“What do you mean?” Colleen wondered.
Deidre shrugged, not wanting to give the impression she a
ctually had thought about the topic overly much. Even though she had.
“I think he’s testing me by acting interested every once in a while. He already thinks I’m a conniving, immoral female. Maybe he thinks if he can seduce me, he’ll get me to show my true colors. He’ll prove to himself that I’m a gold digger by using himself as bait.”
Colleen set her coffee mug down heavily on the table. “Do you really think so? Nick has struck me as cool and unapproachable at times—intimidating, even—but do you really believe he could be that manipulative?”
“He certainly suspects I’m that manipulative, so I don’t feel very guilty for thinking the same of him,” Deidre said.
She turned pensive as she stared out the window on to Main Street, which had been festively decorated for the holidays. Christmas in Harbor Town, she thought with wistful sadness. How lovely it would be to be like Colleen, to feel that she truly belonged here...that she wasn’t an outsider looking in. She’d belonged there once, as a child.
That was the past, though. She felt like even more of an imposter at the idea of being Lincoln’s heiress in the present.
“I don’t know what to think, Colleen,” she admitted after a pause, meeting Colleen’s gaze. “The only thing I know for certain is that Lincoln made me a player in a game with stakes so high, I can’t even comprehend them. I’m a fish out of water. And truthfully? I don’t know what a man like Nick would do to ensure he maintains control of a company that possesses the revenues of some small countries’ entire economies. Do you?”
Colleen’s face settled into a solemn expression, and Deidre had her answer.
* * *
Deidre promised her sister she’d rest and take it easy that afternoon. Colleen had been expressing concern for her lack of appetite and difficulty sleeping since Lincoln had died. Her life had been a blur since Lincoln’s death last week and her hurried trip to Harbor Town for Liam’s wedding.
She returned to Cedar Cottage and took a long, hot shower. The premises of the vacation rental were roomy, but not too large to take away from the cozy ambience. Since it was the off-season in the quaint beachside community, she’d gotten a week-to-week lease for a steal.
