Taming the Takeover Tycoon

by Robyn Grady

  “What say I whip you up an omelet?” he said.

  She tried to be light. “You cook?”

  “Not well.”

  “Can you chop wood?”

  “If required.”

  It wasn’t cool enough for a fire. Becca peered inside the ice chest. “There’s crackers and strawberries and three kinds of cheese. And look at this...” She drew out a package. “Belgian chocolate.”

  “Even better than Danishes.”

  She broke off two pieces and slotted one bit in his mouth, the other in her own.

  “I should mention that I have a chocolate addiction,” she said around her mouthful.

  “Chocolate’s good for you.”

  He popped another square into her mouth and she smiled as she took in every line of his face.

  “If you’re a chocoholic,” he said, “you need to try this.”

  He broke off another piece of chocolate and set a strawberry on top. “Open up,” he said, and she did.

  As she chewed and sighed, he made his own chocolate-strawberry stack.

  “Oh, God.” She sighed. “This is so good.”

  His lips came close to taste hers. “I totally agree.”

  Eleven

  After their picnic and talk in bed, Becca fell asleep in Jack’s arms.

  He lay there for he didn’t know how long, thinking back on how he’d opened up about that piece of his past. The words had come remarkably easy. The emotion hadn’t been as painful as he’d remembered. Time healed all wounds? Maybe that was true. It was the scars he couldn’t seem to kick.

  Jack closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, morning light was streaking in through the window, warming the room with a gauzy golden glow. Smiling, Jack stretched. Man, he felt good. And the reason was lying right here alongside of him.

  He reached out to bring Becca close—and came up empty. The only sign of her was the impression left on the sheet.

  Jack sat up.

  The cot was empty, too. Other than birds chirping and squawking outside, all was quiet. The screened window was open, letting in pine-scented fresh air. No smog. No traffic. No meetings.

  No phone calls?

  Was there even reception out here?

  Jack swung out of bed, grabbed some jeans and pulled them on. Then he found his phone. Some texts and three voicemails. One from Logan, one from Angelica and one from David Baldwin.

  Wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt that read “Choose Happiness,” Becca entered the room. Her flawless face broke into a big smile. “You’re up!”

  Something pleasant tugged in Jack’s gut. He crossed over, folded her up in his arms and nuzzled the top of her head. She felt soft and warm and smelled like sunshine. If Angelica was okay when he called back, maybe they could stay an additional couple of days. Or three, or four.

  “I missed you,” he murmured against her hair.

  She laughed. “You’ve been awake two minutes.”

  “One minute.”

  Pulling away, she spotted the phone in his hand. When her smile cooled, he felt a spike of guilt—which he shouldn’t.

  “I wasn’t sure if we got reception out this far,” he said.

  “It’s patchy. Any messages?”

  “A few.”

  While her eyes still shone, her mouth tightened. “Anything important?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Angelica?” Jack nodded. “You going to call her back?” She held up her hands. “Sorry. Stupid question. She might be planning a coup for this afternoon. You wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  Jack caught her as she turned to leave. “Becca, this was always a tricky situation.”

  She kept her gaze on the wooden floor. “I didn’t think it’d get this tricky.”

  Ah, hell.

  He brought her close again and, lifting her chin, searched those sparkling green eyes. “Are you sorry we came?”

  “Up until a second ago, for so many reasons, I wasn’t. I wanted to take you away from everything that drives your need to win. I wanted you to live a simple life and appreciate it, even for a couple of days. I thought you might see how little people need, and how easy it would be for everyone to have that if we all cared enough. But now...”

  “What we shared last night was amazing. But I still have to help Angelica. I just have to.”

  “Because someone has a gun to your head?”

  Jack struggled and then admitted, “I can’t explain.”

  “No need. It’s pretty obvious.”

  He studied her wounded, defiant look and then put the phone down on the side table.

  Her gaze snapped from the phone back to him. “You’re not going to call her?”

  “Angelica can wait.”

  But then his phone rang. Becca swept it up and held it out for him, daring him to refuse, hoping that he would. He wanted to ignore the call, but now it had rung a bigger part wanted to reconnect and plug into what was going on beyond the walls of this cabin. He couldn’t walk away from this deal, not even for Becca.

  He took the phone, connected. It wasn’t Angelica.

  “Hope I didn’t catch you too early,” David Baldwin said. “I left a message—”

  Annoyed, Jack cut in. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m having a get-together this afternoon. I know you’re probably busy.”

  Chichi pranced in with a stick between his small, pointy teeth. Jack turned toward the window view. “A bit, yeah.”

  “But if you could make it over, just for a few moments...it’s important.”

  “David, I really don’t think—”

  “Don’t give me your answer now.” He gave a time for the event. “At the shop. Hope to see you there.”

  David Baldwin could hope all he liked.

  Chichi was going to town, chewing his stick on the cot. Becca, however, had disappeared.

  As Jack headed for the doorway, she marched by, carrying the ice chest. He strode out and took it from her. For Pete’s sake.

  “What exactly is the rush?” he asked.

  “It’s time to go.”

  “You said two days and two nights.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. Things have gotten off track. This won’t work.”

  Jack put down the chest and turned off his phone. “Weren’t we fixing bacon and eggs?” Amid the giggling and kissing last night, there’d been some mention of cooking breakfast before she’d fallen asleep.

  “I’d rather just get back on the road. You know...get back to reality.”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  She knotted her arms over her chest. “I’m not upset with you. I’m upset with me. For a second there, I’d actually talked myself into believing that I might have reached your human side. A caring side that didn’t have stealing and then raping Lassiter Media as next on his to-do list. But you can’t wait to get back into it.”

  Jack flinched. Well, that stung.

  “One day,” he said, “I promise, we’ll sit down and I’ll give you the lowdown on this Lassiter business from my perspective. Just...not today. I can’t today.” He filed his fingers back through her silky hair and waited for her to meet his gaze. “Now, can I make us a coffee?”

  “That won’t fix anything.”

  “It sure won’t hurt.”

  When he grinned, she bit her lip, exhaled and finally nodded. As they headed back to the kitchen, she said, “I guess there’s still a part of me who believes in a fairy godmother. She was just here, expecting a miracle.”

  “Could be that’s what I like most about you,” he said. “Your faith.” He stopped and turned her in the circle of one arm.

  “You mean my temper,” she said.r />
  “Your tenacity.”

  “My stubborn streak.”

  “I like this about you, too.”

  His lips met hers and lingered there. Closing his eyes, he drank in all that sassy, strong-headed goodness. When he drew away, her eyes narrowed even as those succulent lips twitched.

  “Next you’ll be suggesting we take our coffee back to bed.”

  “Well, just remember.” He lowered his head to kiss her properly. “It was your idea.”

  * * *

  When she brought it up again, Jack didn’t try to talk her out of leaving the cabin. She didn’t need for matters between the two of them to get any more complicated than they already were, and he obviously needed to get back to see what Angelica was up to.

  He’d tried to phone Angelica a number of times. When he’d failed to reach her, he’d grown more and more preoccupied. He even admitted that he wondered if Angelica was purposely avoiding his calls now because she planned to do something he would stop if he could. When they finally got on the road after lunch, Becca couldn’t shake the sense of guilt.

  She had allowed her emotions to get the better of her where Jack was concerned. She’d taken him to the cabin not to give in to the attraction brewing between them, but to somehow help him gain perspective away from his cut-throat corporate world. She wanted to show him in a hands-on way he would remember that lots of people went without even the bare necessities. Had her scheme done any good at all, or had she only made matters worse?

  Still, what Jack and she had shared at the cabin was more than physical. At least it had been for her. However much she abhorred Jack’s business tactics and egocentric mind-set, whenever they had been together in an intimate sense, she hadn’t been able to help falling just a little in love with him.

  Chichi had sat on Becca’s lap all the drive back to Santa Monica. When Jack pulled into the quiet beachside parking lot in a space right next to Hailey’s café, the dog was quivering with excitement. Then Becca opened the car door; she couldn’t stop Chichi from bolting up the ramp into the café’s rear entrance.

  Jack got out and hauled the ice chest off the backseat.

  “Want to chow down while we’re here?” Becca asked, joining him.

  “Best to keep going.”

  He was eager to get back to L.A. He needed to call on Angelica, keep that Lassiter takeover ball rolling and on track. Becca had felt his preoccupation building for the whole drive back. Now, as they walked up the café’s ramp together, he seemed disconnected.

  As they made their way around the veranda, Hailey and Chichi appeared.

  “How was the trip?” Hailey asked. “Hope Chichi behaved himself.”

  Jack set down the chest. As they took their usual seats and Hailey poured coffee, Becca let her friend know what had happened with Chichi the previous day at the lake...minus the bits about Jack and her being, well, otherwise occupied.

  “I’m sorry,” Becca said. “We should have kept a closer eye on him.”

  Hailey waved it off. “Way I see it, he probably just wanted to give you two some space.”

  When she flicked a knowing glance Jack’s way, he held his expression, no hint of cheekiness or denial. But Becca’s chest tightened. In his mind, he’d already moved on. What they had shared at the lake was in the past. He was back in corporate-raider mode and focused on bringing down his current target.

  When neither Jack nor Becca commented, Hailey’s expression grew concerned. “Oh, God,” she murmured. “You don’t know. There’s no TV out at the cabin.”

  Jack’s brow creased as he sat forward. “What happened?”

  “It was on this morning,” Hailey went on.

  “You mean the interview from the reporter who ambushed us yesterday?” Becca asked.

  “There were clips from that interview....” Hailey pressed her lips together. “It’s the photos that got everyone talking.”

  Becca suddenly felt dizzy and she couldn’t feel her face.

  “What photos?” she groaned. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “You must have been followed,” Hailey said. “They had shots of you both in that lake, taken with a telescopic lens, so they were kinda grainy. But it’s pretty clear what you all were doing.”

  While Jack sat back like he’d been shot in the chest, the knot of horror in Becca’s stomach pulled apart and spread through every inch of her body. Everything around her, other than Jack’s scowl, seemed to funnel back and fade to black.

  Becca was always fighting the hard fight, standing up for morals and justice. Now she shut her eyes as that darkness enveloped her.

  Despite keeping an eye out, Hailey said they must have been followed. Had they been followed back here, too?

  She had to phone the office again and make certain Evans McCain understood. Things had gotten—confused, but she was still one hundred percent on his side.

  “There’s more,” Hailey said, wincing.

  Jack rubbed his brow. “Of course there is.”

  “Angelica Lassiter has called a press conference,” Hailey went on, “scheduled for this afternoon.”

  Jack thumped the table and everyone, including Chichi, jumped. When he pushed to his feet, the action sent his chair skating and clattering into the one behind it.

  Becca stood, too, hugged her friend and whispered in her ear, “I’ll call you later.”

  Becca followed Jack around the veranda and down the ramp. Before he reached the driver’s-side door of her Bambino, he stopped abruptly and spun around. She almost ran into him.

  He held out his hand. “Keys.”

  Becca fumbled in her bag and slapped them in his palm. “You’re going to see Angelica,” she said.

  “As soon as humanly possible.”

  Jack threw open the car door. As Becca skirted around and jumped in the passenger side, he turned the key in the ignition. The lights flashed up on the dash...but the engine didn’t kick over. He growled and tried again.

  Nothing.

  He set his teeth, raised his fists, but held off somehow from smashing down on the wheel. If Becca was upset, Jack was livid. And then...

  Things went from bad to a hundred times worse.

  Twelve

  “That’s just great. That’s exactly what I need.”

  Becca scowled across at him. “You’re not the only one stuck in this car, you know.”

  “It’s your car!”

  As the tabloid show truck sailed into the parking lot and pulled behind them blocking their escape, Becca opened her mouth then simply sat back and crossed her arms tightly over her T-shirt while Jack brought up an app on his phone and sent a text for a cab.

  He’d apologize for raising his voice later. Right now he needed to get them the hell out of this predicament. He didn’t care who had tipped them off again or whether he and Becca had been followed the entire time. The director of the Lassiter Foundation had been seen repeatedly with the man who wanted to bring the whole lot down. He needed to get Becca out of this mess then he’d find Angelica before she purged in front of a microphone and said something they both might regret at that press conference.

  When Angelica had wavered the other day, Jack thought he had been persuasive enough to get her back to where he needed her to be. Once again she had seemed set upon a path that would lead to a takeover of the company that was rightfully hers. But when she’d called this morning early and he hadn’t been able to get in contact with her since, Jack had begun to worry. If Becca hadn’t decided to call her cabin stay short, he’d have insisted.

  As the camera crew and the reporter from the other day loped over, he threw open the door. “Get out of the car,” he told Becca.

  He met her around her side, grabbed her hand and headed for the road. She had to trot to keep up.r />
  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re getting the hell out of Dodge.”

  As they reached the pavement, she yanked her hand from his. Her face was flushed but her bearing was almost regal.

  “I’m not going,” she said. “You’ve had Angelica dancing on your strings. Everyone knows she doesn’t do anything without consulting you first. If Angelica’s called a press conference without your permission or advice, it can only mean she’s distancing herself from you. It might even mean that she’s decided to step down from a takeover bid. I’m not going to tag along while you try to badger her into changing her mind.”

  The cab he’d ordered swerved into the gutter. Swinging open the door, he eyeballed Becca. “You coming?”

  “I’ll hold my head up and face the firing squad square on, thank you.”

  He had to admire her courage. “When you have a moment,” he said, “I’ll give you a lesson on how to avoid unnecessary trouble.”

  “You haven’t done such a great job of it lately.”

  So it would seem. He should have flat-out refused to give Becca an audience in the first place. Of course that would’ve meant missing out on getting to know her more—a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There’d never be another Becca.

  “I’ll call,” he told her.

  “Please don’t.”

  “I can’t change your mind?”

  She only crossed her arms. Defiant to the end.

  Jack hung his head, considered the repercussions and, leaving the cab door open, joined her again. “Then I’ll stay, too.”

  Her eyes widened as her arms dropped to her sides. “I don’t need you.”

  “Right now I think we need each other.”

  Stopping in position before them, the reporter shot out her first question.

  “Mr. Reed,” she began, “what do you have to say about the photos of yourself and Ms. Stevens circulating this morning?”

  Jack surprised Becca. He didn’t growl. Didn’t try to divert the issue. He simply looped his arm around her waist, tugged her closer and announced, “Ms. Stevens and I are late for an engagement. So, if you’ll excuse us...”

  Then he crowded Becca toward the open cab door, leaving her no chance to argue. He scooted in the backseat after her. As he reached to close the door, the reporter persisted.