Kitabı oku: «In Mcgillivray's Bed»
“You could take your dress off,” Hugh offered helpfully.
“Yes, I could,” she reflected aloud.
And damned if she didn’t!
Right then. Right there.
Well, actually it took a few moments for her to get the dress off. Palm-dampening, mouth-parching, body-hardening moments as far as Hugh was concerned. Soaking wet and clingy beaded dresses were obviously not easy to shed.
But as he stood there gaping, the crazy woman peeled the silvery straps of her beaded dress right down her arms and wriggled and shimmied and squirmed until the dress pooled at her feet and she was wearing a strapless bra and a pair of itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini panties and nothing more.
Harlequin Presents® is proud to bring you a brand-new trilogy from international bestselling author
ANNE MCALLISTER
Welcome to
The McGillivrays of Pelican Cay
Meet:
Lachlan McGillivray—he’s ready to take his pretend mistress to bed!
Hugh McGillivray—is about to claim a bride….
Molly McGillivray—her Spanish lover is ready to surrender to passion!
Visit:
The stunning tropical island of Pelican Cay—full of sun-drenched beaches, it’s the perfect place for passion!
Don’t miss this fantastic trilogy:
McGillivray’s Mistress
In McGillivray’s Bed
And coming soon in Harlequin Presents® Molly’s story
IN McGillivray’s Bed
Anne McAllister
ISBN: 978 1 472 03084 9
IN MCGILLIVRAY’S BED
© 2004 Anne McAllister
First Published in Great Britain in 2004
Harlequin (UK) Limited
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
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All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk Version: 2020-08-18
MILLS & BOON
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For James, with love
In memory of Belle,
always the best
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
IT WASN’T exactly heaven.
It sure as heck wasn’t Iowa.
But it was as close as he was ever likely to get to perfection, Hugh McGillivray decided as he lounged back in the chair on his gently rocking boat, playing out his hand line, hoping for one last catch as he lazed away the end of the day in the setting Caribbean sun.
At the stern another rod bobbed in its holder, increasing his odds. But even if he didn’t get any more fish, Hugh didn’t care. It had still been a perfect day. The sort of idyllic day he remembered from childhood—where anything could happen or nothing could—and each was equally welcome.
They were the days he’d dreamed about during his years as a Navy pilot when rules and regulations and spit and polish had ruled his every waking hour. They were the days he’d been determined to enjoy again. They were the reason he’d left the Navy five years ago and come home to start up Fly Guy, his island charter business on tiny laid-back Pelican Cay.
Most days flying passengers and cargo kept him busy moving among the islands and to the coastal cities of the States. Most days he was delighted to do it—enjoying the variety of people he met and places he went and jobs he took.
“Never a dull moment,” he’d told his brother Lachlan cheerfully last week.
But that wasn’t precisely true.
Some days—some wonderful days—no one wanted to go anywhere, no one wanted to send anything, things were dull as ditch water. And Hugh loved those days even more because on those days he was totally free.
Like today, he thought, smiling and flexing his shoulders, then jiggling his hand line just a bit, wiggling his toes and relishing the beauty of the sunset and the soft sea breeze that ruffled his hair.
Of course, he could have been back at the shop helping his sister, Molly, work on the chopper engine or he could have been doing his paperwork or sending out his bills.
But the papers and the bills would be there tomorrow. So would Molly. And she’d be a damn sight happier for not having had him underfoot today. They were good friends most of the time—partners for the past four years; Molly did most of the mechanic work and Hugh did most of the flying—but they came close to strangling each other whenever they worked together on the same project.
So it had been the wisest thing, he assured himself, not to mention the safest, considering Molly’s proverbial redhead’s temper, to wave her goodbye this morning, whistle up his border collie, Belle, and head out for a day’s fishing.
He’d done some bottom fishing early, checking out several favorite spots. Then, long about lunchtime, he’d dropped anchor at a little cove on Pistol Island, a few miles east of Pelican Cay. There he’d eaten his bologna sandwiches and drunk a couple of beers while Belle had explored the mangroves and then went swimming. After Hugh had swum a bit, too, he’d begun working his way back toward Pelican Cay, though work hardly seemed the operative word.
Mostly he just fiddled with his lines, soaked up the rays, sipped his beer and drifted along as the sun dropped into the sea.
He watched with mild interest as speedboats zipped past him. But he felt no urge to move quicker. If he wanted speed, he flew. Today he wanted to drift. He’d waved at the launch taking the day-trippers back to Nassau from Pelican Cay when it had passed him a couple of hours ago. The passengers had waved back, looking tired and sunburned but, he supposed, happy.
No happier than he was, though.
No one was happier than Hugh McGillivray in his battered wooden boat—not even those high-living folks he’d seen partying on the snazzy yacht that had cruised past just a little while ago. He could still hear the sounds of calypso floating his way and see its lights in the dusk heading northwest.
He reached into his cooler and pulled out one last beer. The cooler had been full of ice and beer and sandwiches when he’d left this morning. Now it was full of fish—on top of what ice was left. He had enough fish to last all week and enough to share the largesse with Molly and Lachlan and Fiona, Lachlan’s wife.
He’d been hoping for a good-size grouper—one that would top the fish Lachlan had brought home last week. They’d been competing since they had come to Pelican Cay as teenagers. Lachlan still held the all-time record—having landed a fifty-eight-pound grouper when he was nineteen. But that had been half a lifetime ago. And even though he’d been insisting since then that Hugh would never beat him, Hugh still figured he would.
Especially now that Lachlan rarely went fishing anymore. He was far too busy these days with his collection of small inns and resort hotels, not to mention with his wife. Particularly now that Fiona was expecting.
Hugh grinned as he thought of his normally svelte sister-in-law who was now in what she called “the waddling way.” Fiona had been his friend for a lot of years. He thought she’d make a wonderful mom. The thought of Lachlan as a dad boggled the mind. Actually the thought of Lachlan as a husband had taken some getting used to. During his years as a professional soccer player, Lachlan had been known in the tabloids as “the gorgeous goalie,” and he’d certainly taken advantage of his reputation. Women had followed him in droves. Probably still would follow him if he showed any interest.
But Lachlan was only interested in Fiona. These days the gorgeous goalie was as domesticated as a cat.
Hugh wasn’t.
Ever since Carin Campbell had married Nathan Wolfe two years ago, Hugh had decided that confirmed bachelor-hood had a lot to recommend it. At the time he’d been seriously miffed that Carin had chosen another man—not that he’d shown it. He’d never ever worn his heart on his sleeve where Carin was concerned.
No one knew how much he’d cared.
Privately, though, Hugh had made up his mind that since the only woman worth marrying was taken, from here on out he’d simply play the field.
It wasn’t a bad deal. He could still admire Carin—love Carin, he admitted to himself—and enjoy her friendship. But he could also sidle up to any interesting female who turned up on Pelican Cay and flirt a little bit.
Or a lot. Whatever the situation required.
Hugh enjoyed flirting almost as much as he enjoyed fishing. It was fun. It sometimes led to bed which was also fun. And as long as no one took it seriously, no one got hurt.
He wished Lisa Milligan didn’t take it so seriously.
The flirting bit. Not the bed bit. They’d got to the flirting. They hadn’t got to bed—and they weren’t going to.
It was against his principles. Hugh was quite happy to go to bed with willing women who knew they were having fun and nothing more. He wasn’t about to sleep with any woman who thought she was going to haul him to the altar.
And he didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that’s exactly what Lisa had in mind.
Lisa Milligan was a sweet naive young girl. Girl being the operative word. She was nineteen, for God’s sake! A child! Well, perhaps slightly more than that. But not much.
She was Tony at the bakery’s niece, taking a break from college and working on the front desk at the Mirabelle, Lachlan’s extremely upscale, ultradiscreet, very fashionable Pelican Cay inn. She’d been there since spring.
Finding herself, she told him.
Mostly, Hugh thought grimly, finding him.
In the beginning he’d teased and flirted with her a bit because it was what he did. That didn’t mean he wanted to marry her.
Lisa just thought it did. In fact she expected he would marry her. Like it was a foregone conclusion. She’d told Miss Saffron, the island’s biggest gossip, exactly that.
“She say it only be a matter of time,” Miss Saffron had told him a while back as she’d rocked on the swing of her shady front porch.
Not in this lifetime, Hugh had thought, shaken. He’d been doing his best to steer clear of Lisa ever since.
But it hadn’t helped. Nothing had helped. Not even when he’d told her flat out that he wasn’t the marrying kind.
She’d just laughed and shown him her incredible dimples, then flashed her gorgeous grin. “Then I’ll just have to change your mind.”
She’d been doing her best for the past month. Everywhere Hugh had gone, there she’d been. In his shop, at the landing pad, on the dock, in the hammock on his porch this morning, for heaven’s sake!
“I wondered if you wanted to go for a swim?” she’d said hopefully.
“Can’t.” He’d been polite but brisk. It was a small island. People had to get along. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He just wanted her to understand she wasn’t for him.
“Oh.” She’d looked crestfallen. “I’ll see you later, then?”
He’d grunted. “Gonna be gone all day.”
“I could come along. It’s my day off.”
He’d shaken his head. “Sorry. It’s business.”
Stretching the truth, perhaps. Molly would have called him a liar. But he wasn’t. He needed to know where the good fishing was, didn’t he? That way he could direct his clients who wanted to know where to drop their lines.
He’d been taking care of business all day, enjoying every moment with only Belle, his dog, for company. He especially enjoyed the fact that the entire landscape was Lisa-free.
Now Hugh stretched expansively, lounged back and, one last time before he headed home, jiggled his line.
It jiggled back.
“Whoa.” He sat up straight and grinned, patience rewarded. He played the line out a little, then drew it in, testing to be sure he hadn’t simply snagged a piece of driftwood.
He got a responding twitch. The twitch became a tug. A strong tug.
Hugh laughed delightedly. No driftwood this! Whistling through his teeth, he began hauling it in.
“Look at that!” he said happily to Belle when it jerked hard against his hand. “We’ve got a live one.”
The dog opened one eye and looked mildly interested, then started to close it again when the rod behind Hugh began to jerk and rattle as well.
Startled, Hugh swiveled around to see it bending and rocking like mad in the twilight as Belle jumped up and barked at it. “Hang on.” He reached to grab it, too, just as he caught sight of a thrashing movement off the side of the boat.
One hell of a big thrashing movement. The line he held jerked hard and he wrapped it quickly and tightly around his hand.
What in God’s name had he caught? A bloody whale?
He braced his feet and began to haul it in again when all of a sudden his catch broke the surface.
A woman—an absolutely furious woman—sputtered up. “For heaven’s sake, stop yanking on that line! You’re going to rip my dress right off!”
Hugh goggled.
A woman?
He’d caught a woman?
No. Not possible. He gave his heat-baked brain a quick hard shake.
But even as he doubted and wondered if he’d had too much sun and too many beers, the line jerked in his hand, the rod bobbed madly and Belle leaned eagerly over the edge and wagged her tail and barked.
So she was real.
He wasn’t seeing things.
It was a woman. Or a…mermaid?
His mind wouldn’t even go there.
“Shut up, you stupid dog,” he muttered. Then, “Stop thrashing around,” he snapped at the woman.
“I’m not thrashing,” she retorted furiously. “I’m trying to get this damn hook out!” And abruptly she disappeared underwater leaving Hugh to stare at the empty ocean in the sudden silence and doubt his sanity once more.
Belle whined and leaned precariously over the edge. Hugh grabbed her collar and hauled her back just as the woman bobbed up again and the line jerked furiously in his hand, meaning she hadn’t got the hook out.
“Damned beaded dresses,” she said with annoyance.
Beaded dresses?
Hugh’s jaw sagged. But he could see that she did appear to be wearing something with sparkly silver straps over her shoulders. A beaded dress? Who the hell went swimming in a beaded dress?
She gave one more futile yank, then stopped fighting with the hook and took a couple of overhand strokes, which brought her closer to the boat but tangled her even further with his lines.
“Do you have a knife?” she demanded.
Did fish swim in the sea? “Of course I’ve got a knife.”
“Then give it here. Or cut the line and pull me out,” she ordered, stretching out a hand and sounding like Barrett, his old commanding officer, the one they’d called Captain Ahab behind his back because he was as irrational and stubborn as Melville’s legendary captain.
Barrett—and Ahab—had nothing on this woman. If she’d acted the least bit desperate, he would have handed over his knife in an instant. But he was damned if he was taking orders from a bossy mermaid.
“Well?” she demanded impatiently when he didn’t move. “What are you waiting for?”
“The magic word?” he drawled, raising one brow.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She began kicking again, splashing him.
“You might not want to do that,” he suggested. “You’ll attract sharks.”
Her eyes widened. “There aren’t—”
“Of course there are,” he said. “Big ones. Hungry ones. In case,” he added, “you thought Jaws was just a movie.” He cocked his head, and smiled at her, all the while thinking this was the most surreal experience he’d ever had in his life.
Belle whined and peered over the side.
The woman looked from him to his dog and back again. She pressed her lips together tightly, then rolled her eyes and shrugged, nearly sinking as she did so. Then she muttered a less than gracious, “Please.”
“By all means,” Hugh said affably and nudging Belle out of the way, grasped the woman’s outstretched hand and pulled. As she came out of the water, he got both of her hands, and she floundered, kicking and slithering, and landed against him, cold and wet as a fish.
But she didn’t feel like a fish.
She felt like 100 percent woman with soft breasts and shapely hips. And feet.
He felt both relieved—and irritated—that she had feet.
“What the hell were you doing out there swimming around in the middle of the damn ocean?” he demanded, gripping her arms.
She twisted out of his grasp and shoved away to stand on her own. Then she shook long wet dark hair out of her eyes and glared at him. “Well, I wasn’t swimming laps. I was trying to reach your boat obviously!”
“My boat?” That hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Your boat.” She corrected his emphasis. “It was the closest thing to aim for,” she explained as if he were slightly dim-witted.
Hugh didn’t think that under the circumstances he was the one whose wits needed questioning.
But he had a notion now where she’d come from. He arched a brow and looked her up and down, taking in the sparkly beaded dress that ended just above very shapely knees and outlined extremely enticing curves. A very snazzy cocktail dress. Not exactly day-tripper wear. More ritzy party girl. She could only have fallen off the yacht whose running lights he could still see far off in the distance.
“What happened?” he asked her. “Drink too much? Get a little tipsy? Lose your footing?”
“What?” She looked at him, offended.
So he spelled it out. “Fall off the yacht, sweetheart?”
“I did not fall off the yacht,” she told him flatly, lifting a chin not unlike Captain Ahab’s chin. “I jumped.”
Hugh’s jaw dropped. “You what!”
“I jumped,” she repeated calmly, which was exactly what he couldn’t believe she’d said the first time.
“Are you crazy? You jumped? In the middle of the bloody ocean? What the hell did you do a stupid thing like that for?”
The crazy woman drew herself up as tall as she could manage, which meant she was almost as tall as he was, and looked down her definitely Captain Ahab nose. “It was,” she informed him, “the proactive thing to do.”
Hugh sputtered. “Proactive?”
How like a ditsy female to use business babble to justify temporary insanity. At least he hoped it was temporary. He jerked his baseball cap off, ran a hand through his hair, jammed it back on again and shook his head.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed just because you drank a bit too much,” he told her. “Lots of people get a little wasted when they have a day’s holiday.”
But her chin just went higher. “It wasn’t a holiday. And I did not touch a drop. I never drink on business occasions.”
“You jump often?” Hugh inquired. “On business occasions?” His mouth twitched.
She gave him a fulminating glare, then wrapped her arms around her dripping dress and scowled. “Fine. Don’t believe me. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe me or not.” Pause. “But I would appreciate a towel.”
He didn’t move.
The scowl grew deeper, the glare more intense. Their eyes dueled. Then Miss Captain Ahab pressed her lips together tightly. There was a long pause. Finally she gave an irritable huff and added with bad grace, “Please.”
Hugh grinned. “Coming right up!”
He fished a not-very-clean towel out from beneath the bow of the boat where he always stowed his sleeping bag and cooler and other sundry gear and tossed it back to her. “It’s all yours.”
She caught it, wiped her face, then met his gaze over the top of it. “Thank you,” she said with exaggerated politeness.
Still grinning, he dipped his head. “Anytime.”
She looked away then and began drying off. Hugh stood there watching, fascinated, as she rubbed her arms and legs to dry them, then tried to sop up as much water from the beaded dress as she possibly could. It was a losing battle.
“You could take it off,” he offered helpfully.
“Yes, I could,” she reflected aloud.
And damned if she didn’t!
Right then. Right there.
Well, actually it took a few moments for her to get the dress off. Palm-dampening, mouth-parching, body-hardening moments as far as Hugh was concerned. Soaking-wet and clingy beaded dresses were obviously not easy to shed.
But as he stood there gaping, the crazy woman peeled the silvery straps of her beaded dress right down her arms and wriggled and shimmied and squirmed until the dress pooled at her feet and she was wearing a strapless bra and a pair of itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bikini panties and nothing more.
Hugh’s mouth went dry. His body got hot. He gaped, then tried to speak, but all he could manage was a croak like a frog’s. Abruptly he shut his mouth.
The woman didn’t seem to notice. She gave a huge sigh as she stepped neatly out of the pool of dress. “Thank God. You have no idea how heavy a wet beaded dress is.”
No, he didn’t. And if he tried to think about it, his mind whirled. All the blood that ordinarily made his brain function was far too busy elsewhere.
Without thinking, he sat down. Belle came and put her head on his knee, but her gaze was still on the crazy woman.
So was Hugh’s.
“If we’re going to be polite,” the woman told him firmly, “you shouldn’t stare. My father always told me it wasn’t polite to stare.”
Hugh swallowed, but he didn’t stop staring. The ability to move his eyes was beyond him. His brain was still in neutral. Certain parts of his body, however, were on high alert.
“Huh?” he managed to croak at last, his gaze still impolitely roving over her slim but decidedly curvy form.
“What?” he said, aware that she had spoken yet unable to find the sense in her words.
“Whoa,” he murmured as his brain finally engaged and he managed to both avert his gaze and shut his mouth at the same time. Major accomplishment. While his blood was otherwise occupied, the beer seemed to have gone to his head.
Now he tipped his head back and took a couple of deep, desperate breaths.
“Can I use this?” the crazy woman asked.
Her words made him jerk his head up, and he saw her holding up the quilt that Belle normally slept on. Belle was wagging her tail and grinning, apparently quite willing to share.
“Do you have to?”
He wasn’t thinking, of course. He was just saying what came into his head. And what came into his head was how much he was enjoying the sight of all that lovely female flesh. And he was loath to lose sight of it, even when she gave him a seriously disdainful look.
“Then perhaps you could lend me your shirt.” She looked at it pointedly. “Please,” she added with more than a hint of irony.
He could. But leaving it flapping over his baggy shorts, thus hiding the evidence of his unfortunate arousal was probably a better idea.
“Use the quilt,” he said gruffly.
She blinked, taken aback. But when he didn’t change his mind, she shrugged and wrapped it around her shoulders, then clutched it over her middle, giving the impression that she had turned into an overstuffed chair.
Or she would have if Hugh hadn’t had a good imagination and an even better memory. He knew damned well what was under the padding. He could still see it all in his mind’s eye.
He was definitely glad he’d kept his shirt.
“So,” he said, determined to focus on her less appealing characteristics, “tell me about this proactive jump of yours.”
She glanced over her shoulder toward where the running lights of the yacht were still barely visible. “Could we, um, just get moving first?”
“Catch up with them, you mean?” Hugh said doubtfully. It would be a hell of a ride in the dark.
“No!” The word burst out from her, surprising him. Then she gave herself a little shake. “I mean, no, thank you,” she said with extreme politeness.
But even spoken with politeness, the words were still surprising. Hugh cocked his head and lifted a brow. “No, you don’t want to catch up with the boat?”
“No!” Pause. Moderation. “I don’t. In fact, I would very much like to head in the other direction.”
“I’m not going in the other direction.”
“Where are you going, then?” She looked suddenly apprehensive.
He jerked his head toward the lights of Pelican Cay. “There.”
She turned to see where he’d indicated, and her apprehension faded a bit. She nodded her head. “That’ll be fine,” she said, glancing back at the lights of the yacht, then added, “Just let’s go, okay?”
Interesting. And odd how she could swim in shark-infested waters with complete aplomb and then freak out when she was perfectly safe. Unless she wasn’t perfectly safe.
“Did you steal something?” Hugh demanded, gaze narrowing.
“Steal something?” She looked shocked. “Whatever for?”
“How the hell should I know? You jumped off a bloody boat. Why the hell else would you run away?”
“I’m not running away!”
“Oh, right. I forgot. You were just proactively jumping into shark-infested waters miles from shore.” He kept his tone conversational. It was easy enough to call her a liar with his eyes.
For an instant her gaze slid away, but then she brought it back and met his squarely and Captain Ahab was back. “I needed to leave. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look, will you just go?” she said. “I’ll tell you. I promise. I haven’t done anything wrong. I just need some space and a little time.” She wasn’t quite begging, but there was a definite urgency in her tone. She met his gaze steadily. “Please.”
There was, even now, a sense of self-possession about her. As edgy as she was, it was a polite please not a frantic please.
Cripes, maybe it had been a proactive jump.
He nodded and moved to start the engine. She stepped out of his way. He got it going but didn’t let out the throttle.
“What are you waiting for?” she demanded.
“You.”
She looked blank.
“Can’t go too fast,” he explained. “I won’t be able to hear you when you tell me why you jumped. And it better be good,” he warned her, “to make up for my record catch that got away.”
“I DON’T believe it,” the scruffy fisherman said flatly when Sydney told him what had prompted her to jump overboard.
She glared at him. Who gave him the right to pass judgment, for heaven’s sake? “Well, believe it or not, it’s true.”
“Let me get this straight. You jumped off a yacht in the middle of nowhere so you wouldn’t have to get married?” He all but rolled his eyes as he repeated the gist of what she’d said.
Her jaw tightened. “More or less.”
He rolled his eyes, then cocked his head and fixed his gaze on her. “Are you too young to remember the phrase Just Say No?”
“That was to say no to drugs.”
“It is possible,” the grubby fisherman pointed out, “to say no to other things.”
“Like baths and clean clothes?” she said sweetly, her gaze raking him.
He had at least a couple of days’ growth of beard on his face and he wore a pair of faded jean cutoffs and an equally faded short-sleeved shirt covered with outrageous cartoon flamingos and palm trees.
His dark brows drew down. “I’m clean,” he protested. “I took a swim this afternoon.”
“A swim?”
“Water’s water. Don’t change the subject. Why didn’t you just say no? No, thank you,” he corrected with a grin.
“Because,” she told him haughtily, “it wouldn’t have been efficacious.” She doubted he even knew what the word meant.
He repeated it. “Efficacious. What’s that when it’s at home?”
“Appropriate. Though I doubt you know what that means, either.”
“Me?” His brows went clear up into the fringe of hair that flopped over his forehead. “I don’t know what’s appropriate? Who jumped into the ocean miles from shore?”
She felt her face grow hot, but she refused to acknowledge the foolishness, even though now her knees were feeling like jelly. “It worked. They didn’t see me. No one saw me.”
“And that makes it appropriate?” He was almost shouting at her. “You’re a flaming idiot, you know that? If I hadn’t fished you out, you’d have drowned. Or been eaten by a shark.”
“I saw your boat.”
He stared at her as if she’d just escaped from Bedlam. “You saw my boat? A quarter of a bloody mile away?” He made it sound like rank idiocy. To him it obviously was. To her, at the time, it had been completely sensible and absolutely necessary.
There had been no other way.
She certainly couldn’t call Roland Carruthers, her father’s CEO, a liar! Not in front of the entire group of management and investors he’d brought together on the yacht to celebrate the acquisition of Butler Instruments by St. John Electronics.
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