Kitabı oku: «Wanted: Billionaire's Wife»

One

Danica Novak wanted a hot shower, cool bedsheets and at least ten hours of uninterrupted sleep after her early morning cross-country flight. Instead, she got a claim form for lost luggage, a taxi driver who hit every possible red light between the airport in San Francisco and her office building in Palo Alto, and yet another phone squabble with her parents’ health insurance company about her brother’s medical bills. This was the third person she’d talked to since her plane landed, and it wasn’t yet 11:00 a.m. in California.

“The treatment isn’t covered?” She braced her cell phone between her right shoulder and ear while using her hands to dig through her tote bag for any loose bills with which to pay the fare. Her credit card was useless, as she had discovered when she tried to buy food on the plane. Her sudden trip to Rhode Island at last-minute airfare prices had eaten up what remained of her cushion. “You can’t negotiate to bring the costs down? At all?”

The driver stared at her through the rearview mirror, his fingers tapping an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel. When her eyes met his in the mirror, he flicked the meter back on. Danica smiled at him through gritted teeth and held up her index finger in the universal plea for just one more minute, while mustering the strength to keep her voice pitched at a pleasant conversational level.

She learned as a teenager, while helping her father apply for the license for his dry-cleaning business, that getting angry with faceless bureaucracies rarely resulted in a positive outcome. “Yes, I understand you’ve been told the treatment is classified as elective. Can I talk to a manager about this? Hello?” She stared at the phone. The call had dropped—or she had been hung up on.

A staccato beep from the car’s horn ripped her attention back to the driver. “Lady, I gotta go.”

“One second, please?” She put the phone down to better sift through the contents of her bag. The emergency twenty she always carried had to be somewhere—aha! She added it to the other bills and thrust the fare at the driver, scrambling out of the car as fast as the vinyl seat would let her. The taxi took off, the late Monday-morning sunshine bouncing off its fenders.

She stretched her neck, the bunched muscles in her shoulders protesting when she turned her head from side to side, and opened the glass door to the office building. It seemed a century ago when she last passed through the entrance, racing out in the middle of the day to pack for an emergency visit home. She was still reeling from the shock of seeing her brother, Matt, a perpetual motion machine since birth, so still in his hospital bed.

Matt had been a surprise baby, arriving eight years after Danica to the entire family’s delight. Now a high-school senior, he’d attracted attention from universities for his athletic ability. Until two weeks ago, when a freak three-way collision during a football game caused a massive concussion, a fractured femur and spinal shock.

Now out of danger, his prognosis was good for a full recovery, but his doctors worried he wasn’t responding as well as he could to conventional treatment. The experimental spinal therapy the insurance company was currently denying might speed up his return to health, but they wouldn’t know unless a way was found to pay for it. And she’d find one. She’d told her parents she would take care of it, and she hadn’t let them down yet.

Once inside, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Only four companies shared the office building, and the lobby was empty most times of day. She welcomed the quiet, letting it wash over her. Family leave was officially over. Time to switch back to worker bee. The Rinaldi Executive Search presentation to Ruby Hawk Technologies was in two days, and it needed to be perfect. Her promised promotion from Johanna Rinaldi’s assistant to search consultant depended on it.

She grabbed a free copy of the Silicon Valley Weekly off the lobby’s reception desk, hoping to catch up on the latest tech-industry news while she headed down the corridor to the Rinaldi offices. The tabloid newspaper was accessible online, but the print version was easier to read while walking. As if the universe had decided she needed a reminder of just how crucial the next few days would be, a color photo of Luke Dallas, the thirty-three-year-old CEO and founder of Ruby Hawk Technologies, stared out at her from the front page.

Like most people in the valley, Danica followed the meteoric rise of Ruby Hawk Technologies with awe. But the man behind the company held a special fascination for her. She long thought Luke Dallas looked as if he should be brooding on a windswept English moor rather than writing code in a glass-and-steel California office. His strong, chiseled features were a perfect match for the rumors of his hard-nosed tactics. In a town that tolerated eccentric if driven geniuses, he stood out for his demanding demeanor.

A shiver traced her spine as her gaze met his in the photo, the blue of his eyes stunning even in newsprint. She would soon be sitting across the table from that stare. A month ago, Danica discovered Ruby Hawk had terminated their contract with their search agency. She knew Johanna and Luke had gone to business school together, and she’d used that information to land a meeting to pitch Ruby Hawk their services. He was scheduled to sit in that meeting.

Surely, he couldn’t be that arresting in real life. It must be a trick of the photographer’s, maybe the light—

Her peripheral vision screamed out a warning just in time. She barely avoided colliding with a very broad, very muscular male chest. She swallowed her gasp of appreciation for the obviously fine physique under the tailored button-down shirt, threw the man a quick smile of apology and returned to perusing the article while she rummaged in her bag for her office key.

It took a second before the man’s face fully registered. She looked up from the newspaper and stared at him. Then she glanced down at the photo. Then back at the man. Her mouth went dry as her heartbeat thudded in her ears.

Luke Dallas stood in front of the closed door of Rinaldi Executive Search. In the flesh. All six feet, four inches of him, from his wavy dark hair to his rather impressively sized loafers.

She’d been wrong. He was indeed that arresting—and more—in person. A two-dimensional image was incapable of capturing the aura of danger in his stance, coiled tension threatening to spring into action at the slightest provocation. The photo revealed the handsome symmetry of his features, but couldn’t impart the sheer sensuality and command. This was a man who got what he wanted and didn’t care how. Pinned by the force of his gaze, she shivered as his expression darkened. The air grew heavy, thickening with the ominous atmosphere of two weather fronts about to collide into a supercell.

She was in the direct path of the storm.

* * *

This should have been a day for triumph. Instead, Luke Dallas’s jaw hurt from hours of clenching his teeth. It was a new sensation. He was always in control, no matter the situation.

But that was before this morning. Before a casual meeting in an out-of-the-way coffee shop, away from prying eyes and ears, to sign the deal memo for his company’s acquisition turned into an ambush orchestrated by Irene Stavros and her father, Nestor. His vision still flashed red.

He’d travelled straight from the meeting, the ultimatum handed to him by Nestor running on a constant loop, to Johanna Rinaldi’s boutique search firm. Johanna was the only person he could think of under the time-crunched circumstances who could help to extricate him from the trap Nestor had pulled closed so artfully.

Where the hell was she? Her office was locked tight and no one answered the door or the phone. His patience had just stretched past its breaking point when a woman, who couldn’t be bothered to look where she was going, nearly ran him over. She stared at him with eyes so wide they threatened to take over the rest of her face. Pretty eyes though. Big and green. A man could get lost in those depths if he wasn’t careful.

Then she blinked, breaking the connection, and his anger came back.

“Can I help you?” he barked, partially to cover being caught staring at a stranger, no matter how attractive, and partially because she wasn’t Johanna and, right now, Johanna was the only person he wanted to see.

“You’re Luke Dallas.” Her gaze ping-ponged between the newspaper clutched in her hand and his face. “But our meeting isn’t until Wednesday.”

“You work for Johanna?” Finally. Maybe his day could get back on track and he could salvage what was left of it.

“Um.” Her eyes were still wide as she ran a hand through her messy blond ponytail, then used it to tug on a white shirt that looked like it had been put on straight off the floor. Finally, she held it out to be shaken. “Yes. I do. I’m Danica. Novak. Danica Novak.”

He shook her proffered hand. When he pressed against it, her fingers trembled and she leaned back, as if she were Little Red Riding Hood and he the Big Bad Wolf and they were standing in Grandmother’s house. An appealing rosy shade appeared on her high cheekbones.

“It seems you know my name.”

“Yes, well,” she said, waving the newspaper clutched in her left hand, “it helps to have a visual aid.” She gave him a tentative smile, and if he thought her eyes pretty before, the smile turned them downright stunning. Then the newspaper headline caught his gaze and made him forget any nonsense about the eyes being the windows to the soul.

“May I see that?” he asked. She handed it over.

He read the article, the hallway walls pressing in further with every word. The Weekly’s business reporter Cinco Jackson somehow had received wind of Luke’s talks with the Stavros Group, despite his best efforts to keep them quiet. The article outlined the rumors surrounding the acquisition, calling it a done deal with the papers due to be signed imminently. Luke would be lucky to make it ten feet past Ruby Hawk’s front door without his employees questioning him about timing and next steps.

Thanks to his family, plus some savvy investments of his own, Luke could’ve retired after college graduation and still lived an extremely comfortable life. But that was due to being born to the right parents. He hadn’t earned it.

He refused to be like his stepsiblings, living off the fat of their inheritances. He wanted to build something, like his great-grandfather had. He wanted it to last, unlike his great-grandfather’s legacy. The Draper & Dallas department store chain was long gone. The advancements made by Ruby Hawk in biofeedback and neural technology, however, could make lives better for generations.

He crushed the newspaper in his hand. Ruby Hawk Technologies was his. He’d created the company, pouring his own money into it. Now he needed additional capital for the company to reach its full potential, to prove to those who wrote him off as a rich dilettante that he had what it took to be a tech visionary.

He’d explored options for raising more money but none provided the combination of financing, ownership control and corporate independence Luke sought. Then Irene Stavros suggested he talk to her father. A month ago, Luke received a deal term sheet from Nestor.

On paper, it was perfect. The Stavros Group would buy Ruby Hawk and infuse the company with the cash it needed to expand, while allowing Ruby Hawk to continue to operate autonomously. The original management team, including Luke as CEO, would remain intact and he would continue to call all the shots without interference from the acquiring parent company. Anticipating an easy close to the deal, Luke ordered and installed expensive new equipment for his engineers. Then when he went to meet Nestor to sign the paperwork, Nestor revealed his trap. Unless Luke went along with Nestor’s demands, he wouldn’t have the means to make payroll in six months’ time.

And now, the article. Thanks to it revealing the deal terms, his employees would be expecting their stock options to be worth millions upon the completion of the acquisition.

He had to save this deal. “Where’s your boss?”

Her green eyes widened at the snap of his words.

“I’ve been here for half an hour and no one has answered the door or the phone. What kind of a business is this?” He thrust the tabloid back at her. He’d deal with the story later.

“We’re very good at what we do. I’m sure there’s an explanation.” She shook out the crumpled paper.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at his watch.

Color rose even higher in her cheeks. “I just got off a plane. Johanna probably has a meeting off-site.” She opened a substantial tote bag and searched inside. “Although that doesn’t explain why Britt isn’t on phone duty,” she murmured under her breath. Her hand surfaced holding a key ring. “Wait here while I make sure the lights are on.”

She swung open the door and disappeared inside, shutting it behind her. He heard a stifled exclamation, followed by a loud thud. Just as he was about to investigate the noise, she emerged, slamming the door shut and leaning against it.

Her face made her white shirt seem dark gray by comparison. “Um, maybe you should wait at the diner next door. The coffee is good. It’s all single origin, hand poured—”

“No.” It would be a long time before he’d be able to drink coffee without the memory of that morning’s meeting poisoning the taste. “What’s wrong? Is someone hurt?”

She shook her head, her chest rapidly rising and falling.

“I’m going in.” He gently took her hand off the doorknob. It trembled in his grasp.

Her chin snapped up. “No, please don’t—”

He ignored her protestations. Was it a break-in? Vandalism? Or hungover coworkers, and she didn’t want a prospective client to see what really went on at Rinaldi Executive Search?

The last thing he’d expected to see was emptiness. As in, not only were employees not at their desks, but the desks were gone too. The blinds were open and the sunshine revealed a reception area, barren save for a broken desk stool, naked metal shelves and scuffmarks on the bamboo laminate floors marking where furniture once stood. One lonely high-walled cubicle stood outside a door that led to an inner office empty of all furnishings.

“I thought maybe we were robbed.” Danica stood behind him in the doorway, her arms protectively hugging her chest. “But...”

He shook his head. Thieves would have left a mess. “This is the work of professional movers.”

The hot fist in his stomach began to squeeze again. Johanna’s disappearance was total. How could he so badly miscalculate twice in the same day?

“I was gone two weeks.” Danica’s voice was thin. “Two weeks.” Her gaze, wild and unfocused, travelled around the empty space. She shuffled into the office like a sleepwalker who couldn’t wake up. Her tote bag lay in her path, its contents scattered across the floor. Before he could clear it out of her way, her foot tangled in the thick strap.

He lunged, grasping her shoulders to keep her upright. This close, her hair consisted of a thousand shades of gold, from honey chestnut to palest yellow. Faint freckles dusted the pale skin stretched over a small, pointed nose. Her lips were softly curved, the bottom lip presenting the perfect amount of plumpness. Vanilla spiked with cinnamon teased his nose. For a second, he was tempted to see if she tasted just as spicy sweet.

Then reality landed a roundhouse to his gut.

His plan for saving Ruby Hawk had disappeared with the office furnishings that used to grace the Rinaldi office.

* * *

“Thank you for the save.” Danica heard her voice as if it came from a long distance. Maybe she fell asleep on the plane, and this was just a bad nightmare brought on by the pressure of finishing the pitch presentation? But despite the number of blinks, the vision in front of her stayed the same.

Luke Dallas, CEO of Ruby Hawk Technologies. A Doctor Who fan had confided in her that Luke was called Luke Dalek behind his back, because he never met a human emotion he didn’t try to exterminate.

Luke Dallas, who had very firm muscles under his Silicon Valley uniform of blue button-down shirt paired with khakis. Underneath his clothes, he must put a Greek god to shame. She grasped the silky cotton of his shirt, his biceps flexing under her fingers. He even smelled like she imagined a Greek god would: like the outdoors after a rainstorm over a base of expensive leather and fresh citrus. The room began to spin, faster and faster, and she closed her eyes.

“Breathe,” he said. “In and out.”

She did as he commanded, allowing herself to lean into him, just a little, craving the intense sense of confidence and security his arms provided. Then he abruptly let go. Her eyes flew open.

“I don’t have time to take you to urgent care if you fall and hurt yourself.” His jaw clenched as his gaze travelled the barren suite. “I have to leave.”

Think, Danica, think fast. But her mind was a jumble of scattershot fragments mixed with bursts of pure panic. All she knew was if he left, he would take with him the chance of pitching Rinaldi Executive Search’s services to him. And with that would go her promised promotion.

She needed to find her boss. This had to be a huge misunderstanding.

“Johanna must have moved offices while I was gone. I was a bit hard to reach.” It was the truth. Matt’s hospital floor didn’t allow cell phones. “Let me call her.”

She picked up her treacherous tote bag and scooped the fallen items back into it. Where was her phone? She knew she got off the plane with it. She had it in the taxi—

Oh, no. She placed it on the taxi’s back seat while searching for the fare. And she never picked it back up. It could be anywhere from Marin to Monterey.

“Something else wrong?” His hard stare caused her skin to prickle.

“Nothing is wrong. I forgot something, that’s all,” she said, keeping her tone pleasant. It was if he could see through her and wasn’t impressed. Just like in high school, when the kids at the top of the social pyramid made sure she knew she would never ascend to their heights.

He folded his arms. “Seems to me a lot is wrong. Starting with the empty office.”

“I’m going to my desk to straighten this out. Will you give me fifteen minutes?” Please, she prayed, let there be a working office phone on the premises. And please let Johanna have an amazing explanation that didn’t defy logic.

He nodded. She held her head high until she was behind her cubicle walls, out of his view. Then her shoulders crumbled.

Her cubicle was empty of everything but a file box. The lid was off, and inside were the few personal items she kept in the space. On top were the comic-book action figures that used to decorate her shelves. They had been a gag gift from her brother when she moved to California, a reminder she was stronger than she looked.

Her nose stung. She willed the tears away. Crying only caused more problems, a lesson she had learned well.

A note was taped to the outside of the box, the cream-colored envelope embossed with Johanna’s initials. The heavy, linen-weave paper was leaden in her hands.

Hey, Danica!

I didn’t want to disturb you while you were with your family. But the Stavros Group offered me an amazing opportunity! I’m their new head of Asia-Pacific talent recruitment. I’ll be based in Sydney and traveling all over the world. They needed me right away so I couldn’t wait until you came back. :-(

Britt already has a new job, yay! Speaking of, do me a favor and make sure Britt forwarded the phones to the answering service? ;-)

I’ll try to call you when I get settled, but I’ll be super busy so it might be a while. Here’s your final paycheck and the number for the lawyer in charge of the business dissolution in case you have questions.

Ciao!

Johanna xoxo

Danica pulled out the attached pay slip. Two weeks’ severance had been added to it. Two weeks. That was all she was worth to Johanna? After giving her three years of her life, helping her build the company from the ground up, never taking vacation and only the very rare sick day? The emergency family leave had been the first time she’d been away from the office for more than forty-eight hours in a row.

She sank to the floor. This was worse than when her ex-boyfriend left her. At least then she’d had a job and could contribute to the family finances. Now? She didn’t even have her beaten-up car. She’d asked her roommate, Mai, to sell it for her to cover her share of the household expenses, since her plane ticket had eaten up her meager bank account. Nor could she ask Mai to let her slide on her rent payment. Mai’s finances were almost as precarious as hers.

Danica always managed to find the glimmer of light in darkness, to think her way out of what seemed like insurmountable odds. Until now. Try as hard as she could, her mind remained an opaque blank.

* * *

Luke watched Danica march to her cubicle, ponytail swinging as if she didn’t have a care in the world. He couldn’t help but notice other rounder portions of her anatomy also swaying. Too bad she was lying about reaching Johanna. He’d tried calling her several times himself. No answer, only voice mail.

He should return to his office and come up with plans B through Z. He would just have to sidestep his team’s questions about the acquisition the best he could.

A sniffle-like sound echoed through the empty suite. He shook his head. Tears were a cheap, manipulative trick. He reached for the doorknob.

A second sniffle ricocheted through the air, followed by a third.

Damn it. He turned and walked to the cubicle.

The noises were Danica shredding what looked like expensive stationery into tiny pieces of confetti. “Wanton destruction. Effective,” he said.

She gave him a quick smile, her eyes suspiciously bright, before returning to her task. “Johanna moved to Sydney.”

He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “You got her on the phone?”

She shook her head. “She left an old-fashioned note. I’d show you but it’s not legible now.” More paper fragments fell from her hands. “I guess the meeting on Wednesday is cancelled.”

“Yes.” A strange twinge of something like regret hit him at the thought of never seeing her again, but he shook it off. “I’m leaving. Good luck.” He held out his hand to be shaken.

She took it. Her palm fit against his as if it was meant to be there.

He cleared his throat. “If you hear from Johanna, tell her I need—”

His gaze fixated on a scrap of paper near his shoe. Stavr was written on it in loopy cursive letters. “Why is Johanna in Sydney?”

Danica shrugged. “Her note said she got her dream job.” She kicked at the scraps.

“A job with whom?” His stomach muscles contracted as if anticipating a hard blow.

“The Stavros Group. Why?”

The blow landed, square in his gut. He now saw just how thoroughly Nestor and Irene had prepared the trap. He couldn’t help but wonder who else in his social circle they’d co-opted. He bet if he called Gwen, the last woman he dated, he’d find she was filming out of the country—for one of the Stavros Group’s production companies.

And he’d walked into it like a green MBA just out of business school, all theoretical book learning with none of the street smarts he had honed over the years. His fists bunched, nails digging sharply into his skin. It was either that or punch the wall, and the cubicle looked like one good blow would topple it over. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this,” he ground out.

Danica stopped tearing paper, her gaze fixing on his. “What does Johanna’s new job have to do with you?”

He shook his head, the bile closing his throat and bottling his words deep inside. Nestor and Irene were three steps ahead of him, always had been. They took Johanna off the game board, knowing she would be his first move. It was predictable, he had to admit. He and Irene and Johanna had been at business school together. Irene knew his social circle almost as well as he did. Damn it.

He strode out of the cubicle. “I have to get back to my office.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Danica beat him to the outer door and stood in his way. “You’re not leaving until you tell me what is going on.”

He ignored her, veering right.

She dodged him with a grace he hadn’t seen since the last time he was dragged to a benefit for the San Francisco Ballet. She set her feet and held her arms out to block his passage. He couldn’t help but notice how her stance caused her shirt buttons to strain against her full breasts, creating shadowy gaps that tempted further exploration.

He dragged his gaze away and reached for the doorknob. “I don’t have time for this game.”

Her hand grabbed his wrist, her fingers landing on his pulse point. Their gazes met, clashed in a lightning strike that sent electricity crackling through the air.

Her chin dropped, and she looked up at him from under dark gold eyelashes. The tip of her pink tongue darted out to wet her plump lips, her breaths coming faster. Her remarkable eyes almost glowed in the dust-filled light. What if he leaned in, like so—

Before he could put his thoughts into action, she snapped her head up. The static in the atmosphere dissipated. She let his wrist go but he could feel the pressure of her fingers on his skin.

“This is not a game. This is my life.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she took a deep breath. “Before today, I had a job I loved in executive recruitment. I was really good at it too. My title might have been assistant, but I made most of the placements and I was finally about to be promoted. But this morning, poof!” She snapped her fingers. “And judging by your behavior, you’re connected to the magic trick that made my job disappear. You owe me an explanation.”