Double-Cross My Heart (6 page)

She was in a precarious position at the company, what with her little deceit about her uncle. Alex remembered the way her face had gone blank when he’d revealed that he knew her dark secret. Her uneasiness was understandable. With one phone call, he could topple her entire career and leave an ugly stain on her future, not that he ever would. But there were others who wouldn’t hesitate a second.

She needed to protect her position and aggressive actions were sometime needed to do that. He’d told her that he knew about her uncle because she needed a nudge to get herself out of that risky position. Working with him to dismantle Michele Cosmetics would benefit her financially as well as leave her able to pursue jobs in the field. Win-win, his favorite way to do business, when possible.

“So why handle this yourself?” Bryan asked, after a few minutes.

Instead of answering his question directly, Alex said, “Do you think Jason is smart enough to get Eden’s cooperation?”

Shrugging, Bryan answered, “I don’t know. He’s not an Einstein, but he is fairly attractive and not stupid, by any means. Women have been known to do crazy things for men they’re involved with.”

“Men, too,” Alex commented, turning away from the mirror.

Bryan grinned. “Very true. Feeling like doing something crazy with Ms. Merritt? Is she getting to you?”

Alex busied himself with his tie, not answering. He hadn’t gotten to where he was in the business world without learning to play a little hard ball, but this situation was getting surprisingly personal. He couldn’t deny he wanted Eden to come out of this with a good opinion of him. He’d never actually use the info about her uncle against her because he was coming to realize he couldn’t hurt the woman. Even more shocking was the realization that he found the kind of hardball tactics suddenly distasteful in general. Just being near the woman seemed to be affecting his perspective.

“Doesn’t it bother you to lie to her? I mean, you did use a ‘creative’ method to meet her,” Brian persisted.

“I’m not lying to her exactly,” Alex said, wishing he could convince himself she’d see it that way. “I’m just not giving her the complete picture. Laying everything out in front of a person can end up confusing them as to the main points. With me acquiring Michele Cosmetics and dismantling it for a profit, the profit, especially for Eden, is the pertinent issue.”

Bryan maintained a silence that was faintly skeptical prompting Alex to insist. “There’s nothing in this deal that doesn’t benefit Eden, too. I’ve made sure of that.”

“Okay.” Bryan paused before saying, “But you’re not completely comfortable with having to…give her only part of the picture, are you?”

“Being completely comfortable is a rarity,” Alex responded, making a promise to himself. This was it. The last time he was lying to Eden. The one big deceit that had started their relationship didn’t have to continue on indefinitely.

“Alex?” His secretary, Rosie, appeared in the open doorway. “Did you want me to confirm the second weekend in December for our staff cook night at the Ronald McDonald House? They’re on the phone trying to firm up the schedule for the holidays.”

Glancing over at Bryan, Alex said, “The second Saturday night sounds good to me. Are you in?”

Bryan’s expression sobered immediately.

Alex recognized the emotion in his friend’s eyes. The first few times he’d gone to the house and cooked a meal for the families of cancer patients, he’d felt the same way. Seeing the damage the disease wrecked had brought it all back fresh in his mind.

“I’m in,” Bryan said staunchly. “If you guys are going, I’m going.”

“Good man. It gets better. At least, you feel like you’re helping them in some small way,” Alex said before turning to ask Rosie, “What about you? You’re by far the best cook of all of us here. Can you make it?”

“Sure,” she said immediately. “I love cooking for an appreciative group. And the new guy in Research said he wants to come help the next time we go.”

“Then put us all down for the second Saturday night in December,” Alex confirmed. He had a good-hearted bunch of people working with him. It was one of the reasons he liked coming to work everyday.

“I’ll call the Ronald McDonald people back,” Rose said as she left the room.

Just then the phone on Alex’s desk rang.

Closest to the desk, Bryan answered, “Zilkowski. Yes, he’s right here. Line three? Okay.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Alex reached for the receiver his friend held out to him.

“Its Martin from Millennium Tech,” Bryan said, punching a button on the phone.

Alex walked across the room to take the phone, he tucked it against his ear and said, “Alex Holt speaking.”

“Mr. Holt?” James Miller’s voice sounded uneasy and staticky as if distorted by bad cell service.

“James. You met with your board last evening?”

“Yes, we met.” Miller cleared his throat and said with a shade of aggression, “the offer’s not high enough. We’ve got assets valued at over a half a billion dollars.”

“That’s an interesting number,” Alex commented coolly. “How did you happen to arrive at that figure?”

“From our accounting firm, of course.” Miller sounded annoyed.

“Of course.” Reaching for the suit coat that hung waiting on a chair back, Alex allowed a pause. “Aren’t they under investigation?”

Dropping his feet to the floor, Bryan vacated the desk chair as Alex came around to sit down.

“Now listen, Holt,” James Miller said, his voice rising.

“I am listening,” Alex responded, opening his briefcase, “for the next three minutes.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Miller said irritably. “This is a multi-million dollar deal. There are bugs that need to be worked out.”

“Very understandable,” Alex conceded smoothly. “But I deal with bottom lines. Either you take what I offered or I go ahead with my alternative plans. The monetary amount we’ve offered stays the same. Any ‘bugs’ can be worked out with my lawyers once that issue is settled.”

“You can’t expect a corporation of this size to just rollover and play dead when you ask us to,” Miller sputtered. “We aren’t some penny-ante business. We survived the internet bust and we’re on our way back!”

“Good line,” Alex said pleasantly. “But you might want to punch it up when you try, for the tenth time, to get a bank to loan you the ten million you need just to keep your services on-line for the next twelve-months.”

“You have to offer us something more!” the man on the other end of the line said desperately.

“Goodbye, Miller,” Alex said, hanging the phone up gently.

Getting to his feet, he shoved a file back into the case and held it out to Bryan. “Let me know when they notify us they’re taking the deal.”

Bryan laughed. “There was a time when you were a little less sure of this kind of deal.”

“Was there?” Alex said, glancing over his shoulder with a smile
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CHAPTER THREE

“Wait a second. I know your position on the Millennium Tech acquisition,” Bryan said. “But what about the cosmetics deal? Do you think it’s a go? Eden will eventually agree? She’s putty in your hands?”

At the question, Eden’s image filled Alex’s mind. Her lips were soft and pliant; her body rounded in all the right places. Alex acknowledged to himself the hunger he felt for her. As to the Michele deal, he honestly didn’t see that she had many other options. No good ones, anyway.

He felt confident of a successful outcome to the deal. He could only hope to an equally successful results to the new promising relationship between them.

Alex had come to expect a fair amount of luck in his life and he saw no reason to anticipate this situation being any different, despite his uneasiness. Eden would be good with the final outcome. He’d make sure of it.

“She’s a smart woman,” he said, answering Bryan’s question. “As to how she’ll respond to our buy-out bid, technically, the jury’s still out.”

“Technically,” Bryan repeated with a wry smile. “You’re having dinner with her tonight to get her answer?”

“We are meeting for dinner,” Alex told his friend. “Hopefully, she sees our deal as her best option.”

Bryan smiled. “If she’s as discontented as we suspect, then we should be a go.”

Alex shrugged, refusing to worry about what he’d do if she told him to get the hell out of her life. “Once she’s had time to study the deal, I think she’ll see the offer as being consistent with her own best interests. We arrange a very lucrative severance package for her and she takes her resume and a fat bank account into her next job. Simple as that.”

Only it wasn’t. How did he begin to quantify the emotions she stirred in him. Business was facts and logic, this thing he felt for Eden wouldn’t be reduced to a black-and-white level.

“Did things get ugly when you talked about our interest in the company?” Bryan asked, his unease at the thought clear on his face. “I know you’ve been losing sleep over this deal with her.”

“You know I never sleep,” Alex said, shying away from a verbal admission. If he said aloud to his friend how much he’d been worrying about the relationship consequences, it was like asking for the worst to happen. “No, there was no ugliness. I never lied to her about who I am and she knew me by reputation. It wasn’t such a big leap for me to suggest using my talents to assist her in her situation.”

Bryan laughed, the sound grating in Alex’s ears.

“Assist her and assist yourself to several million dollars.”

Alex didn’t look up. “A solution that works for everyone. Like I said, Eden’s both very attractive and very intelligent.”

“Translation—she’s the kind of woman you could get seriously interested in,” Bryan pointed out.

There was a knock on the door and Alex opened it.

Rosie, stuck her head into the room again. “Your sister is on line two, Alex, and I’m running down the hall a minute.”

“Thanks,” Alex said absently, as he walked over to the desk and reached for the phone. Across the desk, Bryan seemed to sit up straighter and Alex hid his half-smile as he picked up the phone to talk to Lauren.

Razzing his friend, he said seriously, “Shall I tell her you’re here and that just the thought of talking to her makes your tongue go numb?”

“What?” Bryan said, flustered, “No—yes, no! You don’t have to say anything about me. Wait! Just tell her I said, ‘hi.’”

“You’re sad,” Alex said, pushing the button to engage the line where his sister waited to talk to him. “Hey, Lauren. Bryan says, ‘hi’. Listen, I’m going to have to come over another night. I have an important date this evening.”

His sister’s voice came clearly through the phone. “Say ‘hi’ back to Bryan and I hope your date is pretty and very friendly.”

Alex laughed at her teasing. To Bryan, he said, “Lauren says ‘hi’, too.”

He went back to his sister. “Your good wishes are always welcome.”

“The girls will miss seeing you tonight, but they know you need some grown-up time.”

“Bless their little, rough-housing souls. They’re doing okay?”

“Yes. Kelsey’s been sick and had a couple of bad nightmares last night, but she’s better today.”

“I feel her pain,” he said, his voice level. His niece’s troubled sleep wouldn’t long disturb her, he trusted, but it still drew his heart-felt sympathy.

“Yes,” his sister replied. “I know you do. How is that going anyway?”

“How is what going?” Alex asked, waving as Bryan left his office.

“You know. The sleep thing,” Lauren said, her voice exasperated at his obtuseness.

“Oh, about the same. There are good nights and other nights.”

“Alex,” Lauren’s voice grew serious. “Even if you hadn’t fallen asleep that night, it still would have happened.”

“I know, sis,” he said, “and, if I didn’t know, the therapist I saw when I was in college told me the same thing.”

“But you’re still not sleeping well,” his sister said sadly. “And you still aren’t married or even seriously involved with someone. You know you won’t let her down, whoever you finally let count on you.”

Alex laughed, appreciated her concern. His sister and her children added a lot to his life. “The sleeping is okay and I’m fine. I’ve learned to live with it…and my ‘uninvolved’ love life. I don’t want you worrying about me.”

“No,” she said, a dry note in her voice, “you never want to worry anyone.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he disagreed, chuckling.

“Kelsey’s calling me from her room. I have to go,” she said. “Have a good time tonight and do not bring these kids a toy when you come over on Saturday!”

“I’ll try to remember that,” he said mendaciously. “Bye, Sis.”

Hanging up the phone, Alex snagged his briefcase and left his office, his mind moving ahead to the evening.

If things went in the direction he hoped between he and Eden, sleep would be the last thing he wanted to do at night.

***

Ignoring the loud thump of the phone receiver settling into the cradle, Eden leaned back in her chair, Greg’s words echoing in her head.

Alex Holt had been buying Michele Cosmetics stocks for the past three months. Three months! The bastard. So much for his pretence of caring about her and dreaming up his take-over bid in revenge for Michele’s treatment of Eden!