Loe raamatut: «Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler...»

Chapter One

Monday

“What am I supposed to do with a child?”

Zane Holden stared hard at the city of Houston, twenty stories below his office at LynTech Corporation in downtown Houston. The question held the very real annoyance and impatience he felt over this interruption to his schedule.

He turned to Edward Stiller, an attorney from Florida, and watched the slender, gray-suited man shrug. “Sir, your wife is dead—at least, I mean, your ex-wife.”

Zane was still trying to grasp the idea that Suzanne was gone. That she and her new husband had died in a multiple-car crash in southern Florida. The man sat in one of two leather chairs that faced the huge executive desk cluttered with paperwork. “You already said that,” he said. “And I am very sorry that Suzanne and Weaver were killed two days ago. But we haven’t been married for more than two years. I haven’t even talked to her in all that time. Now you’re here. Explain it to me so I can get a grip on this.”

“I told you, I’m only here because I’m executing her wishes.”

Zane moved back to his chair and sank down into the high-backed chair. “That’s what I don’t get at all.” He ran a hand over his face, as impatient with the man as he was with the odd mixture of feelings he was experiencing. Suzanne was dead. It didn’t seem real somehow. No more unreal, though, than this man babbling on about the child she had had with Dan Weaver. A child she had been carrying even before their divorce was final.

Stiller set a slim briefcase on the desk, pressing perfectly manicured fingers on the expensive leather. “I thought of calling, but felt you needed to be told this in person. There is so much to decide.”

Zane tried to focus on what the man was saying, instead of on Suzanne. He didn’t know if he’d ever loved her. Love was something he never gave much thought to. But he did know that now she was irrevocably gone, and that created a deep ache inside him. Then regret.

All she’d wanted was a family. And that was what he hadn’t wanted. So, she found someone who did. Dan Weaver. A man Zane had seen only once, in their attorney’s offices when they signed the divorce papers. He couldn’t even hate the man then. Weaver hadn’t broken up their marriage. By then Zane had realized there had never been a real marriage to break up.

“Before we decide anything, Mr. Stiller, explain to me how I ended up as the executor of the estate. You’re telling me that Suzanne never changed her will? She never thought it was important enough, even with the child involved, to change it?”

The man snapped open the briefcase. “Mr. Holden, I don’t know what was in her mind, or what her intent was, but she didn’t change it.” He took out a thick sheaf of papers and glanced at them. “I checked it very carefully.” He closed his briefcase and dropped the papers on top of it. “You can have it checked yourself—but I can tell you, it’s valid.”

Zane ran a hand roughly over his face and tried to push away that feeling of regret. It didn’t have a place in his life. He wouldn’t regret their marriage, or their divorce. He wouldn’t waste time on regret. And he wouldn’t waste time putting off what had to be done.

“This child of hers—?”

“A boy, Walker Scott Weaver. Almost two years old. Lovely child, from what I’ve heard. He luckily was with a sitter when…” He coughed slightly. “Well, he’s safe, still with the sitter, until he can be resituated.”

Zane never thought about children. They didn’t have a part in his life. But today was very different. First, there was another request for more money to fund programs at the day care center run by the company. He glanced at the yellow paper on his desk. The last request for funding from the director of the day care center, L. Atherton. The third request. And the third rejection.

He looked back at Stiller. The day care decision was cut-and-dried. But this child that Stiller was talking about—Suzanne’s son…he knew this wasn’t going to be as simple.

He looked at Stiller. “This is ludicrous,” he muttered, and reached for the phone. He punched in a two-digit extension, and, when Stiller was about to say something, he held up his hand. His secretary answered the phone.

“Marlene, get a hold of Mr. Terrel and ask him to come to my office as soon as he can. It’s urgent.”

As he put the phone back on the cradle, he looked at Stiller and asked, “What about grandparents?”

“There are none.”

“Aunts or uncles?”

“We don’t really know, but we don’t believe so.”

Suzanne had been an only child, like him, and her parents had been gone for years, but Zane would have thought Weaver had family somewhere. “No distant cousin?”

“It’s a matter of form to look for any living relatives in a case like this, and my office staff is on it. But right now, it’s up to you to make arrangements for the child. The wording of Suzanne’s will is not exact, but the intent is clear.”

“Wording?”

He motioned to the stack of papers. “I’ll paraphrase, but there is a clause that the executor, you, will have full control over all matters of her life. The child is certainly a ‘matter,’ and as such, you are in charge of him, or at least his fate.” He spread his hand on the will. “What do you want to do?”

There was a sharp knock on the door, the barrier opened immediately and Matthew Terrel was there. The man was built like a linebacker, all muscles and lean strength, and looked nothing like the corporate lawyer and co-C.E.O. of LynTech. He was dressed all in black, his blond hair the only lightness about him at that moment. His face was grim.

Matt was the closest thing to a good friend that Zane had had for the past seven years, and Zane trusted him completely. He’d know what to do about this. “Matt—” Zane motioned to Mr. Stiller. “Edward Stiller, he just got here from Florida.”

Matt crossed the room, his dark eyes narrowed, his hand held out to the attorney. “Mr. Stiller,” he said in his deep voice. “Matthew Terrel.” He shook hands with the man, then looked at Zane. “What’s the emergency?”

“Listen to what Mr. Stiller has to say, then we’ll get to work.”

Matt moved closer, sank down in the other leather chair and sat forward, leaning toward Mr. Stiller. “Okay, bring me up to speed.”

While Stiller and Matt talked, Zane stood and went back to the windows. He listened to the two men as he frowned at his image bouncing back at him in the floor-to-ceiling windows. He saw a tall, lean man who’d stripped off his gray suit coat, unbuttoned his dark vest and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt—his maroon tie having been discarded two minutes after he’d arrived at work this morning. He looked tense, with eyes that were shadowed and unreadable. A cold man, Suzanne had called him. He hadn’t argued the point. To think she wanted him anywhere near a child was ludicrous. It’s the last thing she would have wanted.

If you don’t want children, then we don’t have a future. Her words that last day rang in his memory.

Then his words, the bare truth. No games. No empty promises or lies. “I’ve never wanted children. I don’t want them now.”

Suzanne had backed away from him—the memory was a blur now, but her words remained. “You’re self-centered and obsessed. And I made a terrible mistake marrying you.” Then, as she was leaving, she’d added, “God help the child if you ever slip up and one appears in your life. You’re as cold as stone.”

Now her child had appeared in his life. It was wrong, very wrong—as wrong as his thinking he could be married.

Suzanne had never guessed at the anger that had been there in flashes when they broke up, the bitterness over the fact that he’d done something so badly that she’d had to leave. He hated failure. He hated admitting defeat. But he’d learned a long time ago to cut his losses. So he had. She’d found Weaver, and Zane had gone back to work—

“Zane?”

Matt’s voice got him to refocus on the present, and he spoke without turning, choosing instead to look at the reflection of Matt in the glass. Matt was getting to his feet, but not moving from the other side of the desk. Stiller was sitting forward with his briefcase open on the desk again. Matt had the will in his hand.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” he asked Matt.

Matt shrugged. “Ridiculous or not, the wording’s solid in the will. As it stands, you’re all the kid has until they can find a relative.”

“Suzanne wouldn’t have wanted me within twenty feet of any child she had. You know that.”

“She obviously didn’t think she’d be gone at thirty, or that this situation would become a reality. She probably meant to change her will. She just didn’t get the chance. There has to be someone out there, a relative of some sort that will take the child and raise him. But for now…” Matt exhaled. “What do you want from me?”

Zane turned to the two men, but looked right at Matt. “What do you figure my options are?”

“You could fight it—argue that you’re divorced, you no longer have any part in Suzanne’s life in any way, shape or form, and you refuse to get involved, despite the will.”

“And if I do that?”

“The boy will go into foster care with the county or state, until they find a home for him…if they find a home for him.”

His last glimpse of Suzanne had been in the attorney’s office, she’d been obviously pregnant and holding onto Dan Weaver’s hand. There hadn’t even been anger by that time. She’d wanted everything he hadn’t wanted, but even if there hadn’t been real love there, if there was such a thing, he knew that he’d cared about her. Despite what Suzanne had thought, he had cared.

“Option B?” he asked.

“Pay to have the boy taken care of until a relative can be found.”

He frowned at Matt. “Okay. That’s doable, very doable.”

Matt glanced at Mr. Stiller. “How about that? A nanny or a service or a baby-sitter, to take care of the boy? That would work, wouldn’t it?”

Mr. Stiller closed his briefcase. “It’s up to Mr. Holden. I’ll have the child brought out here, and take care of making final payment to the baby-sitter out there. Then Mr. Holden can—”

“Brought out here?” Zane cut in. “As in bringing him to the west coast?”

“Exactly,” the man said, looking right at Zane. “He can’t stay in Florida.”

“Why not? We can do what Matt said—get a nanny to care for him—”

“Well, if you or Mr. Terrel or your representative wants to go to Miami and take care of things, we can—”

“We can’t. You do it. I’ll pay for it.”

“That’s very generous of you, sir,” the man said with a shake of his head. “But I’m an attorney with a small staff that is already stretched to the limit, and I don’t have the time to do that sort of thing. Perhaps you can find someone else to do it out there?”

Zane looked at Matt, and the big man shrugged. “That’s too damn complicated. It’ll take up a lot of precious time just getting there. Then there’s setting it all up and monitoring the situation—”

“Whatever you decide on, you have one week to do it,” Mr. Stiller said abruptly. “The sitter can keep the boy until next Monday. He’ll have to be situated by then.”

“Option C,” Matt said to Zane.

“Which is?”

“Bring him out here. Set him up with a nanny at your penthouse at the hotel or wherever. That’s a hell of a lot less complicated than trying to do this long distance.”

Zane realized right then that he had no desire to see the child, much less live with him, even temporarily. But he knew that Matt was right. It was logical. And how hard could it be?

“Okay, we’ll do that.” He looked at Mr. Stiller. “Make all the arrangements for the trip, then contact us with the details. I’ll pay for everything. We’ll keep a discussion of what Suzanne left for the child for later. Just continue the search for a relative.”

“Of course,” the man said, snapping his briefcase shut, then gripping it by the handle as he glanced at Matt. “Who will be handling the legal aspects of this situation?”

Matt glanced at Zane. “What about the legal department?”

“I want to keep this close to home,” replied Zane. “I’ll owe you if you make sure things are set up properly.”

Matt nodded, then looked at Mr. Stiller. “My office is two doors down on the right. I’ll meet you in there in a couple of minutes.”

Matt showed the man out, then closed the door after him. Zane sank back down in his chair. Matt was studying him narrowly as he came back to the desk. But he didn’t sit down this time. He looked down at Zane.

“Just what you needed, huh?”

“I knew this acquisition would be trouble, but it’s a hell of a lot more than I ever dreamed it would be.” He looked down at the clutter on his desk, the yellow memo catching his eye. “It seems Mr. Lewis had a soft heart and an open wallet and never heard of the concept of saying no to anyone. No wonder no one around here understands that the wallet left with him and that there isn’t any more money being passed out.”

“Are you okay, Zane?”

He motioned at the work he needed to do. “I would be, if I could get some uninterrupted time to get this done.”

“I wasn’t talking about this business,” Matt said. “I was talking about Suzanne’s death.”

There was no obvious reproach in his tone, but Zane felt it nonetheless. “It was a shock, but it’s the past—at least, it was until Stiller showed up.” He sat back in his chair. “I appreciate your taking care of the paperwork for me.”

“What about the arrangements for the kid?” Before Zane could say anything, Matt held up both hands, palms out. “No, I do not do that. Corporate things? I’m your man. Finding a nanny? No way.”

“Then, who?”

Matt snapped his fingers. “I know. Rita. She’s got kids. She knows about those things. She’ll do it.”

Matt’s personal secretary was working overtime as it was, with all the work involved in the LynTech restructuring. “Will she have time for it?”

“She’s such an efficient secretary that she’s ahead of me half the time. No problem.” He smiled, a lopsided expression. “Who would have thought being your business partner, president and co-C.E.O. would get me involved in a nanny search?”

“Certainly not me,” Zane muttered, and looked down at the papers on his desk and spotted that annoying yellow page again. He reached for it. “One last favor before you go and talk to Stiller? Could you give this to Marlene on the way out and ask her to make sure this gets sent to Atherton at the day care center?”

Matt took it and frowned as he glanced at the paper. “For Pete’s sake. What is this, your third denial for funding?”

“Number three. This Atherton person who keeps sending them up—won’t take no for an answer. Obviously a proponent of the old ‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’ theory. But there isn’t any grease. And there won’t be. Maybe he’ll take the third strike and realize he’s out of luck.”

“Let’s hope so,” Matt said as he turned and headed for the door.

“Let me know what Rita finds,” Zane called after him.

“Sure, no problem,” Matt said over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

Zane sat back in the chair and refocused on the work in front of him—work that had been put there just before Mr. Stiller had shown up.

Since he’d taken over LynTech from the founder of the corporation, he’d all but lived at the office. LynTech, the core company in a conglomerate that did everything in computer technology from production to service to communications, was going to become lean and mean. Then Zane could break up the network and sell off the pieces for more than the total value of the whole. It was something he’d been doing for years with companies in trouble. He knew that LynTech was a gold mine, but it was going to take a hell of a lot of digging to get to the gold.

He started sorting through the financial reports, scanning the figures. Then he took out his gold pen and began to cross out figures, recalculating. In a few moments everything about children was forgotten.

Monday night

WHEN THE DREAM came to her, Lindsey Atherton had the clear thought that for as long as she could remember, the only constant in her life had been that dream. It had first started when she was too young to be able to tell anyone, and had stayed with her. At twenty-seven, she still had it. She’d never understood it, and she’d never figured out how to stop it.

When she was little, it had always started with her in complete darkness, nothing around her as she floated alone. No sounds, no contact with anything or anyone, and no sensations except total and complete safety.

She’d felt safe at first, snuggled into the blackness, embraced by the shadows. A tiny place that was all hers. A welcome place—until the sounds started. The faint jiggling of a doorknob, the click of a lock, then the creak of hinges. It was then that everything changed. Lights exploded around her and robbed her of the safety she craved.

When she was little, she was certain it was the boogeyman who had found her in her safe place—that he’d come to get her. But as she got older, the dream changed. There was no boogeyman. And the darkness didn’t mean safety anymore. It meant she was cut off, isolated. And the noises outside were those of a person. Someone about to rescue her.

She never knew who it was. She just knew that whoever was there had found her, and she was going to be okay. But that never happened. There was hope when the sounds came, when the creaking of hinges echoed through her. Then the light.

But there was no one there.

When the dream came that night, it was the same, except that when the light came, she had a flashing vision of someone—a shadow backed by the brilliance. She reached out, but there was nothing. She was wakened suddenly, cut off again, isolated. And it hurt. It was a dream, but she woke breathing hard, thinking that if she had just been able to keep the dream going, she would have seen who was there.

But she couldn’t. She woke suddenly, violently, and she bolted upright in bed, the sounds of her gasping breaths echoing in the high-ceilinged bedroom area of her loft. Moonlight filtered in through the high, transit windows, and she could make out the dark outlines of the furniture. There was the opening in the partial walls that led out to the living area. She was alone.

She scrambled out of bed, padded barefoot across the floor to the bathroom, and fumbled for the light switch by the door. The illumination from an old-fashioned tulip fixture over a pedestal sink and mirror made her blink at first. It exposed the claw-footed tub, the old-fashioned shower stall and the tank-topped toilet. And it exposed her.

She saw herself in the mirror, and gripped the sides of the sink. Her cap of blond hair was mussed around a decidedly pale face. The only color she had was from her eyes, a deep amber hue with smudges under them. Quickly, she turned on cold water, splashed her face with it, and was unnerved that her hands were shaking.

This was stupid. She had that dream so often, it was in some ways like an old friend to her. But she never got used to the end. And now that was changing. She was certain she’d caught a glimpse of someone. She shook her head, then grabbed a white towel and pressed it to her face.

She wasn’t six years old anymore, locking herself in a closet because that was the only place she felt safe. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore, dreaming of a knight in shining armor rescuing her and whisking her away with him. She was an adult who was making her own life, doing her own rescuing by working hard, getting an education and trying to make a difference in the world.

She’d fought so long to find the stability she now had. She had a good life. She loved her job, and being alone was okay. It was fine. It was what she wanted. She tossed the towel to one side and went back into the bedroom area of the loft, but instead of going back to bed, she crossed to an old-fashioned desk by the far windows. She snapped on the lamp on the scarred wooden surface, sank down in the padded office chair and raked both hands through her short hair.

She wasn’t going to sleep again tonight, so she’d get something done. The first thing she saw was the request forms for funding. She reached for the yellow sheets of paper, found a pen, then started to fill in the fourth form she’d completed in the past month. The other three forms asking for more money for programs in the day care center at LynTech had all brought rejections from the new powers-that-be—the last one just hours old. But she wasn’t giving up.

She methodically filled out all the spaces again, almost knowing by heart what to put in each place. Mr. Lewis had loved the program. He’d brought her to LynTech to build it and fine-tune it, and he’d been behind her a hundred percent. But he was retired now, and the company had been bartered off to the highest bidder.

The head man, a person called Zane Holden, didn’t love anything but money. He didn’t care about anything but the bottom line, and the word was that a lot of jobs and programs were going to be eliminated. She hesitated, then, on a line that said, Reasons for Request, she printed, The well-being of the children of the employees of LynTech Corporation.

Well-being? She could have put safety, happiness, security and helping them not have horrible dreams. So many reasons. She sat back. “To keep the boogeyman away,” she whispered. But a man like Zane Holden wouldn’t know about boogeymen, or children who lived with the fear of being alone. No, he wouldn’t understand that. Not many people did.

And improved work performance for the parents, she added, knowing she was trying to appeal to the only thing Holden seemed to care about. Then she scrawled, L. Atherton, Project Director on the bottom and dated it.

Number four. Maybe that would be the charm. She put the papers in her folder, set them by her purse, then went back across the space, avoiding the bed and heading for the bathroom again. A hot shower, a book to read. She could get through the night. Then, first thing in the morning, she was going to submit the request again. But this time she was going to do it in person. No more company mail and waiting days to find out.

She stripped off her sleep shirt, turned on the shower and stepped under the hot water. As she turned, the light from the bathroom seemed to stream into the shower stall, cutting through the shadows, like in the dream. She shook her head, then lifted her face to the spray and closed her eyes.

She needed to concentrate on life, and what she had to do. As the water streamed around her, she went over and over what she was going to say to Zane Holden when she finally met with him. The rumor was that he didn’t have a heart, but she didn’t buy into that. He just didn’t understand.

If she said the right thing, if she put things in the right way, she knew that he’d understand the importance of what she was doing. She’d talk until he saw her point of view. And after all, it was for the children. Even a heartless man had to care about the children.