force to be reckoned with.
“Here you go,” Janie announced. She placed their breakfast plates down and Adam watched his brothers begin to eat with gusto.
Adam got a coffee refill and sat back in his chair to reflect on Sally Duke, his mother, the woman who’d given three boys a chance at a good life instead of them being dragged down by a system too overburdened to care. Sally had changed the direction of their lives and made it possible for them to grow up strong and self-assured.
Adam owed her his life. But that didn’t mean he would roll over and play dead just because Sally wanted to hear the pitter-patter of little rug rats around the house.
“You want some of this bacon?” Brandon asked.
“No, thanks,” Adam said. He checked his watch. “I’d better run. I’ve got a meeting with Jerry Mansfield in half an hour.”
“Wait, what are we going to do about Mom?” Brandon said.
“You worry too much,” Cameron said between bites. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
Brandon shook his head. “We are so screwed.”
“Deb, I have to go,” Trish whispered. Her best friend had called to find out how the job was going but Trish couldn’t concentrate, knowing Adam would be back from his meeting any minute now.
“Just one more thing,” Deb said. “Ronnie’s taking me out for my birthday tomorrow night.”
“Do you need me to babysit?”
“No, but thanks. My mom’s coming over.”
“Oh, my God,” Trish said as realization dawned. “Is this the first time you’ve been out since the baby was born?”
“Yes, and I don’t know what to wear,” Deb whined. “My world is elastic waistbands and maternity bras. I want to look sexy again. Help!”
Trish mentally pictured Deb’s closet. She knew it as well as she knew her own. “Haven’t you lost enough weight to wear your red dress?”
“Probably, except my breasts are slightly too big.”
“Gee, Ronnie will hate that,” Trish said drily. “Wear it.”
“I really want to knock his socks off.”
“Trust me,” Trish said, chuckling. “He’ll never know what hit him.”
The floor creaked.
Trish jolted and whipped around. “Mr. Duke.”
He stood several feet away by his office door. “I need the Mansfield file.”
She hung up the phone. Deb would understand. Then she stood, wishing the floor could swallow her up. She couldn’t believe he’d caught her on the phone. “It’s on your desk, Mr. Duke.”
He looked as if he were about to say something, but then he just nodded. “Good. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Trish stood rigidly, hating that she was ready to jump at his smallest command.
But he said nothing. Instead, he stared at her, then strode slowly around her area, glancing with suspicion at her desk, the files, the window. His presence was intimidating and chilling, so why did she feel as if she were burning up?
Finally, he met her gaze again. “What have you done?”
Taken aback, she said, “I-I didn’t do anything.”
He shook his head. “No, it looks different. You moved stuff around.”
Trish relaxed her shoulders slightly and exhaled. “I didn’t think you’d mind. I rearranged a few things on the desk and I moved that plant. It was blocking the view.”
He raised an imperious eyebrow. “Cheryl never had time to notice the view.”
“That’s a shame,” she said, glancing at the window. “It’s gorgeous.”
He stared at her intently. “Yes, it is.”
Trish felt her cheeks heat up. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll spend all my time staring out at the ocean, Mr. Duke. I’m here to work.”
“Good to know.” He seemed reluctant to leave. Did he not trust her to do her work despite the tempting view of the world outside her window?
He cleared his throat, then walked toward his office. At the double doors, he turned. “Buzz me when Jerry Mansfield arrives, will you?”
“Of course, Mr. Duke,” she murmured.
“And call me Adam.”
“Of course.”
She almost collapsed as Adam closed the door to his office. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a good-looking man before. But for some reason, this one seemed capable of mesmerizing her. As he’d stared at her, she’d felt the electric attraction. She’d been unable to breathe, aware of his every movement. She could almost feel his touch.
How was that fair? In case she’d forgotten, Adam Duke equaled the Enemy.
She rose from her desk and stood at the window where she gazed out at the wide blue expanse of ocean. What she should do is go and dunk herself in the cold water. These feelings were utterly unacceptable and she would not give in to them.
“It’s just chemistry,” she mumbled. She refused to feel anything but contempt for the man. After all the pain and loss she’d suffered because of him, she couldn’t afford to lose her nerve now that she was so close to achieving her goal.
“So snap out of it, right now,” Trish lectured herself. “What would Grandma Anna say if she could see you now?”
Trish conceded that Grandma Anna would’ve taken one look at Adam Duke and said, “What a hunk.” Her grandmother had always had an eye for a handsome devil and her favorite line had always been, “I may be old, but I’m not dead.”
But then Grandma had suffered the heart attack that led to her death. And Trish laid the blame for her grandmother’s death directly at the feet of Adam Duke and his company.
If not for his cutthroat business tactics, her grandmother would still be alive and she and Trish would still live in the spacious apartment above their lovely Victorian antiques and gift shop known as Anna’s Attic.
Victorian Village, the charming row of connected three-story Victorians on Sea Cove Lane, had provided homes and livelihoods for six families over several generations. Trish had grown up there, and eight months ago, right after she obtained her MBA, she’d banded together with her neighbors to look into buying the building from the long-time landlord and applying for historic landmark designation. Then everything changed. The landlord died, and before the historic landmark paperwork could go through, a development company swept in with a better bid. The landlord’s children had no sentimental attachment to Victorian Village so they sold it to the highest bidder. The development company bought the block-long building, threw out the occupants and demolished their homes and livelihoods in order to build a concrete parking structure.
That company was Duke Development Inter national.
It seemed that Adam Duke needed more parking for his expanding company, so with one sweep of his powerful hand, he had single-handedly destroyed six families’ dreams. Grandma Anna’s heart had literally broken after she was forced to move from the only home and business she’d known and loved since she first married her husband all those years ago.
Trish shook away the unhappy memories and hurried back to her desk. It wouldn’t do to be caught staring out the window, the very thing she’d sworn not to do.
The memories helped strengthen her resolve and she went to work. On her short breaks, she pored through more files, looking for something, anything, that would connect Adam Duke to the unsavory business dealings she knew he was involved in. So far, all she’d found were neatly organized files with legitimate documentation and clearly itemized fees and costs. No double billing, no questionable investments, no shady transactions. But she knew it was only a matter of time until she found something. The destruction of her home and livelihood couldn’t have been the only underhanded deal he’d negotiated in all his years in business. She knew what Adam had done probably wasn’t illegal per se, but it was sneaky and unfair and mean-spirited. And she would find something
