“Is this really about a new challenge or an old love?” Ben asked directly.
“Perhaps both,” she admitted. “But I’m not hoping to reignite an old flame, in case that’s what’s worrying you. If anything, quite the opposite. William has made a nuisance of himself in our company’s business for far too long now. The fact that he has dared to become an increasingly serious threat to my family cannot be tolerated. I intend to see that he realizes that.”
Mack regarded her intently, then slowly nodded. “You really are excited about this, aren’t you? You’re looking forward to busting some serious butt over there?”
“Excited, stimulated, determined,” she said. “In fact, I haven’t felt like this in years. I feel young again, as if there are endless possibilities spread out before me.”
Her nephews exchanged a resigned look.
“I still don’t like it, but I suppose we have no right to stand in your way,” Ben said. “We’ll talk to Richard and convince him that you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“Don’t thank me,” Ben said, his expression gloomy. “I still wish you weren’t dead-set on doing this.”
“Me, too,” Mack said. “But I think I understand your reasons for wanting to. When that knee injury killed my football career, I was at loose ends for a while, too, until you and Richard convinced me that I could use my love of the game in a whole new way by buying into the team. If I could reinvent myself from a professional athlete into a businessman, then you can surely be anything you set out to be.”
“Oh, Mack, what a sweet thing to say,” she told him, her eyes misting up.
“Just one question, you won’t leave before Beth has the baby, will you? She’ll never forgive you,” Mack said.
“Absolutely not,” Destiny assured him. “And once Richard agrees to this, I’m sure it will take weeks and weeks for him to drill me on all the little odds and ends he thinks I must know to be successful. I would like to be over there before Christmas, though.”
“Christmas?” both men said, clearly appalled.
“You could all fly over,” she reminded them. “I was there for the holidays years ago. There’s nothing quite like a Christmas in London.”
Ben sighed. “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Let’s take one step at a time. Let’s get Richard on board with this.”
Destiny beamed at him. “Oh, I think once you two speak up, it will be a foregone conclusion.”
“Oh?” Mack said. “He didn’t sound so convinced when I spoke to him.”
“Let’s just say I left him with a little incentive to mull over,” Destiny said coyly. “I’m not surprised he didn’t mention it. I think he was caught off guard.”
“An incentive? He didn’t mention any incentive to me,” Mack said.
“Nor to me,” Ben agreed, giving her a sharp look. “Was it an incentive or a threat, Destiny? What are you up to?”
“Nothing that an outstanding businessman like Richard won’t understand,” she assured them both.
Mack began to chuckle. “Oh, Destiny, something tells me Europe is not ready for you.”
She laughed with him. “Well, darlings, ready or not, here I come.”
2
William Harcourt was on a golf course in Scotland when he got word that the European office of Carlton Industries was soon to be operating under a new chairman. Sir Lloyd Smedley gave him the news just as William took his shot on the seventh hole tee.
“Is that so?” William asked, distracted. The seventh hole was a tricky one. It had gotten the better of him yesterday, but he’d be damned if it would again.
“Destiny Carlton is taking over,” Lloyd added, his expression totally innocent. “Believe you knew her, didn’t you?”
William’s golf ball dribbled off the tee and died, which was precisely the result his sneaky companion had obviously been hoping for. Lloyd was losing today. He’d clearly intended his little bombshell to ruin William’s concentration, not just on this hole, but for the rest of the round.
William felt a little zing in his blood, something that hadn’t happened nearly often enough since Destiny had walked out on their relationship twenty years before.
Back then, he’d stubbornly resisted following her to the States, deluding himself for the longest time that a love like theirs wasn’t something she could possibly forget or abandon forever.
But she had. He’d totally misjudged her sense of family loyalty. The Destiny he’d known in France hadn’t had a maternal bone in her delectable body. She’d been carefree, impetuous and a bit of a Bohemian. But to his shock, she’d thrown over all traces of her carefree ways to settle down and mother her three orphaned nephews.
After a time, when he’d heard barely a word from her, his pride had kicked in. She’d chosen children who were virtual strangers over him, the man she’d claimed to love. It had grated.
It had taken him a long time to catch on to the fact that nothing on earth was worse than a man more devoted to pride than common sense. If she’d abandoned those boys, as he’d anticipated, she wouldn’t have been the kind of woman he wanted in his life. That was what he should have realized from the beginning. He was the fool who’d forced her to make an impossible choice, rather than going after her and being supportive when her entire world had been turned upside down. All these years, he could have had her love and the love of three stepsons, plus maybe some children of their own. Any children of Destiny’s would have been astonishingly bright and handsome. Destiny hadn’t cost the two of them a future. He had.
William
