Читать книгу Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals - Тилли Бэгшоу, Tilly Bagshawe - Страница 25
ОглавлениеSasha lay back on her bed, elated but exhausted. The last five days had been a whirlwind. She still had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Have I really just bought out Wrexall’s retail business? Am I really going to be running it as my own company?
She’d been fielding the same questions from the media all afternoon. Her phone hadn’t stopped ringing: CNN, MSNBC’s Squawk Box, Forbes magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and photographers were camped outside her luxurious Upper East Side apartment building. (She had finally allowed herself to move out of her pokey Brooklyn flat when Georgia, her old friend from St Michael’s days, had flown out to stay and complained that the place was little better than a student squat.) The press all wanted to know just how such a young, not to mention female, Wrexall executive had managed to convince the board to sell out of one of their most profitable businesses. And of course, Sasha answered all their questions with the same, measured, poised responses: She hadn’t ‘outman oeuvred’ anyone. This was a great deal for Wrexall Dupree, as well as for McKinley and the new group, tentatively christened Ceres (after the small but fertile breakaway planet between Mars and Jupiter, a nod to Sasha’s physics past). All sides felt that the time was ripe for a change, etc., etc.
In reality, Sasha had been overtaken by events almost as much as everybody else. Sure, she’d fantasized about one day running her own firm. But that was all it was, a fantasy. It was only as the McKinley deal drew to a close and Joe Foman, desperate to prolong his daily contact with Sasha, had started floating the idea of backing her, that she began to see the possibilities. Initially, Joe was suggesting that his private equity firm, Cosmos, fund a brand-new, start-up company with Sasha at the helm. As appealing as the idea was to Sasha’s ego, it was far too high risk. Most start-ups sank without trace, however well managed they were; it was the law of the jungle. No, the ideal was a buyout, taking an established business with clients and a revenue stream and breaking it off from its parent. The problem was, of course, that parent companies tended not to want to let go of their most profitable divisions. They needed to be persuaded. And that’s when the idea came to her: What if she were to link the entire $700 million McKinley deal with an MBO proposal?
Joe Foman loved the idea, and had no trouble selling it to the McKinley board. It was the Wrexall board that was always going to be tricky. Or so Sasha thought.
‘How’d it go?’ Joe Foman called her the second her meeting was over.
‘Believe it or not, it went well,’ laughed Sasha. ‘I thought they’d throw me out of there on my arse, but by the time I finished the pitch they actually seemed kind of excited.’
‘What did I tell you?’ said Joe. ‘Sure, they’ve got their pride. But eighty-five per cent of seven hundred million dollars buys you a lot of pride. So will they sign?’
Sasha sighed. ‘No. We’re short one vote. Jackson Dupree. He’s out of town on business.’
‘When’s he back?’
‘Tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll never go for it.’
She’d hung up the phone from Joe Foman feeling deflated. She’d come so close, so close she could smell it. But of course Jackson would have to be the spanner in the works. It wasn’t until much later that night, in bed, that it came to her. Using her security card to get back into her office, Sasha sat at her desk, poring over the company statutes into the small hours. At 6 a.m. she was on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard.
The Duprees, Mitzi and Walker, had homes all around the United States, but they spent most of their time on their ten-acre compound on the vineyard. In the last five years, since Walker’s health had declined, they had rarely left the island, preferring their own company and that of old friends to socializing in Manhattan or Palm Beach. Walker had a round-the-clock nursing staff living in at the house, a classic, white clapboard Cape home with dark green shutters, to-die-for ocean views and the most exquisite gardens Sasha had ever laid eyes on.
‘It’s so kind of you to come all this way to see us. You’re a friend of Jackson’s, you say?’ Mitzi, an elegant woman in her early seventies with swept up grey hair and Katharine Hepburn cheekbones, poured Sasha a glass of hot homemade apple cider.
‘Um, sort of, yes,’ said Sasha guiltily. ‘We work together.’ She felt bad lying to this kind old woman. It didn’t help that every inch of polished mahogany furniture seemed to be covered with silver-framed photographs of Jackson, reproaching her from all angles. There was Jackson as a baby, looking surprisingly fat in an old-fashioned, Oxford pram; Jackson, gap toothed and grinning on his first day at kindergarten; Jackson on horseback, endlessly, holding polo sticks or trophies or both; Jackson graduating college, looking more like his dissolute, arrogant self with his long hair tied back in a ponytail and a taunting, admit it, you want me look in his dancing brown eyes.
‘He’s a good boy,’ said Mitzi lovingly, noticing Sasha staring at the pictures. ‘And so good at business, just like his father.’
Sasha glanced at Walker Dupree, the man who had once run Wrexall with an iron fist and whose name was still spoken of in the halls with a combination of reverence and fear. She knew of the rift that existed between father and son. Jackson never spoke of it, but it was common knowledge. Even so, disapproving of your child’s lifestyle did not necessarily mean you stopped loving them. Sasha wondered what the old man’s true feelings towards Jackson were. The mother clearly still doted on him. Sitting in an old-fashioned bath chair with a plaid blanket over his knees, Walker Dupree seemed barely aware she was there, gazing out of the window at the grey, misty ocean, pausing occasionally to smile at his wife.
‘Walker and I are alone here most of the time now, but that suits us just fine,’ said Mitzi, patting her husband’s knee affectionately. ‘Of course we’d like to see more of Jackson than we do. But he’s so busy with work, it’s not easy for him.’
Sasha thought of how easy it had been for her to hop on a plane from JFK this morning and wondered how such sweet, kind, normal people had produced such a selfish, egotistical son.
‘But listen to me, prattling on like an old woman. You said you needed to talk to Walker about something?’
‘Yes. It’s nothing to worry about. We’re trying to push through a deal, something that should make a lot of money for the company.’
‘That sounds exciting, doesn’t it, Walker?’
The old man’s face remained impassive.
‘It is exciting. But because of the size and nature of this deal, we need unanimous board approval, and the deadline is at one o’clock today. Unfortunately Jackson’s away travelling and can’t be reached.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mitzi wrung her hands. ‘I do hope he’s not pushing himself too hard.’
I expect he’s been pushing himself very hard indeed, thought Sasha. Right between some socialite’s thighs. Aloud, she said, ‘We need another shareholding family member to vote in his place. I have all the paperwork with me, if you want to see it. But all we really need is Mr Dupree’s signature, right here on the last page.’
Walker Dupree cleared his throat. Sasha jumped, as if a waxwork dummy had suddenly come to life. ‘Mitzi, honey,’ he said in his soft, gravelly voice, ‘let me talk to the young lady alone, would you?’
Mitzi looked as surprised as Sasha. ‘Sure. Of course, darling, if that’s what you want. Would you like Mary Anna or one of the other nurses?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine. We won’t be long.’
Once Mitzi was gone and the living room door was closed, Walker Dupree looked Sasha in the eye for a long, long time. When eventually he spoke, he was not only lucid, but sharp as a tack and very, very mad.
‘Now you listen to me. The next time you set foot in my house and try to get me, or any member of my family, to sign some bullshit piece of paper we haven’t even read, I will set my dogs on you. Is that clear?’
Sasha blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Mr Dupree. I thought …’
‘You thought I was mentally incapacitated. Yes, I know. That’s what makes it such a shitty thing to do. However, as you can see, I’m not.’
A frosty silence fell. Sasha didn’t know whether to get up and leave, or apologize again. After what felt like years, but was probably less than a minute, Walker Dupree said, ‘Show me the documents. All of them.’
Sasha did as she was asked. She sat and watched for twenty minutes as the old man read and reread the deal memo, his rheumy eyes scanning the figures and graphs, carefully extracting every ounce of meaning. At last he looked up.
‘Explain to me in no more than three sentences why I should sign my name to this deal.’
Sasha took a deep breath. ‘I can explain it to you in one sentence, Mr Dupree. Because it’s the best deal you’re going to get.’
For the first time since his wife had left them, Walker Dupree smiled.
‘And if I don’t sign?’
‘Wrexall will lose the McKinley deal. And I’ll leave the firm and take the retail group with me.’
‘Take them where?’
‘Jones Lang LaSalle, probably.’
‘What makes you so sure they would go? Wrexall could counteroffer. Double their salaries if necessary. We could cut you out of the picture.’
Now it was Sasha’s turn to smile. ‘You could try, sir. But you won’t succeed. You see, unlike every other business at Wrexall, we are a team and we watch each other’s backs. It’s not a concept your son believes in, but it’s worked for me.’
Walker Dupree frowned and Sasha inwardly cursed her big mouth. What did I have to go and bring up Jackson for? He’s the man’s son, for God’s sake. Of course he’s going to take his side over an outsider’s, rift or no rift. But Walker Dupree surprised her.
‘You say you’ve been unable to reach Jackson. Where is he?’
‘He’s on business in Park City,’ said Sasha, straight faced.
‘You mean he’s off somewhere partying his ass off?’ Walker translated succinctly.
Sasha shrugged. ‘Truthfully, sir, your guess is as good as mine.’
‘I see,’ said Walker. ‘And you obviously believe my son would refuse to sign this deal if he were where he should be, at his desk? Otherwise you’d simply have moved the deadline and not bothered coming all this way to try and hoodwink me into doing it.’
Sasha was about to protest, but wisely thought better of it. ‘I believe Jackson would refuse to sign anything that he felt I might profit from. However great a deal it might be for your company. Sir.’
‘Ah.’ Walker Dupree nodded in understanding. ‘So it’s personal.’
Sasha’s heart sank. That’s it. I’ve blown it. He’s not going to sign, not if it means backing me over his own heir. At that moment Mitzi walked back in, carrying a tray of freshly baked cinnamon cookies. ‘Anyone hungry? Business talk always makes Walker hungry.’ She winked at Sasha. The smell of the biscuits took Sasha right back home to her parents’ cottage in Frant. The combination of the nostalgia punch to the stomach and her disappointment about the deal was too much for her. To her great embarrassment, Sasha found her eyes welling up with tears.
‘Oh, my dear, are you all right? Whatever is the matter?’ said Mitzi.
‘Nothing,’ said Sasha unconvincingly. ‘It’s er, it’s my allergies. Thank you for the cookies, but I think we’re done here.’ She stood up to leave. As she headed for the door, Walker Dupree called after her.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
He handed her the documents. There, on the last page, gleaming in fresh, bright blue ink, was his signature.
‘I don’t believe in letting personal feelings get in the way of business. And the best deal you’re going to get is always the right deal.’
‘Thank you …’ stammered Sasha.
‘If Jackson wanted to use his vote, he should have been at the end of his goddamned phone,’ snapped Walker. ‘Maybe this’ll wake him up a bit. It’ll certainly wake up those old fuddy-duddies at Wrexall. Companies need change, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s what keeps ’em ahead of the game. Good luck with your new venture, miss.’
Lying on her bed now, it was hard to believe that that conversation had taken place this morning. The rest of the day had been one of the longest of Sasha’s life, yet at the same time it had passed in a blur. As soon as the deal went through and was announced on Bloomberg, all hell broke loose in the markets, with both Wrexall and McKinley’s shares fluctuating wildly before ending the day six and fourteen points up respectively. Sasha herself had been so overwhelmed with requests for interviews, she’d had to ask Joe Foman to loan her a full-time PR person to handle it all. It had been so crazy and so sudden, she hadn’t even had time to call Lottie Grainger, the one person at Wrexall outside of her own group whom she was determined to poach over to Ceres. Reaching for her BlackBerry, ignoring the hundreds of unread messages and voicemails, she was about to call Lottie when she heard a loud banging at the door.
Instantly on her guard – no one should have been able to get up to her floor without security downstairs alerting her first – Sasha made sure the chain was on and the door double bolted before she looked through the spy hole.
It was Jackson.
‘Open the door, Sasha. I know you’re in there.’
Sasha left the chain on, unbolting the door and opening it about an inch so they could talk.
‘How the hell did you get up here?’
‘I took the fire stairs. Now are you going to let me in or what?’ He looked tired and bedraggled, with deep purple shadows under his eyes and a sweat-stained shirt still crumpled from his flight. His face was flushed with anger and exertion. Sasha contemplated not letting him in. But she knew he was stubborn enough to hammer at her door all night, and besides, she would have to face him some time. She unhooked the chain and stood back as he stormed inside, pacing her tiny entryway like a caged tiger.
‘You bitch,’ he hissed at her. ‘You set me up!’
‘I did no such thing.’ Sasha walked into the living room, keeping her cool. ‘This was a good deal for all sides.’
‘Don’t give me that shit!’ he roared. ‘It was a good deal for you, at Wrexall’s expense. My expense.’
‘Don’t take it so personally.’ Sasha sat down on the couch. ‘It was business.’
‘It was blackmail! And don’t tell me not to take it personally. You flew out to my house and turned my own parents against me. You call me unethical, but what the hell kind of a stunt is that?’ He was still pacing, his arms flailing wildly, as if looking for a suitable object to punch. ‘The old man only did it to hurt me. To try to claw back some of his power, his glory days.’
Sasha was shocked at the vitriol in Jackson’s voice. ‘That’s not true. Your father read the memo very carefully. He signed because he thought it was the best outcome for Wrexall Dupree, under the circumstances.’
‘And what circumstances were those? The circumstance of you sticking a dirty great knife in all our backs? You disgust me. You’re a total hypocrite.’
Stung, but not wanting to show him how hurt she was, Sasha lashed out.
‘You know, your father did say that he hoped this might act as a wake-up call. That it might get you to start taking your role at Wrexall more seriously.’
‘What do you mean by that? I take my role very seriously. Just because I play hard, doesn’t mean I don’t work hard.’
‘You think your father doesn’t know you were AWOL in some hooker’s bed in Utah, enjoying yourself while Rome burned? You think the entire board doesn’t know? I didn’t “ set you up ” , Jackson. You set yourself up. All you had to do was answer your phone and none of this would have happened.’
Furious, because he knew it was true – yes, Sasha had pulled a fast one, but he’d allowed it to happen, been the architect of his own undoing – Jackson instinctively drew back his fist. Sasha flinched, cowering against the wall. Jackson felt shame creep over his skin like hives. What the hell is wrong with me? What, I’m going to hit a woman now? Spinning around he slammed his fist repeatedly in the opposite wall until his knuckles bled.
‘I think you should go.’ Sasha’s voice was firm but he could hear the tremble beneath. ‘Please leave.’
‘I gave you a job,’ said Jackson. ‘I brought you into this company. I made you, Sasha. And how do you repay me? You turn on me like a viper.’
‘Bullshit! Yes, you gave me a job, and in return I made you a fortune. You’re lazy and arrogant, Jackson. Loyalty is something you earn, you can’t just demand it. My team is loyal to me because they see me work my arse off for them every single day. That’s one of the most exciting things about Ceres. It’s a real team effort.’
Jackson stepped closer to her, so close that Sasha could feel his warm breath on her collarbone. She was aware of her heart racing, a combination of physical fear – he still might try and hit her – and something else, something too disturbing for her to name. When he reached out and touched her hair, his strong hand gripping the back of her neck, she thought she might faint. He dropped his voice to a whisper.
‘I’m going to crush you, Sasha. I’m going to blow Ceres out of the water. Obliterate it into so many pieces, it’ll be like it never existed.’
His closeness, his physical presence, made it hard for Sasha to breathe. Tightening his grip on her neck, Jackson pulled her towards him and kissed her, once, on the mouth. Shocked, and horribly excited, Sasha squirmed away.
‘Get out of my apartment.’
‘Good luck,’ said Jackson as he walked out of the door. ‘You’re going to need it.’
Out on the sidewalk, the cool night air brought Jackson to his senses, as if waking from a dream. He tried to process his feelings but it was impossible. Did I really just kiss her? Part of him hated Sasha, loathed her enough to want to hit her, to hurt her. Not just for today and what she’d done to him: landing a body blow to Wrexall and turning the board, and even his own father, against him on what ought to have been his, Jackson’s, day of triumph. But for all the bickering and sparring and fury of the last few years. Once upon a time she’d tried to destroy Theo Dexter’s career and failed. Now, it appeared, it was Jackson’s turn. What kind of a psycho was this woman?
But another part of him, a part he’d been denying since the day Sasha rejected him at Harvard all those years ago, another part wanted her so badly it made Jackson want to cry. It’s not love, he told himself. It’s lust. The competitor in him wanted to beat Sasha, wanted to win. He knew that the only way he would ever truly win was when he had her in his bed, naked and longing, begging him for more. Just picturing it now was giving him an incipient hard on that only added to his fury.
In his head, Sasha’s voice taunted him:
You set yourself up.
You’re lazy and arrogant.
You think the board doesn’t know?
Too wound up to go home, he headed to the nearest bar.
Lottie sat at the kitchen table in her Brooklyn apartment, checking her messages on Facebook. ‘Update your status!’ the home page invited her. ‘What are you doing right now?’ After the words ‘Charlotte Grainger is’ Lottie typed ‘… wondering if it’s ever going to end.’
It was Friday night, so officially her week-us horribilis had ended. But the aftershocks kept coming. Her kiss with Jackson – the kiss – had only been five days ago, but already it felt like a lifetime. Lottie hadn’t seen him this afternoon since he got back. Understandably, he had bigger fish to fry. Such as trying to strangle Sasha with the nearest electric cord, presumably. Lottie was torn about the MBO and Ceres’s violent birth. On the one hand she saw what a huge opportunity it was for Sasha. For some reason that Lottie had never understood, Sasha was obsessed with making money. Not just massive-salary-great-apartment-wardrobe-full-of-designer-clothes amounts of money. But serious, game-changing, corporation-controlling amounts of money. Enough money to wield ‘real power’, that was how Sasha described it. But power over what? Over whom? In any event, Ceres clearly represented a giant leap in the right direction, and to that extent Lottie was pleased for her friend.
On the other hand it meant that the two girls would no longer work together. And then of course there was Jackson. Lottie tried to believe that Sasha’s coup had not been intended to wound Jackson personally. But given their history, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was that the whole Ceres debacle had damaged Jackson’s standing at Wrexall. Folk stories about exactly where Wrexall’s not-so-golden boy had been while his former employee was busy taking apart his company had already begun doing the rounds on Wall Street. One of them involved a pair of Czech twins and a pet poodle. Another featured Senator Davis’s soon-to-be-ex-wife Alana, a chalet hot tub and an overeager paparazzo. All of the stories left poor Lottie feeling as if she was undergoing open-heart surgery without anaesthetic.
Closing down Facebook, Lottie clicked onto Outlook and was astonished to see a new mail from Sasha flashing at the top of her inbox. Shouldn’t she be on her way to a TV studio somewhere, or sipping champagne with that sleazeball Foman, toasting Ceres’s future success?
In typical Sasha style, the email was two words long. It simply read, ‘Join us?’ A few moments later, a second message arrived, ‘Name your price. S xoxo’.
Lottie flushed with pleasure, as if she’d just done something naughty but wonderful. Of course, she hadn’t actually done anything. I didn’t say ‘yes’. I just read it. She was flattered to be asked, and tempted, not just by the idea of working for Sasha but by the ‘name your price’ part. That had an excellent ring to it! But of course it would mean leaving Wrexall, and the chance to work every day alongside Jackson as the new Park City ski resort took shape.
Shutting her computer, Lottie put her coat on. A walk would help to clear her head. Even in March, the greyest and drabbest of months, neither winter nor spring, Lottie adored her Brooklyn neighbourhood. Her apartment was the top two floors of a once grand old brownstone on a broad, leafy street that seemed light years away from the Sturm und Drang of Manhattan. She first moved across the bridge in her early twenties, when it was all she could afford. Now she easily earned enough to move to the West Village or some trendy loft in the meatpacking district, but you couldn’t have paid Lottie to leave Brooklyn. As much as New York ever could be, it was home.
Turning the corner, she pulled up the hood of her jacket against the biting wind and trudged in the direction of the 7-Eleven, keeping her head down.
‘Look where you going, would you?’
She’d collided with a drunk, heading down the hill towards the subway.
‘Sorry,’ she began. ‘I didn’t see you. I … Jackson? Is that you?’
‘Lottie. Hello, Lottie!’ Jackson grinned down at her like a simpleton. Dangerously underdressed for the weather in jeans and a crumpled Spurr shirt, he reeked of whisky, swaying from side to side like a seasick sailor. ‘I was trying to find your street, butIgodabidlost,’ he slurred. ‘But you’re here. Thass amazing! I must be getting warm, right?’
Not sure whether to feel excited (that he’d come to find her) or depressed (that he only ever seemed to come to find her when he was three sheets to the wind), Lottie wrapped a steadying arm around his waist and led him back to her place.
‘It’s not much,’ she mumbled awkwardly, kicking a pile of mail off the floor in the entryway and moving a cold, half-drunk mug of this morning’s coffee off the stairs before Jackson sent it flying. ‘But at least we can warm you up. I’ll make you some coffee.’ She led a shivering Jackson into the kitchen and left him there while she disappeared to find a blanket. She returned to find him standing exactly where she’d left him, like a lost child at a railway station. ‘Here.’ She wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and pulled out a chair. ‘Sit down. Tell me what happened.’
While Lottie brewed some fresh coffee, Jackson poured his heart out. About Sasha, and what a fool she’d made of him. About his father taking Sasha’s side and going behind his back. Finally, he spoke about his own guilt, and fury at himself for not having been on the ball.
‘I know I party too hard. I’m not stupid,’ he said, chewing idly on a stick of stale French bread that Lottie had left lying around. ‘I guess I just thought, after my big success in Park City, I could kick back a little, you know. Is that so terrible?’
‘Hmmm,’ said Lottie. You mean our big success in Park City. I was the one who clinched us that deal. But you didn’t see me ‘kicking back’. It’s back to work as normal for the rest of us lesser mortals.
Reading her face, Jackson said, ‘You think I’m arrogant, don’t you?’
Lottie poured the milk. ‘Well, I … maybe a little. Sometimes.’
‘You think I’m arrogant and lazy and I don’t care about my team.’
Lottie blushed. ‘Sugar?’
‘Oh God.’ Jackson put his head in his hands. ‘That’s what hurts the most. Everything that bitch Sasha said to me is true. I set myself up. I did. I let this happen, and all for a few hours of lousy sex with a pair of …’
‘OK, enough.’ Lottie clamped both hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to know.’
Jackson looked taken aback.
‘I’ll try to be your friend and to listen. I’ll try to give you advice, if that’s what you want, not that you ever listen to it, and I’ll happily make you coffee and lend you my blanket, but I will not stand here in my own kitchen while you talk about your … your …’ she struggled for the appropriate word, ‘… your sexploits with God knows who, twins or whatever ridiculous thing it was. I mean, really. Really. I don’t want to know.’
She was so awkward and outraged and sweet, Jackson couldn’t bear it. He moved towards her, an unmistakably predatory look in his eye. ‘You’re lovely.’
‘No.’ Lottie backed away. ‘Stop it. You’re drunk. This isn’t fair.’
‘I am drunk,’ Jackson admitted. ‘But I’m drunk for the last time. As of today, I’m gonna be a changed man. No more booze. No more partying. No more sexploits.’ He was still moving closer. Lottie pressed her back against the kitchen counter.
‘I’m happy to hear that, Jackson, I really am. But …’
He kissed her. ‘I think we should be together.’ Lottie started to protest but he stopped her. ‘Please, hear me out. You’re good for me. When I’m around you I feel calm. I feel content.’
And when I’m around you I feel like I’m about to burst into flames. Oh God, Jackson, I want you so much, can’t you see it?
‘I thought you said you’d make a lousy husband?’ Lottie whispered. Jackson’s body was pressed against hers now. She could feel what little resolve she’d had crumbling like stale wedding cake.
‘We’ll work up to the husband part,’ he grinned. ‘One step at a time.’ Slipping a hand under Lottie’s sweater he reached for her bra strap, unclasping it with consummate ease. Lottie tried not to think about how many times he’d done that before and with how many women. There were a hundred and one reasons not to do this: Jackson was her boss, he was drunk, he was vulnerable, he was an inveterate womanizer who would sleep with her once, regret it and move on. Then his other hand slipped beneath her panties and none of the reasons meant anything.
‘Jesus.’ He looked up at her, startled. ‘When did you get that done?’
Lottie blushed. She’d forgotten about the rather extreme Brazilian wax she’d had in Park City, the same day she dyed her hair. She’d been on such a high that day. But perhaps it was a bit slutty. ‘Don’t you like it?’
Jackson grinned. ‘Are you kidding? I love it. It wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s all.’
Lottie closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the heavenly feelings washing over her. ‘That makes two of us!’ she gasped.
It was the last words either of them spoke that night.
Across town, Sasha lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, whipsawed with frustration. It should have been one of the happiest nights of her life, the start of an exciting new chapter. But instead of focusing on her bright future, Sasha’s head was full of images of two men.
Professor Theo Dexter: still happy, still rich and famous and successful, still living the dream that he stole from her.
And Jackson Amory Dupree, who’d kissed her, whose lips she could still taste on her own, whose body heat still burned every inch of her skin. Jackson who had threatened to destroy her.
‘I’m going to crush you. I’m go to blow Ceres out of the water.’
Sasha closed her eyes and said a silent prayer, the same prayer she’d said every night for the last ten years. Help me, Lord. Help me to destroy Theo Dexter. But this time she added a codicil. And if it’s not too much trouble Lord, help me forget about Jackson Dupree.
