by Karen Booth
“Of course. Send it up right away.” Life is too short for cheap wine.
Actually, he and Anna had consumed more than their fair share of cheap wine during their marathon late-night talks at the Langford family home in Manhattan. That felt like a lifetime ago.
His friendship with Adam had meant the world then. They told each other everything, commiserated over growing up with powerful, yet emotionally reclusive, fathers. They bonded over career aspirations, came up with ideas effortlessly. Jacob had hit it off with Anna equally well, except that he’d only had a sliver of time with her—ten days during which they drank, played cards and joked, while attraction pinged back and forth between them. He’d thought about acting on it many times, but never did.
He’d been raised as a gentleman and no gentleman made a move on his best friend’s sister, however tempting she might be. Anna had been supremely tempting. It physically hurt to say “no” to her when she’d kissed him and it wasn’t only because she’d given him a mind-numbing erection. He’d sensed that night that he was turning down more than sex. It was difficult not to harbor regrets.
After room service delivered the wine, Jacob removed his suit coat and tie. He was essentially shedding his armor, but it would make things more informal. If the Langfords were aware that a takeover was in the mix and Adam had sent her to spy on him, this would make him seem less threatening. The War Chest investors had been careful, but some tracks were impossible to cover.
The suite doorbell rang. Jacob had given his personal assistant the night off, so he strode through the marble-floored foyer to answer it. When he opened the door, he couldn’t help himself—he had to drink in the vision of Anna. A stolen glimpse of her in the hotel bar had nothing on her up close. Her sweet smell, her chest rising and falling with each breath, sent reverberations through his body for which he was ill prepared.
“May I come in?” she asked. “Or did you answer just so you could slam the door in my face?” The look in her eyes said that she was only half kidding. He had to give her credit. It couldn’t have been easy to break the silence between himself and the Langfords.
“Only your brother deserves that treatment. Not you.” Jacob stepped aside. He’d forgotten about the sultry nature of her voice, the way it made parts of him rumble and quake.
“I won’t take up your time. I’m sure you’re busy.” She came to a halt in the foyer, folded her hands in front of her, playing the role of steely vixen all too well.
“Anna, it’s eight o’clock at night. Even I don’t schedule my day nonstop. The evening is yours. Whatever you want.” The more time he spent with her, the more sure he could be of her motives.
She straightened her fitted black suit jacket. The long lines of her trousers showed off her lithe frame. “You sure?”
“Please. Come in. Sit.”
Anna made her way into the living area and perched on the edge of the sofa. Palm trees fluttered in the wind outside. Miami moonlight filtered through the tall windows. “I came to talk about Sunny Side.”
Of the things Jacob thought Anna might come to discuss, he hadn’t considered this. “I’m impressed. I thought I’d managed to keep my investment role at Sunny Side quiet. Very quiet. Silent, in fact.” Exactly as he hoped he’d kept his LangTel investments. Was he losing his touch? Or was Anna that good?
“I read about them on a tech blog. It took some digging to figure out where their money was coming from, but I eventually decided it had to be you, although that was just a hunch. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.” She smiled and cocked an eyebrow, showing the same satisfied smirk her brother sometimes brandished.
The times Jacob had wanted to knock that look off Adam’s face was countless, but on Anna? Coming from her, delivered via her smoky brown eyes, it was almost too hot to bear. He was intrigued by this sly side of her, more self-assured than the coltish twenty-year-old he’d first met. “Well done. Would you like a glass of wine? I have a bottle on ice.”
Anna hesitated. “It’s probably best if we keep our conversation strictly business.”
“There’s no business between you and me without the personal creeping in. Your family and I are forever enmeshed.” She could turn this point on him later if she learned of the War Chest’s plans, not that he cared to change a thing about it. The ball was rolling.
Anna nodded in agreement. “How about this? Talk to me about Sunny Side and I’ll stay for a glass of wine.”
Was it really as innocent as that? His skeptical side wanted to think that it wasn’t, but it’d been a long day. At least he could enjoy a glass of good wine and derive deep satisfaction from admiring his nemesis’s little sister. “I’ll open it right now.”
“So, Sunny Side,” Anna said. “They could be an amazing acquisition for LangTel.”
Jacob opened the bottle at the wet bar, filled two glasses and brought them to the lacquered cocktail table. He sat near Anna and clinked his glass with hers. “Cheers.” Taking a long sip, he studied her lovely face, especially her mouth. He’d only had her lips on his for a few moments, but he knew the spark beneath her composed exterior. She could so easily be his undoing. He hadn’t anticipated this beguiling creature resurfacing in his life. Or that she might disrupt the riskiest investment venture of his career.
“Well?” she asked. “Sunny Side?”
“Yes. Sorry. It’s been a long day.” He shook his head, trying to make sense of the situation. “Is there a point in discussing it? Sunny Side might consider an offer from LangTel, but the problem is Adam. I don’t see him wanting to acquire a company I’m so deeply entrenched with and frankly, I’m never getting into bed with him either.” Getting into bed with Adam’s sister might be another matter. Loyalty was no longer standing in the way.
She nodded, intently focused. “I’ll take care of Adam. I just want to know if you can put me in the room with Sunny Side.”
“Just so you know, it’s about more than money. The founder is very leery of big business. It took months for me to earn his trust.”
Her eyes flashed. She was undaunted by obstacles. If anything, it brought out her enthusiasm. “Of course. The technology has limitless applications.”
“It will revolutionize the entire cell phone industry.” One thing dawned on him—the War Chest’s interest in LangTel was with the mind of turning the corporation into a bigger moneymaker once Adam was gone. Sunny Side would be a major player in the industry, so why not put the two together? It could have an enormous upside.
“So, can we make this happen?”
Jacob admired her persistence. Among other things. “Only if Adam stays out of it.”
“Tech acquisitions is my department. Think of it as doing business with me.”
“How long do you think you’ll stay in that job?” He’d been surprised she’d taken a job with LangTel at all. She always seemed to hate being in her brother’s shadow.
“Not forever, hopefully.”
“Setting your sights on bigger and better things?”
She smiled politely. “Yes.”
He was relieved that she saw herself eventually leaving LangTel. She’d still make a boatload of money from her personal stock if he was successful with a takeover, and her career wouldn’t be derailed. Adam was his target, not Anna. “Okay, well, if we’re going to talk about Sunny Side, Adam has to stay out of it. A negotiation requires compromise and he is incapable of that. He hates it when you disagree with him.”
“I’m familiar with that aspect of his personality.” She ran her finger around the edge of the wine glass, her eyes connecting with his and sending a splendid shock right through him. “I could never get Adam to tell me exactly what happened. Between the two of you.”
Although Jacob wasn’t certain what made Adam react the way he had, he suspected Roger Langford was at the root of it all. It started when Jaco
b spotted problems with Adam’s central idea for Chatterback, the social media website they were starting. They needed to rethink everything. Adam vehemently disagreed. He brooded, they argued for days on end. Jacob suggested Adam consult with his dad—maybe he could talk some sense into him. The next day, Jacob had been cut out entirely. “I find that surprising. I assumed he bad-mouthed me to anyone who would listen.”
“He did some of that, but he mostly just never wanted to talk about it.” Anna wound her arms around her waist.
Did he care to venture down this road tonight? Absolutely not. The details were too infuriating—money lost, countless hours, passion and hard work unfairly yanked away. Plus, he couldn’t tell Anna that he suspected her father had been the problem. She was likely still grieving him. “I don’t want to be accused of trying to taint your opinion of Adam. He is your brother, after all.”
“Okay, then at least tell me that you’ll put me in the room with Sunny Side.”
His mind went to work, calculating. There were myriad ways in which this could all go wrong. Of course, if it went right, that could be a real coup. “I’ll make it happen, but this is only because of you. I don’t want Adam interfering.”
“Believe me, I won’t let him get in the middle.” Anna took a sip of her wine. When she set down the glass, she laughed quietly and shook her head. “It was bad enough when he was the reason you didn’t want me to kiss you.”
Two
Adam’s fiancée, Melanie, pointed to the dog-eared pages of bridal magazines spread out on the dining table in Adam’s penthouse apartment. “Anna? What do you think? Black or eggplant?”
Bridesmaid’s dresses. Talking about the dress she’d have to wear for Adam and Melanie’s January wedding felt like a speed bump. Anna’d been trying to broach the subject of Jacob and Miami for nearly the entire week, but Adam kept putting her off.
“Do you have a preference?” Melanie asked.
Anna shook her head, setting down her dessert spoon. The chocolate mousse Melanie had served with dinner was delicious, and perfect, just like Adam and Melanie’s life—a well-matched couple giddily in love, wedding a few months down the road. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”
“Classic black A-line or strapless dark purple?”
Anna choked back a sigh. She was happy for Adam and Melanie, really she was, but their wedding had taken over Langford family life. It was the only thing their mother, Evelyn, wanted to talk about. Just to make things especially fun for Anna, her mother usually added a comment about how her first project after the wedding was helping Anna find the right guy. January couldn’t come—and go—soon enough.
She loved her brother dearly. Melanie had become a close friend. It was just that it was painful to watch them reach a milestone Anna was skeptical she’d ever reach. At twenty-eight, being hopelessly single in a city full of men who didn’t have eyes for women with lofty aspirations, there wasn’t much else to think. Most men were intimidated by her family and the job she’d already ascended to at LangTel. It wasn’t going to get any less daunting for them if and when she took over as CEO.
“The black, I guess,” Anna said. “But you should pick what you want. Don’t worry about me. It’s your big day, not mine.”
“No, I want you to be happy. I think we’ll go with the black.” Melanie smiled warmly.
Anna really did adore her future sister-in-law. These days, Melanie was the only thing that made being around Adam tolerable, which was so sad. Adam had once been her ally. Now it was as if she had a grizzly bear for a brother and a boss—she never knew what would set him off, and most days, it seemed as if everything did.
She’d assumed she and Adam would lean on each other after their father passed away, but instead, Adam had withdrawn. He’d holed up in Dad’s big corner office and become distant. The tougher things got, the more Adam shut her out. She’d been exercising patience. Everyone dealt with death differently. If only he’d trust her with more responsibility, she could lighten his workload and remind him that she was well equipped to take over.
Melanie took Adam’s hand across the sleek ebony table, her stunning Harry Winston engagement ring glinting. “I still can’t believe we’re getting married. I pinch myself every morning.”
“Just wait until we have kids,” Adam quipped. “Then things will really get surreal.”
“You’re already talking about children?” Anna tried to squelch the extreme surprise in her voice.
“We are,” Melanie answered. “Two of my sisters had trouble getting pregnant. If we’re going to have kids, I don’t want to risk waiting too long.”
Anna nodded. She’d worried about how long she would have to wait. Her friends from college were having kids, some their second or third. On an intellectual level, she knew she had time, but after her dad had died, emotion had taken over reasoning, and she panicked.
Feeling alone while watching Adam move forward with his life, Anna decided she wasn’t about to wait for a man to show up in hers. She’d looked into artificial insemination. It was a just-in-case sort of thing—a fact-finding mission. Hopefully, she’d find love and a partner and none of it would be necessary, but at that moment when she’d felt powerless, taking action was the only comfort she could get.
Unfortunately, the visit to the clinic brought a devastating problem to light—a tangle of scar tissue from her appendectomy, literally choking off her chances of conception unless she had surgery. If she didn’t fix the problem and she did become pregnant, carrying a baby to term was unlikely. With things crazy at work, Anna hadn’t done a thing about it, although she planned to. Some day.
“We aren’t going to have to try, Mel.” Adam leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “If I have my way, you’ll be pregnant by the end of the honeymoon.”
Melanie laughed quietly. “Did Adam tell you about Fiji?” she asked Anna. “Two weeks in a private villa on the beach with a chef and an on-call masseuse, all while the rest of New York is dealing with gray snow and cold. I can’t wait.”
Fiji. In January. Anna took a cleansing breath. She hated these feelings of envy. She wanted to squash them like a bug.
“We need to talk about that, because we’re going to be away for a full two weeks,” Adam said to Anna. “If you think that’s too long a stretch for you to be in charge at LangTel, you need to tell me now.”
Anna blew out an exasperated breath. “I can’t believe you think there’s a chance I can’t handle it.”
Adam fetched a bottle of beer from the fridge and returned to the table. “What about Australia? What if something like that happens when I’m gone? We’re still sorting out that mess.”
“First off, we’re not sorting out that mess, I am. And you asked me to make those changes. I was following orders.”
“If you’re going to be CEO, you have to think for yourself.” He took a sip of his beer and pointed at her with the neck of the bottle. “There will be no orders to follow.”
How she hated it when he talked down to her like that, as if she didn’t know as much about business, when she absolutely did. “And I will do that once you finally hand over the reins.” Anna tightened her hands into balls. She was so tired of her dynamic with Adam, constantly at war.
Melanie buried her nose in a bridal magazine. Surely this wasn’t a comfortable conversation to sit in on.
“When you’re ready and not a day sooner,” Adam barked. “You know we’re in a delicate position. The company stock is fluctuating like crazy. I keep hearing rumblings about somebody, somewhere, wanting to take over the company.”
She’d heard those same rumors, but had ignored them, hoping they were conjecture and nothing more. “Adam, change brings instability. I think you’re making excuses, when the truth is that you suddenly have zero confidence in me.”
“You don’t make
it easy when you make mistakes. Half of the board members are old guard. They do not want to see a woman take over the company, no matter what they might say to your face. We have to find the right time.”
Anna felt as though she was listening to her father speak. Was there something about working out of that office that made a person completely unreasonable? “You mean I have to wait until you decide it’s the right time.”
“You have no idea the amount of pressure I’m under. People expect huge things from me and from LangTel. I can’t let what Dad started be anything less than amazing.”
Anna kept her thoughts to herself. Adam was struggling with their father’s death even more than she was. He might not realize it, but she was sure his iron grip on LangTel had more to do with holding on to the memory of their dad than anything else. Tears stung Anna’s eyes just thinking about her father, but she wouldn’t cry. Not now.
“I can do this. I thought you believed in me.”
“I do, but frankly, you haven’t dazzled me like I thought you would.”
“Then let me dazzle you. I have an idea for an acquisition after the conference in Miami. That’s what I’ve been trying to talk to you all week about.”
“I don’t want to spend our entire evening talking shop. Send me the details in an email and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“No. You keep blowing me off. Plus, I’m starting to think this isn’t a discussion for the office.”
“Why not?”
You might get mad enough to set off the sprinkler system. “Because it has to do with Jacob Lin. I’m interested in a company called Sunny Side, and he’s the majority investor.”
Adam’s jaw dropped and quickly froze in place. “I don’t care if Jacob Lin is selling the Empire State Building for a dollar. We’re not doing business with him. End of discussion.”
That last bit was so like her dad, and such a guy thing to do, attempting to do away with an uncomfortable subject with male posturing. It insulted every brain cell in her head, which meant it was time to forge ahead. She wasn’t about to wait for another time. It might never come. “The company makes micro solar panels for cell phones, phones that will never, ever need an electrical charge.”