HIS DOUBLE, HER TROUBLE

by Donna Sterling

  She nodded to her peers, and whispers carried to her.

  "Could she have been fooled, too?"

  "No, she was friends with 'em both…"

  "I heard that Jake moved her office next to his so she could help him take the company apart…"

  Keeping her gaze straight ahead, she climbed the front stairway, reeling from the unexpected blows. She loved these people. She'd give anything to prevent their loss. How could they think she'd betray them? But then, how could they not? She'd been with Jake the entire time. She'd pulled files for him, shared stories about each employee, listened in on many of his meetings.

  She knew he hadn't set out to downsize the company, as the employees believed. The changes he'd made had all been sound. Why, then, had he invested so much of their cash in high-risk stocks? Hadn't he known better? The chronic ache that had become an integral part of her suddenly began to throb. Give me the benefit of the doubt, he'd implored.

  What if he'd truly believed he was helping the company? The pain she'd seen might have been the same one she felt now. Although her co-workers believed the worst about her, her intentions had been good. Had Jake been trying his best, as Evan had claimed on the phone?

  As she reached the wide columned veranda, she heard a murmur rustle through the crowd. She turned to see a car gliding around the curve of the circular drive. Evan's Mercedes. It parked between a Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

  The Rowland twins got out. Both of them.

  Brianna felt a squeezing around her heart. Both were clean shaven, with deep tans, neatly cropped hair and expensive suits. Their handsome features were, of course, identical. This time, though, she had no problem telling the brothers apart.

  Evan paused near the passenger door and gazed at the crowd, which had gone stone silent. He forced a smile, but his eyes retained a furtive look—as if he wanted only to dash past the gathering to the sanctuary of the house.

  Jake shut the driver's door and sauntered toward the stairway, his gaze wandering casually over the crowd. Evan followed him. All eyes swung from one twin to the other. Brianna realized that no one else could tell them apart.

  "Welcome back, Evan!" a man yelled. Another voice piped up, "Where you been?"

  "Straighten out the mess, Ev!"

  "Keep us working!"

  "Go sun yourself, Jake!"

  "Chop up some other company, hatchet man…!" The yells fused into a roar.

  Evan kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked. Brianna herself had reacted in the same way to the crowd's hostility. But that hostility wasn't directed at Evan—only at Jake and her. As Evan drew nearer, she saw the germ of panic in his face. What had all this stress done to him?

  Jake strolled up the steps looking entirely unaffected. His gaze settled on Brianna. His lips tightened almost imperceptibly and he looked away from her toward Evan as he climbed the stairs. When he'd reached the top, Jake uttered, "Go inside." Neither Evan nor Brianna complied.

  Jake turned and faced the angry crowd. With calm authority, he held out his hands and quieted them. From the doubtful looks on the upturned faces, Brianna knew that the crowd still hadn't decided which Rowland twin addressed them.

  "Thank you for your support," Jake began. "You've been good, loyal workers." The hostility left their gazes. They thought he was Evan. "As much as I want to, I can't promise everything's going to turn out okay. We'll do what we can to keep you working." Applause broke out, even as worry furrowed most brows. "Go back to your jobs. Man the front lines. Let's not fall apart under pressure."

  The crowd slowly dispersed, calling out encouragements. Jake nodded in acknowledgment. When the last of the workers had left, he followed his brother and Brianna into the house.

  Admiration for him revived all the warmer feelings that she'd tried so hard to quell. He'd handled a predicament that had been too emotionally charged for his brother to face. She sensed a terrible tension in Evan, as if he'd snap in two at any moment. When Jake had closed the door, she turned to Evan in grave concern. He seemed too choked up to speak. Instead, he hugged her.

  Jake strode past them without a glance.

  They followed him through high-ceilinged rooms where their footsteps echoed on marble floors, then down long carpeted corridors. Brianna remembered whispering with Evan long ago in this hallowed wing occupied by Cy.

  They rounded a corner and a woman's joyous cry stopped them. "Mister Jake!" A plump grizzle-haired woman in a dark dress and white apron rushed to him with arms outspread. "I didn't think you'd ever come back to this house again!"

  Jake caught her in a hug. "I came to get you, Lucy. You ready to run away with me yet?"

  She laughed with boisterous delight. "You'll never be good 'nough for me, I tol' you that. I'm wearing that watch you sent me, though. See?" She held up her wrist.

  "I didn't send you a watch."

  "Don't you lie! Who else sends me presents from Germany or Switzerland or whichever place this one's from?"

  "Had to be that rich boyfriend of yours."

  Cackling, she shook her graying head. "You gonna be here Sunday? I'm making my fried chicken."

  "No, I'll be leaving before then." With a peculiar dryness, he added, "My, uh, private Learjet's ready to go." Although he hadn't glanced her way, Brianna knew the remark had been aimed at her. His subtle yet sharp-edged sarcasm hurt—as did the fact that he'd be leaving so soon.

  Lucy muttered in disapproval and toddled past him. "Mr. Evan, 'bout time you're home." She enfolded him in a warm embrace. "Now you boys behave when you go in with Mister Cy. Don't get him too upset. All them old uncles and cousins he calls the 'board' are in with him now."

  Jake sent Evan a speaking glance. You ready for this? Evan drew in an unsteady breath. Apprehension zipped through Brianna as Jake led them to Cy's bedroom.

  They heard his low growl through an open door. "It was sibling rivalry, I say. He wanted to prove himself better at business, even if he had to take asinine risks to do it."

  "I believe you're right, Cy," replied a deeper, slower voice. "I heard those boys even went after the same gal."

  "Oh, hush, Henry," warbled a woman, "that's nothing but gossip. I heard she's just an old friend of theirs."

  Brianna froze in the corridor outside Cy's room. They were talking about her. Had Jake been using her to compete with Evan? He'd known they were having problems—sexual problems. Had he set out to prove himself the better lover?

  Her gaze locked with Jake's. His jaw tightened and a message blazed clearly in his cobalt eyes. Believe in me.

  And she realized that she did. She knew, as surely as the sun rises, that their lovemaking had meant more to him than that. Much more. She turned away to hide the question that hammered through her veins. What exactly had their lovemaking meant?

  When she'd regained a clear focus, she saw Evan staring at Jake as if he'd realized some basic truth. She squeezed Evan's arm in a silent plea to ignore the hurtful rumor.

  At her gesture, Jake looked away, pushed open the door and strode inside. Evan motioned for Brianna to go in ahead of him. Gathering her dignity, she made a quiet entrance.

  In a vast, plush bedchamber decorated in muted shades of blue, Cy peered at them from the pillows of a stately bed, his hair an unruly shock of white and his droopy eyes grim. "Come in. Sit down."

  The other elderly ladies and gentleman, all dressed for business, nodded briefly from wing-backed armchairs on the far side of the bed. Jake settled into the chair closest to Cy. Brianna sank down into the one beside Jake, with Evan on her other side. The air felt close and explosive.

  "I want to start by apologizing," rumbled Cy, his voice solemn and hoarse. "I shouldn't have allowed my grandson free rein. I've always known how competitive he is. It's an obsession with him, to prove that he's the best."

  She sensed Jake stiffen in the chair beside her. She wished she could spare him this ordeal.

  Cy obviously didn't share her compassion. "Knowing that he could lose it all, he gambled awa
y the company's funds." His voice picked up volume. "It was more important to him to prove himself brilliant than to insure long-term stability."

  Brianna resorted to teeth grinding. No matter what mistakes Jake might have made, his grandfather had no right to humiliate him like this.

  "He didn't understand the fundamentals of growth or diversification," railed Cy. "And I'm just as much to blame for granting him too much power—giving him the rope to hang himself on those stupid, careless investments."

  Brianna couldn't hold back any longer. "Mistakes might have been made," she called out, startling Cy, "but they couldn't have been stupid or careless. If there's one thing I've learned about your grandson, it's the fact that he is extremely skilled and conscientious in business. Whatever gambles he took, he believed them to be for the best."

  Cy frowned, taken aback. Jake scrutinized her intently.

  She lifted her chin and pressed on. "He did a lot of good things for the company. He brightened morale, opened lines of communication and initiated wonderful programs."

  "Ms. Devon, he ran the company to the ground! I've heard you have a close personal relationship with him, but it's time you took off your rose-colored glasses."

  "My close personal relationship with him has nothing to do with it," she exclaimed, flushed and earnest. "I find it hard to believe that a few bad investments or even an embezzlement could ruin a healthy company. There's more going on here than meets the eye." She stood up, her jaw squared. "Fire me, if you'd like. Terminate me without references. But I won't sit here and listen to you and everyone else blame the company's downfall on Jake!"

  The silence quivered around them like shock waves. Everyone gaped at her as if she'd lost her mind. Jake himself stared, looking thunderstruck. The only thing moving in the room was Evan's mouth. It opened and closed in what appeared to be a futile attempt to speak.

  Cy's bushy white brows bunched. "Did you say … Jake?"

  Unsure of the point behind his question, she nodded. "Brianna," Evan interjected, finally finding his voice, "he wasn't talking about Jake. He was talking about me."

  She blinked a few times rapidly to clear her vision, to comprehend his words, to make sense of the situation…

  "I made the bad investments," Evan clarified. "And you're right. The company wasn't in good shape when Jake took over. I just wanted to grow. I wanted to bring in major accounts, but once I did I had to scramble to plug up holes in the reserve. I took the risk with the funds because my back was against the wall. And then—" he grimaced "—the embezzlement hit. I was too caught up in the other problems to even notice I was being scammed. When Jake took over for me, he … he saw the mess I'd made of everything. But it was too late even for him to help."

  In a daze, Brianna sank down into her chair. Evan had been the one who ruined the company? Evan had been the target of Cy's scorn?

  Evan expelled a harsh breath. "Maybe I was trying to compete with Jake. He's always been so damn good at everything. He went out on his own, played to his heart's content and still made a fortune. Don't look so surprised, Jake. Of course I kept up with what you were doing."

  Jake muttered some wry retort while Cy launched into a sermon about risk, cash reserve and false growth.

  Brianna, meanwhile, turned a stunned gaze on the man she'd been trying to groom into a credible CEO. All those times she'd berated him for his approach to business, pointed out how his brother would have done things… He easily could have proven how ineffective Evan had been. Jake had known from the start that there were problems beyond the embezzlement, but he'd withheld all information that could point the finger of blame where it belonged. She thought of how he'd faced down the hostile crowd today, and how he'd taken her own accusations in stoic silence. He'd deliberately shouldered all responsibility.

  With one glance at a wan, defeated Evan, she knew why Jake had done it. He'd been protecting his brother at a very vulnerable time in his life.

  And she'd thought he didn't know how to love!

  "So, Jake," Cy rumbled, his gaze now centered on the black sheep, "what do you suggest we do now?"

  It was then, as every member of the board leaned forward attentively, that Brianna realized the full weight of their trust in Jake's expertise. They were turning to him for answers. In a very literal sense, the future of the company, of the town, of everyone she loved depended on Jake Rowland.

  For the first time since the bad news had hit, a spark of hope kindled inside her.

  "I wish I could offer you better options." His voice sounded gruff and weary. "You won't like any of them."

  Brianna tightened her clasped hands. Please say there's a way to save the company. Please!

  "If you try to keep the company running and invest more money in it, you'll only be throwing good money after bad. Once you've unloaded the large, costly accounts, it'll take too long to build up a solid book of smaller ones. Your best chance of getting anything out of your investment is to turn your accounts over to other insurance companies and liquidate the company's assets before too many claims hit."

  Cy released a long breath. "I reached the same conclusion." The others grimly concurred. Jake fielded questions from all sides, answering one after another.

  Brianna sat in heartsick silence. They were really going to do it—close down Rowland Insurance. All of their questions had to do with loss and profit. No one raised any objection to throwing in the towel. They'd already decided, she realized. They'd only been waiting for Jake to confirm what they already knew.

  Any minute now, they'd turn to her with instructions on how to "disassemble" the workforce. And she'd have to go back to the office and carry out those instructions.

  "Jake." The name had left her lips before she'd even meant to say it. "Jake!"

  He halted in the middle of a discussion with the board and turned a questioning gaze to her. Murmurs continued around them like the humming of bees. "Don't do it, Jake. Don't close down the company."

  "Brianna, the bottom line—"

  "This is about more than just profit. It's about the town. Don't you know how special it is?" Her voice was wrought with emotion, and the others immediately fell silent. "When my mother brought me here as a child we didn't have a penny to our names, not even enough to stay on the bus and just pass through. We were homeless, Jake. Homeless!" She saw the flicker of surprise in his eyes and realized he hadn't known.

  "The minister took us in," she said. "The community took us in, too, and helped my mother get back on her feet. I'll never stop loving them for that." She glanced around at the others. "Don't you want your grandchildren to live in a place where people care about each other? If you do, then you've got to care about them." She gazed again at Jake, though she barely saw him through the sheen of tears that had somehow warped her vision. "This is my home. I made it my home … and it's yours, too, Jake. Save the company. If you care enough, you'll do it!"

  Her throat had closed entirely, and Jake was little more than a motionless blur. Through silence thicker than any fog, she bowed her head and hurried from the room.

  The rec room looked as it had when they'd been kids—pool table, pinball machine, trampoline, TV. Jake hadn't come here to reminisce, though; he'd come here to be alone while the others had lunch.

  Absently he took a pool cue down from the wall and chalked its tip, pondering why Brianna had jumped to his defense. At first, he'd assumed she knew Cy had been referring to Evan. Her reaction would have made perfect sense. But then she'd said, "Terminate me without references, but I won't listen to you blame the company's downfall on Jake!"

  He'd been astounded. She'd been defending him. All her magnificent fire and compassion had been on his behalf, and yet, just a week ago, she had accused him of playing reckless games and ordered him to stay away from her. After all that, she'd endangered the references she'd need to find another job by going up against the old man, chairman of the board, while he was in one of his rages, no less, in Jake's defense.

  Mindles
sly Jake racked up the balls on the green felt. Hope beat painfully like iron fists in his heart. She'd obviously changed her mind about him, but how much? Compressing his lips, he fought against the hope. He'd bled enough this past week, wanting her—wanting what he couldn't have.

  He positioned his cue stick in careful aim and thought of her plea: Save the company, Jake. If you care enough, you'll do it. For as long as he could remember, he'd fantasized about the moment Brianna Devon would turn to him with worshiping eyes and acknowledge what a terrific guy he really was. Lately it had become an obsession, wanting her to believe in him more than she believed in anyone.

  He slid the stick through his fingers and hit the cue ball, scattering the multicolored balls. Why in the hell had she suddenly chosen now to show a little faith? Now, when the company was in shambles and the smartest course was to liquidate. Now, when all he wanted to do was advise the board and get the hell out of town before he had to watch her turn that tender gaze on Evan again.

  He ricocheted one ball off another, which slid into the corner pocket. The woman was making him crazy. She wanted him to do something that would require a foolhardy risk. He'd have to merge his own lucrative little investment firm with the ailing insurance company and find other investors to back it. He'd have to lay everything he'd ever worked for on the line: his money, his business, his contacts. And if he failed, the failure would break him financially and professionally.

  He'd lose the freedom that had always been so vital to his happiness. The days of hopping on a plane and going off to wherever he pleased would be over.

  Why the hell would he even consider it? Because Brianna wanted to save her home? Because she'd called it his home, too? What would that mean when he was stuck here overseeing the new corporation and she was back in Evan's arms, deluding herself? Good Lord, she could end up being his sister-in-law! Jake's grip on the cue stick grew painful and cold, sick waves coursed through him.