Texas Magic

by Jean Brashear

  Her pirate put this man to shame.

  “I’m Bradley Stafford, executive vice-president. I’ll take you to Mr. Santorini’s office in a moment.” He held out his hand, shaking hers. “If you’d follow me this way, we’ll take care of getting your security clearance.”

  She gathered her thoughts and nodded. “That’s great. Thank you.” Most of Lexie’s contacts up to now had been by e-mail. She had been here only once, to meet with the public relations department to make her original pitch. As Stafford escorted her down a different hallway than the one she’d seen before, she looked around eagerly. She already knew that access beyond the main lobby was strictly controlled. Electronic gaming was an intensely competitive field and corporate espionage a daily worry.

  Her thoughts darkened. Could Max be wrong? Everywhere she looked spoke of wealth and success. Why would this big, successful company stoop to stealing code? How much money was enough? Why would Dominic Santorini need to steal Max’s brainchild?

  After she’d had her photo taken and gotten her ID, they walked toward the inner sanctum, and Stafford stopped before a very intimidating-looking gizmo set into the wall beside a door that was a solid slab of metal. Lexie halted behind him, then realized that he was waiting for her to step before the panel and let it scan her face as the technician had instructed. It was silly to feel a thrill when she heard the clearance voiced and the lock clicked open.

  Photographs lined the walls. The eco-sensitive lighting was dim enough that she couldn’t see well. “Are these company mug shots?” she asked, too nervous to be quiet.

  He smiled. “You might say that. These are the early days of Poseidon Productions.”

  She slowed and looked closer at one grouping of five men. “That’s you, isn’t it?” She turned back to look at him.

  He laughed. “Yes, that young, idealistic fellow is me.”

  She was struck by the weariness in his tone, but decided she didn’t know him well enough to ask him about it. She turned back to the picture—

  Her breath froze in her chest.

  Her heart thudded once. Hard.

  She couldn’t face him as she asked her question. “Who are these other men?”

  “Well, that’s Rob Johnson on the left, and Matt Hendricks next to him. Sitting down is Henry LaFleur, and of course, there I am.”

  She could barely get the words past her throat for the dread locking it tight. “And the man in the center?”

  “That’s Dominic Santorini. You’ll meet him in just a minute.”

  She’d met him already, she wanted to say. From deep inside her, a keening moan wanted to break free. She knew that black, curly hair. Those ebony eyes. That same flashing pirate’s smile.

  Intimately.

  She’d made love with a man who didn’t exist. Her Nikos was a lie—and now it made sense that he hadn’t come back. Her Nikos was no grease monkey; he was rich as Midas.

  And if Max was right about his code—

  Her Nikos was also a thief.

  Dominic Santorini rubbed the bridge of his nose as his sleep-deprived eyes stared at the computer screen. The couple of hours’ sleep he’d grabbed on the couch in his office last night hadn’t taken the edge off his exhaustion. The trading day had just ended on the Tokyo exchange. There was no question about it now—Poseidon’s stock was being quietly bought up by someone, bit by bit, from one exchange to another.

  His gut told him that Peter Kassaros had to be behind it. The man had almost broken Ariana before she had gotten away. Boyhood competitor then business rival, Kassaros had gone too far when he’d seduced Dominic’s naïve, much-younger sister. He’d made it personal, and Dominic had taken steps to avenge her, buying up some of Kassaros’ loans.

  Kassaros had found a new avenue to strike back.

  If only Dominic could prove it.

  “Dominic?”

  He lifted his gaze to find his best friend and second-in-command Bradley Stafford studying him from the doorway.

  “She’s here.”

  Dominic frowned. “Who?”

  “The designer for the gala. You wanted to meet her and look over the final plans.”

  Oh, hell. Dominic had forgotten about A. Grayson. He had trusted the marketing department and only had to okay the concept of the gala, but last week he had decided that the launch was too critical not to look over the plans himself before the work began on the grounds of his home. Why he had ever agreed to doing it there—

  Dominic scrubbed his face with his hands. The launch of Lightning Quest meant everything to this company’s survival. Too many people depended on him to find an answer.

  The man who’d been Nikos for one magical night remembered a note…and a promise. With regret lodged in his chest like a boulder, he admitted that he had been kidding himself to think he could afford the luxury of Lexie’s joy right now…when so much else was at stake.

  “All right,” he sighed. “Show her in.”

  He glanced back at the report he’d been reading, wishing he had a few more minutes. He heard the door open again.

  He looked up.

  And forgot to breathe.

  Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the woman who had been on his mind for two days. A fierce flare of joy shot through him, even as he tried to figure out why she was here. He rose without thinking, his mind grasping to make some sense.

  Lexie here—in his office. How had she found him? Damn—the timing was all wrong, but he wanted to see her, talk to her. He’d have to get Bradley to cancel the meeting with—

  A. Grayson. The designer. The creative—

  A for…Alexandra?

  Under his nose all the time.

  Lexie. He almost said it out loud, started to smile until he got a look at her eyes, dark and anguished. Then they turned…empty.

  He frowned. He needed to explain why he hadn’t come back—

  “Dominic Santorini, this is Alexandra Grayson, our designer.” Bradley’s voice sounded like it was coming from a thousand miles away.

  Lexie, you’re here. Lexie, I wanted—The words nearly broke through his normal reserve.

  But this woman wasn’t Lexie. A stranger stood stiffly, the short skirt of her red suit revealing legs he could still feel wrapped around his waist—

  But every line of her body said Back Off. Something was very wrong, but it wasn’t a discussion to have right here. What a damnable complication to an already difficult situation. With years of practice, Dominic buried his thoughts behind a granite mask and put out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Grayson.”

  Still reeling from the discovery, Lexie blinked in shock. He wasn’t going to admit that they’d met.

  A dull ache hollowed out her chest. The man called Nikos had been merely a figment of her imagination. This man was cold as stone. Dominic Santorini must be laughing up his sleeve. Everyone in Austin—shoot, half the country knew who he was.

  Everyone but a fool like Lexie, the woman who seldom bothered with the news or watched TV. Who, despite her protests, had turned out to be naïve, after all.

  She wanted to turn around and run as hard as she could, back to safety, back to home. But he was already there, like the air, touching every part of her refuge. She had to make her stand here. She couldn’t let this defeat her. It was simply an embarrassment, she told herself. She couldn’t dwell on it.

  She needed the job. Now, more than ever, she needed to help Max, her true friend.

  Summoning up every ounce of strength within her, she took his offered hand, only to be jolted to her toes by the lightning bolt of his touch. For one flicker, his ebony eyes glowed hot with memory. She couldn’t help the brief tightening of her hand on his. She felt the warmth of his skin and remembered how that hand had felt on her body in the heat of—

  No. She jerked her hand away. This man in his expensive charcoal Italian suit was not Nikos. Nikos was a lie. She had to remember that.

  Somehow she found her voice. “Thank you, Mr. Santorini.”<
br />
  “Please, call me Dominic.” No, call me Nikos, he wanted to demand. Call me Nikos as I drag you beneath me and sheathe myself in your warm, sweet body. Moan my name as I suckle your very sensitive nipples. Scream as I make love to you with my mouth.

  Damn it, she felt it too. She had to. They needed to talk. He had to dig Lexie out from under this stranger. “Bradley, would you please excuse us?”

  Lexie’s legs turned to spaghetti. He was staring at her like a predator contemplating a meal.

  She couldn’t be alone with him. “I’d like Mr. Stafford to look at these, too, if you don’t mind.” With unsteady hands, she began to spread out her drawings on the large table beside her.

  Dominic wanted to jerk her back around and demand answers.

  Who was he kidding? He wanted to strip her naked and take her, right where she stood. With a ferocity he hadn’t felt in years, he wanted to get beneath that trim suit to the body his hands itched to touch. He wanted to muss that hair and smear her lipstick with his kisses. Wanted to heat that damned cool voice and shatter the distance she was placing between them. Wanted, more than anything, to laugh with her again—but the laughing tomboy had vanished.

  When he hung back, Bradley looked at him oddly.

  What had changed? Was she only hurt that he hadn’t returned or had he been that wrong about her? Dominic swore silently every ripe curse he could remember. Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, he nodded curtly. “Let’s see what you have.”

  His assistant spoke from the doorway. “Mr. Santorini, the conference call you’ve been waiting for from Seattle is on the screen in conference one. Do you want me to reschedule it?”

  Lexie glanced at him quickly, and he wanted to order her to stay right where she was until he could clear the place out. Get rid of every damned person here. Lock the doors behind them and find his way back to the magic.

  But people depended on him—many people. This call was earlier than expected, but it was absolutely crucial to Poseidon.

  Bradley knew its importance. He spoke up. “It’s all right. We’ll move to my office. I’ll give you a report later.”

  Dominic shot a quick look at Lexie, fiercely willing her to look at him.

  But when she did, she was not Lexie. The tomboy with grease on her cheek had vanished. In her place stood a stranger whose posture screamed how much she wanted away from him.

  Had he only imagined that magical Lexie?

  It wouldn’t be his first experience with masks and betrayal. Obviously what he had felt that night had been a one-way experience.

  Just as well. He had a company to save.

  “Fine. Ask them to hold a minute, Mrs. Murray. I will be right there.” He started to offer his hand, but the stranger who looked just like Lexie had already gathered up her drawings and was halfway to the door.

  Lexie couldn’t remember how she got out of the building and into her pickup. Her mind seethed and boiled, thoughts tumbling over one another in horror and confusion.

  She didn’t want to think about what she’d just learned.

  She wanted to take back the last—how long had she been driving around? However long it had been, she wanted an hour before that.

  Back to the time when she could only think of Nikos as a man who broke a promise to come back.

  She fought the urge to drop her head to the steering wheel and weep. How could she reconcile the man who caressed her body so tenderly, who drew depths of passion from her such as she’d never dreamed existed—how could she reconcile her pirate lover with the man who’d built that megalith of a company?

  And how could she even begin to see him as a man who would steal Max’s dreams?

  He couldn’t have…could he?

  She should just ask him, flat out—but how did you ask a question like that? Did you steal my friend’s creation?

  She wasn’t even sure she could have asked such a question of the man she’d known as Nikos, but this man? This remote, forbidding stranger who hadn’t even acknowledged they’d met? This man who was rich as Croesus and gaining daily?

  History taught that big successes like Poseidon took intense concentration and ruthlessness to build. Where was there room for the man who’d taken her breath away, inside the man who could build all of that?

  “Dear heaven…” she whispered. What did she do? She pulled into her driveway and dropped her head back against the seat, feeling sick. How could she have let him touch her? How could she have been so blind?

  To think that she’d cried over him, shed tears that he hadn’t shown up. Told him so blithely all the reasons she was sure she could trust him.

  She’d been such easy pickings.

  The old lesson reared its nasty little head. Powerful men were their own breed, as she knew only too well, having been at the mercy of one once her grandmother had died. Her father’s father had been hell-bent on making her into someone worthy of his family name.

  Gran had only wanted her to be happy. She’d fought Grandfather tooth and nail to give her that life, to let her be who she was, to encourage the flights of fancy he wanted to stamp out, but it was only after his death last year that she’d been truly free.

  And mostly alone, save for Max, though she had hopes for her friendship with Spike and now maybe Scarlett, too.

  Still, she’d been more right than she’d known when she’d compared Nikos—Dominic—to a pirate. Pirates plundered, they didn’t trouble with something so inane as a conscience. She’d made it easy for him.

  So easy. Too easy, Lexie.

  He hadn’t felt the magic—only she had.

  But the note… He’d called it special, their night.

  Lexie laughed, but it rang hollow and hurt her chest. He’d come back to his real life and realized his mistake. It wasn’t as if he was the first to find her wanting. And he was rich, filthy rich. Moved in a jet-set crowd. Knew women all over the world more sophisticated and glamorous than she’d ever be.

  How could she work with him? The gala was to be held at his house and from here on, though she had other jobs, it would be her main focus.

  His house? His mansion. He lived in another world. Just another grease monkey, right, Lexie?

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t work on this contract, now that she knew. She couldn’t bear to face him.

  Not the way she’d lost her mind in his arms.

  But she needed the business, she reminded herself, and this gala served more than one purpose. If being on the premises gave her a way to help Max, she had to keep her access. He was her best friend, and she couldn’t let him down.

  She wasn’t a coward. She had to find some way to lock herself up tight and go through with this contract. How, she didn’t know, but she had no choice. And while she was at it, she had to wipe away every memory of a night that was burned into her brain. She could do it; she had practice. She’d had to take up Gran’s battle after Gran was gone because there had been no one else to protect her dreams. You didn’t do that by being a pushover or kidding yourself about what was real.

  Swiping at her wet cheeks with the edge of one palm, Lexie opened the door and got out of the pickup, straightening her shoulders as she walked to her door.

  She wouldn’t be a fool again. She would stay out of Santorini’s path, get the job done, get on with her life.

  Her phone chirped with a voicemail notification. Weary to the bone, she touched the Play arrow.

  A strange woman’s crisp voice spoke. “Ms. Grayson, this is Evelyn Murray, Dominic Santorini’s secretary. Mr. Santorini wishes you to meet with him tomorrow at his home at two p.m. to discuss your plans for erecting the sets for the gala. If two o’clock is not suitable, please call me at your earliest convenience to discuss an alternative time.”

  Meet with him. At his home. Alone. Her earlier resolve wavered. Shivered like aspen leaves in a chill mountain wind. When would be a good time?

  Lexie sank into a chair, rubbing the heel of her hand over her breastbone to sooth
e away the ache and confusion at the very thought of being alone with Dominic Santorini.

  How about never, Mrs. Murray?

  Chapter Three

  “You look whipped. What’s up?” Bradley asked late that day.

  Dominic shrugged. “The usual.” Drawing in a deep breath, he nodded at the computer screen. “Have you seen it?”

  “Yeah.” Bradley began to pace. “You were right. Somebody’s making a move on our stock. Still in little bits and pieces, but the signs are all there. And with our ready cash short—” He exhaled sharply. “The timing sucks.”

  “We could dip into reserves. We have the money.”

  “But then the stock will drop.”

  “Not for a little while. Not until the next report.” Dominic swore softly. “If only Lightning Quest was ready to roll today.” The new game they were about to launch would solve all their cash problems. Its cutting-edge virtual reality software would bring their competitors to their knees.

  “Maybe we should cancel plans for the gala. That’s a chunk of change we don’t have to spend.”

  Dominic shook his head. “No. We need this to debut with a splash now more than ever.” He wanted some good news for a change. Something to make him forget how badly he wanted to be back in that geodesic dome that seemed light years away. “Tell me how the final tests are going.”

  “That’s one thing that couldn’t be better. We’ll be ready to ship on schedule. The VR experience will have everyone’s tongues hanging out.” Bradley smiled. “Lightning is going to leave the whole industry eating our dust.”

  Dominic frowned, contemplating. “I shouldn’t have tied up so much of my own money in this project. I could have bought more stock and protected us.”

  Bradley’s face went sober. “As long as word of our cash flow concerns doesn’t get out prematurely, we’ll be all right.”

  Dominic sat up straighter, the cold gleam of determination in his mind. “Peter Kassaros will never get control. Poseidon is mine. It will remain mine.” He looked up. “Ours,” he corrected. He wished they’d never gone public. “Since Ariana and I together own fifty-one percent and you have ten percent more, we will be all right.”