The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  He should have won an Oscar.

  “Then you realized he had been embezzling from you his entire tenure at your company. You felt the only way you could prove it was to stay in the marriage.”

  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  Judge Wilson looked over his spectacles at her. “You should’ve called the police.”

  When have the police ever helped me?

  She kept her face expressionless with the ease of twelve years of practice.

  “He had access to your cash reserves and offshore accounts set up to receive the transfer of your employees’ 401(k) funds, which you found out only an hour before all the transactions went through. You hacked into your own computer system from a remote location and killed the pension transactions, but he did manage to take your reserves and left your company deeply in debt.”

  He paused and still she remained silent, impassive.

  “You realize, of course, any other prosecutor in the metro would’ve charged you as well.”

  “Your Honor,” Knox Hilliard said with a bit of impatience, “she doesn’t need to be sent to her room to think about what she did.”

  The judge glared at the prosecutor. “One more crack like that and I’ll send you to your room to think about a contempt citation.”

  Hilliard’s cough didn’t quite disguise his laugh.

  “Miss Logan, Mr. Hilliard has a proposition I hope you’ll be agreeable to.”

  She had no choice and the implication that she did was insulting. The man she dreaded most in the world right now—for more than a few reasons—rose from the prosecution’s table.

  To his credit, Hilliard seemed to take no pleasure from this, despite his reputation toward the corrupt and sadistic. During the three years of investigation into David’s embezzlement schemes, hours of testimony prep, and a year-long trial, he had never treated her with anything but excruciating politeness, if not downright compassion.

  “Eilis,” he addressed her then, respectfully and, as always, pronouncing her name precisely: EYE-lish. He had used it from the very first, never asking her her preference. Such behavior by any other man would have warranted a cold, ladylike set-down, but not for a man significant to her in ways he would never know. And after the stress of her four-year journey with him, her name on his tongue had become a comfort to her.

  Until today.

  “I would like to propose putting HR Prerogatives in receivership.”

  She started and looked at him sharply. Receivership! The man whose judgment on this issue she’d dreaded so much might have just saved her, depending on whom he appointed as her trustee.

  That was a double-edged sword.

  He went on. “I’m not here to destroy you or your company, or to put all your employees out of their jobs. Should you agree to receivership, your appointed trustee will be Sebastian Taight.”

  She swallowed a gasp, kept her composure—but she fought for it. Her attorney nodded sagely. That certainly tarnished her favorable opinion of Mr. Hilliard. How had he suddenly turned into her enemy?

  Nauseated, she wondered if he’d uncovered her connection to OKH Enterprises and Fen Hilliard, and decided to take his vengeance upon her now. Of all the consultants available, he had chosen the only one who could put her out of business completely or hand her over to Fen on a silver platter:

  King Midas.

  Sebastian Taight in charge of her company frightened her. His close family ties to both Knox and Fen Hilliard terrified her. She quelled her instinct to shudder.

  She spoke finally. “Is that the best offer I can expect?”

  The prosecutor nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

  The judge broke into her silence and said, not unkindly, “Mr. Taight has never before agreed to be the trustee for a receivership and I’d take it if I were you. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  Still silent, Eilis studied the ogee edge of the table. Yeah, she could just bet why he’d agreed to take her receivership as his first ever. She finally nodded because she had no choice.

  “That would be acceptable. Thank you.”

  * * * * *

  18: BRASS IN POCKET

  King Midas walked in like a medieval marauder, his stride long and arrogant. He carried nothing in his hands or over his shoulders: no legal pad, no briefcase, no laptop, no manpurse. With every step he seemed to take inventory of her company as if it were about to become his.

  She hated him for that.

  Eilis had never met him, never seen him. No one, woman or man, had ever told her how tall, lean, and achingly, heart-stoppingly handsome he was. Because she’d only heard the horror stories, she had conjured him up in her mind as an aged Quasimodo with a God complex.

  His slightly salted raven hair gleamed and his ice blue eyes shimmered so light against his hair and his suit, she could see them from a distance. Sebastian Taight, classic black Irish, who had made her immediately, unexpectedly, shockingly breathless and aroused on first sight.

  She hated herself for that.

  She knew what he’d do first and she dreaded it. He made a fortune speculating in art and he would have been apprised of her assets. Boxed in as she was amongst the Chouteau County prosecutor, the Midwest’s most notorious financial guru as her babysitter, and the CEO of OKH Enterprises, she didn’t have a chance.

  The news reports of the OKH Proviso Instrument were vague enough that no one knew quite how the three players were allied, if at all, though everyone had their hypotheses and theories. Before yesterday, she could have drawn no conclusions other than the obvious one everyone drew: Taight had positioned himself to take OKH Enterprises away from both Fen and Knox in a hostile takeover on or just after Knox’s fortieth birthday, despite what the proviso stated explicitly.

  Eilis sucked in a deep breath, her lungs expanding almost beyond capacity. With one bad decision, albeit made under extreme circumstances, she had gone from frying pan to fire to ash fertilizer. No one but Eilis knew that she had become wrapped up in that OKH proviso mess the minute Knox had appointed Taight her trustee. She could only have faith that if infamously thorough Knox Hilliard hadn’t stumbled upon her secret by now, he wouldn’t. No one would.

  If either Knox or Sebastian Taight found out, she would lose everything—Fen Hilliard had promised her that.

  Truthfully, Eilis didn’t want to hate King Midas, in the abstract or otherwise. She had observed the OKH debacle from afar and without comment to her CEO colleagues ever since the man had begun purchasing its shares. She had cheered quietly, hoping he would win it in the end. When Knox announced his engagement to Mrs. Leah Wincott, a widow with a daughter, Eilis breathed a sigh of relief.

  Leah Wincott’s murder—on her wedding day, yet!—shocked the financial community to its core. The Street rumbled and cracked with the not-so-hushed rumors of Fen’s involvement. No one wanted to believe it (least of all Eilis), but there could be no other explanation and suddenly, Taight’s war became important to Eilis. She, along with the rest of the country, needed him to take OKH away from Fen.

  Unfortunately, Knox was a complication. Collateral damage.

  Now, though, she found herself at the mercy of the man the financial community feared for his eccentricities, obscure reasoning, and unpredictability. She swallowed a sharp pang of regret that she’d not met this brilliant—and most definitely beautiful—man before Knox had made him her enemy.

  Scylla, meet Charybdis.

  Eilis took a deep breath. Where had her Inner Bitch gone now that she needed her so very badly?

  From where she stood behind the all-glass walls of her office suite, she could look down onto the labyrinth of cubicles filled with people whose livelihoods depended on her. For now. They knew nothing of the details and they were jittery. Many had left for other, more stable, positions. If the deal with Midas worked out, those who remained would survive this storm and their lives would go on, their nerves calmed when stability reigned again.

  He walked down the main
aisle alone, unnoticed it seemed, though how such a man could go unnoticed was beyond her. If he looked up, he would see her there, but he didn’t. His initial inspection over with, he stared straight ahead, his long-legged gait eating up the yards between them as if he knew exactly where he was going—which he probably did.

  He disappeared underneath the glassed mezzanine that was her office and she knew it wouldn’t be long before he was there, with her. Sure enough, his steps echoed on the stairs. She kept her back turned when he reached the reception area of her office and then her door, being deliberately rude to him. Watching him in the reflection of the glass, her breathlessness increased as he entered her office and came closer and closer to her without speaking.

  He stood beside her and looked down at the patchwork of cubicles without speaking. She was very aware of his presence, his fragrance, his height.

  This would be so much easier if she weren’t so unexpectedly attracted to him.

  “You’re not a good gambler,” he said finally. Eilis hid her reaction. Whatever she’d expected, his mild manner was not it.

  “I built this company. How do you think I did that?” she asked, her voice, as always, perfectly modulated.

  “And you lost it. How do you think you did that? It’s not the making of a company, Mrs. Webster. It’s the keeping of it and the growing of it that counts.”

  She did not flinch, though she wanted to. Becoming Mrs. Webster, that which had been her biggest—gamble? Was that what he thought it was?—and one she would pay for for the rest of her life.

  No, Eilis was an excellent gambler.

  When backed into an emotional corner, however, she invariably zigged when she should have zagged. Not that she would tell him that.

  “Believe it or not, Knox did you a favor,” he added, as if for good measure.

  She resisted the urge to snort, instead calling up her persona from years of practice. She said calmly, “I’m quite sure you both think you’ve counted quite a coup.”

  He slid a glance at her and she was unaccountably pleased that she didn’t have to look down at him. “I don’t have to do this, Mrs. Webster. I can find someone else to do it if you’d like.”

  “Would it make any difference?” she asked, still calm.

  That was the way she always was. Calm, quiet, unassuming. She’d begun her career hard, ruthless, but as her reputation for such grew, her enemies used it to sabotage her business deals. Forced to abandon that approach, she had concocted Miss Logan, splendidly, flawlessly ladylike.

  She hated it, but it worked exponentially better than she could have ever dreamed. The intimidation and discomfort men felt when she forced them to pay her homage as a lady never went away and its element of surprise was ever present.

  Oh, yes, it was a power play of immense proportions, but it had taken a heavy toll on her over the years.

  He turned back to the window and said, “You know better than that.”

  As raiders went, he was better than most. She couldn’t lie to herself—if he had no ulterior motive, he would do a good job with fairness and honesty. If his track record held, she would have her company back in less than the three years the receivership was slated to run, unless he chose to buy her out. He could do anything he wanted with her as long as the bills got paid.

  She resented him just for being called in to do what she could have done herself had she had time and briefly resented the prosecutor for not asking her her opinion.

  “Mrs. Webster—”

  “I no longer use that name,” she murmured, struggling to keep her composure, to keep her tears at bay at the tone of sympathy she had heard in his voice. “Miss Logan, if you please.”

  “Miss Logan.” He complied so easily. Why did that irritate her? “Shall we get started?”

  * * * * *

  Miss Logan’s obvious distrust of him annoyed the hell out of him, but he couldn’t say why because this was the way it always was.

  Sebastian was sympathetic to her situation; he was sympathetic to all situations. He too would be resentful if he were the one staring a court-ordered receivership in the face.

  The barely veiled venom of the beginning of his relationship with this woman was mild compared to most, and she had more reason than anyone else in the world to hate him. It wasn’t as if she had called him to come rescue her, and anyone could’ve made the mistake of hiring a thief as one’s CFO. Senator Oth’s entire executive staff had been a den of thieves.

  Of course, Oth hadn’t married his CFO, either.

  Damn Knox for badgering him into being this woman’s trustee, and damn that judge for being such a good friend to Knox that he’d ordered it. In Sebastian’s opinion, his relationship to Knox made this whole thing one big fat conflict of interest.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” he heard himself saying as, together, they moved away from the glass toward her private office, her inner sanctum, windowless and clad in maple, “I don’t want to do this any more than you want it done. I do have better things to do with my time than rescue a company that doesn’t interest me.”

  He felt her surprise and relief, but she only said, “I see,” without emotion.

  Stifling a sigh, he went through her office to her desk, sat in her chair, in front of her computer, to gain access to her company’s records. Being considered a villain on first sight was so common in his life as to be a cliché.

  He was surprised when she spoke again, her voice still measured and perfect. “I’m curious, Mr. Taight. If this is such a burden to you, why did you accept?”

  He grunted. “Family. Loyalty. Trust.”

  She showed no emotion at that and, unsatisfied that she hadn’t cracked, he turned back to the computer.

  He clicked through her computer files. He made note of spreadsheets and databases, mentally mapping out matrices and indices to begin his work, all too aware she stood only a few feet from him, watching. Silent, impassive. He’d never before been a trustee for a company in receivership, but he had hauled enough companies out of bankruptcy by a breath to know what he needed to do and what to look for without preparation.

  That could be the only reason why Knox had asked him to do this. Of course, Knox probably had other, more sinister ulterior motives, but he didn’t know what they were and he didn’t care. He’d find out eventually because Knox never did things the easy way.

  Eilis Logan’s company was very well positioned for salvation and Sebastian was curious as to why she hadn’t taken the obvious steps to do so herself. She was certainly capable of it.

  He happened across a file of digitized documents that hadn’t been in the paperwork he’d been given and saw why Knox had asked him to do this. He sent an email: FOUND THE FORDS. THX.

  “Mr. Taight—”

  “Sebastian, please.”

  “Mr. Taight,” she went on in that same ladylike moderation, not a shred of passion in it. “Are you going to need me for anything here? If not, I would like to take a vacation.”

  Sebastian stilled and looked up at her and allowed himself to see her as a man saw a woman. It wasn’t that he didn’t notice beautiful women, because he did. On a detailed, aesthetic level, he very much noticed and appreciated every woman’s beauty, but he had learned through the years that he couldn’t seduce any woman when he was thinking very left-brain things. Unless a woman was thoroughly entranced by a discussion of the inflation-proof bond, nothing would happen while he was in a suit.

  He’d tried that. It had gone very badly—several times.

  It wasn’t even as if he hadn’t already carefully cataloged this woman in his mind, head to toe and she was beautiful—but she hid it very well and very deliberately.

  No matter what she did, she wouldn’t have been able to hide her very aristocratically sculpted face, with the exception of the nose that had obviously been badly broken and never set straight. She had high cheekbones, a fine forehead, and strong-but-not-masculine jaw. Her mouth was full, though she wore a color of lipstick
designed to hide that fact. She wore brown contact lenses—why?—and there was something under all that foundation that looked like a thin scar running from eyebrow to jaw.

  And her body—Sebastian shocked himself with his very right-brained thinking about the perfection that was Miss Eilis Logan. Tall and lush, she was a Viking queen. The Chanel made it perfectly clear that this woman was built like a fertility goddess. In Sebastian’s estimation, she was flawless, and Sebastian knew he had good taste in women.

  “I would prefer you stay involved in the process, Miss Logan,” he said slowly, not really sure how to deal with her request, because no one he’d worked with had ever made such an outrageous one before. “Your employees will need you here to give them confidence and you might learn something you could use in the future. I’ll also need your input and assistance with things I can’t know, such as employee issues.”

  “I have a cell phone,” she said levelly.

  That was a bluff. He knew he’d won the battle with his deliberate mention of her employees. If for nothing else, she had a reputation for how much she cared about the people who worked for her.

  “Okay, if that’s how you want to play it,” he said flatly, unaccountably angry with her now. “The answer’s no. I’m not going to let you walk off the field just because I’m the one quarterbacking now. If this is going to be a problem for you, you can take it up with Knox.”

  That got a reaction. Her nostrils flared a tad and her jaw clenched only the slightest bit. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. If that got a reaction from her, he’d go for broke.

  “One of the things I’m going to do,” he continued, with that same flat, heartless tone that should tell her his patience had run out, “is sell off every Ford painting this corporation owns. I’m requesting, nicely, that you hand them over so that I can start building your cash reserves. Together, they’re worth tens of millions of dollars, which will be a good head start.”