The question was how had Kincaid discovered Lucas owned this building? Admittedly, KingPin Electronics, the listed property owner, was the most visible of his companies, but he’d intentionally kept his name off the letterhead and executives list. As with most of his companies, he guided his staff through conference calls and orders to his CEOs but rarely made a physical appearance. He kept his face and name out of the press.
His youngest sister called him “the submarine,” and he liked the image of always lurking unseen below the surface while he got the job done.
He turned the key he’d left in the lock after Nadia’s unexpected appearance, retrieved his bags and entered his apartment. He spent too much time in hotels and it was good to be home. His gaze swept his luxurious living room, each item tangible proof he’d hauled himself and his family out of poverty.
It was amazing how much ambition fury and hatred could generate. Over the past seven years he’d been stealthily stalking his prey, acquiring failing properties, turning them around and selling them at a profit until he had enough cash to ante his way onto Everett Kincaid’s playing field. For the past forty months he’d specifically targeted the suppliers Kincaid used, bought them and upped the prices on the products KCL couldn’t get elsewhere without a lot of aggravation.
Everett Kincaid had valued cold hard cash over anything and Lucas had been determined to bleed the man’s vault dry. Until today, Lucas had also believed Nadia to be as shallow as her father, and he’d planned to make all of the Kincaids pay for treating him like garbage to be cast aside. For once he was glad to be wrong and that his disgust with Nadia all these years had been unjust.
He set down his bags and flipped through the mail piled on the hall table, most of it addressed to Andvari, Inc., which meant his assistant had stopped by the apartment.
The closer Lucas had come to reaching his goal of taking down Kincaid, the greater the need for secrecy, and four years ago he’d created the umbrella company of Andvari. Named for the Norse god who guarded his treasures with a cloak of invisibility, Lucas had made it impossible for anyone to penetrate the smoke screen and discover the true owner of Andvari and each of its multiple subsidiaries.
Or so he’d thought.
How deeply had Kincaid penetrated, and how had he acquired his information? Because without a doubt, as Nadia had said, her father’s ownership of the other penthouse couldn’t possibly be a coincidence.
He grabbed his suitcase, headed to his bedroom and slung the case onto the mattress. Just because Kincaid had denied him the pleasure of seeing defeat on his face didn’t mean Lucas couldn’t still have the pleasure of holding all his nemesis had once possessed.
Beginning with Nadia.
Wouldn’t it be the ultimate revenge to win back the woman Kincaid had stolen from him?
Love had nothing to do with it. A lifetime of his mother and sisters and himself getting screwed over by that sappy emotion had killed any illusions Lucas had about lust and chemistry and the temporary insanity the combination evoked. Physically, he still wanted his ex-wife. But sex was all he wanted from her.
If there was any justice in this world, that bastard Kincaid would roll over in his grave the day his daughter remarried the man he’d fired and humiliated. It would be an even better day when Lucas Stone became owner of KCL, fired each of the Kincaids and covered each KCL logo with one of his own. And he would.
He didn’t expect the job to be easy. But then nothing had been since he’d awoken in that hospital bed unable to feel his legs, see his wife or save his baby.
He whipped his cell phone from his pocket and hit his sister’s number on speed dial.
“This better be good, Lucas. I’m in the middle of a hot date. My first in months,” Sandi groused in his ear.
He glanced at his watch and grimaced. Almost midnight. “You still want that promotion you’ve been begging for?”
“Hell, yes. What’s the catch?”
“I need time off.”
“What’s wrong?”
A valid question since he’d lived and breathed work since getting back on his feet. But if he came clean Sandi would get on the next plane to Dallas. “I need a break from the relentless travel.”
“I don’t believe that for one second.”
“You don’t have to believe me. Either you want the promotion or you don’t.”
“I do. I do. Hold on.” He heard her muffled voice telling someone she’d be right back then what sounded like swishing sheets. He did not want to know about his sister’s sex life.
A full minute later she asked, “What do you need?”
“Take over the Singapore account.”
“Are you serious?” She sounded as shocked as she should be. This project was his baby. He’d already put pints of blood and sweat into it, but he should be able to safely hand it over now.
He loosened his tie and shrugged out of his jacket. “Buying up this loan is a big responsibility, but you can handle it. You’re ready.”
“Why are we incurring the debt?”
“I have my reasons. And I need you to keep any discoveries from Jefferson.”
He knew his sister well enough to know the silence meant she was running through all the possible reasons he’d make such an odd request. “It’s going to be hard to sign contracts without an attorney present. What gives?”
He wanted to evaluate the Kincaid-Jefferson connection before he went further. Chances were Jefferson had simply sold the apartment to a specific quality of buyer as he’d been instructed. But Lucas didn’t want his attorney in on any more confidential dealings until he was sure there hadn’t been any greased palms involved. Kincaid had been as crooked as hell and so were many of the people he’d associated with.
“I’d prefer to use another attorney on this one. I’ll have someone on board before you fly out to meet with the executive committee.”
“It isn’t like you to pull a last-minute switcheroo. Why are you?”
He debated refusing to answer, but Sandi deserved the facts. “Jefferson sold Everett Kincaid the Dallas penthouse.”
Seconds ticked past then she groaned. “It’s Monday. Aren’t you supposed to be in Dallas? Please tell me you’re not going to get tangled up with the Kincaids again.”
He ignored her question. No one knew his ultimate goal was to take down KCL and no one needed to. “I’ll have the pertinent files couriered to you tomorrow.”
“Didn’t Everett Kincaid die a couple of months ago? That means…Lucas, tell me you aren’t dealing with that selfish little bitch again.”
His teeth clicked together. For the past eleven years they’d all believed Nadia a selfish bitch. He’d have to tell his family the whole story, but not before he verified a few facts. “If you want this promotion, do your job and keep your nose out of my business.”
“I don’t like this, Lucas. I don’t like it at all.”
“I don’t pay you to like it.”
Her ticked-off sniff traveled across the airwaves. “Do you want me to check into Jefferson’s dealings?”
“I’ll have Terri investigate. If there’s a devious, dishonest man around, she knows how to find him.”
Understatement of the year. At twenty-four his younger sister had already married and divorced three of the lying snakes before wising up and turning her loser-seeking talents into a lucrative private detective agency, which Lucas had initially funded. He also employed his sister’s firm to run background checks on every employee Andvari considered hiring. Could she have missed something on Jefferson?
“Just tell me the plan so I can prepare for cleanup detail.”
“There won’t be any cleanup. But if you must know, I’m going to get back everything Everett Kincaid took from me. Starting with my ex-wife.”
Every part of the past eleven years had been a lie, Nadia concluded.
Her grief? For naught.
Her father’s sympathy? Faked.
His concern for her well-being? Bogus.
Had everything he’d said and done since the accident been a bald-faced lie? Worse, she had believed in his sincerity, which made her a stupid, gullible fool. There must have been clues to his underhanded, twisted machinations. How had she missed them?
And who else was in on the deception? Had her brothers known Lucas was alive and profiting from her pain? Had her shrink?
She slammed the metal rectangular pan onto the granite countertop. The loud twang vibrated her eardrums. She braced her hands on the cool surface and bowed her head. How many people had been secretly snickering at her behind her back all these years?
She would find out. She might be hampered by her location, and her lack of funds, but she would identify each of the Judases before this year in exile ended. She couldn’t return to Miami without knowing who she could trust and who she couldn’t.
The doorbell peeled.
Glad of the distraction, she pushed off the counter, grabbed her money and hustled to the foyer. She couldn’t finish the brownies until the store delivered her walnuts and a new bottle of vanilla. Baking kept her mind from slipping into the deep, dark, bottomless well she’d prefer not to fall into again. She’d spent too much time paddling in the murky depths already.
Who knew when she’d ordered the last batch of groceries that she should have specified the nuts already shelled? She’d never shelled a nut in her before-banished life, and a Nut-cracker was the ballet she watched at Christmas not a kitchen implement—one of the few this kitchen lacked.
She didn’t bother with the peephole since she was expecting her usual delivery guy and she’d told security to send Dan up as soon as he arrived.
But it wasn’t Dan on her doorstep. Lucas stood outside looking totally GQ in Burberry. She couldn’t get over seeing him in a suit instead of the snug T-shirts and jeans or khakis he used to wear.
The little thrill that streaked through her really ticked her off. “What do you want?”
His blue eyes ran over her like heated maple syrup over Belgian waffles, slowly slipping into crevices and beyond and making her hyperconscious of her sleepless night, the makeup she’d slathered on to cover the dark circles beneath her eyes and last season’s less than stellar jeans and sleeveless sweater.
He pulled a bag with a familiar logo from behind his back and dangled it from one long finger. “Yours, I believe.”
“Yes.” She reached for it.
At the last second he snatched it away and sniffed. “Something smells good. What’s your cook whipping up for lunch?”
“No cook. Me. Where’s Dan?”
“If you mean the kid, I paid him. He’s gone.” He muscled past her into the apartment, and even though he didn’t physically push her aside, his size, scent and presence had the same bulldozer effect of knocking her off balance.
“Come in,” she sniped sarcastically. She didn’t want him here, the traitor. She offered the folded twenties. “This should be enough to cover the total and the tip.”
“I don’t need your money. Is that marinara sauce?” He strode toward the kitchen as if he were familiar with the apartment’s layout, which as owner of the building he might be. But even more irritating, he acted as if he had every right to venture where he pleased in her space. Which he most certainly did not.