Under The Mistletoe. Kristin Hardy

flying halfway around the world to various Becheron facilities, the countless jet-lagged meetings while she struggled to bring the shaky mining company back from the brink of bankruptcy to meet the punishingly high profit margins demanded by Stone Enterprises. And now, to be told that the division was being taken out of her hands because she hadn’t met the inflated expectations of Wall Street analysts?

      Grimly, she shoved the frustration down. Showing emotion to Robert Stone was an invitation to be totally discounted. “I know Becheron inside out,” she said instead. “You put someone else in there, it’ll take them a month just to get up to speed.”

      “Eliot Ketchum’s taking over. I’m sure he’ll be quite capable.”

      “So I’m demoted?”

      “Think of it as a reassignment. It was my error to push you too far, too fast.”

      Protesting that it wasn’t fair would fall on deaf ears, she knew from experience. Her big opportunity, she’d delivered the goods and all she’d earned was a smack down.

      The frown on Robert’s face softened. “It’s not your last chance, Hadley. You know I have big plans for you at Stone. I always have.”

      Since toddlerhood, to be exact. For as long as she could remember, he’d orchestrated her life—her school, her friends, her career. Relentless standards, unyielding discipline and occasional and unpredictable praise, doled out just often enough to make her knock herself out to earn more. Another child might have rebelled. Hadley only worked harder to be the heir Robert wanted, a stand-in for the son he’d never had.

      To be what he wanted? For the umpteenth time of late, she wondered if that were even possible. She didn’t want to go there, though—couldn’t, not after spending twenty-eight years of her life trying to please him.

      Robert’s intercom buzzed. “Who is it, Ruth?” he asked.

      “Justin Palmer, to talk with you about the W. S. Industries restructuring.”

      “Send him in.” Robert clicked off the intercom and looked at Hadley. “I’ll be with you in just a minute. WSI takes precedence.”

      Indeed. Everyone at Stone Enterprises was dying to know just what Robert Stone planned to do with the company of Whit Stone, his bitterest rival—and the father he’d been estranged from since childhood. Robert had labored all his professional life to outdo Whit and to destroy him financially. In the end, he’d been unequal to the task. Whit had died with his holdings stronger than ever. To have the point rammed home by Whit leaving him the entire conglomerate had to be burning her father up.

      Not that Hadley was about to ask.

      The graying, hawk-faced legal counsel of Stone Enterprises handed a bound report to Robert and took a seat in one of the plush leather client chairs. “WSI, in a nutshell. You’ve got the preliminary assessment of holdings, value, et cetera. It’s all in agreement with the estate declaration, though slightly over-valued by my estimate.” He smiled faintly.

      “Any surprises?”

      “Not really. Most of it is a matter of public record.”

      “The list of underperformers is longer than I’d expected.” An expression of satisfaction spread across Robert’s face. “Do you think they were cooking the books?”

      “Unlikely. If you flip to the page of overall holdings, you’ll see that those are a minority.”

      Robert nodded. “I don’t care. We need rid of them.”

      “I’ll notify mergers and acquisitions to get on it.”

      “You misunderstand me. I don’t want them sold off whole. Take them apart and sell them off piecemeal.”

      Palmer stared at him. “Robert, about seventy percent of the companies on that list are running in the black and another twenty are looking at profitability within a five-year time horizon. You run them all through a chop shop, you’re going to lose value and revenue.”

      “It’ll lower the hit from the estate taxes.” Stone flipped closed the briefing book. “Get our salvage specialists to work on it. I want those companies to be history within the month.”

      “I don’t think we can entirely execute on that.”

      Robert’s brows lowered. The only occasions Hadley had ever seen him lose an iota of his iron control involved his father. “I don’t want to hear arguments, Justin. I want to hear ’yes.’”

      “How about ’the terms of the will won’t allow it’?”

      “Explain.”

      “Your father’s will identifies one holding that cannot be sold or dismantled. It has to be held by the Stone family and run in good faith or else the entire estate reverts to charity.”

      Hadley watched, fascinated. After years of being the puppet master, Robert was now a puppet himself. And not even he could walk away from thirty billion dollars for the sake of principle.

      “What is the business?”

      “An old hotel up in New Hampshire.”

      “What the hell would he want with a hotel?” Robert demanded. “He specialized in high tech and industrial manufacturing, not hospitality.”

      “I get the impression he dealt in whatever he wanted to.”

      “And Stone Enterprises deals in what I want to,” Stone said icily. “Find a way to break the terms.”

      Palmer shook his head. “We’ve been over and over it. It’s ironclad. You can do what you want with the rest, Robert, but this one has to stay in the family.”

      Robert’s jaw tightened visibly. Long seconds passed while Hadley waited for the explosion. Finally, he relaxed a fraction, the struggle for control won yet again. “All right. If we can’t unload it, then we need to turn around the earnings. I won’t have this kind of an operation showing up on our financials.”

      “We’ll need to put someone else on it in a hurry.”

      “I know.” Robert turned to Hadley. “Well, it looks like that new opportunity I was telling you about has cropped up sooner than I expected. Get the Becheron transfer rolling. You’re going to New Hampshire.”

      Chapter One

      New Hampshire, December 2005

      

      Opportunity, her father had said. More like banishment, Hadley thought, as she swung into a curve on the narrow road that threaded through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. From vice president of one of the most high profile divisions at Stone to triage specialist for an antiquated hotel out in the sticks with the squirrels and chipmunks. Forget the flights to Zurich, Cape Town and BuenosAires. Now it was Montpelier, Vermont, which was still nearly an hour and a half from the hotel. No direct flights there, of course, which had meant cooling her heels in Boston while she’d waited for a connection on some crop duster.

      After all, demoted V.P.s didn’t rate the corporate jet.

      Her cell phone rang and she answered it absently. “Hello?”

      “Good morning, sweetheart,” said a voice filled with perfume and gardenias and air kisses.

      “Hello, Mother.”

      “Can you stop by the house before you leave so we can talk about the holidays?”

      Hadley resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Too late. I’m already here.”

      “The wilds of Maine?”

      “New Hampshire.”

      “Ah. And how is New Hampshire?”

      “Cold,” she answered. “Lots of trees and snow.”

      “Sounds wonderfully