Acquiring Mr. Right. Laurie Paige

who’d brought the old man to the office, an act so unusual she couldn’t figure out what it might mean.

      That instinctual alarm rolled through her again. She reluctantly shut down the computer and headed for the end office with James. Annoyance filled her now. She’d expected to be alone and so was dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with sneakers. No makeup.

      Oh, well. It didn’t make a bit of difference. In a small, home-grown company like this, everyone dressed pretty casual, even James…unless he was meeting with the bankers. Then the executives were alerted to dress the part of successful businesspeople.

      They crossed the secretary’s office and went into the inner sanctum, where heads sometimes rolled and shattered egos splattered the walls. She’d seen grown men nearly cry as Heymyer picked their reports apart. She’d also been on the receiving end of his sharp tongue.

      She stopped in the middle of the huge office when a man, standing at one of the many windows, turned to them.

      “Lance, this is the financial officer I was telling you about,” James began the introduction. “Krista, this is Lance Carrington.”

      “How do you do?” Krista smiled politely and tried to keep the anxiety out of her expression. She had an eerie feeling about all this. Just what had James told this man about her? And why?

      “Fine, thanks,” the man replied. “Krista…Aquilon, isn’t it?”

      She nodded and, without thinking, spelled her last name as she’d had to do all her life with teachers and other officials. Most people didn’t know how to translate the pronunciation—Ah-KEE-lon—into the correct spelling.

      The smile widened on the handsome face. His gaze seemed warm and…and intimate, as if he knew her well.

      Her insides gave a startled lurch, which interrupted her mental processes.

      She stared wordlessly at the newcomer. He was dressed casually in navy slacks and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. His nearly black hair had a healthy sheen, highlighted by the sunlight streaming through the window behind him, and an attractive wave in front. His eyes were gray, like winter rain, and his gaze was direct. She looked away.

      “Have a seat,” James told them, taking his place behind the antique desk. An odd expression flicked across his face. “Well, I guess you should be sitting here now,” he said to his guest.

      Puzzled, Krista glanced from James to the stranger and back.

      “Tomorrow, at the staff meeting,” James continued, meeting her eyes with a harsh scowl on his face, “I’ll be announcing the sale of the company to Lance.”

      The news hit her like a sneaky punch to the head, leaving her reeling with a thousand questions. Like times in the past when her future had been rearranged without her consent, she felt the old familiar uncertainty caused by life’s nasty little tricks.

      But she wasn’t a child any longer. Instead of fear, anger bubbled beneath her self-control at this announcement.

      “To CCS, actually,” the visitor explained, his gaze piercing, as if he could see right into her brain and knew all the confused, conflicting emotions whirling there.

      The man’s name rang a bell. Lance Carrington. Corporate raider. Facts unfurled in her mind with the speed of light.

      There had been an interview with him in a financial magazine last year. His company, CCS—which stood for Computer Control Systems—was actually a holding pen for all the shares of other companies he’d raided over the years.

      Under the CCS banner, he bought ailing businesses, took them apart, remade them, then sold or merged the remains into his other operations.

      She didn’t need a magnifying glass to read the writing on the wall: it was the end of Heymyer Home Appliances.

      A thousand employees out of work. Frightened families with no means of support. All because of one stubborn old man and his damned indifference.

      And there was her own spent labor. Days and nights poring over books and ledgers, researching, then arguing for changes, trying to fix things, anything to bring the company out of its long, slow decline.

      All that work. All for nothing.

      White-hot anger speared through her as she stared into gray eyes as emotionless as a mountain lake in winter.

      She tore her gaze away and looked her boss—her former boss—in the eye. “The entire plant was sold?”

      “Yes.”

      His tone was aggressive, informing her she had no part in the decision. The company was private and entirely owned by James, his wife and their son. While she wasn’t on the governing board, she was the chief financial officer. She should have been included in the discussion.

      “Your wife and son agreed?”

      “They had no choice,” the old man said. He slumped into the chief executive chair, which to her seemed a mockery of the position.

      “I seem to have missed the meeting when this was decided,” she said, unable to keep the frost out of her voice.

      “It was by teleconference. Weekend before last,” he added when she continued to frown at him without saying anything.

      Krista quickly reviewed her recent schedule. She’d visited her family back in Idaho that weekend. It was the one and only vacation she’d taken in months, and had coincided with the special dedication of a sculpture done by her beloved uncle Jeff, which had been part of a city-wide celebration of spring and renewal.

      Renewal. How ironic. And how convenient that she’d been out of town during that momentous meeting. With James holding the controlling shares, his wife and son would have had to go along with him.

      “Do you know who he is?” she demanded, speaking in a very soft, very controlled tone. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Unable to sit still, she strode to the window and spun toward the men, her hair lashing the side of her face at the abruptness of the move.

      “I did what I had to do,” the older man told her. His lined face now held only weariness.

      She felt his grief, recognized the anger and despair in his eyes. Pity slowly supplanted the anger. She knew how it felt to be forced into unwanted circumstances by an unchangeable fate. Oh, yes, she knew…

      Except he could have changed it, some part of her that was harder and less forgiving chimed in.

      If the ideas she’d come up with had been implemented a year ago, things might have been different. For all his protests about saving the company, she realized James was perhaps too tired or his vision too narrow to picture a different future.

      Young blood. That’s what was needed. Renewal.

      She studied Lance Carrington carefully. He was young, mid-thirties probably.

      But renewal wouldn’t happen with a corporate raider. That type was only interested in a quick profit, not the long-term investment it would take to turn things around.

      She met his level perusal with one of her own and got the feeling he was amused by the situation.

      Okay, it was a done deal. She’d learned a long time ago that people had to move on when life dealt them a new hand. A thousand people would have to adjust. Including her.

      “You know, James,” the corporate raider said, his eyes narrowed as if he were thinking aloud, “Krista is an officer of the company. She can introduce me to the staff in the morning, if you prefer. That way, you wouldn’t have to come in,” he added, his gaze on her again.

      “That’s a great idea,” James said, obviously relieved to be let off the hook.

      Coward, Krista thought. When the going got tough, a lot of supposedly tough people got going as fast as their feet would carry them…in the opposite direction.

      Well, surprise,