Passion and Peril. Suzanne Brockmann

Chip Company, the mansion, the twelve-car garage with the twelve cars to go in it.

      “Dear old dad decided to leave it all to me, all twenty-five million, if—” Matt took a deep breath “—I can show that I can run the business within a three-month time period, which started last week. If I can’t—adios to everything. The executor of the estate will shut down the business, auction off the factory and all the money will go to charity. If that happens, I’ll get nothing. And if I get nothing, your job—and everyone else who works for YPCC—will be terminated.” He looked at her. “How’s that for a catch?”

      Maggie nodded again, her eyes serious. “That’s some catch. What exactly does the will stipulate?”

      Matt opened the car door. “I’ve got a copy inside. I’ll let you take a look at it.”

      She got out of the car, too, staring up at the house. “You know, Matt, all those years we were friends, I never went inside your house.”

      “That’s because my father hated Angie,” Matt told her. Angie had taken Mr. Stone’s crap and handed it straight back to him. “He would’ve really liked you, though.”

      “Is that a compliment or an insult?” she asked with a laugh.

      “Oh, it’s a compliment,” he told her. And wasn’t that strange? He and the old man would’ve finally agreed on something.

      Maggie followed him up the path to the office door and into the house.

      The outer office was large and spacious, with rows of file cabinets along one wall. There was a huge oak conference table in front of enormous bay windows that looked out over the water. The hardwood floors glistened, as did the intricate wood molding that surrounded the windows and door. It was a modern office with computers, copy machine and fax, but the feel of the room was Victorian. It was gorgeous. And in the daytime, with the view of the sun sparkling on the water, it would be even more beautiful.

      Matt led the way to a dark wooden door and, pushing it open, he turned on the light.

      Maggie had to laugh, looking around at the late Mr. Stone’s private office—Matt’s office now. “Oh, Matt,” she said. “It’s you.”

      He grinned.

      Thick red carpeting was underfoot. The walls were paneled with the same dark wood as the built-in bookcases. Row upon row of books lined the wall, and Maggie glanced at the varying titles and subjects. Mr. Stone had a few books on astronomy, several on geology, an entire shelf of medical books on cancer, many titles on the Second World War, but the vast majority of the books in the room were fiction—mysteries.

      Matt’s father had been into whodunits. He had always seemed so practical and down-to-earth, with no time for nonsense of any kind. She just couldn’t picture him biting his fingernails in suspense as he read faster and faster to find out who was the killer.

      The inner office had big windows, but they were shuttered with elaborately carved wood. The centerpiece of the room was a massive cherry desk with what looked like a black leather Barcalounger behind it.

      Maggie slowly circled the desk. It was quite possibly as large as a queen-size bed, its rich, dark wood buffed to a lustrous shine. She picked up the single item that rested on its clean surface—a photo of Matt at about age six, clinging possessively to his smiling young mother’s neck.

      “Why didn’t you come to his funeral?” she wondered.

      He turned away.

      “I’m sorry,” she said swiftly, putting the picture down. “I shouldn’t have asked—”

      “I saw him about two weeks before he died. I was in the hospital—it was back when I was sick. Somehow he’d managed to track me down, and he came to see me.”

      He was leaning against the door frame now, arms crossed. His pose was relaxed, but Maggie could see tension in his jaw. And she could hear it in his voice.

      He laughed, but it didn’t have anything to do with humor. “I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to pick a fight. I mean, I’m lying there, dying for all he knows, and he’s telling me I never did anything worthwhile with my life.”

      Maggie didn’t hesitate. She crossed toward him and put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

      “I told him to go to hell.” Matt rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I told him to stay out of my life, because no matter how short it was going to be, it was my life. So he got up to leave, and I thought he was just going to walk out, but he turned and he told me that he loved me, and that he didn’t want me to die. I told him—”

      His voice broke, and Maggie held him even more tightly. She felt him take a deep breath, then exhale loud and hard. “I told him that I hated him,” Matt said, “and that I couldn’t wait for him to die.” He made another noise that wasn’t quite laughter. “God. Why did I say that? Of course, two weeks later the son of a bitch went and had a massive coronary. It was his ultimate revenge—he couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried.”

      She looked up at him. “Matt, he loved you. He knew you didn’t mean what you said.”

      He sighed. “I hope so.”

      In this light, from this angle, flecks of color made his eyes look more green than gold. Green, and very warm. As he looked down at her, his face held something—a sadness, a sweetness and also a tenderness—that she hadn’t ever seen there in all the years she’d known him. At least not when he wasn’t acting.

      It was entirely possible that back then, he simply hadn’t let it show.

      His arms were still around her, and she was still holding him. They’d stood like this, leaning against each other, so many times—Matt had always been very casual with affectionate embraces. But everything felt different now, and as she looked into his eyes, she knew he felt it, too.

      Attraction. Desire.

      It seemed inappropriate. It had been years, but it was still hard not to think of Matt as Angie’s boyfriend.

      Except Angie was married now to someone else. And this new, fantasy-jungle-man version of Matt was here, looking at Maggie as if he were thinking about kissing her. Not just a Matt kiss—he’d always been generous with friendly kisses on the cheek, too—but a real, on-the-mouth, tongues-in-action kind of kiss.

      Like the way Tony had kissed Maria. Maggie’s stomach did a flip as she remembered kissing Matt onstage. Except that hadn’t been them—it was the characters they were playing who had kissed so passionately.

      Still...

      She pulled away from him and went to stare once again at the books on the shelf. This was just too weird.

      “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have laid all that on you.”

      Maggie shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m glad you told me,” she said as she turned to face him. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

      Their eyes met. And Maggie felt it again, that spark of sexual energy that seemed to flow between them. Friends.

      “You were going to give me a copy of that will,” she reminded him breathlessly, reminded herself, as well.

      He took a step toward her, and another, and she knew he was going to kiss her.

      But the kiss he gave her was only a Matt kiss, on the cheek. He stepped past her, going into the outer office. She followed, feeling oddly disappointed—was she insane?—as she watched him switch on the copy machine.

      “You can take this home and look it over,” he told her as he opened one of the file cabinets and took out a manila folder. “Let me know what you think by Monday. I know it’s short notice, but I need you to decide by then because if you aren’t interested in the job, I’ll have to start looking for someone else to help me right away.”

      Maggie watched