Fortune's Proposal Read Free

his bat like a golf club, but he looked anything but leisurely. “What the hell does it matter?”
    Irritation skittered along her nerves. “I guess it doesn’t,” she snapped back, “except that this whole project—” she waved her hand over the stacks of papers littering her desk “—that you insisted had to be done now, is obviously just a way for you to put off going to Texas. Were you hoping that we wouldn’t actually get it finished, so you could claim that you couldn’t get away at all?”
    Drew nearly did a double take at his assistant’s tart words. Her hazel eyes were practically snapping up at him and a blaze of color was burning in her lightly tanned cheeks.
    Usually, she was the soul of calm.
    And for some reason, the fact that she suddenly wasn’t was just one more thorn under his saddle.
    â€œGuess I didn’t realize how important your spa weekend with the girls was,” he countered.
    Her lips tightened. “You know, Drew, sometimes you are such a—” She broke off and shook her head so hard that her brownish-red hair bounced around her shoulders. She turned her softly pointed chin back to her computer monitor and began typing, her fingers pounding furiously over the keys.
    â€œA what?”
    â€œNothing.” She was typing even faster, the keys clicking madly.
    â€œJust say it, Dee.” He blamed the urge to goad her even more on his father. William wasn’t satisfied with ruining his own life with his damn marriage plans, butnow he wanted to ruin Drew’s, too. “Why hold back now?”
    She gave him a stern look that reminded him, strangely enough, of his mother. Probably because his mother was on Drew’s mind, because she clearly was not on William’s mind, he reasoned.
    â€œWhy don’t you just go back into your office and let me finish without distraction?” she countered. She lifted her left hand to wave it in dismissal, and her right hand never stopped moving over the computer keyboard. “Decide what you want your new business cards to say when you replace your dad as the CEO now that he’s retiring. Maybe that will improve your mood.”
    â€œMaybe the fact that I’m not likely to be the new CEO will improve yours.”
    The clacking keys went abruptly silent.
    She stared up at him and the fiery green glint faded in her eyes, leaving confusion in their depths. “What?”
    He tightened his grip around the baseball bat.
    He wanted to throw the damn thing through one of the windows.
    â€œI’m not taking over as CEO.” The words tasted like acid-coated boulders.
    She looked bewildered. “But everyone knows you’re taking over for him.”
    â€œYeah, well, I guess Dad didn’t read the memo.” His voice was short.
    â€œDrew—”
    He exhaled. “As far as I know, he’s not planning to close down this office. He just wants to close me down.”
    The high color faded from her cheeks and she looked pale. “But you do a remarkable job here.”
    â€œNot remarkable enough for him.”
    She shook her head a little, making her hair swing again. “Your father’s never seemed anything but proud of the work you’ve done here. For heaven’s sake, he even told me once when he was visiting the office how he thinks you’re a chip off the old block.”
    â€œAnd there’s the problem,” he said flatly. “Since he thinks he didn’t really get his act together and start up this place until he married my mother and settled down, he’s gone and decided that I have to do the same damn thing!”
    He swung the bat hard and it connected with the soft cushion of one of the upholstered chairs sitting outside the door to his office.
    The cushion dented, and Deanna let out a startled squeak.
    Neither was as satisfying as a broken window, and cursing his father, he tossed the bat onto the chair and