In His Wake: His #6 (A Billionaire Domination Serial) Read Free

half the reason I’d called off the arrangement with Adrian had been his admission to me that, at the very least, the bribery charges pending in Brazil “ had merit ”. He had paid off a government official, the filing against him contended, among other things. I’d never asked what for. The purchase of Ilha de Flor, one of the largest freeholds ever sold to a foreigner in the history of Brazil? Or the permits to build the resort? Or to look the other way as he cut corners on the environmental studies for the eco park he had been establishing on the island? No, it wouldn’t do at all to forget I had good reason to keep my distance from Adrian Knight.
    Still, the first stirring of motivation I’d felt in weeks had me sitting in my office drumming my fingertips against my laptop keyboard as I mentally reviewed my list of networking contacts and clients who might have had more in-depth experience with real estate and development deals in South America. Retracing the chronology of my last few projects led me to burly Karl Richter, which oddly enough, brought Penn to mind.
    Richter’s company and an Ellison subsidiary had worked together on a huge freeway project out west. Penn and I had been dating for about a year when the first cracks in the partnership had appeared and the two companies had begun to point fingers at one another over substandard construction and gross scheduling delays. When overruns of every imaginable kind had resulted in litigation, I’d regretted having to recuse myself as Richter’s counsel, but Penn’s father was one of my boss’s clients, and I was personally involved with an Ellison. No way around it. When the case went badly for the understated, dry-humored Richter, I’d always wondered if it would have turned out differently had the firm stood by him instead. It was a guilty whisper of conscience I’d never been able to reconcile.
    And like that murmur of conscience, a nagging little gnat of a memory swirled around my head and buzzed in my ear until it drew my attention to the stray comment Penn Ellison had made to me last month on the beach on Ilha de Flor. The consummate blond playboy had called me his good luck charm—even in business, he’d said. But what had that meant? In our two years together, we’d never mixed our careers, never talked shop.
    As my fingertips continued to play restlessly over my computer keyboard, I entertained wild, paranoid visions of Penn snooping through my email while I’d been in the shower or asleep in our bed. If I’d been a woman who chose her relationships with more discernment, I wouldn’t have had to ask myself if Penn was the kind of man to take advantage of unfair access and turn it against those who were supposed to be his partners. But because I wasn’t a different woman, I didn’t really have to ask, did I? That nagging suspicion was my answer.
    Fortunately, Karl seemed to hold neither me nor the firm responsible for the ensuing fines and sanctions when the court case turned against him. I was fairly comfortable tapping out a quick email asking the sharp-witted German businessman general questions about his holdings in South America, who managed the properties, the complexities of freehold versus leasehold deals, and any experiences he’d had with the Brazilian environmental police. While the last thing I needed was to mire myself in the ethical nightmare of getting involved in Adrian’s legal problems, I told myself I’d simply forward any useful information Karl provided to the researcher for whichever of the firm’s seniors the billionaire ended up retaining.
    The pesky itch of professionalism drove my actions, so I wanted to believe. Needed to believe. Or maybe it was a meticulousness bordering on obsessive compulsion. But it wasn’t leftover tenderness. And not love. And certainly not the ingrained urge of a submissive to serve her Master. I couldn’t let it be any of those things.
    When I was done, it was the first time in