“I don’t know what happened between my stepfather and your father,” she said, “but Michael must’ve felt badly about it because he put you in his will.”
“I have no use for guilt money,” he said. “So you can take the will and go to hell.” He strode to the door, but again she stopped him.
“Not even for fifty million dollars?”
Olivia’s words had his hand freezing on the worn wood of the screen door. He slowly turned. “Fifty million dollars? Uncle Michael willed me fifty million?”
She shook her head. “Not just you, but your brothers as well. And he didn’t will you money. He willed you shares of his lingerie company.”
“How does that equate to fifty million?”
Instead of answering she reached for the backpack by her feet. The same one that had been strapped to her back when he’d pulled her from the swamp. It was soaked, so it took her a while to get it unzipped. Once she had it open, she pulled out a damp file folder. She unhooked the loop and opened it, taking out a stack of legal papers that were surprisingly dry.
“I’m willing to offer you and your brothers fifty million dollars each for your shares.” She set the stack of papers on the table before pulling out a pen. “All you have to do is sign these contracts, and then once the will goes through probate and the shares transfer, I’ll give you the money.”
“Fifty million dollars?” Nash’s chair creaked as he sat back. “This is a joke, right?” He glanced around. “There has to be a hidden camera somewhere around here.”
“It’s no joke.” Olivia held out the pen. “With a simple signature, you could be a millionaire.”
“So what’s the catch?” Deacon asked.
“No catch.” Her innocent eyes stared back at him. “I want your shares of the company.”
It was rumored that the Beaumont men had an uncanny ability to read women’s minds. Deacon didn’t believe in such hocus-pocus. He believed in General Patton’s theory of knowing your enemies. He’d done his research on Michael…and Olivia. In numerous interviews she had made no bones about the fact that she ate, slept, and breathed her job. She loved the company. Loved it enough that she wouldn’t want three men who knew nothing about the lingerie business having any kind of control over it.
He should be elated. This was what he’d dreamed of, wasn’t it? To make his first million before he turned thirty-five? And even with Francesca’s backing, it was unlikely that he would achieve the goal in three years. Now fifty million had landed on his doorstep. It was just unfortunate that the windfall had come from the same family he wanted nothing from.
He glanced at the contracts. “I’ll need to read through it and then talk to my brothers before we sign anything.”
She nodded and got up, picking up her glass of tea. “I’ll be on the front porch.” She paused on her way out the door and looked at Deacon. “Do you think I could use your cell phone? Mine got wet and isn’t working.”
Deacon took his phone from his pocket, swiped the touch screen, and tapped in his passcode before handing it to her. Then, because he couldn’t seem to help himself, he held open the screen door. She stopped on her way out. So close that he could smell the scent of his shampoo that she’d used and see the splash of gold that lined the pupils of her green eyes.
“I know you don’t like me, Deacon,” she said, “but please don’t let that keep you from getting money you obviously need.”
The word need annoyed the hell out of him. He didn’t need anything from Olivia. But he kept his cool and waited for her to walk out onto the porch before he let the screen door slam and closed the heavy wood door with a decisive click. When he turned, he found his brothers staring at the legitimate-looking documents on the table as if they were a pot of gold at the end of a life that had been anything but rainbows.
Unfortunately, Deacon didn’t believe in pots of gold, rainbows, or women with innocent green eyes. He believed that you worked for everything you got, and life was a bitch and then you died. Walking over, he picked up the contracts and handed one to each of his brothers.
“Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.”
CHAPTER THREE
Once on the porch, Olivia would’ve moved over to the open window and tried to listen in on the Beaumont brothers’ conversation if not for the dog who lay sprawled in front of it. With his floppy ears and droopy face, he didn’t look vicious, but she wasn’t willing to take the chance. So instead she did some snooping on Deacon’s phone. Despite the crack, it was a newer version of hers with twice as many apps, and she had to wonder if he needed money as badly as she’d thought. Her question was answered when she scrolled through his recent text exchanges with his brothers. It appeared that Deacon did need money and was having trouble getting it. Numerous banks had turned him down for a loan.
Relieved, Olivia started to close the message screen when she noticed a woman’s name in the list. The name Francesca brought with it an image of a lush, full-figured woman who enjoyed stomping grapes with her bare feet and seducing men with her deep-throated laugh. It turned out that the mental image wasn’t too far off. Francesca’s text about meeting for lunch was filled with sexual innuendo.
Olivia wasn’t surprised. Not only was Deacon extremely good-looking but he also had a sexual aura around him that could make any woman think naughty thoughts. Olivia’s brain still clung to the image of Deacon in all his naked glory and was now trying to insert her into a fantasy that involved lots and lots of touching.
Not wanting to go down that dead-end road, she clicked over to the phone app and dialed the French Kiss corporate office. Setting the glass of tea on the railing next to her drying clothes, she moved off the porch and around the corner of the house. She sidestepped an anthill where an industrious ant was trying to get a Cheez-It into the small hole. Olivia couldn’t help sympathizing. Since Michael’s stroke she’d felt like she carried the weight of saving the company on her shoulders, and the window of opportunity was getting smaller and smaller.
Three trucks were parked at the side of the house. One older and mud-splattered, one dinged up and splotched with gray primer, and the last newer and sparkling clean. She didn’t wonder whose was whose as much as how they had gotten there. Obviously there was a road to the house. Which meant that the old gondolier had cheated her out of a hundred dollars. While she was fuming over this, her assistant Kelly Wang finally answered.
“Okay, so I’ll have sex with you. But don’t think that it’s going to lead to anything permanent. I’m way too young to be tied down to one man…or one penis. And no kinky stuff—well, maybe a little kinky is okay. But I’m not dressing up like your mother or letting you lick my shoes.”
Once again Olivia wished she’d hired the gray-haired, Nazi-looking woman instead of a twenty-two-year-old nympho who thought that working at French Kiss would get her free lingerie and a wider selection of sexual partners. Of course the gray-haired lady had been scary, while the plump, talkative young woman had seemed more willing to take orders from a non-confrontational boss. Boy, had Olivia been wrong. Kelly spent her days reading Cosmo and talking inappropriately to the male employees.