LITMIR.BIZ

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corner of Wes’s mouth quirked. “Yeah. Just the way I like it. Okay, back to work.”

      He watched them go, then told his assistant, Robin, to get him some fresh coffee. He’d need it once he started going through business emails. Inevitably, there were problems to walk through with suppliers, manufacturers, bankers and everyone else who either had a piece—or wanted one—of the Texas Toy Goods pie. But instead of taking a seat behind his desk, he walked across the wide office to the corner windows. The view of Houston was familiar, impressive. High-rises, glass walls reflecting sunlight that could blind a man. Thick white clouds sailing across a sky so blue it hurt the eyes.

      He liked the city fine, but it wasn’t somewhere he wanted to spend too much time. At least twice a week, he made the drive in from Royal, Texas, and his home office, to oversee accounts personally and on-site. He believed in having his employees used to seeing him there. People tended to get complacent when there was an absentee boss in the picture. But if he had a choice, he’d pick Royal over Houston.

      His hometown had less traffic, less noise and the best burgers in Texas at the Royal Diner. Not to mention the fact that the memories in Royal were easier to live with than the ones centered here, in his office. Just being here, he remembered late-night work sessions with the woman he refused to think about. All-night sessions that had become a blistering-hot affair that had crashed and burned the minute she whispered those three deadly words—I love you. Even after all this time, that moment infuriated him. And despite—maybe because of—how it ended, that one woman stayed in his mind, always at the edges of his thoughts.

      “What is it with women?” he asked the empty room. “Everything was going fine and then she just had to ruin it.”

      Of course, a boss/employee relationship wasn’t going to work for the long haul anyway, and he’d known that going in. And even with the way things had ended, he couldn’t completely regret any of it. What bothered him was that even now, five years later, thoughts of Belle kept cropping up as if his mind just couldn’t let go.

      A brisk knock on the door had him shaking his head and pushing thoughts of her to the back of his mind, where, hopefully, they would stay. “Come in.”

      Robin entered, carrying a tray with a single cup, a thermal carafe of coffee and a plate of cookies. He smiled. “What would I do without you?”

      “Starve to death, probably,” she said. Robin was in her forties, happily married and the proud mother of four. She loved her job, was damn good at it and kept him apprised of everything going on down here when he was in Royal. If she ever threatened to quit, Wes was prepared to offer her whatever she needed to stay.

      “You scared the kid today.”

      Snorting a laugh as he remembered the look of sheer panic on Mike’s face, Wes sat down at his desk and poured the first of what would be several cups of coffee. “He’ll survive.”

      “Yeah, he will. A little fear’s good. Builds character.”

      One eyebrow lifted as Wes laughed. “Your kids must be terrified of you.”

      “Me?” she asked. “Nope. I raise them tougher than that.”

      Wes chuckled.

      “Harry called. He’s headed into that meeting in New York. Said he’d call when he had it wrapped up.”

      Harry Baker, his vice president, was currently doing all the traveling around the country, arranging for the expedited shipping the new doll line would require. “That’s good. Thanks.”

      After she left, Wes sipped at his coffee, took a cookie, had a bite, then scrolled to his email account. Idly, he scanned the forty latest messages, deleting the crap. He scanned the subject lines ruthlessly, until he spotted Your secret is out.

      “What the hell?” Even while a part of his mind was thinking virus or an ad for timeshares in Belize, he clicked on the message and read it. Everything in him went cold and still. The cookie turned to ash in his mouth and he drank the coffee only to wash it down.

      Look where your dallying has gotten you, the email read.

      Check your Twitter account. Your new handle is Deadbeatdad. So you want to be the face of a new toy empire? Family friendly? Think again.

      It was signed, Maverick.

      “Who the hell is Maverick and what the hell is he talking about?” There was an attachment with the email, and even though Wes had a bad feeling about all of this, he opened it. The photograph popped onto his computer screen.

      He shot to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the polished wooden floor like a screech. Staring down at the screen, his gaze locked on the image of the little girl staring back at him. “What the—”

      She looked just like him. The child had Wes’s eyes and a familiar smile and if that wasn’t enough to convince him, which it was, he focused on the necklace the girl was wearing. Before he and Belle broke up, Wes had given her a red plastic heart on a chain of plastic beads. At the time, he’d used it as a joke gift right before giving her a pair of diamond earrings.

      And the little girl in the photo was wearing that red heart necklace while she smiled into the camera.

      Panic and fury tangled up inside him and tightened into a knot that made him feel like he was choking. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the photo of the smiling little girl. “How does a man have a daughter and not know it?”

      A daughter? How? What? Why? Who? He had a child. Judging by the picture, she looked to be four or five years old, so unless it was an old photo, there was only one woman who could be the girl’s mother. And just like that, the woman was back, front and center in his mind.

      How the hell had this happened? Stupid. He knew how it had happened. What he didn’t know was why he hadn’t been told. Wes rubbed one hand along the back of his neck and didn’t even touch the tension building there. Still staring at the smiling girl on the screen, he felt the email batter away at his brain until he was forced to sit, open a new window and go to Twitter.

      Somebody had hacked his account. His new handle was, as promised, Deadbeatdad. If he didn’t get this stopped fast, it would go viral and might start interfering with his business.

      Instantly, Wes made some calls, reporting that his account had been hacked, then turned the mess over to his IT guys to figure out. He reported the hack and had the account shuttered, hoping to buy time. Meanwhile, he was too late to stop #Deadbeatdad from spreading. The Twitterverse was already moving on it. Now he had a child he had to find and a reputation he had to repair. Snatching up the phone, he stabbed the button for his assistant’s desk. “Robin,” he snapped. “Get Mike from PR back in here now.”

      He didn’t even wait to hear her response, just slammed the phone down and went back to his computer. He brought up the image of the little girl—his daughter—again and stared at her. What was her name? Where did she live? Then thoughts of the woman who had to be the girl’s mother settled into his brain. Isabelle Gray. She’d disappeared from his life years ago—apparently with his child. Jaw tight, eyes narrowed, Wes promised himself he was going to get to the bottom of all of this and when he did…

      * * *

      For the next hour, everyone in PR and IT worked the situation. There was no stopping the flood of retweets, so Wes had Mike and his crew focused on finding a way to spin it. IT was tasked with tracking down this mysterious Maverick so that Wes could deal with him head-on.

      Meanwhile, Wes had another problem to worry about. The merger with PlayCo, a major player in the toy industry, was something Wes had been carefully maneuvering his way toward for months. But the CEO there, Teddy Bradford, was a good old boy with rock-solid claims to family values. He’d been married to the same woman forever, had several kids and prided himself on being the flag bearer for the all-American, apple pie lifestyle.

      This was going to throw a wrench of gigantic proportions into the mix. And so far, Teddy wasn’t taking any of Wes’s calls. Not a good sign.

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