LITMIR.BIZ

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through the crowd, the tempo of her blood picked up. After a lifetime of carefully planning, of controlling her actions and emotions, he could be her one rebellion. Tonight could be a vacation from her life.

      And even if this was a mistake, he’d make sure she didn’t regret it.

      Two

       Two months later

      “You’ve got to stop moping around,” Jonathon Bagdon said, then added, “And get your feet off my desk.”

      Ford, who’d been sitting with his work boots propped up on the edge of Jonathon’s desk while he scraped the tip of his pocketknife under his nails, looked up for the first time since his business partner walked in the room. “What?”

      Jonathon swatted at Ford’s boots with the leather-clad portfolio he’d been carrying. “Keep your feet off my desk. Christ, it’s like you’re ten.”

      Ford’s feet, which had been crossed at the ankles, slid off Jonathon’s desk. He lowered them to the floor and ignored the insult.

      “The desk is worth twenty thousand dollars. Try not to scuff it.”

      Finally Ford looked up at his friend, taking in the scowl. He glanced over at Matt, the third partner in their odd little triumvirate, who sat on the sofa, with one leg propped on the opposite knee and a laptop poised on the knee. “Who shoved a stick up his ass this morning?” Ford asked Matt.

      Matt continued typing frenetically while he said, “Ignore him. He’s just trying to bait you. He doesn’t give a damn about the desk.”

      Ford looked from one to the other, suddenly feeling slightly off-kilter. Together the three of them formed FMJ, Inc. He’d known these men since they were kids. They’d first gone into business together when they were twelve and Jonathon had talked them into pooling their money to run the snack shack at the community rec center for the summer. One financially lucrative endeavor had led to another until here they were, twenty years later, the CEO, CFO and CTO of FMJ, a company which they’d founded while still in college and which had made them all disgustingly rich.

      Jonathon, though always impeccably dressed and by far the most organized of the three, might impress some as overly persnickety. But those were only the people who didn’t know him, the people who were bound to underestimate him. It was a mistake few people made more than once.

      In reality, it was unlike Jonathon to care whether or not his desk was scuffed, regardless of how much it was worth.

      Still, to mollify Jonathon, Ford abandoned the chair he’d been sitting in and returned to his own desk. Since they worked so closely together, they didn’t have individual offices. Instead, they’d converted the entire top floor of FMJ’s Palo Alto headquarters to a shared office. On one end sat Jonathon’s twenty-thousand-dollar art deco monstrosity. The other end was lined with three worktables, every inch of them covered by computers and gadgets in various stages of dissection. In the middle sat Ford’s desk, a sleek modern job the building’s interior designer had picked out for him.

      With a shrug, he asked, “Is Matt right? You just trying to get a rise out of me?”

      Jonathon flashed him a cocky grin. “Well, you’re talking now, aren’t you?”

      “I wasn’t before?”

      “No. You’ve been picking at your nails for an hour now. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

      “Not true,” Ford protested. “You’ve been babbling about how you think it’s time we diversify again. You’ve rambled on and on about half a dozen companies that are about to be delisted by the NYSE, but that you think could be retooled to be profitable again. You and Matt voted while I was in China visiting the new plant and you’ve already started to put together the offer. Have I left anything out?”

      “And …” Jonathon prodded.

      “And what?” Ford asked. When Jonathon gave an exasperated sigh and plopped back in his chair, Ford shot a questioning look at Matt, who was still typing away. “And what?”

      Matt, who’d always had the uncanny ability to hold a conversation while solving some engineering problem, gave a few more clicks before shutting his laptop. “He’s waiting for you to voice an opinion. You’re the CEO. You get final vote.”

      FMJ specialized in taking over flailing businesses and turning them around, much like the snack shack they’d whipped into prosperity all those years ago. Jonathon used his wizardry to streamline the company’s finances. Matt, with his engineering background, inevitably developed innovations that helped turn the company around. Ford’s own role in their magic act was a little more vague.

      Ford had a way with people. Inevitably, when FMJ took over a company, there was resentment from the ownership and employees. People resisted, even feared, change. And that’s where Ford came in. He talked to them. Smoothed the way. Convinced them that FMJ was a company they could trust.

      He flashed a smile at Matt. “I can do my part no matter what the company is. Why do I need to vote?”

      While he spoke, he absently opened his desk drawer and tossed the pocketknife in. As if of their own accord, his fingers drifted to the delicate gold earring he kept stored in the right-hand corner.

      The earring was shaped like a bird, some kind of sea bird, if he wasn’t mistaken. Its wings were outstretched as if it were diving for a fish, its motion and yearning captured in perfect miniscule detail.

      Ford’s fingertip barely grazed the length of its wingspan before he jerked his hand out and slammed the drawer shut.

      It was her earring. Kitty Biedermann’s. The woman from the bar in Texas.

      He’d discovered it in the front of his rented pickup when he’d gone to turn the truck in. Now he wished he’d left it there. It wasn’t like he was going to actually return the earring to its owner.

      Yes, when he’d first found the earring, he’d had Wendy, FMJ’s executive assistant, look Kitty up, just to see how hard it would be to hunt her down. But then Kitty Biedermann turned out to be a jewelry store heiress.

      What was he going to do, fly to New York to return the earring? He was guessing she didn’t want to see him again any more than he wanted to see her. But now he was stuck with this stupid bird earring.

      As much to distract himself as anything, he rocked back in his chair and said, “Okay, let’s buy a company. What do they do again?”

      “What do you mean, what do they do?” Jonathon grumbled. “This is the company you researched.”

      Ford nudged his foot against the edge of the desk and set his chair to bobbing. “What are you taking about? I didn’t research a company.”

      “Sure you did.” Jonathon held out the portfolio. When Ford didn’t take it, Jonathon settled for tossing in on Ford’s desk. “The same day I sent out that first list of companies to consider, you e-mailed Wendy and told her to dig up anything she could find on Biedermann Jewelry. Since you seemed interested in them, Matt and I voted and …”

      Listening to his partner talk, Ford let his chair rock forward and his feet drop to the floor. With a growing sense of dread, he flipped open the portfolio. And there was the proposal. To buy Biedermann Jewelry.

      His stomach clenched like he’d been sucker punched.

      Had Wendy misunderstood his casual, Hey, see what you can find out about Kitty Biedermann? But of course Wendy had. She was obsessively thorough and eager to please.

      With forced nonchalance he asked, “Have you put a lot of work into this deal yet?”

      “A couple hundred man hours,” Jonathon hedged. “Biedermann’s is circling the drain. We need to move fast.”

      Matt normally wasn’t the most intuitive guy. But he must have heard something in Ford’s voice, because he asked, “What’s

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