LITMIR.BIZ

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efficiency around here, if you don’t mind.”

      “No, Mr. Baron. I mean, yes, Mr. Baron. I mean—”

      He pushed his way through the next set of doors and strode towards his office. His secretary rose to her feet as he swept past her desk.

      “Good morning, Mr. Baron. Mr. Folger called. Mr. Okada, too. And there are several faxes from—”

      “No calls,” he snapped. “No faxes. No interruptions. Understood?”

      Rosa’s dark brows lifted. “Certainly, sir. No interruptions. But—”

      Gage swung towards her. “What part of the word ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

      Color flooded Rosa’s face. “No part of it, sir.”

      “Good. Then don’t disturb me for anything less than a five-alarm fire or an armed insurrection.”

      He slammed his office door shut, tossed his briefcase on a low beechwood table…

      “Hell,” he muttered, and opened the door again. “Rosa?”

      Rosa looked up from her computer keyboard. “Yes, sir?”

      Her tone was polite but stiff, and her cheeks were still red. Gage sighed and walked towards her.

      “I apologize. I didn’t mean to take your head off. It’s just…” Just what, Baron? Just that your wife is leaving you? “It’s just that, ah, that I had a late night.”

      Rosa smiled. “I can imagine.”

      “Sorry?”

      “The Holcombs’s party. According to today’s paper, it was a smashing success.”

      “Oh. Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was—terrific.”

      “I’ll hold all your calls, Mr. Baron.”

      “Thanks. And do me a favor, please. Tell Carol to call Starbuck’s, order herself a couple of pounds of whatever coffee she likes and charge it to me. And tell her I said she can keep a pot of the stuff at her elbow all day long, if that’s what she wants.”

      “Sir?”

      “Just tell her what I said, okay? She’ll understand.”

      “I’ll tell her. And I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed—but there is this one envelope that arrived by messenger this morning…”

      Gage sighed and held out his hand. “Okay, okay. Hand it over, though why you’d think something that comes via Express Mail would be…” He frowned as Rosa put the heavy vellum envelope in his hand. “This didn’t come Express Mail.”

      “No, sir. It was hand-delivered, as I said.”

      He looked at the cream-colored envelope. His name and address had been written in flowing, elegant script.

      “It’s quite impressive, sir.”

      “It is, indeed.” He grinned. “Probably an advertising gimmick. ‘Come in and test drive our newest super-duper, ultra-luxurious boatmobile.’ Something like that.”

      Rosa laughed. “I’m sure you’re right, Mr. Baron. But I thought it might be important.”

      “Sure. No need to explain.” Gage smiled. “Just do me a favor and hold everything else, okay? I have some, ah, some thinking I want to do about, ah, about that property in Puerto Rico.”

      “Certainly, sir.”

      His smile held until he’d shut the door to his office. Then it slid from his face like the mask it was.

      “Great job, Baron,” he muttered as he dropped the vellum envelope on his desk. “First you chop off the heads of two of the best people in your office, then you stand there and sputter excuses as if you were a ten-year-old explaining how the ball broke the window.” He yanked off his jacket, loosened his tie, kicked back his swivel chair and collapsed into it. “Next thing you know, you’ll be phoning one of those talk show shrinks and whining out your tale of woe to a million people.”

      What tale of woe? His marriage was breaking up. Well, so what? Divorce had been a part of his childhood. Back then, only his brothers, and then Caitlin, had understood. Now—now, it was an everyday thing.

      Enough of feeling sorry for himself. He needed to think about something else. Clear his head, so he could approach things logically. Today was a business day, same as any other. He had appointments, meetings, probably a lunch scheduled with somebody or other.

      The ever-efficient Rosa had centered his appointment book, open, on his desk. A neat stack of faxes lay to its left. To the right were half a dozen “while you were out” memos.

      The vellum envelope had landed on top of them.

      Gage pushed it aside, picked up the memos and leafed through them. Words ran together in a senseless pattern. He frowned, dumped the memos in the wastebasket and reached for the faxes, but he couldn’t get past the first sentence on any of them.

      “Damn,” he said, and dropped them, too.

      How was he supposed to keep his mind on work? How was he supposed to concentrate on anything but what was happening in his personal life?

      He shoved back his chair, got to his feet and drew open the vertical blinds that covered the wall of glass behind him. Below, sun-worshiping guests lazed around the Windsong’s pool, which had been designed in the spirit of a lazy river, complete with waterfalls that flowed over hidden grottoes. Beyond, a stretch of white sand led to the emerald sea.

      Everything he’d busted his tail to create was out there. Well, there and beyond, in a dozen places around the globe. Under his command, the sorry excuse for a hotel he’d almost hocked his soul to buy had become a world-famous, five-star resort, the center of what the financial wizards had taken to calling Baron’s Kingdom.

      He was a successful, happy man.

      At least, he had been, until last night.

      Gage sank down into his chair again, propped his elbows on the desk and held his head.

      What to do? What to do?

      There had to be a way around this. Two people didn’t just walk away from a marriage after they’d invested ten years of their lives in it.

      It wasn’t logical. Wasn’t practical. It was pointless and wasteful and foolish. Okay. He’d tell Natalie that, give her the chance to change her mind…

      Was he crazy? Give her the chance to cut him to shreds again, was more like it. Besides, he wanted out. How come he kept forgetting that?

      He muttered an oath, a creative one dredged up from those long-ago days when he’d worked with his hands, not with his head.

      “Got to keep busy,” he muttered, “got to stop thinking.”

      His gaze fell on the vellum envelope. Okay, even reading a hokey ad for an overpriced car or maybe a boat, considering that this was Florida, might be good for a distraction.

      He ripped open the envelope flap, extracted a heavy formal notecard. His brows rose as he read it.

      Your presence is requested at

       The eighty-fifth birthday celebration

       Of Mr. Jonas Baron

       Saturday and Sunday, June the 14th and 15th

      At the Baron Ranch

       ‘Espada’

       Brazos Springs, Texas

       R.S.V.P.

      A note was scrawled beneath the perfectly executed calligraphy.

      “Gage,” it read, “you’d damn well better come if you know what’s good for you. No excuses, you hear?”

      The brusque words were

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