LITMIR.BIZ

       One

      Georgia Kinnear could barely contain her excitement.

      Her father commanded the head of the long oval table that dominated the Kingdom International boardroom, a position that granted him an unobstructed view of all present for the Managing Committee’s weekly meeting.

      Norman Newman and Jimmy Browne had been her father’s yes-men for almost three decades—more than Georgia’s entire lifetime. Both men served as directors on the board of the luxury goods company, but gossip had it that they’d decided to retire and would not be reappointed at the annual general meeting later today. Not that her father had breathed a word. Showing his hand had never been Kingston Kinnear’s style.

      If the rumors that had been swirling around Kingdom’s cutting rooms and stores all week were true, the annual general meeting due to start in an hour was going to change her life forever...

      It was about time!

      Her father glared down at his watch. “Where’s Jay?”

      Jay Black was the original corporate crusader—never late, always prepared, always dangerously well-informed. A rival to respect. Georgia was thankful that no one appeared to have noticed the tension and constant skirmishes she had with him. By unspoken agreement, they both preferred to keep it that way. Their private war. Yet, despite her wariness toward him, taking the opportunity to put the knife in behind his back didn’t feel right.

      “The copier jammed—he’ll be here any moment,” she told her father, and tried not to think about how good Jay had smelled when she’d crouched beside him, trying to fix the troublesome machine. Like Central Park on a sunny spring day—all green and woody.

      Her father puffed, and Georgia tensed, steeling herself for an outburst.

      “That thing has been giving problems all day. I’ll get a technician to check it,” Marcia Hall said calmly, and her father stopped huffing.

      “Thank you.” Georgia smiled across at her father’s PA of more than two decades. The woman was a saint. Marcia knew exactly how to placate her irascible father, a skill Georgia had never acquired—despite growing up with him and working alongside him since leaving school.

      Georgia wished Jay would hurry up.

      In an attempt to steady herself, she focused on the larger-than-life photos of celebrities along the wood-paneled walls. Each wore—or carried—Kingdom goods. Totes. Clutches. Coats. Scarves. Gloves. Umbrellas. And, of course, the epochal luggage Kingdom was famous for. Each image was emblazoned with the legendary advertising slogan: “My Kingdom. Anytime. Anywhere.”

      Her father cleared his throat, and the room fell silent. “We’ll start without Jay.”

      Switching her attention to her father, Georgia said, “Uh, no, let’s wait—”

      He quelled her interruption with a sharp sideways cutting gesture of his right hand, leaned back in the padded high-backed leather chair and rested his elbows on the armrests.

      Her father took his time studying his audience, and Georgia’s nerves stretched tighter than a pair of too-short garters. Her left hand trembled a little, and to occupy herself, she smoothed the yellow legal pad on the table in front of her and picked up her Montblanc pen, one of her most treasured possessions.

      Norman Newman, the soon-to-be-gone Chief Operating Officer, was seated on Georgia’s left, sandwiched between her and her father.

      Chief Operating Officer...

      She savored the sound of his title. By the end of today, it would be hers.

      Together with her sisters, Roberta and Charis, Georgia already sat on the Managing Committee that was responsible for the day-to-day management of the company. An appointment to the Board of Directors would launch her career into the stratosphere. And then she’d join the inner sanctum of the Financial Committee—the ultra-secret FinCo—where all Kingdom International’s real decision-making happened.

      It was impossible to sit still.

      She couldn’t wait for her and Roberta to be appointed to the board, couldn’t wait to implement the ideas they’d been talking about for years. New stores. New design directions. New global markets. Ideas their father—backed up by his pair of yes-men—had resisted. But that would change now...with the end of Jimmy and Norman’s reign.

      Kingston would finally have to listen to his two daughters...

      Surreptitiously, she stuck her hands under the edge of the table and wiped her suddenly sticky palms down her skirt.

      Where was Jay? The fashion house’s financial analyst had already been appointed to the secret FinCo by her father, which had caused Georgia many sleepless nights. It was time for him to witness her triumph.

      The boardroom door opened.

      At last!

      Even her father turned his head to watch him enter. Tall. Perfectly proportioned and elegant in a dark business suit, Jay moved with easy grace.

      Georgia flashed him a wide smile. With his arrival, her over-stretched nerves eased a little. But instead of his customary taunting grin, Jay didn’t spare her a glance; his dark head remained bent, his attention fixed on the sheaf of papers in his hand.

      “You all know that I am not getting any younger,” her father was saying, “but I’ve always been determined to give Methuselah a run for his money.”

      A ripple of laughter echoed around the table.

      What was this? Georgia went still. Did her father also plan to announce his own retirement today? It was her dream to follow in her father’s footsteps, her plan to one day be President and Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom International. But she’d never expected the opportunity to come so soon.

      Too soon.

      Even she knew that. He couldn’t retire. Not today. She’d never be appointed...

      She rapidly speculated about who he’d lined up to take his place.

      Jay had seated himself in the empty chair to her father’s left. She shot him a questioning look across the expanse of polished cherry wood. As the luxury fashion house’s financial analyst, Jay was in prime position to have the best insight into her father’s convoluted thought process—something that constantly raised disquieting emotions in her.

      But Jay’s attention was fixed on the stack of papers he’d set down on the table in front of him. Somewhere in that pile were documents that were about to transform her life forever. Yet, suddenly Georgia couldn’t stop wondering what else might be in there.

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