Millionaire Magnates
She hung up the call and kept on driving. Going home to her folks’place wasn’t the smartest idea. Her mom would just tell her that if she wore makeup and dressed nicer, she wouldn’t still be single. And honestly, who could deal with that?
But she didn’t want to go to her town house and spend the night alone. She needed some good advice. She needed to be with her best friend, Becca Huntington. Becca would commiserate with her and tell her not to go back, not to listen to Lance… wouldn’t she?
She called Becca at Sweet Nothings, the lingerie shop she owned in Somerset.
“Sweet Nothings.”
“Becca, it’s Kate.”
“Hey, there. How’s things in the big city?” Becca asked.
“Horrible.”
“What? Why?”
“Lance is engaged.”
Becca didn’t say anything for a moment and Kate realized she probably seemed like a loser to her friend. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was dating anyone.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Are you sure he’s engaged? Lance doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d do something that spontaneous.”
He wasn’t spontaneous and he was careful not to be tied down by any of the women he got involved with. “Yes, he told me the news himself.”
“Who is she?”
“Lexi Cavanaugh.”
“Senator Cavanaugh’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Is it politically motivated?” Becca asked.
“I don’t know. And I don’t care. I quit my job.”
“You did what?”
“Was that crazy? I’m so confused, I don’t know what to do,” Kate admitted. She’d hoped that Lance would realize she was waiting there and fall for her.
“It may have been a little crazy. I know you’ve had a bit of a crush on him,” Becca said.
Kate took a deep breath. “It’s more than a crush. I’m in love with him.”
It was the first time she’d said the words out loud, and she had to admit they felt good. Or they would have if Lance wasn’t engaged to another woman.”
“Oh, Kate.”
“He doesn’t even know I’m a woman.
“Let’s fix that,” Becca said.
“How?”
“Come to the shop and we’ll give you a makeover.”
“A makeover? I don’t think so. Remember the last time we tried.”
Kate had felt so uncomfortable in the makeup and clothing that Becca had suggested, she’d ended up going straight home and taking it all off. She needed the comfort of her old clothing… or did she?
“I just don’t know what to do,” she repeated.
“Only you can figure that out. But if it were me, I’d change my hair and my clothes. Just start over and find a new love.”
“I have to work for Lance for two more weeks.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t just quit and walk out on him.”
“All the better,” Becca said. “You can go back to work looking like a million bucks and then leave. It will be a chance to get back a little of your pride.”
Would her pride feel any better if she came back to Brody Oil and Gas and Lance looked at her like a woman instead of his assistant?
“I’m coming to your shop,” Kate said.
“Good, we can talk once you get here. I’ll have the white wine chilled.”
“Thanks, Becca.”
“For what?”
“Being here. Listening to me and not thinking I’m being silly.”
“Why would I think you’re silly? I’ve been in love before and I know what it can do to you.”
Kate swallowed, glad she had a friend like Becca to turn to. “I’ve never loved anyone before Lance.”
“Not even in high school?”
“I had a crush or two,” Kate admitted.
They’d been friends for what seemed like forever and Becca had always been the sister she’d never had—the one person who accepted her the way she was. At home, her brothers teased her if she did anything girly and her mother was never satisfied with any of the choices that Kate made.
“That was different. And don’t ask me why. I can’t explain it, but Lance Brody has always been different.”
“I know he has. I’ve never heard you talk about one person as much as you do him.”
“Am I annoying?”
Becca laughed, and the familiar sound of it made Kate smile.
“No, you aren’t annoying. Just in love. I’m sorry that he didn’t turn out to be the guy you hoped he would be.”
Kate was, too. “Maybe he is that guy, but just not the one for me.”
“Probably,” Becca said. “When will you be here?”
“In about twenty minutes. I just left work without asking or anything.”
“I think you’re ready for a change,” Becca said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re already acting like a rebel.”
Kate thought about that. “I guess I am. Maybe Lance’s engagement will turn out to be good for me.”
“I bet it will. If not you’ll be stronger for having loved and lost him.”
Kate hung up the phone and continued driving toward Somerset. She didn’t think about Lance or Brody Oil and Gas. She just concentrated on herself and the new woman she was becoming. It was way past time for her to change.
It was hot and smoky at the refinery. The fire burned for almost three hours before the firefighters got it under control. Frank was busy talking to local media and Lance was calling his brother. Mitch was in a meeting and Lance had to leave a voice mail.
“Catch me up on what’s going on,” Lance said to Frank.
“We have four injured.”
“Have you talked to their families?”
“As soon as we identified the men who’d been injured. They’re in the emergency room now. I sent JP down there to talk to the families and make certain that there were no questions as to insurance coverage, et cetera. And I asked him to keep me posted on any pressing health issues,” Frank said.
“Good. Do you think we’re going to have to shut down?”
Frank rubbed the top of his balding head. “I won’t know more until we have a chance to talk to the fire chief.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon, I hope.”
“Have you stopped the flow of oil into the refinery?”
“First thing we did. We enacted our emergency protocols. And everything went exactly as it should have. I’m going to send you some suggestions for commendation for some of our guys who went beyond the call of duty.”
“I’ll look for that,” Lance said. His cell phone rang and he glanced at it. “It’s Mitch.”
“I’ll go see if I can talk to the fire chief,” Frank said.
“We’ve had a fire at the main refinery,” Lance told Mitch.
“Is everyone okay? How bad is the damage?” Mitch asked.
Lance caught him up. “Do you think this will impact the senator’s plan to allow us more drilling?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it. I’m going to go to his office right now.”
“I’ll get this under control. I’m going to have a press conference later on to let everyone know we’re okay and still in business.”
“Sounds good. I’ll get back with you after I’ve spoken to the senator.”
Lance hung up with his brother and surveyed the mess at the refinery. Employees were clustered to one side, all of them waiting to see what the verdict would be. They were a 67,000-barrel-a-day refinery, and if they had to shut down, all of those people would be without work. And they wouldn’t make their quarterly revenues.
He dialed Kate’s number. She usually served as a hub during these kinds of emergencies, when he couldn’t be in the office.
Her phone went to voice mail and he realized that she was serious about leaving the company. “It’s Lance. I need your help. We’ve had a fire at our main refinery. Call me when you get this message.”
The receptionist at the Brody Oil and Gas office wasn’t experienced enough to handle all the calls that were coming in. But the secretaries who worked for his duty managers could. Lance usually relied on Kate to take care of liaising with them. Guess it was time to figure out how to work without Kate. He called the finance manager and asked him to send every secretary they had down to help out. He then composed a short memo on his BlackBerry and sent it to the entire company apprising them of the situation and telling them that no one was authorized to speak to the media.
Frank waved Lance over to where he was with the fire chief.
“Lance Brody, this is Chief Ingle,” Frank said.
“Thanks for getting the fire under control so quickly,” Lance said, shaking the fire chief’s hand.
“You’re welcome. It is our job.”
“I know that. But I’m grateful all the same. What are we looking at here?” Lance asked him.
“We thought it was started by an explosion, but we’ve been talking to the men closest to the location where the fire started and none of them reported hearing one,” Chief Ingle said.
“That’s odd. How do you think the fire started?” Lance asked.
“I’ve called for our fire-scene investigators to do a thorough examination of the area. But one of my men thought he saw cans of fire accelerant.”
“What kind?”
“We don’t have any details but I wanted you to know what we suspected. I’ve called the arson investigator and he’s sending his team out, as well.”
“Crap. I have to notify our insurance company. They will want to work with your arson team.”
Chief Ingle nodded. “They always do.”
Insurance companies were very well versed in arson investigations—they didn’t mess around with fires. Lance wanted someone who had Brody Oil and Gas’s interests in mind. “Is it okay if I hire my own security team to be part of the investigation?”
“We’d rather not have extra people on the site,” Chief Ingle said.
“Darius won’t get in the way. He’s the best at what he does.”
“Darius who?”
“Darius Franklin. He owns his own security firm.”
“Okay, but only him.”
Lance understood that. The chief didn’t want a bunch of men trampling over the fire scene.
“When can we go back into production?” Lance asked.
“I think we’ll need at least 24 hours before I’d feel comfortable saying you can go back on line. More, if the investigation proves to be complicated.”
Lance made a note of that. And when the chief moved on, he turned to Frank. “Tell all of our employees to gather in the parking lot in fifteen minutes. Then set up a number so they can call in and get a message about when to report back to work and give them that number.”
“I’m on it,” Frank said, walking away.
Lance dialed his best friend, Darius, and got his voice mail. Being as succinct as possible, he told Darius what had happened, that the fire chief suspected arson, and he asked Darius to come and help with the investigation. Now if he could just get Kate back, he’d have the best team any man could ask for in this situation. He reached for his phone.
Three
Kate put her phone on silence after the second call from Lance. She was tired of hurting and questioning herself and everything she’d done. She arrived at Sweet Nothings to find that Becca had made her an appointment with her hairstylist.
“I don’t know that a haircut is going to change anything,” Kate said.
“Don’t think of it as just a haircut. You need to change,” Becca said. “I’ve been thinking about this since you called and the only way you are going to be able to make these next few weeks bearable is to make Lance Brody realize what he’s missing.”
Kate took one look at herself in the mirror behind the counter and shrugged. “Not much.”
“Soon, he’ll see a whole new woman.”
“But I’ll still be me,” Kate said.
“Of course you will, silly. And Lance already likes you. This will just make him lust after you.”
“He’s engaged to be married, Becca.”
“So what? You’re not going to make him do anything. Just tease him a bit and maybe get your heart back.”
Kate liked the sound of that. She’d given Lance five years. And wasn’t it past time to get over him?
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
“Good.”
Becca gave her directions to the salon. As Kate drove over there, her cell phone rang again. It was Lance. She answered the call as she parked her car. “It’s Kate.”
“Where have you been?”
“Driving,” she said.
“There’s been a fire at our main refinery. I need you in the office to be my information hub.”
Kate was shocked. Brody Oil and Gas was one of the safest refineries in the business. “Was there an explosion?”
“They aren’t sure. I’m done looking over the fire scene at the refinery. When can you get to the office?”
She almost said tonight, but what was the point of that? This was an emergency situation but they didn’t really need her. Paula and Joan, two of the other secretaries at Brody Oil and Gas, could handle the phones in this situation.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Kate, I need you.”
Her heart almost skipped a beat.
“The company needs you. This is one of those times when we really want to have our best players on the field.”
Lance had played football and she had noticed early on that he fell back on sports analogies when he was stressed.
“You’ve got your best players,” she said. “I’m being traded, remember?”
“Damn it. We haven’t decided that yet.”
“Yes, we have. Or maybe I should say I have. I will call Paula and make sure she’s prepared to collect information and disseminate it. I made a procedure file for this type of emergency after the hurricane last year.”
Lance didn’t say anything. “I guess that’ll have to do. Leave your phone on so I can get in touch with you.”
“Why? I’m not—”
“Stop arguing with me, Kate. I don’t like it. What’s gotten into you?”
She looked at herself in the rearview mirror and realized this was the first time she’d ever said no to Lance. And he didn’t like it. Maybe the way to get his attention was actually easier than changing her hair and clothes. She realized that she’d been too accommodating, and that was part of the reason he’d taken her for granted.
“I don’t know, Lance. I just decided it was time for a change. Don’t make this into anything other than that.”
“It feels like…”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Will you be in the office tomorrow?”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Lance said.
“I’m sorry about the refinery,” she said, feeling bad because of the way he sounded. “Were there injuries?”
“Four men are at the hospital now.”
“I’ll have Paula send flowers to them and food baskets to their families.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome.” She felt a little guilty about not going in and taking care of the details herself, but Lance and she both needed to get used to other people working for him because Kate couldn’t continue to be his Girl Friday and be in love with him. That was the path to pain and destruction for her. And she was tired of living for the few brief moments when she and Lance were in the office together.
“Goodbye, Lance,” she said, hanging up the phone. She sat in the car for another minute but the heat was getting to her. Or at least that was what she told herself. She didn’t want to think that the idea of being without Lance was causing her to feel light-headed.
Lance spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening at the main refinery. Darius had arrived late and had agreed to stay and work with the fire investigators. Since he wasn’t an arson investigator per se, all Darius could really do was narrow down the list of suspects and conduct investigations into the backgrounds of those who might have had probable cause to start the fire.
Lance left the refinery and drove back toward Houston deciding that he was ready for a new day. This one had been too… crazy, he thought.
When he’d been a boy, he’d longed for a busy day so he wouldn’t have time to go home or to think about the home he had waiting for him. But that was long ago, he thought. Now he lived alone and liked it that way.
Well, he lived alone for now. Soon he’d be bringing a bride to his mansion in Somerset and he wasn’t sure he was ready to try suburban living with a wife yet. But he and Mitch had agreed he was the one who should marry Lexi.
Damn, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck. Tension seemed to take up residence there when things weren’t going well.
His cell phone rang and he checked the caller ID before answering it.
“Hello, Mitch.”
“Hey, big bro. How are things at the refinery?”
“A mess, but I have Darius working with the fire investigators to try to make sense of it. How’s DC?”
Mitch let out a long breath. “It could be worse. I handled most of it with Senator Cavanaugh’s office. Let them know the proactive things that Brody Oil and Gas are doing to minimize damage to the community and the environment. I think that helped to soothe his fears over backing expanding oil production.”
“Did you tell him that with additional refineries we could rotate operations so the loss of this one for a day wouldn’t impact oil prices?” Lance asked.
“Yes, I did. I’m watching the markets as they open in Japan. I think we will see US crude prices jump.”
“I know we will. With the economy being what it is, that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“We can’t control the actions of investors,” Mitch said.
“I am stopping by the hospital on my way home. I think it’d be a good idea for you to call the injured workers—I’ll send you a text with their names when I’m done.”
“All right, that sounds good. Lexi and I are going to fly back to Houston together tomorrow.”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. She called me earlier. Will you let her know that until the mess at the refinery settles down, I can’t talk?”
“Sure thing,” Mitch said.
“Did you come up with any ideas for a gift yet?” Lance asked.
“Not yet. I haven’t been thinking about your love life.”
Lance hadn’t been, either. “This is business, Mitch. Remember, you told me that. We need the Cavanaugh connection. Today proves that.”
Mitch didn’t add anything to that. And Lance had to guess that being a brilliant strategist meant his brother wasn’t surprised that his planning had worked to their advantage.
“I forgot to mention that Kate gave her notice today.”
“She did? Why?”
“She thinks this will be a good time for her transition out of her job with us. She’s not being challenged enough or something like that.”
“Maybe it is time she moved on.”
“I’m trying to convince her to stay,” Lance said.
“Why?”
Lance didn’t know, but there was no way in hell he’d admit it. “She’s part of the Brody Oil and Gas family and we need her.”
“Maybe she wants to be more.”
“Like how?” Lance asked remembering Kate’s comment earlier.
“Think about it,” Mitch said. “I’ve got to run. Don’t forget to send me the names of the injured men.”
“I won’t. Ally got them interviews on the morning shows for tomorrow. She’s going to talk to the families and prep them on what to say.”
“Good. I’ll advise the senator of this so maybe he can get a sound bite in, as well.”
“This could have been a lot worse,” Lance said.
“Why wasn’t it?” Mitch asked.
“I think because of all the preparedness we worked on after the hurricane last fall. The guys really knew what to do and how to handle things.”
Lance pulled into the hospital parking lot and chatted a few more minutes with his brother before hanging up. He didn’t like hospitals. Never had, to be honest. Maybe because he’d visited more than his share of emergency rooms as a child.
His father had always been blunt in the parking lot. Telling him what to say when the doctors asked about how he’d broken his arm or his leg—bicycle accident; how he’d hurt his ribs or broken his fingers—skateboard accident. Never did he tell anyone the truth. And after a while, Lance realized even he kind of believed his dad’s stories.
He rubbed his hand over the scars on the back of his left knuckles. Some days he felt damned old, older than his years. He knew he had to be careful with Lexi. Had to remember to keep the engagement and their eventual marriage manageable.
Lance was always conscious that he’d inherited his father’s legendary temper. And as he sat in his truck looking at the modern hospital, he couldn’t help but remember the promise he’d made to himself when he was thirteen. The promise that he’d never bring a child of his to the emergency room, because he’d never have children.
He wondered if that was going to be an issue for Lexi Cavanaugh. A part of him hoped it would be so he could end the engagement and get his life back to the way it had been.
Kate was nervous as she got of out of her car the next morning. Last night the new clothes she’d purchased with Becca in Houston had seemed fun and daring but this morning when she’d put on the slim-fitting sundress and styled her new hair, she’d felt like an imposter.
It had taken her three tries to get her contacts in but at last she had her look as close as possible to the way the stylist had done it last night.
But she was nervous… and babbling, she thought. She always talked to herself but this morning her internal talk bordered on inane.
It all boiled down to one thing. What if everyone saw her and laughed?
Wasn’t that silly? She was a grown woman and shouldn’t care what anyone else thought but she was trying a new look—one that she was not certain of, despite Becca’s reassurances that she looked hot. Kate still felt like fat, frumpy Kate, trying to be someone she wasn’t.
She walked into the lobby, and Stan the security guard looked up. “Good morning….”
“Morning, Stan,” she said, feeling awkward as the older gentleman just kept staring at her.
“You look nice today, Miss Thornton,” Stan said. “Real pretty.”
“Thank you, Stan,” she said, the warmth of a blush on her cheeks.
She scanned her ID card and went to the executive elevator. While she waited, she stared at her reflection in the polished, mirrored wall that surrounded the elevator bank.
The hardest part about this makeover was that she simply didn’t recognize herself.
“Excuse me, miss, but this elevator is for executive personnel only,” Lance said, coming up behind her.
She turned around.
“Kate?”
She waited to see if he’d say anything else, but he didn’t. That hurt a little bit but it was okay. Last night she’d decided to stop trying to please Lance, something that she’d done without much thought for a long time.
“I saw the workers on the Today show this morning. I thought they sounded good.”
“Ally did a good job of prepping them. I’m glad they will all make a full recovery,” Lance said.
The elevator car arrived and he waited for her to enter. She felt his eyes on her back as she moved in front of him. Was the skirt too short for the office?
But when she turned and saw him staring at her legs, she realized that the dress was having its desired effect on him. He was finally seeing her as a woman. Kate felt… weird, actually.
Lance’s attention was the one thing she’d craved and now she had it. But she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“How was your night?” she asked.
“I spent most of it on the phone… something that would have been easier if my assistant had been here.”
She pursed her lips. “Maybe your assistant decided it was time to get herself a life.”
“Did you, Kate? Is that what this is all about?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been ignoring myself for too long. I know my timing stunk last night but I had no idea there would be a fire at the main refinery.”
“Who could have known? I don’t mind if you take an afternoon off. In fact, if it would convince you to stay then I think we could work out more time off in your schedule,” Lance said.
The elevator arrived at their floor and once again he gestured for her to go in front of him. As she walked past him, she heard him inhale sharply.
“Are you wearing perfume?” he asked.
She raised both eyebrows at him. “I am.”