Buch lesen: «The Dare Collection November 2018»

PROLOGUE

Gideon

GREAT-AUNT FLO WAS pacing my office.

Seventy-five-year-olds, regardless of how sprightly they still were, had no business pacing three months after double hip-replacement operations.

Normally I welcomed her out-of-the-blue visits, because out of all my blood relatives, she was the only one I could tolerate for more than five minutes. Which was great, because I adored every wrinkled inch of her.

Normally that adoration was returned.

Today, however, every look she speared at me from her light blue eyes sparked an unsettling amount of disappointment.

My nape tightened.

I ran through the list of possible unsavoury things I’d done since I last saw her—bloody hell, there were a lot—and tuned back in just as she gave a melodramatic sigh.

‘The last straw was when they called you a reckless playboy.’

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. ‘That’s absurd, Aunt Flo. For starters, I’m most definitely not a boy. If we weren’t related, I’d drop my trousers and prove it to you right now.’

Nelly, Aunt Flo’s trusted assistant, choked, spilling the tea she was pouring.

Aunt Flo clicked her tongue. ‘Gideon Alexander Mortimer, this is serious. And no, you can’t charm your way out of it.’

I straightened from where I was perched on the corner of my desk and pulled out a chair. ‘Please sit down, Flo. You’re making me dizzy.’

‘Because you’re hung-over again?’ she sniped.

I wasn’t, and I was more than a little disconcerted by her sharp tone. Usually Florence Jane Mortimer, known as Flo to her nearest and dearest, was soft-spoken, endlessly indulgent and thoroughly enjoyed my brand of wicked humour. Apparently not today.

‘No, I’m not hung-over,’ I stated truthfully. But I could’ve done with more than the two snatched hours of sleep after ending a call with Vadim Ilyev, the Russian businessman whose delay tactics on my multibillion-pound deal had made my life hell for the past few months.

Note to self: never start a conversation with an intransigent Russian after midnight.

‘The senior board members are at their wits’ end.’

I snapped into full focus. ‘What?’ She was talking business. I never tuned out anything to do with the company.

Her lips pursed as she accepted the tea from Nelly and took a delicate sip. ‘The Mortimer Group has a long, untarnished history of excellence.’

‘Yes, one whose final chapter would’ve been written without a happy ending six years ago if I hadn’t stepped in,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘Don’t be a braggart, Gideon. You know how much I despise conceited men.’

My frown deepened. ‘What’s going on, Flo? Usually you’re the first to laud my achievements to anyone who’ll listen.’

She took another dainty sip, her gaze firmly avoiding mine. ‘The board has grown tired of your extracurricular antics.’

‘Doesn’t the very definition of extracurricular mean that it’s my business alone?’ I asked as reasonably as I could manage.

‘Not when you’re the head of a multibillion-pound corporation, no.’

Now it was my turn to pace.

There’d been growing rumblings about my work hard, party harder lifestyle recently, most likely because it was a healthy, fully fuelled juggernaut I had no intention of parking any time soon. But in light of the fact that I’d single-handedly dragged TMG from the dark ages and made it insanely profitable meant those rumblings had been behind my back. No one dared to question Gideon Mortimer about what he got up to when he wasn’t expertly manning the helm of the most profitable construction company in the western hemisphere.

Besides, Aunt Flo had been my bulwark against all that nonsense. A five-time divorcee, she was used to scandal and gossip, and at seventy-five still entertained the occasional gentleman caller in her Fitzrovia house. She supported me, too, because she liked to give her various stick-up-their-arses nieces and nephews a moderately arthritic middle finger.

On top of that, she was the only one who knew what had really happened with Damian that night three years ago. She was also there when Penny dropped the final soul-destroying bombshell.

She alone understood why I went off the rails for a solid six months after my life had crashed and burned. Without her intervention, I’d probably be in jail for murdering my cousin. She’d kept my secret, used her connections to keep the most salacious morsels of my breakdown and the reason behind it out of the press.

If I hadn’t been in awe of her before then, I certainly was by the time the red haze cleared and I discovered I had a semblance of a life left.

The raw double betrayal still haunted me. The one that followed haunted me even more, I wasn’t ashamed to admit. The only time the demons grew quieter was when I deliberately drowned them out with a willing woman and single malt whisky. Apparently that was unacceptable to a few sanctimonious members of my family. I hid a grim smile, wondered whether they would be so hypocritical if they knew the reason behind my behaviour.

‘Especially since you turn thirty-three in four months—’

Bloody hell, I really needed to focus. ‘What’s my age got to do with anything?’

‘You’re no longer a boy. They want to see a marked change, a more grounded outlook on life—’

‘Or what? They’ll vote to chop my bonus in half?’ Who cared? I was already wealthier than I would ever be able to spend in two lifetimes. Plus, with a twenty-three per cent share in a company worth thirty-one billion, I had more clout than every individual shareholder.

‘Or they’ll consider putting Harry in charge for a while.’

I stopped midpace. ‘Harry?’ Derisive laughter spilled out unchecked. ‘Are they out of their damned minds? I taught that little pissant everything he knows—’

‘Which means he’ll do a stellar job. Especially if he conscripts one of your other cousins to assist him. The board are confident they can elect someone else to head the company without the accompanying Page Three snippets of the CEO’s X-rated lifestyle shoved in their faces every time they open their newspapers.’

That neat little nugget was a bullet to the chest. One I couldn’t argue with. I felt it penetrate deeper, causing as much damage as possible.

My cousin Harry was duller than a puddle in winter, with zero personality and even less of a life. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to bed fully dressed in his staid brown suits, his brown hair neatly combed, tie in place, ready to spring to work like a robot.

The last family member who’d been thrust into the demanding CEO position had lasted just six months before succumbing to a nervous breakdown and a long stint in rehab.

I’d been considered too young when I presented them with a three-year projection of where the company would be without radical changes—which was basically bankruptcy—and offered to save The Mortimer Group, on condition I was made CEO.

In the six years since I took over, I made the company wildly successful, and unfortunately pissed off more than a few members of my own family along the way.

‘Page Three no longer exists,’ I murmured abstractedly while my mind raced to tackle what could possibly be a real threat to my position.