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Georgia let her phone drop to her side and turned back to face Carson. Their kiss faded into her distant memory as she focused on their next steps.
There was a steely determination set into his expression when he looked at her. “We need to move quickly. I can’t—I won’t—let that bastard Sutton steal this out from under us.”
* * *
“There’s no way in hell you can let Winchester have our land,” Graham complained.
Carson reached over the back of his leather sofa, handed his older brother a bowl of hot buttered popcorn and rolled his eyes. He was hoping they wouldn’t spend tonight talking about this, but it was clear Graham wasn’t going to let it go. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Has our offer gone in yet?” Graham’s twin, Brooks, asked. The older brothers were identical, each a good two inches taller than Carson with shaggy blond hair and aqua eyes. It was easy for Carson to tell his brothers apart, though. Brooks’s brow was always furrowed with concern and thought. He had that exact expression now as he tried to balance the three bottles of microbrew that he brought with him from the kitchen.
Carson nodded and went back through his dining room to the kitchen to grab a bag of M&M’S and a box of Twizzlers off the quartz bar. “We called and submitted the offer while we were still standing in the field. The seller’s attorney was mum about other offers they’d received, including Winchester’s. There’s no way to know if what we’ve submitted is on par with the others, so all we can do is wait and see if they come back with a counteroffer before they make a final decision.”
Carson settled on the couch beside his brothers. “Now, can we please let this unpleasant conversation drop so we can enjoy The Maltese Falcon in peace?”
“Fine,” Graham muttered and shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
It was the first Thursday of the month, and that meant it was movie night in the Newport family. Since they were small, they’d gathered on the couch with their mother and Gerty to watch old black-and-white movies on AMC. Gerty, a widow, had worked with their mother at a café where they waitressed together before Carson was born. When Gerty retired, she’d invited Cynthia and her boys to live with her. The apartment their mother could afford was tiny and she had three growing boys who needed room to roam. Gerty didn’t like being in her big house all alone and welcomed the family.
She wasn’t blood, but Gerty had been the only family they had besides each other. For reasons their mother had never wanted to discuss, their father and the rest of their family were out of the picture. As Carson and his brothers got older and pushed, Cynthia had told them only that their father was abusive and she ran away to protect them all. They were better off without him in their lives, she insisted, and she made them promise not to seek him out.
For a long time, the boys had been saddened but content with that answer. They wouldn’t want to hurt their mother by seeking out a dangerous man who would only make them regret it. Besides, they had their spunky pseudo grandmother Gerty and their mother. They didn’t need anyone else.
Then they lost Gerty to cancer when they were in high school. She’d left them enough money to go to college and make something of themselves. Carson and his brothers had done just that, starting the Newport Corporation and becoming wealthier than they ever imagined by developing real estate in Chicago. They couldn’t have done it without Gerty, so they honored her memory by drinking beer and watching the old favorites once a month.
“Double the offer,” Graham insisted as he picked up the television remote and started the film.
“We can’t afford that,” Brooks argued, ever the voice of reason between the twins. Without him, Graham would’ve gotten himself into trouble with some crazy scheme long before now.
“We can find the money somewhere,” Graham said, pausing the movie before it had even begun.
Carson sighed. He knew better than to think Graham would simply shut up about it. When he got an idea in his head, he wouldn’t let it go. He was like a bulldog with a bone, which made him a great attorney, but a pain as a brother. Graham was the corporate attorney for the Newport Corporation, although he spent most of his time working at his law firm, Mayer, Mayer and Newport. Brooks was their chief operations officer but spent most days working remotely from his mansion on Lake Michigan. Carson was the CEO, running the company they’d started together, but that didn’t stop his brothers from putting their two cents into every decision he made.
“Sure thing,” Carson agreed. “We can start by firing our attorney and making him return his corporate car.”
“Hey!” Graham complained. He shoved a sharp elbow into Carson’s ribs.
Carson returned the elbow, making his brother howl and scramble to the far side of the couch. He was used to the physical and mental bullying that being the younger brother entailed, but he’d learned to fight back a long time ago. Now that they were in their thirties, it hadn’t changed much. “You said to find the money. You didn’t say where. Now, will you let it go so we can watch the movie?”
Graham scowled and picked up his beer from the coffee table. “Fine.”
Brooks grabbed the remote from Graham and hit the play button. As the opening credits were still playing, Graham studied his bottle and said, “You know, Gerty would whup our asses for drinking this highbrow beer.”
This time, Carson snorted aloud. He was right. Gerty preferred to watch her movies with a plain Hershey’s bar and a can of classic Budweiser. If she’d still been alive, she’d have given them a hard time over their fancy new lives, including the small-batch artisanal brew they bought downtown.
“I miss Gerty,” Brooks said, pausing the movie just as the grainy black-and-white images of San Francisco came onto the screen.
“I miss Mom,” Carson added.
The three brothers sat together in silence for a moment, acknowledging everything that they’d lost. Their mother’s death had been so sudden, and their lives so busy, that they’d hardly had the time to sit and let the reality of her death hit them. They were alone now, except for each other. It was a sad thought, one Carson had tried to avoid. It sent his mind spiraling down into rabbit holes.
“When are we going to clean out her house?” Graham asked.
That was a task they’d also avoided. They’d had their mother’s housekeeper throw away all the perishables and close the house up until they were able to deal with her things. Eight weeks had gone by and none of them had even set foot in their mother’s home.
Brooks sighed. “We have to do it eventually. We can’t leave her house sitting there like some kind of old shrine.”
“I’ll do it,” Carson volunteered. The words slipped out so suddenly he surprised even himself. “Just let me take care of this land deal first. I have a feeling I’ll have my hands full with Sutton for a while.”
“Are you sure?” Brooks looked at him with his blond brows furrowed in concern. “You don’t have to do it by yourself.”
Carson shook his head. “You two don’t have time. Besides, I want to. Maybe being around her things will make me feel less...”
“Alone?”
He turned and looked at Brooks. “Maybe.”
“Do you think...” Graham began, then hesitated. “Do you think we might find something about our father among her things?”
Carson had wondered the same thing several times, but hadn’t allowed himself to speak the words out loud. “Mom wouldn’t want us to find him.”
“Mom doesn’t get a vote anymore,” Brooks argued. “Our father might be the royal bastard she always told us he was, but he’s not the only one out there we might find. We might have siblings, cousins, grandparents... It’s possible that we have a whole family out there that would be worth the effort to track down. Don’t you want to know where we come from? We would finally be able to fill out our family tree. I know Mom tried to keep us from finding out the truth, but with her gone, I don’t think she’d want us to feel as isolated as we do.”
“We can at least try,” Graham added. “If we find something we can use, great. If not, well, at least we can say we tried. It might be a stupid move that we’ll regret, but at least we’ll finally know for ourselves, right?”
His brothers were right. Carson knew it. They all felt a sense of not belonging. Finding where they came from, even if they didn’t get the happy family reunion they all secretly hoped for, would give them closure. They’d always wonder if they didn’t find out the truth. Since their parents hadn’t married and his name was left off their birth certificates, cleaning out their mother’s house might be the only chance they had to uncover a clue. After that, their only leads would be in the landfill.
“I’ll keep my eyes open, okay?” Carson finally agreed. “If I find something we can use, I’ll let you know.”
The brothers nodded in agreement, and Brooks picked up the remote again to start the movie for the third and final time.
Two (#ulink_a6547e9e-b540-521a-8e37-ad1c3b080f56)
“Mr. Newport? Miss Adams is here to see you, sir.”
Carson reached out to his phone and hit the button to respond to Rebecca. “Please send her in.”
The door to his office opened a minute later and Georgia stepped inside. Her platinum-blond hair was pulled back into a bun today, highlighting her high cheekbones and sharp chin. She was wearing a pewter pantsuit that very nearly matched the color of her steely gray eyes.
Carson had tried not to pay that much attention to how Georgia looked most days, but he usually failed. She was a fashionable woman who knew exactly what she should wear to highlight her outrageous curves. As her boss, he shouldn’t notice she was built like a brick house. He shouldn’t care that she wore a shiny lip gloss that made her pouty bottom lip call out to him.
And yet he couldn’t stop himself. Kissing her in the field the other day had made it that much harder. Now he knew how those curves felt beneath his palms and that the lip gloss she wore was strawberry flavored. The feeling was ten times worse than it ever was before, and if there was a time he needed to focus on work and not on how badly he wanted his director of public relations, it was now.
“Any word?” she asked as she came across the room and settled into his guest chair.
“I spoke with the sellers directly this morning. They’ve still not made a decision. I told them to give us the chance to counter their offer before they choose someone else. That doesn’t mean that Winchester won’t do the same thing, bidding us up to well outside our top price.”
“I hate this waiting game,” Georgia said.
Carson sat back in his leather executive chair and brought his fingertips pensively to his lips. “Me, too. What other avenues can we pursue while we wait?”
“Well,” Georgia began as she lifted her tablet and started tapping on the screen. “First, I think we should try talking to Winchester.”
Carson put his coffee mug back down on his desk, happy he hadn’t had a mouthful of steaming hot liquid to spit out when she made her suggestion. “Talk to Winchester? Are you serious?”
Georgia shrugged. “Why not? Surely the man can be reasoned with. This project is to help sick children. How could he possibly be against sick children?”
Carson chuckled and shook his head. “You obviously haven’t met the son of a bitch yet. Did you know he refers to himself as the King of Chicago? A man with that kind of ego isn’t going to back down for anything. Contacting him will just tip him off to the fact that we’re his competition. He’ll drive up the price just to watch us squirm.”
“You don’t think he already knows?” Georgia asked. “If we know he’s bid, I’m sure he’s got enough spies to know we have, as well. What he may not know is what we plan to do with the land. That might make a difference and get him to back down.”
Carson put his elbows on his desk, leaned forward and gave her a wry smile. “You really are an optimist, aren’t you?”
An odd expression came across her face, her brows pinching together in thought. “I guess you could say that. Sometimes there’s nowhere to go but up,” she responded cryptically.
He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but he knew she was right. It couldn’t hurt to call up Sutton and talk to him man-to-man. Winchester was old-school. It was possible he’d appreciate Carson manning up and calling him. It was also possible it wouldn’t help, but at least he could say he’d tried to reason with him.
“Okay, you win,” he said. “I’ll call him, but don’t get your hopes up.”
Turning to his computer, he looked up Sutton’s number and dialed the phone. All the while, Georgia watched him with a mix of excitement and anxiety on her face. Carson was pretty certain it would be replaced with disappointment soon enough. He didn’t want to see those full lips turned down into a frown, but it probably couldn’t be helped where Sutton was concerned.
A perky-sounding woman answered the phone. “Elite Industries, Mr. Winchester’s office. How may I assist you?”
“Yes, this is Carson Newport. I’d like to speak with Sutton, please.”
“Hold please, Mr. Newport.”
An irritating instrumental music track started playing when Carson was put on hold. He tapped his fingers on the desk to the anxious rhythm in his mind as he waited. It took nearly two minutes for anyone to pick up the line again.
There was a short, muffled string of coughs. “Carson Newport,” a man’s voice barked into the phone. It was a deep, gravelly sound, laced with a cockiness that Carson didn’t care for. “I wasn’t expecting a call from you today. Tell me, what can the King of Chicago do for the Newport Corporation?”
Sit on it and rotate was the first thought that came to mind, but Carson swallowed the words. “Good afternoon, Sutton. I’m calling today to talk to you about the lakeside project you announced a few days ago.”
“Won’t it be splendid? Best waterfront views for miles. I’ve already got a list of potential buyers lined up for the best units. Are you interested in one, Carson? I’ll give you the sweetest corner unit I’ve got. Wall-to-wall windows overlooking Lake Michigan.”
Carson gritted his teeth. “That’s a very kind offer, Sutton, but I’m not looking for a place to live. I’m actually looking for a place to build a new children’s hospital.”
There was a moment of silence on the line. “That’s a very noble project,” Sutton said, refusing to acknowledge what Carson was after.
“I agree. I think the Cynthia Newport Memorial Hospital for Children will be an asset to the community and a testimony to my mother’s work with kids.”
There was a longer silence on the line this time. Unsure of what was going through Sutton’s mind, he went on. “The problem is that we were looking at the same property you’ve identified for those condos and put in our own bid around the time that you did.”
“That’s a shame.”
Carson was really getting annoyed with Sutton’s vagueness. He wasn’t about to make it easier on Carson. He was going to make him ask for it. Beg for him to withdraw the offer. “I’m calling because I was hoping I could convince you to set the condo project aside and let us have the land to build the hospital.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Carson. I’ve already got way too much money invested in this project.”
“Sutton, I—”
“How about this?” Sutton interrupted. “How about tomorrow about three or so, you send that pretty little PR director of yours over here. I’ll discuss it with her and see if we can’t come to some kind of arrangement.”
Carson looked down and realized his hand was clenched into a tight fist as though he could punch the old man through the phone line. He consciously unclenched and stretched his fingers, noticing Georgia’s curious expression as she watched him across the desk.
“What is it?” she mouthed silently.
He could only shake his head and hold up a finger for her to wait. “That’s not really her sandbox, Sutton.”
“I don’t care,” Sutton snapped. “She will come here tomorrow at three or the discussion is over. You and your sick kids can find somewhere else to convalesce.”
Before Carson could respond, the line went dead. He studied the phone in his hand a moment before setting it gently onto the cradle. He was a little shell-shocked from the conversation and needed a few moments to gather his thoughts.
“What did he say?”
“No,” he said. Carson wasn’t about to tell her about Sutton’s demands. That guy had a reputation when it came to young and beautiful women. Carson wouldn’t let any females in his social circle even get close to Winchester, especially not Georgia. He felt protective of her, even though he had no real claim to her. “I told you he wouldn’t budge.”
“He said a hell of a lot more than no,” Georgia pointed out. “What did he say? Tell me.”
Carson sighed. He sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his blond waves. “It doesn’t matter what he said, Georgia. The point is that he isn’t going to back down.”
Georgia arched one delicate brow and leaned forward. “Tell me, or heaven help me, I’ll march down this hallway and tell your brother Sutton gave you an out but you refused to take it.”
He immediately straightened up in his chair. “What is this, elementary school?”
She only shrugged and sat back, casually crossing her shapely legs. She couldn’t have been over five-five, but sometimes Carson was certain that at least four feet of her was leg. He’d given a lot of thought to how they’d feel wrapped around his waist.
“Carson!”
He snapped out of his mental reverie and flung his arm up in defeat. “Okay. He wants to meet with you.” He spat out the words with disgust.
“With me? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Carson could only shake his head. “It makes perfect sense when we’re talking about Sutton Winchester. He very specifically requested you and said he wouldn’t speak to anyone else. I’m pretty sure he’s interested in more than just talking to you, Georgia.”
Georgia’s lips formed a small O of surprise. “Wow,” she said at last.
“I can’t send you over there into that wolf den. Odds are that in the end, it won’t make any difference. We just need to increase our offer and hope it’s enough.”
“No.”
Carson frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“I want to go. He’s asked for me, so maybe I’m the one who can sway his decision.”
“I can’t risk it, Georgia. If that guy so much as lays a finger on you, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Georgia’s lips curled into a wicked grin, highlighting today’s dark burgundy lipstick. “I’m no debutante, Carson. I may have nice clothes and a good education now, but there was a time where I had to fight for survival each and every day. I can hold my own. If he gets inappropriate, I’ll give him a good dose of pepper spray.”
