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Romi grew serious. “I can’t imagine a company like BIT springing up out of a half-baked idea and a lot of ingenuity.”
“No. I planned the start of the company and its trajectory very carefully from the very beginning.” He’d begun the plans the day he learned of the final concession his mother had negotiated from his father.
A multimillion-dollar settlement for Maxwell on his eighteenth birthday.
Maxwell wasn’t supposed to know who his father was. Growing up, all he’d been able to guess was the man had been rich and powerful enough to facilitate his former mistress’s immigration to America.
Maxwell had assumed his father had been American as well, though his mother’s plans to move to this country could well have had nothing to do with the homeland of her son’s father. Maxwell had learned he was right when he’d hired Sebastian Hawk’s international security and detective agency to find out who the man was.
Hawk’s agency was the organization to go to for security and information. Maxwell had gone to them when he’d first opened his company and had met the owner a year later. Sebastian Hawk was a self-made millionaire who still took an interest in how his company was run.
Maxwell had more than doubled his initial capital and wanted to return the settlement to the father who had never had an interest in meeting, much less recognizing, his son.
Maxwell had discovered his father was a high-ranking diplomat from a very powerful and obscenely wealthy American family with public servant ties back to the revolutionary era. Married, with children older than his illegitimate son, the man had had a great deal to lose if Maxwell’s existence came to light.
Pointedly changing the direction of his own thoughts, Maxwell said, “I stopped wanting to be a fireman after visiting the fire station on a school field trip.”
“That’s funny.” Romi tilted her head to the side and observed him with interest even as her body moved against his to the rhythm of the music. “That’s when kids usually decide they want to be one.”
“Most of the other children in my class did. I’ve never wanted to be part of a crowd.”
“So you decided you couldn’t be a fireman because everyone else wanted to be one?” she asked, humor lacing her lovely voice.
“Exactly.”
She grinned. “You wanted to be special.”
“Are you saying I am not?”
“Oh, no, Your Majesty,” she said facetiously. “You are definitely in a class all by yourself.”
“Not alone maybe, but not like everyone else.”
“Firefighters are actually a very small percentage of our population.” She pointed out that fact like maybe he didn’t know.
“Yes, they are a rarified breed as well, and definitely to be admired and respected. However, I like control far too much to have a job dealing with either nature’s vagaries or that of human error, which I have no power to prevent.”
“There is that.” Romi shook her head. “Have you always been such a control freak?”
“My mother would say yes.”
Romi didn’t appear bothered by that admission. “I kind of like you this way.”
He wondered if she would say that after he laid out his latest plan for her.
“I am glad,” he said.
“Although I think the more appropriate term would be Corporate Tsar rather than King.”
“You think so? Because I was born in Russia?”
“Because you have the heart of a tsar, I think.”
He could not deny it.
He kept her in his arms by the simple expedient of continuing to dance for another thirty minutes. Even during the faster music and she never complained.
A couple of men tried to cut in, but Maxwell refused to offer the polite retreat and simply danced her away. When a woman tried the same, wanting to dance with him, he turned her down as well.
“You really aren’t controlled by social niceties, are you?” Romi asked after the last one.
“You knew this about me.”
She nodded with something like satisfaction. “I’ll admit, I don’t mind in this instance.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but admit to being curious as to why.” Just something about the way she’d spoken, he thought there was a story behind her words.
“Have you ever danced with JD?” she asked, referring to the last man Maxwell had simply ignored in his attempt to partner Romi.
Maxwell gave a short bark of laughter. “No.”
“He’s grabby. Though I suppose if he danced with you he wouldn’t be.” Her giggle was very smug.
“You think you are funny, don’t you?”
“Why yes, I do.”
Maxwell’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying he tried to touch you?”
“Nothing serious. He just pretends he doesn’t realize my waist is several inches above the curve of my behind.”
“I’ll break his hand.” Maxwell was shocked by the words.
Not the sentiment. He knew he was unacceptably protective of this woman, but to express it out loud wasn’t something he usually did.
“Not necessary.” She snuggled in. “I can be a very klutzy dancer when I need to be.”
The effort it took to hold back further imprecations did not make him happy.
* * *
Romi allowed herself to relax in Maxwell’s arms while they danced longer than she probably should have. But it felt so good, so safe.
Eventually, she had to look up and scan the room for her dad.
He was talking to Jeremy Archer, his movements animated, on the verge of exaggerated, and his expression belligerent.
Not good.
Stifling her regret at the action, Romi pushed herself away from Max. “I need to go check on my father.”
The self-made tycoon didn’t argue, for which she was grateful.
She wasn’t sure how she felt a second later, though, when he said, “I’ll come with you.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said by rote rather than from feeling.
He didn’t bother to reply, just took her arm and started toward Jeremy and Romi’s dad.
Harry Grayson’s voice was elevated, his speech slightly slurred. “I don’t need your advice, Jeremy. One of us actually grieved the passing of his wife. It’s affected my business, but I’m far from bankrupt.”
This was not good. Anytime her dad started talking about Romi’s deceased mother, things had a way of sliding downhill fast.
Preparing to intervene, Romi was nonplussed when Max’s deep voice dropped into the tense silence. “Good evening, gentlemen. May I offer my congratulations, Jeremy? Madison makes a beautiful bride and Viktor Beck is a very good man.”
His eyes widened in surprise, but the business mogul nodded his gray head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Black.”
Romi ignored Jeremy Archer in favor of her own father, and not just because it was clear the time had come to go. But she hadn’t forgiven Jeremy for the way he treated Madison when the whole Perry debacle happened.
Romi had never thought the man was much of a father before that, but her opinion of him had dropped even lower.
“Dad,” she said to Harry Grayson, “I’m getting tired. I’d like to go, if that’s all right.”
Her father turned a confused gaze on her. “You were having fun dancing.”
“But I wore her out,” Max smoothly inserted, with one of those conspiratorial smiles men seemed so adept at giving each other.
Particularly the men she knew.
Her dad gave Jeremy an angry look and then nodded at Romi. “Okay, kitten. I’ll call for the car.”
“No need. I’m happy to drop you both off.”
“In your Maserati?” While he no longer drove the two-door, purely sporty model, and this one had a backseat, Max had been drinking champagne before they started dancing.
“I’ve got a car and driver and I’ve already texted him. He’ll be waiting for us when we get outside.”
“You’re very efficient.” And Romi wasn’t sure she meant that as a compliment.
The wry twist to Max’s lips said he guessed that. “Oh, I am.”
“A little too coldly efficient, if you ask me,” Jeremy Archer had the audacity to say.
“Says the man with antifreeze instead of blood pumping through his veins,” her dad said with surprising clarity, both of thought and speech.
Jeremy’s face contorted with annoyance. “You need to go home and let your daughter pour you into bed, Gray.”
“What I need—” her father started to say.
“We’ll chalk this conversation up to the tactlessness that can come from longstanding friendship,” Max said in a tone that warned his patience was not limitless. “Agreed?”
In a move that shocked Romi, both her dad and Jeremy nodded. Grudgingly, but they agreed all the same.
“Good.” Max gave Jeremy a look that Romi couldn’t quite interpret. “From now on, you don’t need to worry about the viability of Grayson Enterprises. It is not up for grabs, nor will it be facing bankruptcy anytime in the near or distant future.”
Wow. That was quiet a promise. And an odd one for Max to make.
Her dad hadn’t said anything about BIT and Grayson going into business together, but his expression didn’t look nearly as confused as Romi felt.
In fact, the expression he’d turned toward his oldest friend and sometimes rival was nothing short of triumphant. “That’s right, and Romi’s not my investment capital in this deal, either.”
What deal? What had her father and Max been talking about?
Jeremy looked first startled and then concerned. “You’re merging?”
But her dad didn’t answer, finally showing some sense of discretion. He even congratulated Jeremy on his daughter’s marriage. “They’re a good, solid couple, no matter how they got together.”
Romi believed that, too. It was the only reason she’d accepted Maddie’s request to be her maid of honor. Her SBC deserved the best and a chance at true happiness.
Romi believed Viktor Beck was that for Maddie.
Maddie didn’t try to convince her to stay longer when Romi told her they were leaving. She didn’t even voice concern at the fact Romi and her father were doing so in the company of Maxwell Black.
Maddie just hugged her hard and thanked Romi for being the best sister a woman could ever choose or be born with.
When they arrived at her home, Max walked to the door with Romi and her father.
He stopped outside. “I’m not going to come in tonight, but I’ll be by tomorrow morning to talk.”
Romi wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or her dad, but Harry nodded so she figured it was him.
“I’ll look forward to it,” her dad said before stepping inside.
Max nodded, his masculine lips set in a firm line. Then he turned to Romi. “I would like to take you to lunch afterward.”
“Oh, I—”
“The time for running is done, Ramona. We have things we need to discuss.”
She didn’t bother telling him she didn’t like being addressed by her full name. That minor annoyance was nothing compared to the threat of talking. “We did all our discussing a year ago.”
“Circumstances change.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold the heat in. “I’m pretty sure ours haven’t.”
“And yet I am requesting your company all the same.” He reached out and tucked her wrap more tightly around her.
“Sounds more like a demand to me.”
