Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) (22 page)

“What about you? Where do you see yourself in two years?” she asked.

That intensity flared again as he reached out and touched her chin. “When I was younger, I thought of the future only in terms of my career. People came and went, and that was fine. Right now, you know what I see? Loneliness. I’ve been alone most of my life, but I’ve never been lonely. I never thought I was, anyway. I’ve seen lonely now. In your life, in Seamus’s, Charlie’s. I don’t worry about being homeless anymore, but their loneliness struck a fear even stronger. I want more.”

His words didn’t comfort her, though. If he realized his life was lonely, she couldn’t be there to fulfill it for another two years.
Nikki, you knew when you met him that he wouldn’t stay. You knew when he kissed you that falling in love would be futile. Yet you kept seeing him.

I know, I know
, her thoughts answered back. How can you argue with a heart on a collision course with love?

LandCorp’s offices were housed in a three-story building in downtown Palm Beach. It wasn’t as impressive as Adrian thought it would be, but he figured they wanted to keep a low profile. He had spoken with Devlin on the phone about possibly investing in some new venture that LandCorp needed money for. Adrian now kicked himself for going to see Devlin before, hoping that his completely different appearance, sans beard and bum’s clothes, would throw Devlin off. And the accent, of course.

He couldn’t tell Nikki about this visit. He’d promised not to talk to Devlin again. All he knew was that he loved her, and he’d be damned if he was going to wait two years while she hid among the homeless. What he would find at this meeting, he wasn’t sure, but he had to start somewhere. Finding out how desperate Devlin was to get that money was a start.

Adrian checked himself in the reflection of the glass before opening the door. With the dark suit he’d worn last night and his hair brushed straight and tied back, he looked the part he was going to play.

The offices were richly furnished, with an oak desk and dark blue chairs for visitors. The receptionist was a young, prim-looking lady in her mid-thirties. Her eyes widened with interest when she took him in. “May I help you?”

“Sure. Name’s Adrian Santucci, here to see Devlin Madsen,” he said in a Brooklyn/Italian accent. “He’s expecting me.”

She smiled at him. “Yes, they are. Please follow me.”

They? His guard went up as he walked into a paneled conference room. Two men stood as he entered, business-like smiles on their faces. Adrian shook hands with the tall blond man who was about his age. His handshake was firm.

“Hello. My name is Jack Barton. I’m the CEO of LandCorp. This is Devlin Madsen, the president.”

Adrian tried not to show surprise at the name. Jack? Nikki hadn’t said his last name, but it had to be him. So, Devlin had made the deal with the man, then. Yet, they were still looking for investors, evidenced by how quickly Devlin had agreed to the meeting.

Devlin leaned forward, his grip soggy. His brow furrowed as he studied Adrian. Did he recognize him? It was too late now. Adrian had to keep the charade up.

Jack gestured to a chair across the table. “Please, sit down.” Jack, the CEO. He smiled, and Adrian could well imagine that smile charming someone like Nikki. “I appreciate you coming down from New York to talk with us. I understand you heard we needed some help.” Jack glanced at Devlin. “May I ask where?”

“You’ve heard of my uncle, Carlo D’Aprile, right?” Adrian’s confident smile gave way to amazement. “You never heard of Carlo?” He laughed. “I thought everyone had heard about him. Anyway, he’s got a large family operation up in New York, but he likes to keep his fingers all over the country. He has a particular fondness for real estate and South Florida. Uncle Carlo looked at that building but saw the flaws immediately.” Devlin’s face flushed, and he avoided Jack’s burning gaze at Adrian’s words. “Of course, when it sold for a price far beyond its value, he was more than curious about the transaction. Being that he’s in Sicily right now taking care of some old…debts, he asked me to check it out.”

Devlin stood, face still red. “The man was a scam artist. He could have fooled anyone. Even the consultant I hired agreed the building was sound, that the deal was good. He’s gone, too. The whole thing was a set up.”

“Devlin,” Jack murmured, giving him a pointed look. Devlin sat down, kneading his fingers in his lap. Jack turned to Adrian, that smile intact. “I wasn’t involved or consulted in this deal, but it’s my job to make the best of it. We have investigators seeking the man or men involved. Why are you here, Mr. Santucci? Certainly not out of curiosity.”

Adrian sputtered a laugh. “Nah, not at all. Uncle Carlo, he figured you got bamboozled. Being a fine, upright kind of guy, he gets real generous when someone gets bamboozled, so he sent me down here to see what he could do to help you out.”

Jack’s eyebrows raised. “And how does he propose to do that?”

“By loaning you the money you need, how else? No bank’s going to touch that building, but Uncle Carlo, like I said, is feeling pretty generous. He’ll loan you the money for a share of the rebuilt project.”

“What kind of share?” Devlin asked before Jack could open his mouth.

“We gotta look at all the numbers before we can tell you that. As I said, Uncle Carlo is feeling—”

“I know, ‘generous’,” Jack finished. “So what exactly do you need?”

“I’ll need numbers, lots of them. Background information on your company, what you need to blow that building to pieces and make it pretty again. So, gentlemen, let’s get to the bottom line here, which is always money. How much do you need?”

“Money isn’t only the bottom line, but every line in between heaven and hell,” Jack said, smiling to temper his words. “LandCorp made a bad decision, but we can turn this into a money-making venture for all of us. We owe the bank fourteen million dollars. So far I’ve been able to allay their fears once word got to them about the building being useless. If we can assure them of plans to make the venture successful, we can quell their fears. Our goal would be to rebuild and sell the building and surrounding property, which might get us forty to fifty million. I think that would be a nice, tidy number for all concerned. I’ll get you the necessary numbers.” His blue eyes hardened. “So, tell me about this uncle of yours. Carlo D’Aprile? What kind of projects does he get involved with?”

Adrian met Jack’s skeptical look square on, keeping his profile to Devlin as much as possible. “Let’s just say Uncle Carlo likes to dabble in a little of everything: real estate, exporting and importing, even art.”

Adrian was all but telling them outright that good old Uncle Carlo was Mafia. If Devlin and Jack weren’t desperate, they’d send Adrian out the door.

Jack glanced at Devlin. “My partner and I will begin working on it right away. It might take a couple of days.” Jack stood. “I’ll be interested to see just how generous your uncle can be.”

Adrian didn’t stand, and Jack sank down into his chair again. Adrian relaxed, signaling an end to the business part of the meeting but not the meeting itself. “My uncle likes to know about the men behind the investment. Where are you from, Jack? What does your family do?”

Jack loosened his collar but otherwise seemed composed. “I’m from San Francisco originally. My father heads a large corporation in Seattle.”

That was interesting. No wine business? “What kind of business might that be?”

“Seattle West Insurance. One of the largest in the United States.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t follow in his footsteps. In our family, it’s mandatory to go into the family business.”

“Too boring. Give me these fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of investments, that’s more my style.”

“Your father was probably disappointed.”

Jack shrugged. “He didn’t much care what I did, Mr. Santucci. In fact, he would have been disappointed if I had joined him. I left home when I was seventeen and never looked back. What I’ve accomplished, I’ve done on my own.”

Adrian tried to conceal his surprise. He may have been the black sheep, but for a different reason than the one he’d given Nikki.

Devlin’s story coincided with Nikki’s version, how Addington Madsen worked his way up in an industrial plant in Connecticut before buying it when he was fifty-two. He was an investment genius, making a huge profit when he sold the plant only five years later and retiring to Palm Beach. Devlin left out the fact that he hadn’t inherited that genius, already losing the millions he’d inherited when his mother was killed.

Adrian stood and shook hands with both men. “Call me when your proposal is ready.” He patted his breast pocket. “Ah, shoot. Forgot my business cards.” He reached for one of Devlin’s, sitting next to his leather folder, and jotted down the number at the rental house. “I’ll be here for a few days.”

Jack smiled, looking more relaxed now that the conversation was off his personal life. “Feel free to call if you have any questions.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Just as Adrian turned to leave, Devlin finally spoke up. “I know you, now. You came by the house and asked for my sister, Nikki.”

Adrian tried his best to look calm as he shook his head. Devlin was smarter than he’d given him credit for. “Who, me? Nah, I don’t even know where you live, or who your sister is. You must have me mixed up with someone else.”

“Are you sure? You look just like him.” Devlin scratched his head.

“I’m sure. But if she’s hot, I’d be happy to meet her.” He gave them a dumb smile.

Devlin twitched in response.

Jack watched Adrian Santucci get into his Mustang convertible and leave, then walked back to his office with Devlin right behind him. He dropped into his leather chair and propped his new Italian shoes on the desk top. “There was something about that man that bothered me.”

Devlin nodded. “There’s a lot about that man that bothered me. He’s Mafia, I guarantee it. We deal with him and we’ll end up in some concrete block. But the weird part is I swear it’s the same guy that came up to my house about a week ago. It was those eyes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Well, he didn’t have that accent, and his hair was different, but yes, it was him. Do you think he’s been scoping us out?”

Jack stuck an ivory toothpick in his mouth, wondering the same thing. But where would he get Nikki’s name in all this? “Ah, it’s probably a different guy.”

“It’s the same man, I’m sure of it.” Devlin sat down. “You didn’t arrange this meeting, did you?”

“This guy came out of nowhere. I know what you’re getting at, but you already took the deal. Now you’ve got to trust me on it. If you’d talked to me in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“You would have fallen for this guy’s ruse, too. He was good.” Devlin paced in front of the desk. “Someday I’m going to make the business deal of a lifetime, and I’m going to do it without anyone else.”

“Not while I’m in charge. You know the rules now.”

“And you know I had no choice.”

“Sure you did. But you’re not going to regret this, Dev. I’m going to make us both rich men. We might still find the schlep who sold you this lemon. But if we don’t, then we’ll find some other way to get out of this.”

“Like maybe with this Carlo D’Aprile?”

Jack stared out the window. “Maybe.”

CHAPTER 14

“Adrian, where were you today? I stopped by the shelter, but Dave said you had taken the day off.”

He hated lying to Nikki again. What would she do if he told her exactly where he’d been today? She’d be angry. No, he couldn’t lie to her, not anymore. The other alternative wasn’t going to get him any brownie points either.

“I had some business to take care of.”

“Business? With your studio, you mean.”

“Something like that.”

“Oh.” She nodded, but he could see she didn’t understand why he was being evasive. “Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

“I’d forgotten until I was heading down to the shelter.” A tiny lie. He smiled, changing the subject. “How’s it coming?”

“It looks almost done. They only have to put the shingles on the roof. The kitchen still looks a wreck, but Dave said it’s only a few days away from being completed. I even helped out, did some hammering and sweeping up.” She studied him. He kept it straight, showing nothing of the guilt he felt inside. “Is anything going on?”

He pulled her down next to him on the couch so that he didn’t have to look into her eyes. “Everything’s fine.”

But she turned to him anyway. “Are you planning to leave soon?”

He could tell by the tone of her voice how painful it was to push those words out. He brushed his finger beneath her chin. “I want you to trust me, Nikki. No matter what, trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“Good.” He kissed her lightly on the lips, wanting to linger there longer. The perplexed look on her face stopped him from becoming more amorous. For now, anyway.

She walked into the kitchen to start the chicken he’d brought home for dinner. She had arrived only minutes after Jack had called to set up another meeting for the following morning. That seemed awfully quick for them to get a report ready. Maybe they were going to tell him to forget it. That would make him feel a little more comfortable about Nikki’s safety.

Another alliance based on lies. This time those lies went both ways. Jack Barton had lied about his past, either to Nikki or to Adrian. Maybe both. More interesting, Jack seemed to be the man in charge, not Devlin. So Devlin had taken the bargain, but why would Jack bail out LandCorp to take control of a company that seemed little more than a failing business?

Devlin still didn’t seem capable of enough smarts or passion to blow up his family. Of course, looks could be deceiving.

Adrian had confirmed that a John Barton headed the insurance company in Seattle, though he wasn’t able to talk to the man to confirm he had a son named Jack.

“Is something wrong?” Nikki asked, peering into the living room.

Adrian stood, wandering into the kitchen to help with dinner. “No, nothing’s wrong. I’ve just got a headache.”