Sidney Sheldon - Mistress of the Game

The silence was getting awkward.

“I’m sorry Paolo couldn’t be here,” said Robbie. “His health is not what it was, I’m afraid. He finds all the travel terribly tiring.”

“That’s quite all right. Perhaps next time? I know my wife will be pleased to see you, Lexi. She gets fed up with all the guy-talk.”

Lexi’s frown deepened. So he thinks I’m the “little woman,” does he? Here to spend the next two days shoe shopping with his trophy wife while he fleeces Robbie’s foundation? Well, he can forget it. I’m here to protect my brother’s interests.

Out loud she said. “I look forward to meeting her. Shall we get going?”

Without waiting for an answer, Lexi started for the door.

After you, Your Majesty, thought Gabe.

It was going to be an interesting day.

Later that night, in bed at their sprawling, Cape Dutch farmhouse in the hills above Camps Bay, Gabe asked Tara what she’d thought of the Templetons.

“He’s a sweetheart. She’s a card-carrying bitch.”

Gabe laughed. “You’re so tactful, darling. Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”

“Oh, come on. You can’t have liked her.” Tara turned off the bedside lamp. “And she certainly didn’t like you. All those barbed comments?”

It was true. After a long and grueling day touring three new AIDS clinics that Phoenix had funded, Lexi’s negativity had begun to grate on everyone’s nerves.

“Anyone would have thought you wanted her brother’s money for yourself. Here you are, trying to help these poor, suffering people, and this woman talks to you like you’ve just given her herpes.”

“Another lovely image. Thanks for that, darling.”

Tara teased: “You’re sure you never slept with her?”

“Quite sure.”

“It would explain a lot. There were so many, Gabe. She might have slipped your memory.”

“Ha ha. Believe me, if I’d slept with her, she wouldn’t look so damned miserable.”

“Arrogant bastard!” Tara hit him over the head with her book. Thankfully, it was a paperback. “Seriously, though. Why do you think she has it in for you?”

Gabe had been pondering the same question all day. He noticed the sour look that came over Lexi’s face whenever he alluded to their family connection. Perhaps that had something to do with it? Phoenix had outbid Templeton on a couple of deals recently, but he couldn’t believe that a serious businesswoman like Lexi would take something like that personally.

“She’s probably just protective of her brother. Doesn’t want to see him being taken advantage of.”

“Bollocks,” Tara said roundly. “Robbie Templeton’s forty years old and richer than Croesus. He can take care of himself. Besides, this is what his foundation does. They help people with AIDS. I couldn’t believe how cold that woman was. Everyone cries when they see clinics like ours for the first time, but not that one. Oh no. Couldn’t have cared less, could she?”

Gabe wasn’t so sure. Lexi was certainly withdrawn. Aloof, even. She had declined to hold the babies when offered the chance, and seemed uncomfortable amid so much suffering and sickness. But people reacted to tragedy in different ways. Reaching out, Gabe ran a hand over his wife’s belly. Since Collette was born, Tara’s body had lost some of its firmness. Tara felt self-conscious about it, but Gabe adored her new soft contours. She had given him his children, brought a joy and purpose to his life that no words could ever fully express, nor any action of his could ever hope to repay. He loved her more than life.

He whispered in her ear: “I love you.”

Tara sighed. “I love you, too, Gabe. But I’m absolutely bloody knackered. Be a sweetheart and piss off to your own side of the bed, would you?”

Ah! The sweet delights of matrimony.

For once in her life, Tara McGregor was dead wrong. The truth was that Lexi had been deeply moved by what she saw at the clinic. Those tiny, doll-like babies with their stick arms and bulging joints. When the nurse offered her a little girl to hold, Lexi was gripped with an irrational terror that she might break her. Her skin was paper thin…what if she gripped her too tight? The thought of causing that child one more ounce of pain was unbearable. The pleading look in the little girl’s eyes would haunt Lexi forever. She’d been determined not to betray any emotion or weakness in front of Gabe McGregor. But as soon as they got back to Cape Town, she broke down in Robbie’s arms.

“How can this still be happening? Those kids are just being left to die. What about the international aid programs?”

“They’re overwhelmed,” Robbie explained patiently. “They need private-sector money desperately. That’s why I’m so eager to develop this relationship with Gabe McGregor. Can’t you cut him a little slack?”

Lexi dried her tears. “I’ll write you a check right now for those babies. But I don’t trust McGregor. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

Over the next two years, Lexi Templeton and Gabe McGregor crossed paths more frequently, at charity events and business conferences, as well as occasionally in the boardroom when they found themselves on opposite sides of a deal. Templeton Estates was investing in emerging real-estate markets all across the globe, from Georgia to Iran to Tibet. But something kept drawing Lexi back to South Africa. The returns were high. But it went beyond that. South Africa was the birthplace of Kruger-Brent. Lexi felt a powerful urge to succeed there.

Phoenix, whose investments were limited to South Africa, remained the market leader. Dia Ghali had cashed out of the business last year, leaving Gabe McGregor as the man to beat in real estate. Lexi Templeton fully intended to be the woman to beat him. But Templeton was not the only target in her sights.

Her thoughts were never far from Kruger-Brent. Templeton did no business in New York, but Lexi insisted on keeping an outrageously expensive office there purely because she had a good view of the Kruger-Brent building from her window. She had admitted it to no one. But deep down, Lexi had always seen Templeton as a stepping-stone. A stopgap measure until she could figure out a way to win back Kruger-Brent, destroying Max Webster in the process.

On the face of it, she knew her goal must sound insane. Kruger-Brent was a giant, a hundred times Templeton’s size. It was a behemoth. Untouchable.

Lexi saw things differently.

Size is their weakness. They have too many vulnerable points, too many exposed businesses ripe for the picking. And I have the inside scoop on all of them. Kruger-Brent’s a twelve-headed monster, and none of the heads talks to another. By the time Max realizes he’s under attack, it’ll be too late.

Business was a game. Toppling Kruger-Brent would be like playing a multibillion-dollar game of Jenga. Yes, Max’s tower was infinitely taller than Lexi’s. But remove a few strategic blocks from the bottom, and the whole edifice would come crashing down. The hard part was going to be controlling the explosion when it came. Lexi needed the company to weaken before she could strike, but not to collapse so totally that there was nothing left of her birthright.

So far, Max was doing most of the hard work for her. He was a brilliant diplomat and a natural schemer, but his performance as chairman had been distinctly lackluster. Lexi remembered her Harvard Business School professor’s damning remark about one of his students, a young man who fancied himself as the next Warren Buffett.

“Jon Dean? Please. That guy couldn’t sell a dollar for ninety cents.”

Max Webster, it appeared, couldn’t sell a dollar period. He had inherited Kate Blackwell’s penchant for indiscriminate growth, a brilliantly successful strategy in the 1960s and ’70s, but a disastrous one in today’s wildly fluctuating markets.