Mary Anne Wilson - Regarding The Tycoon's Toddler...

Mr. Stiller closed his briefcase. “It’s up to Mr. Holden. I’ll have the child brought out here, and take care of making final payment to the baby-sitter out there. Then Mr. Holden can—”

“Brought out here?” Zane cut in. “As in bringing him to the west coast?”

“Exactly,” the man said, looking right at Zane. “He can’t stay in Florida.”

“Why not? We can do what Matt said—get a nanny to care for him—”

“Well, if you or Mr. Terrel or your representative wants to go to Miami and take care of things, we can—”

“We can’t. You do it. I’ll pay for it.”

“That’s very generous of you, sir,” the man said with a shake of his head. “But I’m an attorney with a small staff that is already stretched to the limit, and I don’t have the time to do that sort of thing. Perhaps you can find someone else to do it out there?”

Zane looked at Matt, and the big man shrugged. “That’s too damn complicated. It’ll take up a lot of precious time just getting there. Then there’s setting it all up and monitoring the situation—”

“Whatever you decide on, you have one week to do it,” Mr. Stiller said abruptly. “The sitter can keep the boy until next Monday. He’ll have to be situated by then.”

“Option C,” Matt said to Zane.

“Which is?”

“Bring him out here. Set him up with a nanny at your penthouse at the hotel or wherever. That’s a hell of a lot less complicated than trying to do this long distance.”

Zane realized right then that he had no desire to see the child, much less live with him, even temporarily. But he knew that Matt was right. It was logical. And how hard could it be?

“Okay, we’ll do that.” He looked at Mr. Stiller. “Make all the arrangements for the trip, then contact us with the details. I’ll pay for everything. We’ll keep a discussion of what Suzanne left for the child for later. Just continue the search for a relative.”

“Of course,” the man said, snapping his briefcase shut, then gripping it by the handle as he glanced at Matt. “Who will be handling the legal aspects of this situation?”

Matt glanced at Zane. “What about the legal department?”

“I want to keep this close to home,” replied Zane. “I’ll owe you if you make sure things are set up properly.”

Matt nodded, then looked at Mr. Stiller. “My office is two doors down on the right. I’ll meet you in there in a couple of minutes.”

Matt showed the man out, then closed the door after him. Zane sank back down in his chair. Matt was studying him narrowly as he came back to the desk. But he didn’t sit down this time. He looked down at Zane.

“Just what you needed, huh?”

“I knew this acquisition would be trouble, but it’s a hell of a lot more than I ever dreamed it would be.” He looked down at the clutter on his desk, the yellow memo catching his eye. “It seems Mr. Lewis had a soft heart and an open wallet and never heard of the concept of saying no to anyone. No wonder no one around here understands that the wallet left with him and that there isn’t any more money being passed out.”

“Are you okay, Zane?”

He motioned at the work he needed to do. “I would be, if I could get some uninterrupted time to get this done.”

“I wasn’t talking about this business,” Matt said. “I was talking about Suzanne’s death.”

There was no obvious reproach in his tone, but Zane felt it nonetheless. “It was a shock, but it’s the past—at least, it was until Stiller showed up.” He sat back in his chair. “I appreciate your taking care of the paperwork for me.”

“What about the arrangements for the kid?” Before Zane could say anything, Matt held up both hands, palms out. “No, I do not do that. Corporate things? I’m your man. Finding a nanny? No way.”

“Then, who?”

Matt snapped his fingers. “I know. Rita. She’s got kids. She knows about those things. She’ll do it.”

Matt’s personal secretary was working overtime as it was, with all the work involved in the LynTech restructuring. “Will she have time for it?”

“She’s such an efficient secretary that she’s ahead of me half the time. No problem.” He smiled, a lopsided expression. “Who would have thought being your business partner, president and co-C.E.O. would get me involved in a nanny search?”

“Certainly not me,” Zane muttered, and looked down at the papers on his desk and spotted that annoying yellow page again. He reached for it. “One last favor before you go and talk to Stiller? Could you give this to Marlene on the way out and ask her to make sure this gets sent to Atherton at the day care center?”

Matt took it and frowned as he glanced at the paper. “For Pete’s sake. What is this, your third denial for funding?”

“Number three. This Atherton person who keeps sending them up—won’t take no for an answer. Obviously a proponent of the old ‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’ theory. But there isn’t any grease. And there won’t be. Maybe he’ll take the third strike and realize he’s out of luck.”

“Let’s hope so,” Matt said as he turned and headed for the door.

“Let me know what Rita finds,” Zane called after him.

“Sure, no problem,” Matt said over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

Zane sat back in the chair and refocused on the work in front of him—work that had been put there just before Mr. Stiller had shown up.

Since he’d taken over LynTech from the founder of the corporation, he’d all but lived at the office. LynTech, the core company in a conglomerate that did everything in computer technology from production to service to communications, was going to become lean and mean. Then Zane could break up the network and sell off the pieces for more than the total value of the whole. It was something he’d been doing for years with companies in trouble. He knew that LynTech was a gold mine, but it was going to take a hell of a lot of digging to get to the gold.

He started sorting through the financial reports, scanning the figures. Then he took out his gold pen and began to cross out figures, recalculating. In a few moments everything about children was forgotten.

Monday night

WHEN THE DREAM came to her, Lindsey Atherton had the clear thought that for as long as she could remember, the only constant in her life had been that dream. It had first started when she was too young to be able to tell anyone, and had stayed with her. At twenty-seven, she still had it. She’d never understood it, and she’d never figured out how to stop it.

When she was little, it had always started with her in complete darkness, nothing around her as she floated alone. No sounds, no contact with anything or anyone, and no sensations except total and complete safety.

She’d felt safe at first, snuggled into the blackness, embraced by the shadows. A tiny place that was all hers. A welcome place—until the sounds started. The faint jiggling of a doorknob, the click of a lock, then the creak of hinges. It was then that everything changed. Lights exploded around her and robbed her of the safety she craved.

When she was little, she was certain it was the boogeyman who had found her in her safe place—that he’d come to get her. But as she got older, the dream changed. There was no boogeyman. And the darkness didn’t mean safety anymore. It meant she was cut off, isolated. And the noises outside were those of a person. Someone about to rescue her.

She never knew who it was. She just knew that whoever was there had found her, and she was going to be okay. But that never happened. There was hope when the sounds came, when the creaking of hinges echoed through her. Then the light.

But there was no one there.