Angelique was instantly alarmed. “Acquire? A man isn’t some property you can buy! If you want him, you have to lure him.”
“Lure?” Danielle paused, frowning. “Okay. But I need a plan.”
“A plan is exactly what you don’t need.”
“I want to set my goals and figure out how best to effectuate them.”
“No! With men, you just have to sort of…you know, feel your way along. A plan would scare the death out of 90 percent of them. If Max even smells a plan—” Angelique broke off and snapped her fingers. “Gone.”
“No plan?” Danielle repeated faintly. She was definitely out of her depth here.
“No, just a few minor adjustments to start with. The first thing you need to do is plunk down a million or so into some kind of sanctuary for those little feathered friends of his.”
“A million?” She was shocked. “That’s ridiculous! They’re plovers!”
“It will look sincere. And he feels strongly about them. Besides, Richard left you with more money than you could spend in a lifetime even if you weren’t raking in your own huge salary.”
That was true. Danielle hesitated, then she nodded. It seemed like a lot, but Angelique knew about such things. She was never without a man.
“It will make him happy,” Angelique continued, “and it will buy us some time to get rid of these suits you always wear.”
“Richard loved my suits!”
“What do you want here, Danielle? Another solid marriage or scintillating passion?”
“Passion,” she said quickly. But she thought both. Then again, she’d already been blessed with the first, had never enjoyed the second, so maybe this wasn’t the time to split hairs.
“Go shopping this weekend,” Angelique advised. “If you want to catch his attention, you’ll need to drop the professional ice a little. Until then, stall him. That’s my best advice for now.” Angelique went to the office door in a swirl of blond curls. Danielle studied her electric-blue skirt and the clever white sweater that stopped just at her waist. “By the way, what are you going to do about the groundbreaking?”
“I’m going ahead with it,” Danielle said quickly.
“Good.”
“If I back down too soon he won’t have any excuse to try to talk me into changing my mind.”
Angelique rolled her eyes and went outside to her desk in the little anteroom just outside the office. Danielle sat at her own desk. She picked up a pen, then put it down again. She hugged herself and sighed.
“Danielle Harrington has established some kind of plover fund to the tune of a half million dollars,” Roger Kimmelman said. “She says you can use it to buy them different land.”
Max looked up at his aide then he sat back, laced his fingers behind his head and put his feet up on his desk. “They don’t want different land. They want Gold Beach.”
Roger nodded. He was all squeaky-clean professionalism, with blond hair perfectly coiffed. His white shirt and dark trousers were pressed razor-sharp. Roger wanted Max’s job.
That was fine with Max. At thirty-nine, he fully acknowledged that he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He cared about the environment, about the earth that his generation would leave to the next. He thought he could do some good for California during Stan Roberson’s term. But politics was not particularly what he wanted to do for a lifetime.
He finally shrugged and dropped his hands. “We can’t blame her for trying.”
“She’s weaseling,” Roger said firmly.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“She hasn’t announced a delay in her groundbreaking ceremonies.”
“She wouldn’t. Not yet.” Somehow, though he barely knew her, he was sure of that. It would be too easy and not her style. Then Max smiled.
It was Friday. Three days had passed since his unannounced visit to her. It was time to step things up a notch. “Start making those phone calls and we’ll implement Plan B. Let’s see what we can do by five o’clock.”
“That’s excellent, sir! We’ll get in the last coup with the press before the weekend.”
Max honestly didn’t care too much about coups. He cared about the plovers. And, he realized, he was looking forward to seeing Dani Harrington again.
She was a captivating woman. She had a quick wit, an amusing charm. This would certainly bring her down to Gold Beach in a hurry, he thought. Max rose from his desk, still grinning.
Danielle was on the telephone with the head of her advertising department when Angelique burst into the room, then slammed the door behind her hard.
“What is it?” Danielle asked, alarmed.
“There are 432 people out there protesting!”
Danielle hung up quickly and came to her feet. “Out where?”
“At the site! At Gold Beach. They’re protesting for the plovers. They’re carrying placards!”
“But I gave him half a million dollars until I could go shopping!”
“Five hundred thousand?” Angelique pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “I told you to humor him! I told you a million! Now all you’ve done is wave a red flag in front of a bull!”
“Well, it’s too late now.” Danielle spun away from her desk. What had gone wrong here?
“Channel 3 is covering it,” Angelique reported, “but I’m sure the other networks will be jumping in shortly.”
“Channel 3 interrupted regular programming for this? They’re just birds!” Danielle was shocked. She rushed to the entertainment center. Obviously, Maxwell was accelerating the game, she thought. But she wasn’t prepared!
Just for the record, it turns out that I like you. Was it possible that he just wanted to see her again? There were simpler ways to go about it!
Danielle punched on the television. She switched to Channel 3, and his wonderful, enticing face filled the screen. It was windy out at the site today. One lock of dark hair fell forward over his brow. The gusts lifted it, kicked it, put it back again. She wanted to touch it.
“What are you going to do?” Angelique fretted.
Danielle brought herself back and looked at her secretary. “I have to put in an appearance before the rest of the television stations get there, but let’s see what he has to say first.” She reached and turned up the volume.
“Ms. Harrington must be made to understand that money does not buy lives!” Max Padgett announced—passionately, she thought. “The earth is our precious commodity! When the plovers return to this site, what will they possibly spend Harrington money on? All they’ll want is their nests, their chicks!”
“Ouch,” Danielle muttered. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared at the television screen. He was turning things all around! That money would buy his birds plenty of land to lay their nests on!
“Scrap the project! Scrap the project!” chanted the placard-carrying crowd behind him.
Still, there was a moral element at play here, Danielle realized. She pressed her hand to her heart. She wished desperately for some of Richard’s advice right now, but the memory of his voice was silent.
“Okay,” she muttered. “I can fix this. Call the other networks. Tell them that if they wait half an hour they’ll get some real footage, because I’ll be there to confront him. I can’t let