“How can I say? I don’t recognise the names.”
“Mining production manager, human resources manager, Howard’s driver,” Ric supplied matter-of-factly. All three had called him that morning. He hadn’t plucked the names out of thin air, although the doubt on Kim’s face suggested he had done exactly that. “All real people, all employees of Blackstone’s.”
“Which I am not,” she said tightly. “I get the message.”
Ric watched her turn away and get to her feet, her shoulders as tight as her voice, her backbone rigid. He could let her walk away again. This wasn’t the time or place for this discussion, but she had provided the perfect opening. She wanted a purpose. She needed something to occupy her mind.
Perhaps this was the right time….
“It doesn’t have to be that way, Kim.”
She swung back around, her hands stilled in the process of tying a lime-green sarong around her hips. “Are you suggesting I return to Blackstone’s? When I have a job I love and a home in New Zealand? Why would I even consider doing that?”
“Because you’re a Blackstone.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
“Other things have,” he said with quiet resolve, coming to his feet and meeting her gaze across the width of the loungers. “The board of directors is seven strong. Currently that’s Ryan, Garth, your uncle Vincent, David Lord, Allen Fitzpatrick.”
“You—” she tapped finger against thumb, counting off number six “—and my father.”
Ric inclined his head in confirmation. “Chairman, managing director…and, with Ryan and Vincent, one of three Blackstones required on any sitting board, according to the articles of constitution.”
“And you’re thinking about a replacement?” With her quick brain, she’d caught on immediately. But the dark flash of her eyes and the tone of her voice indicated that she didn’t like the taste of that catch one little bit. “Isn’t that a little premature?”
“The board is due to meet Thursday this week. I imagine we will have news by then, and the directors will look at appointing a replacement. That may sound callously quick, but as directors we have a duty to our shareholders and our staff—at the moment that duty is projecting stability in the face of press that’s suggesting otherwise.”
“The power struggle between you and Ryan?”
Obviously she’d read today’s business pages. Ric’s jaw tightened. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, Kim. The board will decide Howard’s successor as head of the company, when and if it has to. There won’t be any fight.”
She had a comeback—something acerbic, by the flare of her eyes—but the melodic chime of a ringing phone distracted her. With a quick, “Excuse me, I’m waiting on a call,” she ducked down to retrieve the flip phone from beside her lounger. The distraction in her eyes turned to something like relief when she read the caller ID.
“I have to take this,” she said shortly, already turning away.
Hammond, Ric surmised, cursing the timing. The last person he wanted in on this decision.
Phone at her ear, she’d already started to walk away, but in several long strides Ric caught up and put a hand on her shoulder.
Kimberley whirled around as if she’d been scalded. “One minute,” she said into the phone. Then to Ric, “Excuse me?”
He didn’t allow her rapid turnaround to dislodge his hand. Instead he fastened his hold on her smooth, warm skin until her eyes widened slightly and he knew he had her full attention. Then he said, “When the board meets, your name will come up. Think about it. This is your chance to be on the inside, to shape something positive from this disaster.”
Her deep green eyes snapped. “How?”
“As part of the force that determines how Blackstone’s goes forward into the future.”
* * *
Kimberley had so many questions, so many rejoinders, but Perrini silenced them all with the latent power of that last statement. She watched him stride back toward the house, her heart beating too fast and too hard as the implications raced through her brain.
She could make a difference. She could solder broken links. She could make up for her father’s mistakes.
Then his long, decisive strides carried him inside and out of her sight, and she felt as though she’d walked into the shadows. Reflexively she rolled her shoulder, which still bore the imprint of his touch, and remembered the phone call. Matt. Damn. For the past three days they’d been playing phone tag, and now, finally, they’d managed to connect and she had left him on hold.
Just because Perrini had unsettled her again, first with the heat and the texture of his hand on her bare skin, then with the juicy enticement of righting the Blackstone wrongs toward her uncle and her cousin.
“Matt?” She swung around, phone to her ear. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
She released a soft gust of relief. “Thank you for holding. I was just in the middle of something.”
“I can call back.”
“No, no. It’s okay. He’s gone. I’m done. I’m just so glad I’ve finally found you with feet on the ground…your feet are on the ground?”
“I’m in Sydney,” he said in short, succinct contrast to Kimberley’s delivery. She was pacing, too, unable to stand still. “Landed this morning.”
“Where are you staying? The Carlisle Grande? Why don’t I come in. We could have coffee or even dinner, if you’re free. Is Blake with you?”
“This isn’t a trip I’d bring my son on.”
His cold, clipped tone brought Kimberley’s pacing to a brickwall halt. She palmed her forehead in her hand. How stupid and thoughtless. He’d come to identify Marise’s body, lying cold and lifeless in a city mortuary. How could she have asked about bringing Blake?
“I’m so sorry, Matt.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she said it again. “So very sorry for your loss. Especially this way.”
“Is there an easy way to lose your wife?”
“Good God, no, of course not! I meant the headlines and the tabloid frenzy. I can only imagine that’s as bad for you as for us.”
“No,” he said after a heavy beat of pause. “I don’t think you can imagine.”
He was right, and she felt too choked up with emotion—and with the foot she couldn’t seem to keep out of her mouth—to answer for several taut seconds. In person this would be easier, the same as it had been with coming home and seeing Sonya and Ryan. “Can we meet for coffee?” she asked again.
“I won’t be here any longer than it takes to arrange a funeral.”
The shock of that last word turned to ice in Kimberley’s veins. She rubbed her free hand up and down her arm. How could her skin be so warm when she felt cold to the core? “When you’ve made the arrangements,” she said stiffly, “please let me know when and where. I would like to be there.”
“It will be a private burial. No cameras. No headlines. No Blackstones.”
Kimberley understood his point. She knew pain had honed his voice to that diamond-hard edge but she still felt the rejection like a slap. It brought her head up and put a sting into her response. “I’m sorry I won’t be there, for you, for Blake, for Marise. But with Howard gone, surely it’s time to put this Hammond-Blackstone animosity to rest so we don’t have to choose sides. I hate that—I’m sure Sonya does, as well. I’ve been approached