Royce handed his friend one glass, took a sip from his own and studied a thin line of moisture forming across his finance director’s upper lip.
Dave took a healthy gulp, wheezed, coughed, then twirled the glass between his palms. “You know, Europeans are not always a liberal bunch, particularly when it comes to business. They have strictly conservative views about money, and about—” he sucked a breath, took another swallow “—family.”
Royce waited.
Dave cleared his throat. “Marchandt himself is Old World, comes from generations of wealth and power. He can list his ancestors back to the time of the Crusades. He inherited the company from his father, as did his father before him, and already has his sons in the business ready to carry on the family tradition.” Puffing his cheeks, he blew out a breath, meeting Royce’s gaze directly. “Do you remember that magazine article that came out a while back?”
“That silly ‘Bachelor of the Year’ thing in Finance and World Reports?” Royce snorted. He remembered the article well. He had fired the marketing executive who’d insisted he give the interview in the first place. “Idiotic piece of tabloid trash. I canceled my subscription in protest.”
“Yes, well, to you it’s tabloid trash, to Western Europe it’s considered the pinnacle of financial trade information. When I went to Brussels last month, Marchandt himself had a copy of that issue on the corner of his desk.”
That got Royce’s attention. He leaned forward, ignored the telltale jitter of a muscle stress-twitching just below his ear. “You’re just getting around to mentioning this to me?”
Dave shrugged. “I’d already handled the situation.”
“How?”
“I told him the article was basically a publicity stunt by a rogue marketing executive who was no longer employed by our firm.”
“Good.”
“I told him there was nothing to the allegations of wild parties, beautiful starlets on each arm and the speculation that you were the real father of Madonna’s love child.”
“Good.”
#8220;I told him you were committed to your, er, family.”
Royce narrowed his gaze. “I don’t have a family.”
“Well, boss, you’ve got six weeks to hunt one up. I told him you were a doting husband and father.” Dave drained his glass, set it on a polished mahogany desk by the study window and heaved the long-suffering sigh of a man ascending a gallows. “Am I fired?”
“No.” Setting his own glass aside, Royce brushed his palms lightly and pushed away from the plush burgundy recliner against which his hip had been propped. “The formality of employment termination isn’t required for a dead man.”
Dave paled visibly.
Muttering, Royce spun away. There were cats in the cellar. The company was going to hell in a European handbasket. His entire life was in chaos.
And all he could think about was the color of Laura Michaels’s eyes.
Chapter Two
“Oh, my God. Not again.” The slamming screen door shook the mobile home to its foundation. Wendy Wyatt stomped inside, her furious gaze riveted on the legal documents in Laura’s hand. “What is it this time, another harassment suit claiming you’ve ruined the family name by divorcing that rotten, good-for-nothing son of theirs? A demand for punitive damages because their grandchild once puked on an heirloom quilt? A request to return the antique wedding ring you had to hock to pay the attorney fees for their last round of lawsuits?”
A response would be pointless, since Laura knew her dear friend wouldn’t stop venting long enough to listen, anyway. She simply handed over the document in question, crossed into the cramped kitchen and poured herself a glass of water while Wendy read the newest Summons and Complaint, which had been presented to Laura upon her return from Royce Burton’s extravagant home.
Behind her, paper crinkled. Her roommate issued a stunned gasp. “That’s impossible. How can your ex-laws demand full custody of your son? I mean, that sort of thing just doesn’t happen…does it?”
It took Laura a moment to steady trembling hands and mop up the water she’d spilled on the counter. With a deep breath, a feigned calm, she faced Wendy with what she hoped was a poised and thoughtful expression. “Apparently it does happen, according to that duly recorded hunk of mumbo jumbo.”
Wendy’s face crumpled as if tears were imminent. “How can they do this? I mean, first that lying piece of dog drool they sired humiliates you by humping every female that crosses his line of sight, then when you finally divorce the obnoxious cur, he signs over his assets to his parents and runs off to Europe to avoid paying child support for his own kid. What kind of people are these, anyway?”
“Rich people.” Heaving a sigh, Laura wiped the wet counter, tossed the dishrag over the faucet and swallowed a surge of anger so bitter it nearly choked her. “Money talks. If you have enough of it, ethics don’t matter. You can buy your own morality.”
This was the third lawsuit the Michaelses had filed against Laura since she’d had the audacity to leave their son, a spoiled young man whose once-endearing boyish alacrity soon disintegrated into adolescent immaturity, and whose taste for extravagance was legend despite the pesky fact that he’d never worked a day in his life.
The Michaelses’ first lawsuit had demanded a visitation schedule so onerous it would have required Laura to spend thousands of dollars a year shuttling Jamie hundreds of miles back and forth to his grandparents’ Connecticut home, and would have resulted in the baby spending more time with his grandparents than with his own mother.
When the court awarded only minimal visitation and required the Michaelses to pay transportation costs, their desire to see their grandson dissipated. They’d never made the visitation arrangements and hadn’t seen Jamie since he was an infant. He was now twenty-six months old.
The next lawsuit had demanded punitive damages, maintaining that the divorce had supposedly damaged her ex-husband’s psyche so badly that he’d been forced to leave the country to heal his broken heart, thereby depriving his parents of his companionship. Fortunately, the court pointed out that since the senior Michaelses were financing their son’s European lifestyle, they could avail themselves of his companionship by simply cutting off his living allowance. Laura had thought that would be the end of the legal harassment.
She’d obviously underestimated them. Again.
“Why are they doing this?” Wendy whispered.
Biting her lip, Laura stared into the stack of sticky cereal bowls and used juice glasses. Panic was a mortal enemy, one she’d fought most of her life. This time, it was winning.
“They’ve learned that I lost my job,” she whispered. “The custody petition claims I’m financially unable to care for my son.” The dirty dishes blurred beneath a film of tears. “They might win this one, Wendy. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Jamie. I just don’t know what I’d do….”
“Oh, hon.” Tossing the legal papers on a sofa cluttered with toy cars and comic books, Wendy rushed into the kitchen, wrapped Laura in a fierce hug. “I wish there was something I could do. My supervisor would hire you in a heartbeat if there was an opening.” Wendy, like so many residents of Mill Creek, worked for Burton Technologies. “The only positions available are professional or scientific, requiring university degrees and extensive experience.”
That came as no news to Laura, who’d been pounding the pavement all over town. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something.” Stifling a sniff, Laura forced a brave smile and a