Acquiring Mr. Right

Acquiring Mr. Right

Laurie Paige

MILLS & BOON

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For my pal, Alison, and the many treks through

the desert near her home and to the trip we’ve

planned down the Grand Canyon…someday.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Coming Next Month

Chapter One

Krista Aquilon parked close to the entrance of the Heymyer Home Appliances Company. The shiny red compact sedan was the first new auto she’d ever owned, and she was rather proud of the birthday present she’d bought for herself.

That thought usually cheered her, but not today. She unlocked the door and went into the silent building.

It was Sunday, the second day of April. The day after her birthday. Sometimes she wondered if the Fates had been laughing when they planned her birth date. She’d been an April Fool’s baby, a fact that had gotten her a lot of teasing while growing up.

At any rate, she tried to keep Sundays free of work in order to maintain the illusion of a personal life, but today was an exception. The health of the company rather than her own well-being was foremost in her mind. As chief financial officer, she had a lot to worry about.

The place wasn’t doing well. And all her suggestions for reviving it had been ignored, for the most part.

Pausing in the act of locking the entrance door behind her, she realized there was a red sports car under the portico at the side of the building, a space strictly reserved for James M. Heymyer, her eighty-year-old boss and a stickler for protocol.

His concept of protocol, she thought. She was more egalitarian in her views.

A reluctant smile tugged at her lips as she pictured the stunned outrage on his face at the audacity of anyone parking in his place. Not even Mason, Heymyer’s son and heir, would be that bold. However, since it was Sunday, the boss wouldn’t be in, so it probably didn’t matter.

Returning to the original concerns that had brought her into the office, she sighed as she crossed the atrium-type lobby and went up the steps to the second floor.

All the executive offices were located on this level. “VIP Row,” the other employees called it, as if the initials were a word. She’d gone from the plant production lines as a student on a work/study program during her college years to a “VIP” three years ago. After getting a business degree, she’d been promoted to accounts supervisor, then manager of the accounting department. She’d landed the head financial position last fall after earning her MBA.

At twenty-five, that could be considered quite a feat, but she was pretty sure the old man hadn’t been able to get anyone else to fill the slot, which had been empty since the former CFO retired eighteen months ago.

One look at the books and anyone with a grain of sense would have run the other way, she grimly reminded her conscience, or whatever it was that wouldn’t let her give the place up as a lost cause.

However, unless someone came up with a solution—and fast—Heymyer Home Appliances was gasping its last.

While the company marketed products under its own name, it also manufactured appliances for other brands. In fact, that was the bulk of their income. They had lost a major contract last week. Without it, they wouldn’t have the cash flow to meet the payroll by the end of July.

In a town the size of Grand Junction, Colorado, population fifty thousand, a business failure leaving a thousand employees out of work would have a serious impact on the community. The city would lose one of its important revenue sources. The many mom-and-pop stores in town would struggle. Some might have to close. Even professionals—doctors, lawyers, bankers—would be affected.

Worst of all, families would suffer. Fear and tension caused quarrels and broken marriages. Children would be hurt. And that bothered Krista most of all. She knew how it felt to be frightened and helpless in a world that didn’t seem to care.

She stopped at the top of the stairs. A light was on in the end office, the one belonging to the president and CEO. Some instinct warned her this wasn’t good.

Or perhaps the boss was taking her warnings about bankruptcy seriously and had come in to study her idea to take a bold new tack.

But James Heymyer driving a red roadster? No way.

So who was in his office?

As she walked down the carpeted hallway, she heard voices. Male voices. One she recognized as belonging to the boss. The low, rich timbre of the other wasn’t familiar to her.

She paused at her door, listening to the tone. The depth and resonance of the voice were almost like a caress.

Krista had barely sat down and pulled up the latest balance sheet on her computer when Heymyer appeared at the door.

“James, good morning,” she said warmly.

As soon as she was made a department head, she’d started calling the owner by his given name. A mental image of his eyebrows nearly flying off his forehead the first time she’d done so came to her.

But he hadn’t said anything.

Too bad. She’d had her points lined up about being on equal footing with the other managers—all men, who called the big boss “James”—and being taken seriously by them.

And the owner.

“What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t know you planned to come in today,” he now said in accusatory tones.

“The place is usually empty on Sundays,” she said, her tone level. “It’s quiet, and I wanted to go over the financials before the staff meeting tomorrow.”

She kept her expression pleasant and her mouth closed. He’d long since made it clear he didn’t want any further ideas from her on saving the company. However, when she reported the cash flow problems tomorrow, he was going to have to face the fact that bankruptcy was looming.

A helpless anger ran through her, making it harder to hold back the recitation of all they could have done to save the business. If he had listened.

“I guess you may as well meet Lance today,” James told her in a resigned tone.

Lance?

The guy with the sleek red car, she decided. The one who’d brought the old man to the office, an act so unusual she couldn’t figure out what it might mean.

That instinctual alarm rolled through her again. She reluctantly shut down the computer and headed for the end office with James. Annoyance filled her now. She’d expected to be alone and so was dressed in faded jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with sneakers. No makeup.

Oh, well. It didn’t make a bit of difference. In a small, home-grown company like this, everyone dressed pretty casual, even James…unless he was meeting with the bankers. Then the executives were alerted to dress the part of successful businesspeople.

They crossed the secretary’s office and went into the inner sanctum, where heads sometimes rolled and shattered egos splattered the walls. She’d seen grown men nearly cry as Heymyer picked their reports apart. She’d also been on the receiving end of his sharp tongue.

She stopped in the middle of the huge office when a man, standing at one of the many windows, turned to them.

“Lance, this is the financial officer I was telling you about,” James began the introduction. “Krista, this is Lance Carrington.”

“How do you do?” Krista smiled politely and tried to keep the anxiety out of her expression. She had an eerie feeling about all this. Just what had James told this man about her? And why?

“Fine, thanks,” the man replied. “Krista…Aquilon, isn’t it?”

She nodded and, without thinking, spelled her last name as she’d had to do all her life with teachers and other officials. Most people didn’t know how to translate the pronunciation—Ah-KEE-lon—into the correct spelling.

The smile widened on the handsome face. His gaze seemed warm and…and intimate, as if he knew her well.

Her insides gave a startled lurch, which interrupted her mental processes.

She stared wordlessly at the newcomer. He was dressed casually in navy slacks and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. His nearly black hair had a healthy sheen, highlighted by the sunlight streaming through the window behind him, and an attractive wave in front. His eyes were gray, like winter rain, and his gaze was direct. She looked away.

“Have a seat,” James told them, taking his place behind the antique desk. An odd expression flicked across his face. “Well, I guess you should be sitting here now,” he said to his guest.

Puzzled, Krista glanced from James to the stranger and back.

“Tomorrow, at the staff meeting,” James continued, meeting her eyes with a harsh scowl on his face, “I’ll be announcing the sale of the company to Lance.”

The news hit her like a sneaky punch to the head, leaving her reeling with a thousand questions. Like times in the past when her future had been rearranged without her consent, she felt the old familiar uncertainty caused by life’s nasty little tricks.

But she wasn’t a child any longer. Instead of fear, anger bubbled beneath her self-control at this announcement.

“To CCS, actually,” the visitor explained, his gaze piercing, as if he could see right into her brain and knew all the confused, conflicting emotions whirling there.

The man’s name rang a bell. Lance Carrington. Corporate raider. Facts unfurled in her mind with the speed of light.

There had been an interview with him in a financial magazine last year. His company, CCS—which stood for Computer Control Systems—was actually a holding pen for all the shares of other companies he’d raided over the years.

Under the CCS banner, he bought ailing businesses, took them apart, remade them, then sold or merged the remains into his other operations.

She didn’t need a magnifying glass to read the writing on the wall: it was the end of Heymyer Home Appliances.

A thousand employees out of work. Frightened families with no means of support. All because of one stubborn old man and his damned indifference.

And there was her own spent labor. Days and nights poring over books and ledgers, researching, then arguing for changes, trying to fix things, anything to bring the company out of its long, slow decline.

All that work. All for nothing.

White-hot anger speared through her as she stared into gray eyes as emotionless as a mountain lake in winter.

She tore her gaze away and looked her boss—her former boss—in the eye. “The entire plant was sold?”

“Yes.”

His tone was aggressive, informing her she had no part in the decision. The company was private and entirely owned by James, his wife and their son. While she wasn’t on the governing board, she was the chief financial officer. She should have been included in the discussion.

“Your wife and son agreed?”

“They had no choice,” the old man said. He slumped into the chief executive chair, which to her seemed a mockery of the position.

“I seem to have missed the meeting when this was decided,” she said, unable to keep the frost out of her voice.

“It was by teleconference. Weekend before last,” he added when she continued to frown at him without saying anything.

Krista quickly reviewed her recent schedule. She’d visited her family back in Idaho that weekend. It was the one and only vacation she’d taken in months, and had coincided with the special dedication of a sculpture done by her beloved uncle Jeff, which had been part of a city-wide celebration of spring and renewal.

Renewal. How ironic. And how convenient that she’d been out of town during that momentous meeting. With James holding the controlling shares, his wife and son would have had to go along with him.

“Do you know who he is?” she demanded, speaking in a very soft, very controlled tone. “Do you realize what you’ve done?” Unable to sit still, she strode to the window and spun toward the men, her hair lashing the side of her face at the abruptness of the move.

“I did what I had to do,” the older man told her. His lined face now held only weariness.

She felt his grief, recognized the anger and despair in his eyes. Pity slowly supplanted the anger. She knew how it felt to be forced into unwanted circumstances by an unchangeable fate. Oh, yes, she knew…

Except he could have changed it, some part of her that was harder and less forgiving chimed in.

If the ideas she’d come up with had been implemented a year ago, things might have been different. For all his protests about saving the company, she realized James was perhaps too tired or his vision too narrow to picture a different future.

Young blood. That’s what was needed. Renewal.

She studied Lance Carrington carefully. He was young, mid-thirties probably.

But renewal wouldn’t happen with a corporate raider. That type was only interested in a quick profit, not the long-term investment it would take to turn things around.

She met his level perusal with one of her own and got the feeling he was amused by the situation.

Okay, it was a done deal. She’d learned a long time ago that people had to move on when life dealt them a new hand. A thousand people would have to adjust. Including her.

“You know, James,” the corporate raider said, his eyes narrowed as if he were thinking aloud, “Krista is an officer of the company. She can introduce me to the staff in the morning, if you prefer. That way, you wouldn’t have to come in,” he added, his gaze on her again.

“That’s a great idea,” James said, obviously relieved to be let off the hook.

Coward, Krista thought. When the going got tough, a lot of supposedly tough people got going as fast as their feet would carry them…in the opposite direction.

Well, surprise, surprise. This was one time when she wasn’t going to stay and try to pick up the pieces. Neither was she going to be the flunky who assured the employees, people she’d worked with for over six years, that everything was going to be fine when she knew it wasn’t.

“So I’m going to be stuck introducing the man who’s going to close down the plant and cost us all our jobs?” she inquired in a mockingly amused manner.

She studied each of them for a long moment to let the question sink in.

“No, thanks.” She headed for the door. “I quit.”

“Be back in a minute,” Lance said, then strode down the corridor just in time to see the top of the CFO’s head disappear down the stairs. He followed, taking the steps two at a time, and caught up with her at the front door.

She muttered a distinct one-word imprecation while trying to get the key into the lock. Her hand was trembling, not much, but enough to make her awkward. The fury still gleamed in her eyes.

“Hold on,” he said.

She didn’t have to tilt her head upward very much to give the impression she could stare him down. She was a tall woman, probably five-nine to his six-one. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, she had a kind of grace and elegance he found very attractive.

When she added a ferocious frown to the silent treatment, he stopped the wayward thoughts and suppressed a smile. Now wasn’t the time. Okay, he could concede she had a right to be angry, at least from her point of view.

From his, it was a different matter. Based on all the company records he’d read during the two months prior to entering negotiations to buy the firm, he’d been prepared to be impressed upon meeting the financial guru. That was an understatement.

While he’d known about the clarity of her thinking, the ideas she’d developed and the sheer business acumen for one of her age and experience, what he hadn’t known, hadn’t even considered, was the physical package that went with the brilliant mind.

That sweep of hair, those big brown eyes, the tawny skin with the natural blush across the high cheekbones—

She gave a soft snort of exasperation, turned the key in the lock and sailed out the door before he’d quite got his thoughts in order.

Bringing himself back to the situation at hand, Lance hurried to catch up with her as she made a beeline toward her car.

“I want to explain something to you.”

“Explain away,” she invited airily without slowing her pace. As they neared the vehicle, she clicked the button on her key chain. The doors unlocked.

She turned to him when she stopped beside the modest car, the bright April sunlight filling her face until she seemed to glow from within. Her eyes were dark at the outer edges, he saw, but golden around the pupil. Her hair was a very dark brown, nearly black in hue. It lay against her shoulders in a smooth, shiny curtain.

He found he wanted to touch it. To touch her.

“What is it?” she demanded, interrupting the images running through his mind.

“No one’s going to lose his or her job,” he said, surprised and a little irritated at the persistent track of his wandering thoughts.

“Right.”

This was said with such sarcasm, it made him smile. Her lips whitened as she pressed them together, probably to hold in other, more scathing words.

“It’s true. If the employees are capable and reliable,” he added, qualifying the statement, “then they’ll have nothing to fear.”

“For how long?” She hooked her hair behind one ear and tilted her head to the side as she perused him. “How long until you sell the profitable operations and close down the rest, selling off the plant and equipment to the highest bidder so that there’s nothing left of Heymyer Home Appliances? Except the name, which you can also sell since it has an established reputation in the market.”

“There are no plans to do that.” Although he did have plans concerning the place, he wouldn’t discuss those with her until he was sure she was on board. She had to agree to stay and work with him first of all.

“Fine. I’m sure you’ll make the place a huge success.”

“As you’ve tried to do for the past three years,” he added softly.

She stiffened as resentment flared in her eyes and was gone, then she stared at him, her face a careful blank. “Not me,” she denied. “I just kept the books.”

The ensuing silence hummed like busy bees around them as they sized each other up. Around them, the desert bloomed from recent spring rains, filling the air with the pleasing aroma of sage and cedar and hidden woodland flowers along the riverbanks. The world seemed fresh and new. From the company’s vantage point near the forks of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, he could hear the muted roar of the merging water. It added a pleasing ambiance to a day that had started off triumphant and now was merely trying.

Heymyer had been on target when he’d said the CFO was headstrong.

Lance was willing to let her have her way…to a certain extent, the limits being that she cooperated rather than hindered his efforts to come out of this deal with a viable, profitable company.

“I expect to see you in the office at eight in the morning,” he told her, his tone harder.

“Sorry, but I no longer work here.” She opened the car door, nearly striking him in the chest.

He sidestepped, then moved forward so she couldn’t close it. The heat from their bodies radiated over each other, making him once more aware of her in a physical way.

He sensed the merging of their individual energies and felt it as a mighty force, like the joining of the two rivers. “I don’t accept your resignation.”

The eyelashes swept up and he caught the golden sparkle as anger flashed anew. She was all fire and brilliance, he mused, like a perfectly cut gem. He wanted to capture that fire, to claim that brilliance.

For the benefit of CCS, of course.

When he was involved with business, no other aspects of life entered into it. Passion was part of his personal time and not on his corporate agenda.

However, his body reacted with a sudden, sharp and unexplained need that surprised him. The hunger held passion, yes, and other things mixed in with it, things he couldn’t name, things that ignited from the sparks thrown off by this very bright, very alluring woman.

Her gaze didn’t waver. “You can’t force me to stay.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m asking you to.”

That caused her to blink. “No.”

He shrugged and stepped back one pace as she slid into the driver’s seat of the wagon. “So it was a lie.”

“What was?” Her manner was wary.

“All your concern about the place closing and people losing their jobs.”

“No. It wasn’t. I do care.”

“Then stay and help me make it a successful operation. James said you had plenty of ideas. I want to hear them.”

She laughed, a sudden, sexy sound that had his insides clenching up. “He called them dingbat notions. Still want to hear them?”

“Yeah.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels as he smiled at her, one cohort to another. “I believe we can turn this company around and make it one of the best in the country. How does that sound to a CFO with bulldog tenacity, or so James warned me, and lots of ideas?”

Wariness returned. “Great. If you mean it.”

“I do.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”

She held both hands up, palms out as if to hold him off. “What deal?”

“You’ll stay for a minimum of six months, and work with me to put the company back on track.”

“As CFO?”

“Maybe,” he answered.

She put the car key in the ignition. “I don’t play games,” she said coldly.

“Sorry. Truly,” he added at the dismissive glance. “I’m serious. You’re a valuable asset to the company, but I’m not sure yet just what the new job titles will be. For now, you’re still the CFO. So, will you come aboard?”

He found himself anxious for her reply. He was banking on her already considerable investment of time and energy in the company, and also her curiosity about him and the future, to convince her to stay. He knew the moment she decided in his favor by the slight smile that curved her lips, displaying two barely discernible dimples in her cheeks.

“Yes. I will.” She held out a hand. “Six months…and then we’ll see,” she added.

Electricity flowed up his arm as they shook on the agreement. Six months, he thought as he watched her drive off. A lot could happen in six months. A working team could be built. A company could be turned around. An attraction—any attraction—would have to be stamped out.

Chapter Two

Krista considered her wardrobe for several minutes on Monday morning before selecting black slacks, a blue cotton sweater and a matching bouclé jacket.

She applied her makeup carefully and left her hair down, then pulled on ankle boots with one-and-a-half-inch heels. She was as ready as she’d ever be.

Driving from her town house apartment complex to the office, she marveled that the day could look so normal. The sun was shining, no clouds marred the sky and the traffic flowed without any delays. To her mind, there should be thunder and lightning to herald the momentous event—the takeover of the company by a man who had no ties to the community, no motivation for its success except profit.