The information I promised you to use to write the memoir is now in the library. Feel free to make that room your study or office. I’ll try to be home at a decent hour. After all, we have a line to erase, or was it discuss?

I can’t recall. I’m having trouble concentrating on this note with you in the next room.

Have a good day,

Van

I picked up the laptop bag and stuffed his note inside. Opening the door of the suite, I was off to find a late breakfast and the library. Maybe Mrs. Mayhand or Margaret could help.

15. Van

Van

My thoughts continually circled back to the beautiful woman I’d found in the freezing snowstorm. I wasn’t a man who saved people or did anything without the promise of reciprocation. That knowledge alone had me questioning myself and my motives.

What do I want?

Do I want to keep Julia?

Do I want her to see me as others don’t, as someone who saves instead of destroys?

Or is the attention I’ve given to Wade Pharmaceutical not about Julia McGrath but because of her?

She’d brought the vulnerability of Wade and of Marlin Butler back into my sights.

Speaking of Butler, I’d had my private eye do a run of Skylar Butler’s credit cards. His last charge was at a gas station in Madison around ten thirty last night. I couldn’t help but compare our dissimilar situations. He’d been pumping gas, and I’d been pumping my cock in and out of Julia.

It was thoughts like those that brought a smile to my lips.

I was between meetings with my concentration on the information on my computer screen.

The fifteen percent of Wade Pharmaceutical stock not owned by McGrath, Butler, or me was distributed between eight entities. That meant one of two things.

One, the investment was considered so low and unsubstantial that the owners wouldn’t panic sell.

Or two, the investment was so low and unsubstantial that they’d jump at the chance to sell, especially at a price higher than the environment demanded.

The ring of my phone pulled my thoughts away from the list of Wade stockholders. The entities and names were unfamiliar, but I’d have my people do some digging. Even privately held stock was public record.

Picking up the telephone receiver, I clenched my jaw as Connie announced the caller, Lena Montgomery. I wasn’t surprised that she’d called my office. A part of me wanted to be irritated. After all, I’d avoided Lena’s calls for the last twenty-four hours. A larger part of me was impressed with her diligence.

I knew Lena too well to think that she’d simply give up.

“Put her through,” I told Connie. I waited as the lines connected.

“Van.” My shortened name rolled off Lena’s sugarcoated tongue. “Nice of you to take my call.”