His eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you doing here? And don’t tell me you’re cleaning because I won’t buy it for a second.”

I took a deep breath and stood my ground even though my pulse had ratcheted up so much that I could hear it in my ears. “You’re planning something with Lennox Securities, and I want to know what.”

Ronan

She had guts; I’d give her that. Not many people would have been brave enough to stare me down the way she was. I wondered how it was possible that this feisty woman could be the same sophisticated socialite I’d seen with Tom at charity galas and high-society events. But despite the outfit, I could tell her slender body curved in all the right places, and her moss-green eyes glimmered with emotion. She may have looked different than she had at those events, but not necessarily worse. This version of Willow Lennox felt real in a way that her untouchable princess façade never could. Whenever I saw her in public, she held herself distant, as though her mind were someplace else. Now she was very much in the moment.

“So you thought you’d break into my office to find out?” I kept my tone light, not letting on how much it had thrown me to find her here. I couldn’t afford anything going wrong when I was so close to wresting control of Lennox Securities from Tom—a man who didn’t deserve his father’s legacy.

“Yes, I did.” She maintained eye contact. “Clearly, I didn’t think it all the way through, but the idea was solid. So, are you going to tell me?”

I laughed at her sheer audacity. It impressed the hell out of me. I remembered her as a sweet girl. A little spoiled, but good-natured. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who’d changed.

“I think you already know what I’m planning.”

She deflated. “A hostile takeover.”

I hated the pang her dejection caused in my chest. Beautiful or not, I couldn’t let myself feel anything for her. There wasn’t a female less suited to me in all of Chicago. “You won’t find any evidence of that in here.”

“Of course not.” She pursed her lips. “I should have realized you’d have everything on an encrypted cloud server or something along those lines. But I’m still not sure how you plan to go about it. Even if you managed to buy all of the shares not in the Lennox family, you’d still have less than half of the company.”

I didn’t react to her statement, although it was interesting to know she was unaware her brother had sold some of his shares. “Did Tom send you?”

Tom now headed up Lennox Securities, which had been on a slippery downward spiral since he’d inherited the business after Frank passed away six years ago. Meanwhile, King’s Security, which I’d established soon after leaving Lennox Securities, had been steadily on the rise. The two companies dealt with similar corporate clients, but King’s Security also offered bodyguard services and cyber security solutions that Lennox Securities did not.