“Because that’s how I do business, Baxter,” Darius answered evenly.
“That’s how you’ve done business before, Darius,” Baxter pressed. “The board is getting nervous. Investors are asking when we’re breaking ground. The window is closing. Why don’t I fly down for a few days? I can help you with the final push. You know, apply a little friendly pressure. The man is going to crack either way. We may as well speed it up.”
“Absolutely not,” Darius said sharply.
“Darius…” Baxter began.
“I said no, Baxter,” Darius snapped, cutting his arrogant, power-hungry cousin off. “You are not coming to Sweet Blossom Bay. You are not putting pressure on anyone. You are not contacting the owner directly or through anyone else. I will handle this property myself.”
“You’re being soft on this one, Darius,” Baxter accused. “I have never seen you let a deal drag like this.”
“You haven’t been in this company for forty years,” Darius growled. “Do not tell me how I run my acquisitions. You are on the Mauritius project. That is where your attention belongs. The last update from your team flagged three issues that should have been resolved a week ago.”
“I am handling Mauritius,” Baxter said through gritted teeth and a little rudely.
“Then handle Mauritius, Baxter,” Darius shot back. “Stop calling me about my project that has nothing to do with you.”
There was a beat of silence on the line. When Baxter spoke again, his tone had cooled.
“You’re making a mistake, cousin,” Baxter warned. “This project is the biggest piece of the company’s portfolio for the next decade. If we miss the summer window, we lose investor confidence, and the whole thing pushes a year. That is millions of dollars and the board’s faith in your leadership.”
“My leadership is not in question, Baxter,” Darius growled.
“It might be soon if you keep dithering on this project, Darius,” Baxter retorted. “I’m just reminding you of what’s at stake.”
“Goodbye, Baxter.” Darius ended the call and slammed the phone down on the desk hard enough to make the small ceramic pen holder beside it rattle.
That man was going to push him over the edge one day very soon.
Darius drew a slow breath and pressed his fingertips against his temples.
He should never have let his mother’s sister talk him into hiring Baxter all those years ago. His aunt had pleaded for the position on her son’s behalf, and Darius had agreed because he had loved her. And because his aunt had been a kind woman who had stepped in for him and his sister after their parents had died. The agreement at the time had been that Baxter would work his way up like everyone else at the company.
Baxter had never seen it that way. He had walked into the Wayne Group International convinced that his mother’s bloodline gave him an unspoken claim to a share of it. But the company had nothing to do with his mother’s side of the family. The company was the legacy his father had built, and Darius had grown it into a multinational over the long years since his parents had been killed. Baxter was not a Wayne. He was a Johnson. And he wasa shark, sniffing for any opening to bite off a bigger piece of the company than he was entitled to.
Darius had been bailing him out of one mess or another for years. The aggressive tactics Baxter preferred had nearly cost them two major investors. The board complaint that had been quietly settled out of court the year before. Each time, Darius had cleaned the mess up and warned Baxter that the next slip would be his last. Now the man was trying to stick his nose into Darius’s pet project, and he was not having it. Darius was also seriously thinking of firing Baxter, as he’d had enough of the man. To this day, Darius couldn’t understand how his sweet, kind, caring aunt had raised such a shark.
Darius rubbed his temples and tried to clear his cousin from his mind. A soft knock had him look toward the door and hope it wasn’t his sister coming to moan at him about working on their vacation again.
“Come in,” Darius called.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Penny pushed the door open and let out a low whistle from the threshold as she glanced around the room.
“Wow,” Penny remarked, stepping into the office and looking around at the wide bay windows and the late afternoon light pouring across the polished hardwood floors. “This room is even better in the daytime.”
“I know, right?” Darius nodded, following her sweeping gaze. “It’s like the perfect home office. I could see myself quite easily shifting to working from home in this office.”
“Then it is such a shame it is not going to look like this forever,” Penny replied rather snidely.
Darius let out a slow breath.
“Give it a break, Penny,” Darius muttered. He leaned back in his chair. “You know, the only reason I bought this house is that I needed it for this big project.” He gazed out of the window, a heavy weight pressing on his chest as he said. “And this project has to go ahead, no matter what doubts I might have.”
“Ah hah!” Penny exclaimed, catching his words. “So you feel it too, don’t you?”
Darius feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Penny.”
“Sure you don’t,” Penny shot back. She crossed the room and dropped herself into one of the leather armchairs. “From the moment that sale went through, I’ve noticed the change in you, Darius. I saw the doubt in your eyes when you signed the papers yesterday. You can feel the pull of this place. It’s magnetic. There’s just something here.”
