Summer Heat Wave

Chapter 1

1

Chicago

One week earlier

“Blair, Randall wants to see you.” Kayley leaned into Blair’s cubicle.

“He does?” Blair immediately tried to quell a flurry of nerves. Even though she had known Randall Ashworth her whole life—he was her uncle, after all—she had never been comfortable around him. He had an underlying meanness to him that made her uneasy.

“Yeah, he said you should come quick or he would give the new account opportunity to one of his account executives.” Kayley West, who was one of Blair’s closest friends, always had her back.

“Thanks, Kayley.”

“No problem.” Kayley stepped back to let Blair past her as she exited her cubicle. “I’m grabbing Hackney’s for lunch. You want to share a soup-and-sandwich combo?”

“Sure, thanks.” Blair smoothed her black pencil skirt and tweaked her teal blouse into place before making the dreaded walk down the length of cubicles to her uncle’s corner office. His door was closed, so she rapped her knuckles on the thick wood and held her breath.

“Come in,” Randall barked.

Blair opened the door and found her uncle seated at his desk, his laptop open. He didn’t look up when she entered.

“Close the door behind you.”

She followed his command and stood, rather than sat. She knew better than to sit until this man invited her to.

Randall Ashworth was a tall, lean man who bore only a passing resemblance to her father, his younger brother. Where her father’s face was lit with warmth, Randall’s was cold, his lips thin and his brows severe. Blair had seen pictures of the brothers as young men, and both Paul, her father, and Randall had been dashing. But her father had kept his good looks longer than Randall. Blair was convinced that her uncle’s greediness had played a role in the way his looks had hardened into such severity.

“Sit down, Blair.” He waved at the pair of black leather armchairs facing his desk.

Blair perched on the edge of one, keeping silent.

“I know you are interested in moving up to an account executive position and leaving the art department.”

“Yes.” Blair kept her tone neutral. Her uncle wasn’t above dangling an opportunity and then yanking it out of reach when he sensed she wanted it too much. Ever since he had forced her father into early retirement fifteen years ago through a cheap buyout of his half of the company stock, her uncle had only Blair to kick around when he wanted to indulge in family pettiness.

“Well, I am offering you the position if you bring a specific client in for a five-year contract.” He announced it offhandedly, as though he didn’t even care.

“Who’s the client?” Blair asked.

“The Seven Seas Beach Club on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.” He didn’t even pause in examining whatever he was looking at on his computer.

Blair’s heart skipped a painful beat. “Randall, that’s one of Denver Ramsey’s companies, isn’t it?”

Her uncle continued to study his laptop screen. “It is.”

“But—”

“Do you want the account executive position?”

“Of course I do,” she answered carefully, desperately searching for the right language that would mollify him and broach the real problem at hand. “But you know we would be the last company that he would take a pitch from, let alone sign with. I would be escorted from his property by security.”

Her uncle was crazy for thinking that Denver Ramsey would let her near his accounts, not after what had happened between their fathers more than fifteen years ago.

“Blair, if you can land the Seven Seas account for five years with no termination options, I will sell you your father’s partnership interest at a tenth of the appraised market value.” His deep voice was almost oily, slickly sliding into her head and pulling out the one thing that could make her risk everything.

Hearing that, the dozens of protests rambling through her head simply vanished. She could get her father’s share of Bay Breeze Creative Solutions back. Her throat constricted slightly. That had been her dream, her true goal for the last five years when she’d first started working here—to earn back what her father had been forced to give up.

“Well?” Her uncle sat back in his chair, his dark-brown eyes almost a pair of obsidian pools that showed no emotion.

“Can I have until the end of the day to think about it?”

She saw the briefest flash of triumph in his eyes. “You have one hour.”

Blair got to her feet and left her uncle’s office. She returned to her cubicle and nearly collapsed in her seat.

Could she do it? Could she find some way to convince Denver Ramsey that he should hire her for his advertising campaign? What could she possibly say to him that would change the past?

Blair turned on her laptop and searched for Denver Ramsey on the internet. She hadn’t kept tabs on him since her father had left the company fifteen years ago. Of course, when that had happened, she’d been only thirteen years old. All she remembered from back then was her mother crying a lot, and that her father had barely survived the shame of what he’d done to the Ramseys. Somehow, her damn uncle had coasted through it all without even a blemish. Life really wasn’t fair.

The moment she hit search, the screen filled with a dozen articles and photos, all featuring a tall, dark-haired god of a man who wore his suit in a way that made a woman clench her thighs together. She clicked on the Vanity Fair article from two years ago. The main photo in the article showed Denver wearing trousers and a white shirt that was halfway buttoned up as he leaned against the trunk of a palm tree. The azure sea and white sand created a tropical backdrop. The man was painfully beautiful.

The title of the article read, “Wonder of the World, a True Paradise Escape.” The article went on to describe Denver’s meteoric rise in private equity and his transition to the development of one of the most exclusive island resorts in the world. All starting at the age of twenty-three.

“Wow . . . Who is that? He looks familiar,” Kayley asked as she popped into Blair’s cubicle and sat in the spare chair that Blair kept for her.

“That’s Denver Ramsey.” Blair sighed as a headache began to pound behind her eyes.

“He is seriously hot as hell. Do you know him?”

“Me?” Blair shook her head. No, she had never met him. But she remembered him. It was hard to forget the picture of a seventeen-year-old boy standing by the grave of his father, who had died after losing his business because of her father. That image was burned into her brain for the rest of her life.

“Wait, scroll down. I want to read that.” Kayley scooted her chair closer. “He lost his dad at seventeen and had to leave high school to work full-time to support his mother.”

A ringing started in Blair’s ears, piercing her skull like a distant train whistle. Kayley kept reading aloud.

“He got his GED and got into Princeton on a full scholarship and worked part-time while still achieving a double major. Holy shit.”

Kayley had had no idea. Denver had persevered and prospered after the great tragedy of losing his father and his home. He had built an empire all his own. If Blair hadn’t felt sick at the thought of her father’s part in Denver’s adversity, she would have been honored and anxious to meet such a man and do business with him.

“Wait, Blair . . .” Kayley’s voice softened as she pointed to a few lines in the article. “That’s your dad’s old company, isn’t it? The one that later became this company?”

Blair silently read the few lines Kayley pointed to:

Despite the unethical practices by Bay Water Ad Agency that led to Mr. Ramsey’s father’s advertising agency being closed and investigated for wire and mail fraud and eventually his death, Mr. Ramsey has weathered the death of his father and created a fortune all his own—one above reproach.

There was a quote from Denver in bold below that.

“My father was later cleared by the FBI, but by then the damage was done. He died from the stress and trauma of the investigation. I would give anything to go back in time and tell him to stay calm—that it would soon be over and he would be proven innocent—but we can’t go back, no matter how much we might want to.” The quote was accompanied by a moving profile shot of Denver sitting in the sand, his legs bent up and his arms resting on his knees as he gazed at the surf and the setting sun.

“What happened?” Kayley whispered.

“It’s a long, awful story, but my dad made a mistake, one that cost him a lot.” Blair didn’t want to talk about that. Her father hadn’t died like Denver’s, but he had suffered greatly for the mistake he had made by accusing Denver’s father of those crimes.

“So . . . Why are you looking at him?” Kayley asked. “I sense this isn’t some rosy walk down memory lane.”

Blair closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Randall offered me an account executive position and fifty percent of the company if I can get Ramsey to sign a binding five-year ad contract with us.”

“Oh my God,” Kayley gasped. “Are you going to do it?”

“It’s impossible. There’s no way he’d even agree to meet with me.” Blair opened her eyes and stared at the screen again, at the almost savage beauty of Denver Ramsey and the sea beyond him. He stood on the path to her dream, to owning half the agency her father had built. If she could get fifty percent under her control, she’d only have to wait for her uncle to retire and then she would achieve her dream of running her own agency.

“Blair, you have what it takes. You’re an amazing art director. You have an incredible vision for campaigns. Prepare one and then wow him. He would have to be insane not to want to work with you after you show him how capable you are at your job, family issues aside. It’s worth a shot. If you don’t try, you’ll never know what might’ve happened, right?”

As always, her friend was right.

“Okay, but I’ll need your help. I want to get down there in a week with a decent pitch.”

“Wait, are you going to go to the Bahamas?” Kayley sighed. “I hate you.” Then she hugged Blair. “Seriously, we’ll lock this in, and you’ll get the promotion and your share of the company.”

“I do not deserve a friend like you.” Blair hugged her back.

“Just remember that when you’re on some beach basking in the glory of the signed contract.”

“I will,” Blair promised with a chuckle.

She opened her email account and sent a message to her uncle: I’ll do it.

Denver Ramsey arched his body, dove through the cresting wave, and plunged into a world of brilliant blue water. The midday sun hit the frothing surface and scattered its beams into ripples of light that illuminated the coral reef just past the break line of the waves. He moved his arms in gentle strokes, pushing his way farther from shore as he studied the aquatic world beneath him.

A peacock flounder coasted along the ocean floor, blending in almost seamlessly with the surrounding sand. A small octopus sprang off a nearby rock and drifted past him. He reached out and brushed his fingers over the trailing tentacles, and the octopus curled around his wrist, playfully exploring him with its small suckers before letting go and coasting back to the seafloor. A pair of bright yellow-and-green queen angelfish floated gracefully past him, completely undisturbed by human intrusion into their world.

The ocean gave him such a sense of peace, one that he desperately needed. Even after all these years, Denver fought to keep the pain of the past and his responding anger under control. The sea had become his haven. Even though it was seemingly ever-changing, there was still a beautiful permanence to it that grounded him.

He swam for another half hour over the reefs before riding the waves back to shore. The strip of beach where he surfaced was part of the Seven Seas Beach Club’s private property. Small grass huts dotted the beach a ways back from the waves, where they stayed clear of the tides. The guests of his resort lounged on beach chairs and on waterproof canopy beds shielded from the sun by adjustable sunshades. The resort restricted occupancy levels so the beaches weren’t crowded.

Denver collected his cell phone and towel from one of the chairs and dried off his body before he checked his phone. His operations manager, Simon Wells, had left him a few text messages with polite but urgent requests to call him back.

He dialed Simon’s number and tossed his towel on the beach chair while he combed his fingers through his wet hair to get it out of his eyes.

“Simon,” he said the second his operations manager answered.

“We just heard from the Fawkes Group. The owners, Jack and Anne Hudson, are coming next week to see you about your Bali resort proposal.”

A thrill of triumph surged through Denver. He’d had his eye on this deal for more than a year, but he needed a good investment group interested in exclusive resorts to back him. He wanted to re-create the magic of the Seven Seas Beach Club with his new idea. Atlantis Rising would be built on the coast of Bali by next year if he stayed on track.

“That’s great news. You’ll make all the arrangements?”

“Yes, but we have a slight hitch.” Simon cleared his throat.

“Hitch?”

“Yes. Jack Hudson wants you to call him. I’ve texted you his private cell number. He said he had a few questions he wanted to ask you.”

“Questions?” Denver repeated in a flat tone. “What kind of questions?”

“I have no idea,” Simon rushed to answer.

“I’ll handle it. Thanks, Simon.” Denver hung up, and a moment later Hudson’s cell number came through in a text. Denver dialed the number and waited. After two rings, Hudson answered.

“This is Jack.”

“Jack, this is Denver Ramsey. Simon Wells, my operations manager, said you had a few questions for me?” He eased down onto the beach chair and watched the light play on the surface of the ocean while he waited for Hudson to speak.

“Denver, glad we got connected. I guess Wells told you we plan to come out and visit next week?”

“He did.”

“Well, you know that my company is built on family relationships. My wife is my business partner. I’ve asked around about you, and everyone has the best things to say . . . but, well, the rumor is you can be ruthless in business. I used to be ruthless before I found Anne, but being in love, marrying her, it made me a better man and an even better businessman. I suppose what I’m asking is rather personal, but there’s no nice way to say it. Are you planning on settling down? My wife and I would feel more comfortable knowing we are evenly paired in this deal for the Bali resort with a man who understands teamwork and relationships.”

Denver’s grip tightened on his phone as he sensed the danger of losing out on the investment. It was ridiculous. Being a damn bachelor should’ve been an advantage, not a liability.

“I keep my personal life rather private,” he hedged as he ran through a dozen scenarios of what to say. His gaze settled on a pair of women who passed by him, both shooting coy smiles his way. An idea leapt into his mind.

“I do have a serious girlfriend, Jack. But I have kept it quiet. In fact, I was planning to propose to her this week.”

“Oh? We hadn’t heard—” Hudson began.

“Like I said, I keep my life private. After what happened to my father, you can’t blame me.”

“That’s true. I’m sorry I asked. It’s important to us, that’s all. I really need to know you’re a team player, in for the long haul. A good relationship can show that.”

“Yeah.” Denver couldn’t believe it. He had to find a woman he could talk into posing as his girlfriend, pull off a quick proposal, and then keep up the pretense until contracts were signed. After that, he and his “fiancée” could have a change of heart.

“Well, it’s settled, then. We’ll be on Paradise Island next week. I’ll have my assistant send you our travel information once we have it.”

“Wonderful,” Denver replied, putting all the false cheer that he could muster into the word. Thankfully, Hudson didn’t seem to notice. The moment the call ended, Denver threw his phone onto his towel and stifled a groan.

He needed to find a fake fiancée, and fast.