to respond, she said, “I don’t have any of it left.”
Laura felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. There was nothing left? All of the money was gone? Suddenly a roaring started in her ears. Her stomach pitched. Feeling as though she were going to be sick, Laura leaned forward and put her head between her knees.
“Laurie? Laurie, are you still there?”
When the initial wave of nausea had passed, Laura straightened and leaned back in the chair. Lifting the phone receiver she still held in her hand to her ear, she managed to say, “I’m here.”
“Darling, you sound…strange. Are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay, Laura wanted to scream. Her foolish, reckless mother had placed the Contessa at risk. And because she had, Jackson Hawke might very well be able to take the hotel away from them, away from her. “You’re sure it’s all gone? There’s nothing left?”
“I’m sure.”
“What did you do with all that money?” Laura demanded.
Her mother explained how she had invested six million dollars into the nightclub that Philippe had been so keen to open in France. “I used some of it to pay for repairs to the hotel that the insurance didn’t cover after the hurricane and the rest of it went to pay the back taxes on the hotel.”
Laura knew the hotel had been underinsured at the time of the hurricane and, as a result, not all of the repairs had been fully covered. But the taxes? “The taxes couldn’t possibly have been that much,” Laura argued. “Since the hurricane, the assessment values have decreased, not increased.”
“The taxes were from before the hurricane…from when your grandfather was still alive and running the hotel.”
Laura frowned. That didn’t make any sense, she thought and told her mother so. “Granddad always paid the Contessa’s bills—even if it meant using his own money to do it. He would have made sure the taxes were paid.”
“Apparently, he didn’t. Or he couldn’t. Evidently, the hotel wasn’t doing well for quite some time before your grandfather became ill and he got behind on some of the bills. The tax assessor came to see me not long after the funeral and told me the taxes were three years in arrears, plus there were penalties. He was going to put a lien on the hotel. So I went to the bank and borrowed the money to pay them off.”
Once again, Laura felt as though she’d had the wind kicked out of her. She’d known the hotel had gone through a rough patch and that her grandfather had hired a marketing firm to help him. But she hadn’t realized things had been that bad. “Why didn’t Granddad tell me? I would have come home and helped him with the hotel.”
“That’s probably why he didn’t tell you, because he knew you would have come rushing home. And that wouldn’t have been good for your career.”
But Laura suspected her grandfather hadn’t told her because he hadn’t believed she was capable of running the Contessa. A sharp sting went through her as she recalled her grandfather dismissing the idea of her working at the Contessa after she’d graduated from college. He’d insisted she was too green to run a property like the Contessa and had told her to take the job she’d been offered by Stratton Hotels. Lost in thought, Laura didn’t realize her mother had spoken until she heard her name said sharply. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said, how did you find out I pledged my stock to the bank for the loan?”
“Because the bank sold your note, Mother.”
“Yes, I know. To some company with a bird’s name.”
“Hawke Industries,” Laura supplied and she certainly didn’t consider the man for whom the company was named to be some tame, feathered creature. Rather he was a predator—just like his name implied.
“That’s right. I remember getting a notice from them, telling me they owned the note for my loan now.”
“They own more than the note, Mother. You defaulted on the loan and now Jackson Hawke owns eighty percent of the stock in the Contessa.”
Jackson Hawke sat in the penthouse suite of the Contessa Hotel late that evening and waited for the e-mail on Laura Spencer to arrive on his computer. Following his meeting with her, he had had the investigative firm he used compile a complete background check on her. He’d asked for everything—from her favorite flavor of ice cream right down to her shoe size. He frowned as he recalled his assistant’s remark that it sounded personal. It wasn’t, Jack told himself. It was business. Strictly business. And he intended to keep it that way.
As he waited for the file, Jack took a sip of his wine and considered, once again, his earlier encounter with Laura Spencer. While he had anticipated her objections and could even understand her denial at losing the hotel, he hadn’t expected to find her outright defiance so stimulating. If he were honest, Jack admitted, the woman intrigued him. And it had been a very long time since anything or anyone had truly intrigued him.
A beep indicated the new e-mail and Jack clicked onto the file document and began reading the investigator’s preliminary report. Much of the information he was familiar with already, having attained the data during his initial investigation of the Contessa and its principals. But he skimmed through the basics on Laura Spencer again anyway—noting the names of her parents, the schools she had attended, the places she had lived, her employment history. As he perused the information in the file, he paused at the newspaper and magazine clippings Fitzpatrick Investigations had included with the report.
He studied a color photo that had appeared in a soap-opera magazine more than twenty years ago of a young Laura on the steps of a church following her mother’s wedding to an actor. Another photo showed a six-year-old Laura standing with her grandfather in front of the Contessa Hotel as the older man shook hands with the city’s mayor. Even then, there was no mistaking the stubborn tilt of Laura’s chin, the pride in her eyes, the promise of quiet beauty in her features. More clippings followed. Laura graduating as valedictorian from a high school in Boston. Laura in her freshman year at college in New Orleans. Laura making her society debut as a maid in one carnival ball and reigning as queen in another. Laura named as an assistant manager at the Stratton West Hotel in California. He paused at a more recent clipping of an elegantly dressed and smiling Laura on the arm of a man wearing a tuxedo. Jack clenched his jaw as he recognized her escort—Matt Peterson. Just the sight of his stepbrother’s face sent anger coursing through him. And along with the anger came the painful memories, the old hurt. Jack read the caption beneath the picture.
Ms. Laura Spencer and Mr. Matthew Peterson at the Literacy Gala hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Edward Peterson.
How had he missed this? And just how serious was Laura’s relationship with Peterson? he wondered. After dashing off an e-mail to Fitzpatrick Investigations, demanding answers, he considered how Peterson’s involvement with Laura might impact his deal. While his stepbrother didn’t have the money to bail Laura out, Peterson’s old man and stepmother did. And there was nothing the pair wouldn’t do for their golden-boy son.
Bitterness rose like bile in his throat as Jack thought of Peterson’s stepmother—his own mother—who had left her family for her husband’s business partner and best friend. Whether Laura was seriously involved with Matthew Peterson didn’t matter, Jack told himself. All that mattered was the deal. If his stepbrother tried to play knight in shining armor for Laura, it would only make the deal that much sweeter when Jack foreclosed on the hotel and
