gave him a stern look that reminded him, strangely enough, of his mother. Probably because his mother was on Drew’s mind, because she clearly was not on William’s mind, he reasoned.
“Why don’t you just go back into your office and let me finish without distraction?” she countered. She lifted her left hand to wave it in dismissal, and her right hand never stopped moving over the computer keyboard. “Decide what you want your new business cards to say when you replace your dad as the CEO now that he’s retiring. Maybe that will improve your mood.”
“Maybe the fact that I’m not likely to be the new CEO will improve yours.”
The clacking keys went abruptly silent.
She stared up at him and the fiery green glint faded in her eyes, leaving confusion in their depths. “What?”
He tightened his grip around the baseball bat.
He wanted to throw the damn thing through one of the windows.
“I’m not taking over as CEO.” The words tasted like acid-coated boulders.
She looked bewildered. “But everyone knows you’re taking over for him.”
“Yeah, well, I guess Dad didn’t read the memo.” His voice was short.
“Drew—”
He exhaled. “As far as I know, he’s not planning to close down this office. He just wants to close me down.”
The high color faded from her cheeks and she looked pale. “But you do a remarkable job here.”
“Not remarkable enough for him.”
She shook her head a little, making her hair swing again. “Your father’s never seemed anything but proud of the work you’ve done here. For heaven’s sake, he even told me once when he was visiting the office how he thinks you’re a chip off the old block.”
“And there’s the problem,” he said flatly. “Since he thinks he didn’t really get his act together and start up this place until he married my mother and settled down, he’s gone and decided that I have to do the same damn thing!”
He swung the bat hard and it connected with the soft cushion of one of the upholstered chairs sitting outside the door to his office.
The cushion dented, and Deanna let out a startled squeak.
Neither was as satisfying as a broken window, and cursing his father, he tossed the bat onto the chair and stomped back into his office.
Deanna followed him, her hands clenched around the lapels of her drab brown jacket that matched her knee-length drab brown skirt. “Your father thinks you should get married?”
His head was pounding. He wanted a drink. He wanted a cigarette and he’d finally managed to quit the damn things six months earlier. He wanted to forget that the past year had ever happened and he particularly wanted to forget his father’s ultimatum.
If only he could.
He threw himself down onto the chair behind his desk and yanked off his hat. “He doesn’t just think it,” he said wearily. “He expects it. Or no CEO for Drew.”
She slowly sank down onto one of the chairs facing his desk. She looked dazed, which was probably the only reason she wasn’t smoothing her skirt circumspectly around her pretty knees the way she usually did. “Are you sure you’re not—” she swallowed and moistened her lips “—well, overreacting? Maybe you misunderstood what he meant. Maybe you heard the word marriage and a wire in your brain went poof.”
He gave a bark of laughter that was completely devoid of humor. “Oh, he was perfectly clear. My life lacks balance, he said.” He hunched forward, clenching his fists on top of his desk. “I’m too committed to the company, he said.”
His fist hit the desk, sending a pen rolling off the side. “What the hell else should I be but committed? This company is everything to me and he damn well knows it. But now, dear old Dad has decided that unless my neck ends up in a marriage noose again, I’m suddenly not fit to run it after all.”
Deanna’s eyes were wide. “Um … again?”
He could practically feel the steam wanting to pour out of his pounding head. “And he’ll go find someone who isn’t even a Fortune to head things up instead.” Even more than the marriage nonsense that William had been threatening for much of the past year—ever since he’d gotten involved with Lily—telling Drew just that morning that he’d bring in someone else to run the company if Drew didn’t heed his words had been an even worse slam.
Their telephone conversation—if the argument that had ensued could be called that—had disintegrated from there.
Drew was still stinging from it.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll work for somebody else at what should be my own freaking company.”
Her brows drew together, creating a little vertical line between them. “You’d just give it up, then?” She lifted her hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Walk away from everything you’ve worked for?”
“It’s not like I have any women around I’d remotely consider marrying. Dad decided to marry Lily and look what happened. He’s lost his marbles.”
“I—I’m stunned,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know what to say.”
He scrubbed his hands down his face and leaned back in his chair again, watching his assistant through his narrowed eyes.
But his mind was still replaying the argument with his father.
Despite his wedding to Lily scheduled for the following day—a new year and a new life with his new wife—William had had the cojones to bring up Drew’s mother, Molly. To use her memory as a tool in his arsenal against Drew’s footloose lifestyle.
That had been the ultimate slam.
And he’d responded in kind. If William were so concerned about Molly, then what the hell was he doing getting married again?
Drew pinched his nose and closed his eyes again. The angry words still circled in his head. “As if a marriage certificate has anything to do with success,” he muttered. “It’s insane.” He looked at Deanna.
She was sitting straight as a poker in her chair. Instead of twisting the life out of her jacket, her hands were now twisted together in her lap. She still had that frown etched on her face and her eyes were dark with concern. “I, um, imagine for you, marriage certainly is a deal breaker.”
And Drew had never failed to close a deal.
He’d always had the singular ability to put the right pieces together, even when people—including his father—said it would be impossible.
His brain suddenly shifted. Boulders rolled and he saw a glimmer of light. “This is a deal,” he murmured, wondering why he hadn’t seen it before.
Maybe Deanna was right. He’d heard marriage, and the wiring in his brain had short-circuited.
