he didn’t have it in Mumbai—the trip would have been eighteen hours, give or take.
Although, having been detained in customs overseas himself, Marcus knew it wasn’t a picnic. Besides, maybe Devon’s guilt over not making their meeting would play into Marcus’s hands in helping him win control of Salazar Media for good. The company had been his brainchild, after all. His father and brother had only signed on for financial support, with their father assuming the CEO position simply because he’d been effective in brokering an accord between his warring copresident sons. With their father’s death, there was a power vacuum that Marcus planned to fill. As the creative founder, Marcus deserved the CEO role, and he planned to have it or he’d leave the company that he’d started.
Jamming the phone in his breast pocket, he urged his mount faster, racing hard toward the main lodge on Mesa Falls Ranch. The retreat had undeniable appeal. The fact that the mountains and the wide-open spaces could distract him from his frustration for even a moment was a testament to the place’s beauty. A consortium of owners—six in all—had maintained the lands and shared the cattle for the last eight years, with each of them having a home on the acreage. But the group had decided to open the land to guests a year ago, in an effort to fund their move to sustainable ranching. Sensing a business opportunity for Salazar Media, Marcus had opened a dialogue with the group, hoping to secure their account. The owners had made a verbal commitment to six months’ worth of social media advertising with Salazar, with an option for extending the contract if they were pleased. Marcus planned to set up a few appointments with key members of the ranching staff—to make his presence felt here—and then head back to LA once the finalized contracts were signed.
His conscience would be clear that he’d at least tried to meet Devon at the retreat. If Devon couldn’t bother showing up, that was on him.
As Marcus reined in behind the stables, he could see a shiny black Escalade pull up to the huge main lodge. A liveried driver hopped out and jogged around to the back, where tinted windows prevented Marcus from seeing inside. His brother’s words floated back to his brain—something about an emissary.
Could Devon have sent someone to the ranch in his place? It galled him to think his brother had managed to arrange for a replacement, because he would have had to make the arrangements hours ago. Clearly, phoning his own brother to let him know he was delayed hadn’t been his first priority.
He slid down to the ground and handed over the Appaloosa’s reins to a waiting stable hand. He thanked the guy and kept his eye on the Escalade as the back door opened and a decidedly feminine leg appeared.
A black high heeled boot. A slender calf. A sliver of gray pin-striped skirt.
She can speak for me…
The words blasted back into his mind as the only woman who was ever allowed to speak for Devon Salazar stepped fully into view.
Lily Carrington stood tall on the tarmac in a black overcoat left unbelted over her pale gray suit and lavender-colored blouse. A tiny patent-leather handbag dangled off her arm. She was the most perfectly proper woman Marcus had ever met. Never a silky dark hair out of place. Efficient. Articulate. Clients praised her up one side and down the other. She’d been Devon’s right hand in the business during the crazy years that it had doubled, then tripled in size, working her way up to the COO position, effectively the number two person in the New York office.
She was the antithesis of everything Marcus normally liked in a woman, cool and composed when he usually went for passionate, artsy types. Yet for some irritating reason, he’d always fought a fierce attraction to Lily.
Lucky for him, she was engaged to another man and safely off-limits.
Not so lucky for him, she still roused a surge of lust just standing in the driveway looking like a movie star in sunglasses that covered half her face.
“Marcus.” She gave a polite smile as she caught sight of him, edging past her driver to head toward him. “What an impressive property for a retreat.” Tipping up her sunglasses, she gestured toward the massive lodge-style building newly constructed as guest quarters. Her gaze swept over the pristine stables, the welcome center and attached paddock, and the rolling hills that turned into mountain vistas behind it. “It’s breathtaking.”
He found the view of her far preferable to the autumn landscape but kept that opinion on lockdown. He was already calculating how fast he could leave town without compromising his bargaining position with Devon. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of in his life, but indulging an attraction to a woman wearing another man’s ring was a line he wouldn’t cross.
“It should photograph well,” he acknowledged, turning his attention to the views instead of Lily’s pliable mouth or pale blue eyes. “Since Devon couldn’t bother to show, maybe we can spend our time here setting up the ranch account and gathering some on-the-ground intel the team can use to fine-tune the marketing approach. I’ll text you an agenda so we can both get back home as soon as possible.”
She was quiet for a long moment. For so long, in fact, he needed to turn and look at her again for a hint of what she was thinking.
“We could do that,” she admitted slowly, staring at him with newly wary eyes. “Or we could start a dialogue about how to fill the CEO position, since that was the original intent of this meeting. Maybe you and I can come up with some workable options for the future of Salazar Media—”
“That meeting was planned for Devon and me. Not you.” He wondered where she saw herself in this negotiation for power at Salazar Media. Was she hoping to carve out a better position for herself? Oust Marcus completely and take over the West Coast office?
If not for the fact that the Salazar brothers were on opposite coasts, the business might have tanked years ago. But they’d made it this far by operating as independently as possible from each other in New York and Los Angeles.
“I have a stake in the outcome, too,” she reminded him coolly. “And now that your father isn’t around to negotiate your differences, I hoped maybe I could facilitate a conversation about the future.”
“Did my brother ask you to talk me into rolling over on this?” He realized his thwarted sexual tension was making him speak more sharply than he might have otherwise. “Did he think you had a better shot at enticing me into doing what you want?”
Marcus had compromised his vision for the company too many times over the years, playing it safe while good opportunities passed them by because Devon had a different approach.
“Of course not,” she replied adamantly, shaking her head. “However, I am familiar with some of the frustration on both sides—”
“No, Lily,” he said, cutting her off, unwilling to walk down that conversational path with her. “You can’t possibly know the level of my frustration.”
Their gazes met and held for a long moment while he let those words sink in so she could chew on them for awhile. He guessed the moment when she suspected his underlying meaning. There was a soft intake of breath. An almost silent rush of her surprise before she gave a slow blink.
Had she truly been unaware of the attraction?
Not that it mattered either way. He had enough grievances involving his brother. He wasn’t going to try to wade through the haze of lust that Lily conjured for him. So instead, he tipped the driver who had delivered her to the ranch, sending the car on its way. When he turned back to Salazar Media’s COO, she seemed to have plastered a new mask of indifference on her
