for the position, it was entirely possible Lara would be phased out in favor of someone who didn’t worship quite so loyally at Adam’s shrine. That, in Bryce’s opinion, would be a waste of a great resource, not that anyone cared what his opinion might be.
“Bryce,” Archer said to him, the note of weariness dropping away before a chairman of the board tone of sobriety. “Congratulations are in order for you today, too.”
Bryce grinned, suspecting his grandfather was going to tease him about breaking time-honored tradition and snagging the bride’s bouquet for himself. “News of my own impending marriage is greatly exaggerated, Grandfather,” he said. “Bouquet or no bouquet, it’s merely a superstition.”
Archer smiled and set a firm, if slightly shaky, hand on Bryce’s shoulder. “But news of your appointment as the new CEO of Braddock Industries isn’t. The board met yesterday and you were elected by a unanimous vote. Congratulations.”
Bryce felt his throat close as the noise of conversation in the room faded to a dull, background buzz. Chief Executive Officer? Him? He swallowed, wished he had something else to drink, something strong and caffeinated and not even slightly intoxicating, although he was far from drunk now. “CEO?” he repeated stupidly, but his grandfather was moving on, leaning more heavily on his cane than normal, his shoulders showing the slight droop of a long, exhausting, exciting week.
And suddenly, Bryce recognized the energetic zing coursing through his veins. Excitement. He was the new CEO. He’d been elected by the board. Unanimously. This was Adam’s doing. Maybe Archer, too, had done some behind the scenes politicking. Even James could have twisted an arm or two. Bryce knew he couldn’t claim to deserve this opportunity, hadn’t ever allowed himself to believe he wanted it. But now that it was his, he took it as the gift Adam had surely meant it to be. “Wow,” he said, turning with a smile and coming face-to-face with the outrage and anger in a pair of beautiful violet-blue eyes.
“Congratulations,” Lara said tightly. “My resignation will be on your desk Monday morning.” Then she was gone…not even noticing she’d managed to wipe the smile right off of his face.
Chapter Two
“Look, Mommy!”
The high, reedy voice broke through Lara’s fierce attempt at concentration for the umpteenth time. She sighed, laid her thin, platinum pen sideways across the resignation which she couldn’t seem to stop editing and walked around the big mahogany desk. Grasping the arms of the black leather chair, she stopped it in midspin and leaned in until she was eye level with her nephew. “Calvin?” she said as patiently as a weekend’s worth of worry and fretting and not enough sleep would allow. “I’m Aunt Lara. Remember? We talked about this yesterday.” And the day before that and the day before that. Several times a day, in fact, every single day of the twelve and a half days since she’d rescued the four-year-old from his father, her no-account brother, Derrick. “I’m not your mommy.”
Calvin squinched his big brown eyes into a tight frown, which instantly resolved into a heart-squeezing, gap-toothed grin. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I ‘member.”
Lara smiled back because it was impossible not to and because she wanted the little guy to feel good about himself. Lord knew, his situation wasn’t anything to smile about and the child-development books she’d been reading by the pound all spent endless pages on the importance of self-esteem. “Did you need something, Cal?” she asked, prodding him to recall why he’d interrupted her this time.
“Yeah. This is a cool chair.” He pried her hands easily from the leather and used them to push off, spinning in a continuous circle of big black chair and small, strawberry-blond boy.
Adam’s chair, Adam’s desk, Adam’s whole office was cool. And Lara mourned with a pitiful and pious regret that after today, she’d have no reason to be in it. She really didn’t have much of an excuse to be in here now, other than to put her letter of resignation on the desk. But her nephew had discovered the miracle of a chair that spins, and she had discovered a mistake on a last read-through. No way could she end this letter wishing Bryce Braddock success. It was dishonest, untrue and smacked of insincerity. She could do better, so she’d lingered to mull over a more perfect wording that would convey, both, her genuine regret at leaving and her complete lack of confidence in the new CEO…without coming right out and saying so. The letter needed to be succinct, professional and elegant in what it said, and even more so in what it didn’t.
Not that her archenemy would recognize nuance if it slapped him square in the middle of his too-handsome face. How the Board of Directors could put such an irresponsible, egotistical slacker in charge was beyond her comprehension. She’d expected James to step in when Adam stepped out, or possibly Peter, whose inexperience in the overall operations at Braddock Industries was somewhat mitigated by his fierce pride in the company his forefathers had built. But she’d never once thought Bryce, who spent every day like the proverbial grasshopper, could make the final cut. He was a thousand times worse than her worst case scenario—and since Adam’s stunning desertion, she’d come up with several atom-bomb possibilities. None of them even close to the disaster that had actually happened.
In a just universe, Bryce Braddock wouldn’t even be allowed in this office after-hours as a janitor. He might be twice as charming as either of his brothers and he was, without a doubt, the most classically handsome of the three, but he had less than half their substance and smarts. He had no business—none!—sitting in Adam’s chair and trying his inept hand at running a company as fine and successful as Braddock Industries. It was ludicrous, awful and, unfortunately, true.
And she should quit messing with the wording of her resignation, drop it on the desk, gather the personal items still in her office and get out of the building before anyone else arrived. But even as she came to that reluctant conclusion, she heard the rattle of keys in the office beyond and a moment after that, Nell Russell, Adam’s personal secretary, peeked in from the doorway. “Well, good morning. You’re here even earlier than usual.”
“Hi!” Calvin, his cowlick aiming for the sky, gamboled upright in the still-spinning chair. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs. Russell. Who are you?”
“Calvin.” Just that quickly, the boy lost interest in the new arrival, dropped back in the chair and used the rubber sole of his tennis shoe against the desk as leverage to push off again. Lara hoped it left a smudge.
Nell’s eyebrows went up as her glance turned to Lara. “I take it the nanny didn’t last through the weekend.”
“I gave her the day off. I’m taking Calvin in to the education center for testing this morning, although he seems to be a perfectly normal four-year-old. According to the books.”
Nell eyed the whirling chair. “According to the books, he ought to be as dizzy as a bug in a bottle.”
Lara watched the spinning dervish for a moment, hoping her nephew wasn’t doing irreparable damage to his nervous system. “I’m not sure he’s that normal. He never seems to get dizzy. Or tired. Or sleepy.”
“Cranky?”
“Oh, yes. That he’s got down pat.”
“I meant you.” Nell moved closer to the desk, hands on her hips as she joined Lara in staring, almost mesmerized, at the whirling chair. “Guess you’ve heard the news,” she said after a minute. “About our new chief exec.”
That reminder
