Chapter 1

Chapter One

I found her.

Jason Cavanaugh looked up from the text that had buzzed through his phone moments earlier. He tried to control his visible reaction, setting the phone face down on the smooth mahogany table in the boardroom.

Curling his fingers into his palm, he rubbed the back of his knuckles with the opposite hand.

Amanda lifted a brow from her seat across from him. “Are we keeping you from something more important?”

The Powell crew had come to the meeting, including Amanda and her father. Both stared at him with identical steel-eyed gazes. Not that Amanda had any business being here. But since her father had purchased a controlling stake in Cavanaugh Metals, who would protest? The moment Jason’s grandfather died, Bill Powell had no one in his way. No one would dare cross him with Thomas Cavanaugh out of the picture.

“Not at all.” Jason leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyelids. He flipped the leather portfolio closed, not bothering to hide his frustration. His plan for his grandfather’s forty percent shareholdings had been met with derision, unsurprisingly. Narrow-minded idiots. As though they weren’t responsible for the terrible shape the company was in. “I think we’re done here anyway.”

Amanda smirked, tossing her stick-straight dark hair over her shoulder. Her ivory skin contrasted starkly with it, giving her a Snow White-esque look. Not that the bitch was anything like a fairy-tale princess.

More like a vampire.

“We know this is a difficult time for you with the changes in your life and the transition, Jason.” Bill Powell stood, setting his hands on the back of the large leather-back chair at the end of the table. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. Someone’s got to be the voice of reason for you, son.”

I’m not your son. Jason narrowed his eyes at the older man. When his grandfather had been alive, Bill had never dared to sit at the head of the table. As though Bill deserved to sit in that chair after the damage he’d done to the company. “I think I made the case well enough, Bill. It’s not about the transition. After the lawsuit, employee morale is at an all-time low, and our brand is damaged. A third of our workforce has quit. Your deal with Duncan Motors almost cost us everything. I’ve talked to the guys at the plant. This is the best path for the company.” Jason stood, matching Bill’s stance.

Chad Duncan shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Prick. Another viper who had taken advantage of his grandfather’s failing health toward the end. Even leveraged his way to CEO, too.

Bill’s face reddened. “Well, we’re not considering employee ownership. Your grandfather didn’t specify he wanted that in his will, did he now? And I understand that the will is far from a settled issue.” Bill’s eyes locked on his, as though to show he knew exactly what the will had said. And he probably does, thanks to Amanda. “It’s a nice idea, but we’d lose millions with an ESOP. And I didn’t buy into this company for that.”

Jason’s shoulders tensed. When he’d walked through the plant two months earlier, he’d vowed to save the company—not for himself, but for the hundreds of people who would lose everything if he failed.

This plan of making his grandfather’s holdings into an ESOP trust wasn’t something he’d come to lightly. After all, Jason would lose millions of dollars by doing so. But he had the rest of his grandfather’s fortune to soften that blow. And the employees of Cavanaugh Metals had been the ones to make the company successful in the first place. If Jason couldn’t turn things around, they’d all lose.

Jason’s fingers clenched the leather portfolio. But it was his grandfather’s fault this was happening. The old man had ignored Jason’s warnings about doing business with Powell Enterprises. They’d long had a reputation for cutting corners.

“My grandfather’s will is thirty days from being settled, actually. And we’re limping along after that lawsuit, Bill. Our reputation is in the toilet, and thanks to you, only Duncan Motors hasn’t left us. But I guess since you’re double-dipping and Duncan’s profits are fine, and you all end up with your pockets full, screw the people loyal to you, right?” He narrowed his eyes at Amanda. “You’d know a thing or two about that, right, Amanda?”

Amanda glared. “You ass—”

“You’re being emotional, Jason.” Chad lay a hand on Amanda’s and frowned. Chad gave him a shit-eating grin. “We’ve been friends for what, twenty years? You should take some mental health days. I know you’re grieving right now, but this isn’t the answer.”

Like you give a fuck about my mental health.

Jason almost laughed in Chad’s face. Instead, he walked out of the office without giving them the courtesy of a goodbye. The click of high heels behind him told him Amanda had followed. She had long legs—she was almost as tall as he was—and caught up within a few strides. “Where are you going?”

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and clicked on the messages. “TJ’s in my office. I have personal business to discuss with him.”

“Your business is my business,” she hissed, edging into his personal space. Her dark eyes blazed.

Jason looked meaningfully back in the direction they’d come. “Not anymore.” He arrived at the door to his office.

She stopped at the door and crossed her arms. “Making some big assumptions by moving into your grandfather’s office already, aren’t you? You’re still CFO—nothing more. Don’t be surprised if you have no votes left to decide anything with this company.”

Damn the fact that she’d been there when the will was read. “Keep dreaming, Amanda.”

“I need to talk to you.”

He went inside, slamming the door in her face.

TJ sat at the desk, tennis shoes paired with slacks that went up too high on his legs. Superhero socks showed over his ankles. He was munching an apple noisily.

For good measure, Jason locked the door. “What did you find?” He stalked across the room to his desk, tossing the portfolio down on the top. “Your text was less than clear.”

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, TJ said, “The ‘inconvenience.’”

Right now, it was TJ who was being inconvenient with his cryptic vagueness. Jason scowled and opened a desk drawer. “I pay you to make my life easy. Not for rounds of twenty questions.”

“You don’t pay me nearly enough.” TJ looked bored. “Considering what I found out, my price just increased.”

His head snapped up. He leveled his gaze with TJ’s grin, which vanished as he saw Jason’s murderous expression. “You have about ten seconds before you lose my attention entirely. I didn’t come into the office today to waste time.”

His lips twitched. Jason should feel bad. It wasn’t TJ’s fault his proposal to Bill Powell had gone south. But he didn’t feel bad. TJ wasn’t his colleague. Or friend, even if they got along well. TJ was hired to do a job and paid handsomely for his discretion. End of story.

TJ waited for a beat, as though expecting him to return to a more normal rapport. He bit into the apple again. “I found your brother’s ex-girlfriend. And his little bastard kid. Took some digging. Apparently, your brother was using the last name Connor at the time he was with her.”

Jason shifted his gaze back to the desk, not wanting to show a reaction to his words. The worst likely scenario. Goddammit, Kevin.

He slid his laptop into its case, even though he wasn’t planning on leaving. He zipped up the case forcefully and set it on his desk. When he returned a cool gaze to TJ, he hoped it looked as emotionally unattached as he could. “Then there is a kid.”

“She gave the baby her last name . . . Klein. There’s always a chance it’s not his. But look at the photos.” TJ slid the file over the surface of the desk.

Jason caught the file before it fell off the desk. This time, he didn’t hide his annoyance with TJ. He glared. Thumbing the file open, a few photographs came into view. A little boy, no older than three or four, holding the hand of a woman who faced the other way. Same light blond hair, same piercing blue eyes.

He looked just like Kevin.

Jason’s chest squeezed, then he killed the emotion before it could develop further.

The blue eyes were the only thing the Cavanaugh brothers had in common. With dark hair, Jason was the black sheep of the Cavanaugh gene pool. In more ways than one. But not this kid. This kid looked like he had come straight from Thomas Cavanaugh’s loins himself.

He could almost hear his grandfather’s cackle on his deathbed.

“You won’t get a cent from me if there’s another Cavanaugh heir. Not one cent.”

And he’d made good on his promise. The will stipulated that if any other direct descendants came forward, they’d get it all. Everything. Worst of all, if the heir was Kevin’s child and a minor, his grandfather had named the CEO of Cavanaugh Metals as the manager of the inheritance trust until the kid came of age—a safeguard to ensure the kid would get the money and Jason wouldn’t take it. Another slap in the face.

Jason’s eyes narrowed at the picture. This kid wasn’t his nephew. Wasn’t Kevin’s son. He was nothing more than a broken condom. And a giant obstacle in the way of hundreds of millions of dollars and any say Jason had in what happened to Cavanaugh Metals.

His fist tightened on the edge of the desk, the rage he’d been holding back since his grandfather’s lawyer had read the will uncurling into his chest and throat. He didn’t look at TJ. Instead, he focused on the smile on that little child’s face. The back of the woman who could take it all away. She was slender with long blond hair. In the next photo, she’d turned her face.

Pretty, even.

Not that pretty fooled him these days.

As though some random bitch had ever dealt with the shit Jason had. Kevin had walked away and left him to handle the fallout. When Kevin had turned up homeless and dead from an overdose on the streets of Chicago, their grandfather had somehow blamed Jason for that, too.

And even though Jason had carried the weight and been by his grandfather’s side until his death, the old man had still effectively disinherited him.

Jason straightened. “This woman doesn’t know about my grandfather, though, does she?” He flipped the portfolio closed, too sick to look at the pictures any further. If she did, she probably would have found them. Few people would pass up an opportunity at millions.

“I don’t know what she knows. But I’m not the only one who’s looking. Thanks to Amanda, the Powells are on the hunt to see where Kevin was all those years, too. And they assigned Ned Vickers to investigate.”

“Should I be worried?” Jason had to trust TJ would shoot him straight. “How did you find him?”

“Kevin did a decent job covering his tracks. The chances of Ned finding him are slim. I found an old, almost unreadable receipt in Kevin’s wallet that you turned over to me, and that helped me get in the general vicinity. Ned won’t have that advantage. But you never know—he’s smart and been doing this longer than I have.”

“If another eligible heir hasn’t come forward after ninety days, it’s all yours,” his lawyer had said. Just thirty days left. It had taken TJ two months to find this kid. How long would it take Ned Vickers?

Jason checked his watch. It was barely noon, but this type of news required a drink. He crossed the large office toward the small table beside the windows. They gave him a panoramic view of Chicago. Jason barely stopped to look. Pouring himself a glass of whiskey, he swallowed it, feeling the burn down his throat. “Where did you find this woman? Somewhere they’ll look?”

TJ leaned back on the edge of Jason’s desk. “Brandywood. Some sort of hole-in-the-wall town in the mountains of Western Maryland near Deep Creek Lake. I’d never heard of it.”

Jason froze. His fingers curled over the smooth surface of the glass. Kevin had been hiding in plain sight. For how long?

This time, Kevin had screwed him over worse than ever. And not just him. If Jason lost control of the company, it would be only a matter of time until all those employees he’d known for years lost their jobs, too.

Jason turned his back to the window, facing TJ. Rage boiled in his stomach. “I have. And it means there’s a good chance we’re not the only ones who know about this kid.”