Chapter 1

Three months later

Carol, Priscilla's executive assistant, walked into Priscilla's office, carrying the contracts her boss would need to sign at this afternoon's meeting. As usual, the fifty-three-year-old woman was dressed very smartly, and seemed formidable with her obviously competent and intelligent air.

She laid the contracts on the desk in the spot Priscilla preferred such things to be laid. Priscilla never understood individuals who had messy desktops, with towering stacks of paper, and file folders strewn all over it. It wasn't that she was a certifiably chronic neat freak. In fact, if she didn't have an army of assistants both here at the Kroyn Tower and at home, she was certain she would have trouble locating so much as her hair dryer.

But to her, this desk was like a chessboard, and anything placed on it was one of the pieces she used in the never-ending daily matches in a game called Mergers and Acquisitions.

"You have the Rahman meeting at three o'clock," Carol said, not referring to anything like a diary or a tablet because Carol never needed to refer to anything like a diary or a tablet. "Then tennis with Ms. Pangburn at four."

Priscilla nodded, checking the time on her watch and then tucking a loose strand of her red hair behind her ear.

"Right," she said, blowing out a breath. It was 11:37 a.m. She stood up. "I think I'll be back late from lunch today. I feel like stopping by the museum. It'll clear my head before that Rahman meeting."

"Very well, Ms. Kroyn," Carol said. "I'll have your car waiting for you downstairs."

Priscilla came around her desk and walked to the 18th century coat rack that had once belonged to Benjamin Franklin. She took the light jacket she had worn to work today off it.

"Forget the car," she instructed. "I feel like walking. Just tell Gordon where I'm going, and have him wait for me nearby just in case. Have Stefan and Hans meet me in the lobby." She held up one of her feet. "See? I even wore proper shoes for it, so you wouldn't chastise me for doing all of that walking in heels."

Even at forty-two, Priscilla enjoyed wearing high heels. Already tall at 5'10", heels bumped her up past six feet and she liked the added height. It had very little to do with creating an image of power, however.

She was Priscilla Kroyn. She would be considered powerful even if she was only 5'3". Especially in this Frank Gehry-designed building…which she owned.

No, what she liked was that high heels made her feel sexy…in a very unsexy job that was all about numbers.

However, lately—for the past three months—she had been subtly changing her professional attire. Sure, pencil skirts and heels were still the norm, but over the past twelve weeks she had also been wearing more slacks and dressy loafers—very reminiscent of Diane Keaton in a handful of Woody Allen movies.

Case in point: today.

Today she was a vision in black, wearing palazzo-style slacks with very wide and billowy legs, along with chunky-soled black Ferragamo loafers. Up top, she had on a black, long-sleeved sweater that was suitable for the boardroom, but also for an elegant lunch out. It was an outfit she looked terrific in, but it was also an outfit that wasn't…memorable. For good reason.

"Oh, do me a favor," she said as she was putting on her jacket. She pointed at the sofa. "I stupidly brought my tennis bag up with me when I came in this morning. Would you please give it to Gordon now and have him keep it in the back seat of the car, not the trunk? There are some papers in there that I want to go over during the drive to the club later."

"Of course," Carol told her, stepping over to the sofa to retrieve the large Adidas duffel bag.

"And hold all calls," Priscilla added.

It was Thursday, which meant this was the one day a week she allotted for having lunch by herself, peacefully. She didn't want to be disturbed with any business matters while she was eating, and then later while at the museum. Being able to disconnect herself from work like this—though rare—was one of the reasons she had a battalion of highly paid lawyers and contract specialists working for her. If anything came up over the next two hours, they could deal with it. It was a suggestion that had been made a long time ago by her therapist, and it had paid dividends with her mental health.

After riding her private elevator down to the lobby, she nodded to Hans and Stefan, her bodyguards, who were waiting for her. They were two enormous men who dwarfed her, even when she wore high heels. They began following her at a discreet distance as she exited her building and walked across the street to the corner pizzeria. Thursday was also the day she allotted for eating whatever the hell she wanted. Maintaining her figure had gotten more difficult once she had aged north of thirty-five, but the way she figured it, if she couldn't indulge in Life's little pleasures—no matter how many calories they had—then what was the point of living?

Pizza here in California was—on the whole—not nearly as good as pizza in New York, but this joint came very close. That was why, two years ago, when she had learned from Carmine, the proprietor, that he might have to relocate his business—to Chula Vista of all places—because the owner of the building was raising his rent, Priscilla not only bought the building, but also lowered Carmine's rent. This was her favorite pizza joint. She wanted it to stay right where it was.

"Ah, Ms. Kroyn!" Carmine greeted her when she and her guards walked in. He always kept a lookout for her on Thursdays. His little restaurant was busy with the lunch crowd—a mix of local residents and tourists—dressed in typical San Diego casual wear—and professionals, many of whom, she knew, worked in the Kroyn Tower.

No matter how many times Priscilla had told Carmine to call her…well, Priscilla, he never succumbed to the honor. She figured he was probably afraid to get too familiar with the woman who had saved his livelihood.

Carmine started talking rapidly to one of his grown sons who was also behind the counter. All of Carmine's kids worked here—two sons and two daughters. The son Carmine had just spoken to opened the pizza oven and quickly removed two slices, one plain, the other with pepperoni. The slices were then wrapped in foil and placed in a brown paper bag. Carmine had mastered the art of anticipating her arrival so he could have her order ready and in her hands moments after she walked in.

Along with the pizza, she chose a can of cream soda to wash her food down with because Thursday was not only the day she could eat whatever the hell she wanted, it was the day she could drink whatever the hell she wanted.

She didn't buy any food for Hans or Stefan. The corps of bodyguards who protected her arranged things among themselves so that whoever was on duty at lunchtime had already eaten, because guards who are busy eating are not busy guarding.

As usual, there were people waiting to be served who gave her a bit of side-eye at how she was able to walk in and have her order handed to her without saying a word, in about thirty seconds. Quite frankly, she would have been content to stand in line and wait, but Carmine was just too solicitous. She couldn't even get him to call her by her first name, so she knew she had zero chance of getting him to treat her like a normal customer.

Well, be that as it may…but as a woman who understood more than most the importance of money, she always insisted he allow her to pay, and so once she had her lunch in one hand, she handed him a twenty-dollar bill with the other—far overpaying—thanked him, and left the restaurant.

Her timing was perfect. A lull in traffic on busy Sixth Avenue allowed her and the bodyguards to jaywalk across the street, without having to wait for the light. On the east side of Sixth, she then entered Balboa Park, using a footpath to make her way to a bench near the dog park. She enjoyed watching the dogs play in the fenced-in area as she ate.

Pets weren't her thing. Besides, when would she have time to pay any attention to them? She was a busy woman, both in and out of the office. A dog would end up forming more of an attachment to Madeline—the Carol of her home—than to her.

So, she sat on the bench, watching the dogs and eating her lunch, while Hans and Stefan stood away from her, giving her the buffer zone she required.

At 12:10 p.m., she felt her cellphone vibrate in her slacks pocket with a silent alarm she had set this morning.

Very casually, she glanced towards Sixth Avenue, and saw a small white van with lettering on its sides driving north. The corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

Right on time…