CHAPTER 2

Jake Williams attempted to concentrate on the reports stacked on the Louis XIV desk. There wasn’t enough room on the wimpy desk to spread out, Jake decided, riffling through the papers as he searched for the report he’d seen earlier. Which one was it? He racked his brain, but nothing registered.

“Aw, hell. That’s jet lag for you.”

Unable to locate the troubling document, he glanced around the room, taking in the gilt furniture and drawn brocade drapes. Beams of light from the crystal chandelier played across the highly buffed parquet floors.

“It’s a long way from the Redneck Riviera to the French Riviera,” he said out loud.

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out the company’s opulent town house in Monte Carlo. It was a stretch from Mobile, Alabama, and the sweeping, picturesque bay Southerners fondly called the Redneck Riviera. Jake had grown up in a trailer park across the street from Mobile’s commercial fishing docks.

He lived for boats and the sea the way most young boys lived for sports. Before he was eight, Jake was earning money shucking oysters in a steamy shed behind the wharf where no one would see him and report the situation to Social Services. By the time he was a teenager, he was skippering sport fishing boats for the rich men from the North who spent a fortune on yachts and fancy tackle just to catch “the big one.”

Jake’s life was totally different now, but the lure of the catch, the challenge of the sea, was in his blood.

Exhausted, Jake kept his eyes shut and let his mind drift back to the warm summer days on Mobile Bay. He could almost hear the workers on the wharf as the fishermen returned, flying special flags to announce their catch. A black fish on a small white flag hoisted from a boat brought the loudest cheers.

“Must be black grouper,” Jake said to himself as the noise grew louder.

He opened his eyes and shook his head, realizing where he was and mumbling, “Jet lag.”

Two days ago he’d flown back from Patagonia through Ecuador to New Orleans, where he’d stopped long enough to pick up clean clothes and collect his papers before flying on to Monte Carlo. His body must not have adjusted, and he was imagining things. It was past midnight in Monte Carlo. For damn sure, he couldn’t hear shouting from Mobile’s wharf. He’d left there over eight years ago and seldom looked back—except in his dreams.

Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, he reminded himself the meeting tomorrow morning was too important not to be in top form. Rising to go to bed, he stopped. He wasn’t imagining the noise. It was very real and getting much louder. Not shouts, he decided, but chanting.

“What the—”

“Saturday night fever,” answered a voice from across the room.

He turned and saw his assistant, Troy Chevalier, emerging from another section of the town house. Troy swung back the drapes and opened the French doors onto the balcony. Strange noise, a cross between Rap and a Gregorian chant, burst into the room. Jake walked over to the balcony, curiosity getting the better of fatigue.

The narrow street two floors below was dark, lit only by antique gas lamps that cast dim amber shadows across the uneven cobblestones. It was enough light to see a long, serpentine chain of skaters racing down the street, singing in French.

“A Conga line?” Jake asked. “Of Rollerbladers?”

“No, nothing old-fashioned like a Conga line. It’s the latest craze. It started in Paris, where else?”

Jake nodded slowly, watching the seemingly endless chain of people—young and old—skate by single file, their hands on the hips of the person in front of them. Troy Chevalier was a Frenchman who had been raised in Paris and spoke several languages fluently. From his point of view, the world centered around the French capital.

Jake and Troy had stayed with Troy’s wealthy parents in Paris. They’d had a blast. Parties. Another seven-course meal every time you turned around. Jake preferred the outdoors for his vacations, but he had to admit the Chevaliers’ lifestyle was seductive.

French women were knockouts, but as far as Jake was concerned, French men were prissy wimps who resented anything that wasn’t French. Let Troy kiss up to the frogs. Jake would put his money on a good old boy any day.

Despite his fondness for the French, Troy was a standup guy in Jake’s book. TriTech was a complex company, its deals so friggin’ complicated that it took a team of attorneys and accountants to sort them out. Jake had been through the school of hard knocks while Troy had graduated from the London School of Economics. His advice had made it possible for Jake to successfully run TriTech.

“In Paris,” Troy continued, his voice low, “they call this Saturday Night Fever. Some radio announcer tells everyone where to assemble at eleven o’clock each Saturday night. The meeting place changes so the police can’t shut it down, but the routine is the same. Put on your rollerblades and skate your way through the city, singing at the top of your lungs. I guess the craze has spread to Monte Carlo.”

“What next?” Jake turned away, the surge of adrenaline leaving his body. “I’m going to hit the sack.”

From his room, Jake could see the boats in the harbor, swaying on the rising tide. He walked into the bathroom. “Rich people have yachts. Poor people have boats.”

Gleaming in the moonlight, yachts, moored by the dozens, stood for megabucks. Money was only a way of keeping score in a rich man’s game, he reminded himself. In the end, it didn’t mean squat. Still, he enjoyed playing the game. It was a challenge—even more of a rush than catching “the big one.”

Toothbrush in hand, he swiped at his teeth and gazed into the mirror. Were those puffy slits his dark brown eyes? When was the last time he’d shaved? A jaw grizzled with an emerging beard made his dark hair appear even more unruly. He looked as wild as he had been once—before his father reappeared in his life.

If he didn’t get some sleep, Jake was going to be worthless when he went out to the Swiss venture capitalist’s yacht to pitch his new project. Suddenly, he remembered he needed to ask Troy an important question.

Christ! Was he losing it? At thirty-three it was too early for his mind to be slipping, but who knew? His life was proof positive anything could happen.

He walked back into the living area of the town house, where chanting filled the room. The noise seemed to be tapering off. Troy was still out on the balcony, gazing down at the revelers.

“I need to ask you about an acquisition Clay Duvall made while I was in Patagonia.”

Troy turned slowly, seemingly reluctant to take his eyes off the chain of skaters. Jake saw the end was in sight now. A few stranglers were madly lurching over the uneven pavement to grab the last person in line.

“Is there a problem? You authorized Duvall to purchase small companies that fit TriTech’s criteria.”

“Right.” Jake didn’t have to add he’d given Clay Duvall this latitude, in effect making him a minor partner, to gain control of Duvall Enterprises. Troy knew as much about TriTech as anyone, even its founder, Jake’s father, Max Williams. Troy understood how uncomfortable Jake was with an outsider like Clay Duvall.

Troy continued, “Duvall didn’t exceed his limit. It was a cheap acquisition compared to what TriTech usually does.”

“Just what is Rossi Designs?”

Troy turned, his thin face appearing even narrower in the dusky light. His receding blond hair made his dark eyes seem larger. “Rossi Designs manufactures costume jewelry.”

“Costume jewelry?” Jake echoed, dead certain jet lag was making him wacko. “Earrings and bracelets and … stuff?”

“Also pins and necklaces and—”

“Aw, crap! Tell me you’re kidding!”

“Don’t you wish.”

There weren’t many men who dared joke with Jake. He took life and the role that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon him with total seriousness, but he had a wry sense of humor that people often misunderstood. Troy had been set to leave the company eight years ago when Max Williams unexpectedly produced his long-lost son and gradually began to turn the company over to his heir.

Jake had tripled Troy’s salary and convinced him to stay. He’d never regretted his decision. Jake was unseasoned, but he’d learned quickly and had taken the company into the new millennium in ways that Troy found challenging and exciting.

“Why? Costume jewelry doesn’t fit our profile.” Jake dropped into an antique chair that hadn’t been made to handle his six-foot-plus frame. “What was Duvall thinking?”

“You said to give Duvall some latitude, to make him feel part of TriTech, so I didn’t question his reason for buying Rossi Designs.” Troy took the chair opposite his boss. “Alyssa Rossi, the founder of the company, has quite a track record for innovative jewelry.”

“I don’t give a sh—” Jake stopped himself. There was no sense cursing at Troy. It had been Max’s idea to bring Clay Duvall into the company. It remained to be seen if this was one of his father’s better plans. “A jewelry manufacturer doesn’t fit our mix.”

“You wanted a diversified group of companies, not just tech businesses.”

“True.” Jake threw his head back and stared up at the domed ceiling where a bunch of bare-assed angels were laughing down at him from behind banks of fluffy pink clouds. “I want solid companies with good management.”

“Alyssa Rossi built her company from nothing.”

“It’s still a fashion business.” He lowered his gaze and looked at his right-hand man. “You know women. They can never make up their minds what they want. One day it’s one thing. The next day something else is in style. Rossi may be hot now, but for how long?”

“Long enough to make our investment profitable.”

Something clicked in the back of Jake’s mind, and he mentally switched gears. The report he’d been trying to find, the reason he’d gotten out of bed. “Did I see a report about the reallocation of space at corporate headquarters?”

“Probably. It was among the papers we brought from New Orleans for you to check over.”

“Why is the Bridwell Group’s space being downsized? What are we doing with the empty offices?”

Troy hesitated a second as if he already knew Jake wasn’t going to like the answer. “We sold off more than half of Bridwell’s unprofitable ventures, remember? Rossi Designs is moving into the empty space.”

“Why can’t they stay in Italy where they are now?”

“It was your idea to consolidate all of TriTech’s companies in one location,” Troy reminded him. “It makes good business sense. Rossi is using the capital from the acquisition to expand into the American market. It’s better if they’re in the States.”

“Was the move Duvall’s idea?”

“Yes. He ran it by me and I agreed.” Jake stood up and walked over to the open doors to the balcony. The night air was cool with a slight tang of salt drifting in from the sea, and it was quiet now. Taking a deep, calming breath, he thought about Clay Duvall.

Sandy hair, a square jaw. Better looking than most male models. Women found Clay charming. To Jake it meant Duvall smiled more than necessary and had a subtly bored nonchalance as if he had somewhere more important to be. Why women flipped for Clay was a mystery to Jake. But then, a guy could go crazy trying to figure out women.

Clay Duvall looked like a million dollars because that was his yearly clothing budget. Okay, okay, maybe a mil was high, but Jake believed Duvall spent way too much time looking in the mirror. And entertaining in his mansion on Audubon Street, the ritziest part of New Orleans. The pretty boy had coasted through life on money his ancestors had earned.

Watch yourself. It’s not a bright idea to underestimate a man who acts and looks like just another hunk from the pages of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Especially when he’s after your job.

Not that Duvall had ever mentioned one thing about taking over TriTech. But sometimes Jake had a feeling the boys on the dock in Mobile would have called “hinky.” Not right.

Max had convinced Jake that they needed the Duvall family’s connections as well as their lucrative importing firm. Jake had listened to his father because Max had started the company in a warehouse and built it into a multimillion-dollar corporation.

Still, Jake didn’t like this acquisition one damn bit.

“What do we know about the Rossi woman?” Jake asked, already angling to figure out a way of dumping her design company.

“Not much,” Troy responded. “Do you want Sanchez to check her out?”

Jake had planned to call the investigator TriTech often used himself. Delegate. His father’s words echoed in his mind. Delegating is the only way to run a big company like TriTech. You can’t be everywhere all the time.

“Yes. I want to know everything there is to know about Alyssa Rossi. Everything.”

Three days later, Jake left Monte Carlo and flew to Florence. He’d accepted the venture capitalist’s invitation to spend the weekend at his villa in Tuscany. The villa wasn’t far from Florence, where Rossi Designs had their headquarters. Jake stopped in Florence first to check out the operation personally.

Duvall’s acquisition was barely a decimal point in TriTech’s bottom line. It shouldn’t bother Jake, but every time he thought about it, a fist-like knot clenched in his gut. He suspected Duvall had deliberately made the deal while Jake was out of the country so he wouldn’t have to discuss it with him.

Why?

Jake didn’t have an answer, so he forced himself to think more positively. He had to admit he was pleased with himself. TriTech was moving to another plane. Centered in the South, he’d continually broadened the company’s base of operations. No question about it, the world was going global, and he refused to be left behind.

One of the benefits of the technological age was that TriTech’s headquarters could be anywhere, not just New York or Silicon Valley. Max Williams wanted to keep TriTech in New Orleans where he “belonged.”

Now there was a joke. Jake’s father had been an Okie. Nothing—not even millions of dollars and a fancy home near Tulane—was going to make him a New Orleans blue blood.

Jake didn’t give a rat’s ass about society, but he was crazy about the business world. Making deals gave him a high like nothing else except being at sea during a hurricane. Even now, almost nine years since his father had suddenly reappeared in his life, Jake couldn’t believe how his world had changed—thanks to Max. If his father wanted to keep TriTech in New Orleans, Jake wasn’t going to complain.

Beep-beep! Beep-beep! The shrill horn of one of thousands of noisy motor scooters clogging Florence’s streets warned him not to step off the curb. Jake’s death wish days were over. He stayed on the sidewalk and checked the address he’d been given for Rossi Designs. He must have walked by it while he’d been absorbed in thought.

Via Cimatori was yet another narrow street twisting through the old part of Florence. He doubled back, looking for numbers, which were nonexistent or hard to find. Number twenty-one must be up the narrow passageway between the two ancient buildings across the street. He looked both ways, then stepped off the curb and into the path of a car barreling around the corner.

“Vaffanculo!” Screw yourself! he yelled to the taxi driver, who seemed to think he was on a Le Mans course instead of a busy street that would have been a back alley anywhere in America.

The walkway between the buildings was dark and barely wide enough for two people to pass. This couldn’t be it, he assured himself. Ferragamo, Ermenegildo Zegna, Armani, and other fashion names he recognized had shops nearby. Nothing out-of-the-way or hard-to-find.

He was turning around, when the sound of excited women’s voices stopped him. It was coming from the far end of the passageway. He kept walking, rounding a turn in the walkway, where he came upon a small courtyard.

“Just like the French Quarter,” he mumbled to himself.

When he’d moved to New Orleans, Jake had become acquainted with the hidden courtyards concealed from the street by high walls or nearly inaccessible passageways. This fan-shaped courtyard was shaded by a gnarled olive tree whose branches strained upward, seeking sunlight from the swatch of sky between the tall buildings. On a square of grass sat a marble bench flanked by immaculately clipped topiary trees.

Three arched doorways opened onto the courtyard. Two were closed while the third was wide open and women’s voices were drifting out into the courtyard. The sign above the door said: ROSSI DISEGNOS. Rossi Designs.

“How did Duvall find this freaking company?” Jake whispered to himself.

He walked inside, planning on how he could dump this loser without alienating Clay Duvall. Not that he cared, but his father was obsessed with the Duvalls and was counting on their connections to bolster his plan to run for the Senate. In preparation, Max intended to adopt New Orleans’ genteel life. What a crock! But okay, that’s what his old man wanted. Let Max have his fun.

Inside, the shop was much larger than it had appeared. Apparently Rossi Designs had expanded into the shops on either side. The doors facing the courtyard were permanently shut, and display cases had been constructed in front of them. At least a dozen women were pawing through jewelry in trays built into the glass cases.

A quick glance around the place assured him most of the jewelry was funky stuff, nothing like the precious gems found in Italian shops like Bulgari. The women didn’t care. They were grabbing bracelets and necklaces and earrings and heaping them on the counter for the clerks to tally. That was his first clue he was in La-La Land. The next sidled up to him, all smiles.

“Isn’t this just fab?” A petite brunette sporting a chunky amber necklace and matching earrings flitted her eyelashes at him.

What she was really showing him was a set of breasts too big to be original equipment. “They have your name on them,” he agreed, moving away.

He was accustomed to women flirting with him now. He wasn’t handsome, far from it. But the years with his father had given him confidence and the money to buy clothes to make him look like a former pro ball player instead of the boat captain he’d been in the days before Max had careened back into his life.

He surveyed the shop once more, wondering if it was even worth his time to ask to speak to Alyssa Rossi. The clerks were swamped and she probably wasn’t even here.

Through the partially open door to the back room, a movement caught his attention. He twisted his way between a trio of New Yorkers who were trying on clusters of starburst beads in bubble gum pink. Women would buy anything, he decided as he peered into the back room.

A tall blonde in jeans and a pale blue shirt with cuffs rolled up to the elbow had her back to him. She was pulling files from a cabinet and packing them in a cardboard moving box. She turned, her profile coming into view.

Man, oh, man. He’d know that drop-dead gorgeous face anywhere.

Phoebe Duvall.

So that’s why Clay had bought this company. For his wife. The jerk had his nerve! It pissed off Jake big-time. Let Clay buy his wife expensive toys with his own money.

The blonde turned and looked at him with an unwavering stare. There wasn’t any indication she recognized him even though he’d met her numerous times when he’d been negotiating to purchase Duvall Enterprises. They’d been out to dinner, and she’d come on to him more than once.

Phoebe wasn’t his type—not at all. He had an aversion to snobby women even if they were knock-outs. Give him a woman in cutoffs who would be happy to sit on the dock and eat shrimp with her fingers.

The blonde turned back to the file cabinet and continued packing. Jake angled his shoulders to the side so he could wend his way through the women trying on jewelry. Closer now, he looked again at the blonde.

Suddenly it struck him that the woman wasn’t Phoebe Duvall, but she looked amazingly like her. Jake recalled what Phoebe had told him about her family. She had an older brother—no sister.

“Who’s that?” Jake asked the nearest clerk, tilting his head toward the office.

“Signorina Rossi.”

Alyssa Rossi. No way! The woman was a dead ringer for Clay Duvall’s wife, Phoebe. Duvall must be crazy. No, Jake assured himself, his street-smarts kicking in big-time Clay Duvall was about as calculating as they came, but he wasn’t pulling a fast one on Jake.