Page 51 of Two of a Kind

“Mrs. Davidson. I’m looking for Kayla. Is she here?”

Kayla’s mother looked him up and down, her expression unreadable. “No.”

“Can you tell me when you expect her to return?”

“I don’t imagine she’ll be much longer.”

“I need to speak with her. May I come in and wait?”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Dumas. It would violate the terms of the agreement.”

Spencer cursed under his breath. Any hope, however slim, that his father had been bluffing died a quick and painful death.

“I only want what’s best for my daughter, Mr. Dumas. I’m sure you understand.”

More accurately, what’s best for you, Spencer thought.

Patricia Coxton-Jennings-O’Connell-Davidson had the parenting instincts of a pit viper. She and his father would get along famously. Thank God Kayla was nothing like her mother.

And he was nothing like his father.

“Mrs. Davidson, where is Kayla now?”

Her eyes glistened, and her lips curled upward in a greedy smile. “Why, at Dumas Industries, of course.”

Chapter Thirty

Kayla got back intoher car and drove through Pine Ridge to the Corporate Headquarters of Dumas Industries.

As the attractive receptionist was explaining yet again how seeing Mr. Dumas was impossible without an appointment, a swarthy, muscular man in an expensive, dark suit came over and spoke quietly into the woman’s ear.

Kayla pegged him immediately as a member of security, and prepared herself for an escort right out the front door.

“Come with me, please, Ms. O’Connell,” the guard said.

To her surprise, however, she was not led toward the exit, but to the bank of gleaming elevators beyond the lobby. “Mr. Dumas wishes to see you in his office,” the man said by way of explanation.