Page 2 of Vicious Kingdom (Dynasty of Queens #3)

T he only redeeming quality about the Providence Club was that one could reach it by water. Unfortunately for me, my favorite speedboat was docked at the marina. I’d had a board meeting that went late, so driving down here was the only option.

I wouldn’t have come at all if the widow for Lawson Oil hadn’t offered dinner.

Which I reduced to cocktails. Mine sat empty on the table in front of me, and my fingers itched to signal the waiter for another.

Instead of drinking on the patio, however, Mrs. Lawson insisted we drink at a table in the lodge’s steakhouse with a view of the lake.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. If she came back from the bathroom and suggested dinner, it would be hard to negotiate out of the offer.

I’d dropped several hints already that I was pressed for time, but to a woman who’d spent her life fluttering around society, spending her husband’s money, and never doing a day’s work in her long life, she wasn’t easily dismayed.

“Baldwin!” a voice called out from across the restaurant.

I turned in my seat, narrowing my gaze at the media mogul. What this man lacked in tact, he made up for in business practice. There was no buying his company…not for want of trying.

The stodgy man scuttled through the tables while his wife disappeared behind the half-wall, on her way to the lodge’s lower level where an indoor bar made patrons feel plebian but one step outside onto the patio brought back the luxurious feeling of class.

“Good evening,” I said coolly.

“It is,” he smirked. “Just thought I’d say hello to a fellow journalist.”

I owned one media company. After buying it, and after the long process to rebrand it into Blitz News, I’d made the executive decision not to sell. Keeping a source where we could publish our narrative was vital to my family’s bigger picture.

But I had more potential to be a nun than a journalist.

“Your piece on the international conflict was most unfortunate. You should really visit places before you publish such strong opinions.”

I stared at the man in front of me. No, it wasn’t a joke. Alfred Hertz was critiquing the work my company produced.

The bastard.

I nearly bought his company once. Before I discovered the woman I was mad for was his daughter.

My fingers curled involuntarily around my napkin. Thinking of that woman had a way of inciting a fury that could barely be controlled.

“I stand behind the pieces my journalists write. They do their research, and their op-eds are based in fact.” My answer packed a warning.

“But visiting a place lends a priceless validity,” Hertz insisted.

“Lies can be spun regardless of the writer seeing the situation firsthand,” I countered.

“Well, perhaps your board of directors needs to have a better handle on what they publish. If you’d like, I can recommend some individuals to shore up your leadership,” Hertz lisped.

My chair scraped across the worn oak floor as I rose. “There are no job openings.”

I strode past him. Baldwin Acquisitions—the company I ran the day-to-day activities of—oversaw many other companies.

Each had good men and women managing them, so I didn’t have to be involved in their business.

I relied on my people and rarely had to interfere.

The intricate structure of trusts owning holding corporations, which in turn had operating corporations, was a web a pee-brain like Hertz couldn’t even fathom.

Mrs. Lawson smiled pleasantly as she lingered near the hostess stand. “That was…entertaining.”

I hmphed. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“Oh, I took the valet.” She fell into step beside me.

I made to take a right to the main entrance, but a click of her tongue told me we were going toward the opposite direction.

Kill me now.

Of course she parked on the lower level. Which meant we had to go downstairs, across the patio, and down the stairs to the waterfall seating area. Perhaps that was as far as she would expect my gentlemanly behavior to take her, and I wouldn’t have to walk the whole length to the valet booth.

We chatted about a few upcoming events. She was clearly fishing, wanting to know if I would be attending and making hints that her patronage of me at such society functions would be a laureate to her already premium title.

But it felt like insects crawled under my suit jacket.

This woman wanted husband number two. And at her age, a younger model no doubt held more appeal.

For the thousandth time, I envied my older brother ruling our empire from the shadows. Sacrificing my name and distancing myself from our family seemed such an easy price to pay as an eager lad. I willingly took the job of businessman, the front that we put in place to hide our less savory deals.

Yet living in the ivory tower was not all it was cracked up to be.

“And do you have any interest in attending the Midsummer’s Eve Ball?” Mrs. Lawson hedged.

The mating ritual put on by the matrons to match their children?

That was a hard pass. Every girl who attended expected a diamond the next day while their mothers prepped engagement announcements months in advance, leaving the area of the bachelor blank until their daughter found an escort to the prestigious event.

“I’ll be out of town,” I responded.

“Pity.” Mrs. Lawson clutched my forearm as we began to descend the stone steps.

A hard-working waiter balancing a tray of small bites shuffled behind us.

I paused to let the poor fellow head down the groups seated near the waterfall.

A flicker of envy shot through my heart.

How much simpler his life seemed. So long as he didn’t drop the tray, he had no other responsibilities at his job.

To give him room, I disentangled myself, slid my hands into my pockets where they were safe, and let Mrs. Lawson move in front of me.

Almost there.

Cazzo! Why did older women wear the most cloying perfumes on the market? It was poison compared to the fresh scent of pine and the blooming flowers strategically planted about the landscaping.

A rustle in the bushes down the main path to the lake caught my attention. From this vantage point, I peered into the gloom as the widow once again assured me that I would have the one and only thing I came here tonight to take.

It can’t be….

It was. There was only one creature in this mess of society who was crazy enough to crouch behind a bush instead of fluttering around the mass of peers upstairs.

I knew she was back in town….

I knew we would eventually run into one another at some function or another….

But here she was. Today was the day.

Feelings, violent and suffocating, tangled in my chest. Five years wasn’t long enough to bury the betrayal. She came into my life and made me feel things I swore didn’t exist, only for me to find out it was all a lie. No amount of time was long enough to erase the memory of being played.

Or to heal the wound in my chest.

It tore open now.

My feet seemed to float down the steps and across the main path. Mercifully, we stopped just before the bush. I didn’t think I could walk past and not glance her way.

Already, her presence was messing with my head.

Distracting me in the worst way! I found myself inadvertently manipulated into a game of golf.

I fucking hated golf. It was one thing I wasn’t good at, and I found the whole experience a waste of time.

Grinding my molars, I shifted. My hands fisted at my sides.

Mrs. Lawson leaned forward. Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. Oh, mio dio, she was laying it on thick. There was no way in hell I was kissing this cougar. It would be twice as hard removing her claws if she got a taste for blood.

But kissing someone in front of the little liar….

That could send a powerful message.

If it had been anyone else puckering their painted lips, I would have done it.

After bidding the widow goodnight, I focused on her retreating figure for a few heartbeats, trying and failing to calm my racing heart. I could escape upstairs. I should walk past the bushes. Leaving this area was the smart thing.

I have to face her eventually. Might as well get that over with.

“You can come out now, little spy,” I menaced. Whatever her game was, I wasn’t playing.

A soft gasp escaped the bushes. Petals fluttered.

“Fine, stay there like the silly little girl you are,” I snapped and took a purposeful step toward the lake.

A good swim would be just the thing to force my iron control over my wandering mind.

“Maybe I’m hiding from someone,” the voice, like a fresh rainfall after a sweltering day, murmured from the dark.

That sound still held a fucking power over me. My heart quaked in my chest.

Anna—Annaliese Hertz—unfolded from behind the bushes.

She’d filled out in the last few years. The plump lines of youth were all gone, and the soft curves of womanhood replaced them.

Her long legs stretched, bare feet tripping out of the woodchips.

She stood, adjusting the swath of fabric she was trying to pass off as a dress.

It clung to her tight little ass, and my dick swelled at the memory of seeing it naked and bare.

I stared at her. Emotions, raw and volatile, constricted in my chest. The urge to reach out, to fucking strangle her, was strong. I wanted to…reach for her. Pour my anger out on her. Lust infused with fury, until I didn’t trust myself to move.

Annaliese fidgeted with her shoes, not moving to put them back on her feet.

“You changed your hair.”

The moment I said it, I wished I could rip the observation out of existence. Noticing anything about her was bad enough, but admitting it—dio! What an idiot!

“Yeah, well, Mom said it should be long until I got married, so I lopped it off,” Anna said with a shaky laugh, running her fingers through the short style that didn’t reach her shoulders. “And then I colored it.”

I hated it. My fingers remembered all too well running through the silky strands.

I bet it’s still as soft. And the color looked great on her.

Mentally slapping myself, I stiffened. “Go away, little girl. You have no business running around down here in the dark.”

It was a low blow. She wasn’t a child. If memory served—and it did—she’d reached the quarter of a century mark now.

Anna pursed her lips. “My family pays the club dues, I have every right.”

I wasn’t having this petty argument. She was a spoilt child—selfish and manipulative. Some things time would never change no matter how old she was.

I brushed past her, going to the lake.

“Leonard!” Her voice was full of uncertainty. “Wait, please.”

I stopped. I didn’t turn around.

The soft pad of footfall sounded behind me.

I braced myself as she came around to stand in front of me. The scent of vanilla and oranges wafted past, stirring another bolt of heat in my veins.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. And that now—now that I’m back, and we’re going to run into one another, that we should talk,” she rambled. Her fingers worked the straps on her shoes.

“I don’t have time for children.” My words held a bite. That was good. I needed to be strong, to not let her see that she still held some strange power over me.

I would examine that phenomenon later so I could better plan to eradicate it from my system.

“Garh! I’m twenty-five, I’m not a child,” she insisted.

“Age has nothing to do with it.” I took a step forward, making her flinch. “Your actions dictate otherwise, little girl.”

Hurt flickered through the temptress’s eyes. The reaction in my chest was not good. But those terrible blue eyes were deceptive. I couldn’t fall prey to their charm. Not again.

Were they always so bright?

I pushed past her, bumping into her shoulder when she wouldn’t move and stalking down the path. The contact haunted me, even when I removed my suit jacket and hung it on a post at the dock.

The jarring ring of my cell was the only thing powerful enough to banish the turbulence swirling inside me.

“Kenneth,” I answered.

“The forensic accountant left,” my assistant informed me.

I worked my jaw back and forth. I should be at the office, and I would have been if wooing the company shares from the widow wasn’t extremely important for my next takeover.

“Well?” I demanded.

“He didn’t see anything in the files we gave him access to that would warrant the letter,” Kenneth explained.

I rubbed my forehead. That made little sense. Why would the IRS send me a letter, informing me that there was a discrepancy, if there wasn’t something wrong?

Not that there should have been in the first place.

My brother and I kept the books perfectly.

There was no digital trail linking our ill-gotten gains to the legitimate businesses.

I hired the best corporate accountants to manage our legal businesses.

And Sandro kept his accounts by hand in an old-fashioned ledger that was safely hidden away.

“He said not to worry; it was probably a mistake,” Kenneth added unhelpfully.

But my gut said otherwise. The IRS, while corrupt in its own right, as most government agencies were, didn’t waste their breath to make idle threats. If they had suspicions about my finances, there had to be a reason why.

“I’m on my way into the office,” I told my assistant.

I could almost hear Kenneth hold back his sigh. It was Friday night, and like every other good employee, the man deserved a break.

But I didn’t pay him to work bank hours.

“Should I order us some dinner, Mr. Baldwin?”

“Order for yourself.” My stomach pinched in protest. A little hunger would be good for me, give me the edge I needed. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

Grabbing my suit jacket, I retreated. However, instead of taking the main path, I cut through the heavily shaded lawn.

I was not chancing another run-in with my past.

Why did she have to look so beautiful?

Not that I noticed.