Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

And Jennifer knew that.

“It’s not a big project, Tony.”

She only called him that when she let those barriers down, and she only let those barriers down when she was convinced that he needed her.

He didn’t mind needing her. But he minded her feeling as if she needed to take care of him.

“It’s the thought that matters, Jenny. You told me that a lot when I messed up the cards I made you. You insist on handmade cards.”

“You have the choice of not giving me any.”

“That’s not an option.”

He heard the hesitation in the air before she finally spoke again.

“Tony, I can stay back a few more days. I can sort this out.”

Anthony considered it. He was ashamed of himself, really, for considering it.

But he reached the conclusion that Jennifer knew he would reach.

“It’s fine. I will stay. You can take care of business back at the headquarters. I can sort out this little mess, and then we can have somebody transferred here to run the business. Somebody like James should be able to handle it.”

By then.

Both Jennifer and Anthony knew by that expression just what Anthony meant to do. He meant to bury the competition.

No, he wouldn’t even dignify Richard Sanders with the title of competition. He wasn’t competition. He was nothing and nobody.

“So you’re staying.”

Anthony nodded.

He had made up his mind, and Jennifer knew it. She knew him well enough to know that.

She knew him better than anybody else did.

Jennifer sighed.

“All right. Well, you’ll have somebody coming in tomorrow. She seems very competent.”

“Seems?”

Anthony was amused. Jennifer never hired anybody who only seemed confident.

“No, not just seems. You have her profile in both your box and your inbox.”

Anthony smiled.

“Ah, this is the Della Simone we’re talking about.”

Jennifer nodded.

“Retirement age, but still very sharp and wants to work. An excellent background as a secretary and assistant. A different time and a different background, and she would be the boss with the legion of assistants, not one of the assistants. She comes with excellent references.”

Anthony nodded.

“Is she as good as you are, Jennifer?”

He’d meant that teasingly, but he was surprised when Jennifer hesitated.

“I think she might be close. She is sharp, and she has an instinct for knowing what questions to ask, and what questions not to answer. It’s something you need to be a good assistant. She’s excellent. You could do far worse than her.”

“Well, that is high praise indeed, Jenny. I don’t think you’ve ever spoken so approvingly of anybody you’ve hired.”

Jenny’s lips curved in a little smile.

“Maybe I’m projecting. She reminds me of myself, a little bit, if my life had been different. Well, I should make arrangements if we’re changing our plans now.”

Anthony chuckled.

“Don’t give me that, Jenny. You’ve made all the arrangements already. You knew this was coming.”

Anthony liked how he could make Jenny grin and look twenty years younger. She looked ten years younger ever when she frowned, but when she grinned like that, he could imagine the heartbreaker she’d been as a teenager.

“Maybe I did, but it wouldn’t do to let you take me for granted, would it? One of these days, I’m going to hire you a pretty secretary you can fall in love with and get married to and have lots of babies with, Tony.”

Anthony laughed again. Jennifer had started that speech eight years ago, when he’d turned thirty, but she hadn’t really meant it. For the last three years, she’d really meant it.

But she hadn’t done it yet, and for that he was grateful.

“I’ll marry when I find a woman I can admire as much as I admire you, Jenny.”

“Young rascal. You’ll have to do it sometime. You need an heir, if nothing else.”

It was a sly dig.

He knew that, and so did she. He didn’t mind. They both knew that it was true enough. He did need an heir.

What was the point of becoming a billionaire if you didn’t leave a legacy, and somebody to carry on that legacy? What was the point of having more money than you could spend if you were just going to leave it all behind when you ran out of time? Time was another thing money couldn’t buy.

Or maybe it could. But not enough.

“One day, Jenny, I will make you happy. But for now…”

Jennifer nodded.

“Your lease for the penthouse has been extended for three months. You shouldn’t need it, but that should cover it. Whoever you send down here once you wrap this up can get a very pleasant surprise and keep the penthouse for whatever is left on the lease. As for the work… Well, I don’t think you will have a problem there.”

Anthony nodded.

He didn’t think he would have a problem there, either.

After Jennifer left, he went back to the windows and looked out. Anybody who walked in would’ve seen a tall, dark-haired man who was in the prime of his life, surveying his kingdom.

It wasn’t his home base. He would never call it that.

It had never been home. He had left as soon as he could. But now he had come back, though he had no intention of staying, not for long.

But he had grown up there, and he had cursed every moment of that existence. He would own everything he could get his hands on, and he didn’t care what that made him look like. The people who judged him didn’t have a clue – not a clue.

He didn’t care.

But Richard Sanders was a problem. It was honestly galling to have to take anybody who called himself ‘Ruthless Rick’ seriously, to be honest, but he was becoming a very persistent thorn in his side. Given the chance, he would become much worse than that.

Anthony knew how it worked. He’d been in the business more than long enough to know exactly how that worked. It had been a mistake not to take care of this particular threat before it had become one. But that branding had been successful. Calling himself Ruthless Rich had helped him. Anthony hadn’t paid enough attention to him.

A man who specialized more in payday loans and insistent methods of recovering those loans? Nobody who aimed to own everything could take somebody like that seriously.

Maybe it had been a calculated choice, to perpetuate that particular image, because he was beginning to find out exactly how much of Baltimore he owned without appearing to.

Or maybe he was giving this man too much credit because he’d been successful in planting a mole in his business.

There was one. He knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. There was no way that the Malone bid could have been undercut so accurately without inside information.

And Sanders had wanted him to know. Anthony knew that, too, and it galled him as well. It annoyed him more than it should have.

The pesky annoyance was trying to taunt him.

No, he had to give him credit where it was due. He was succeeding in taunting him.

It had been a message, that precise figure. Sanders had wanted him to feel as if he had something under his skin that he simply couldn’t get out.

But Sanders had underestimated him drastically. He wasn’t going to just scratch himself raw, like a slave to his instincts. He would wait, observe, and then he would remove the irritant, efficiently and with surgical precision.

Richard ‘Ruthless Rick’ Sanders didn’t have a clue just what kind of lion he was poking so very gleefully. But he would find out, soon enough.

Oh, he would find out.