Lucius gazed helplessly at Charles Calder and tried not to whimper. God, it was so unfair. Long rangy body, brawny arms and a chest as wide as a barn, and that didn’t even touch on the auburn hair and green eyes, or the lantern jaw and the lean mouth. Chuck Calder was every rich boy’s dream of a bad boy with a killer smile.
And God help him, Lucius wanted him. So bad. It wasn’t even fair. But besides the occasional flirty wink and some really enjoyable banter, nothing about Charles screamed “serious.” And as the CEO of a company struggling not to go under and of some other enterprises of questionable legality, perhaps, but great importance to the people those enterprises served—Lucius could not afford to be anything but serious.
He didn’t have time to go around sweeping charming Charles Calder off his feet, dammit! But Charles didn’t seem to need any time to do the same thing to Lucius. Oh no. That happened for Charles as easily as breathing.
Speaking of… breathe in, breathe out. Remember: manners and appearance.
“Thank you, Charles,” Lucius said with a little nod of his head. “That’s nice of you.”
“Well, they’re keeping me around for my charm and good looks. Figure I’ve got to deliver.” Charles followed that up with a wink, even as he was setting the flowers on the counter by the sink. Josh had been having a hard time keeping food down with the chemo—he’d gotten dangerously dehydrated with his last dose, so they were keeping him in for observation after this treatment. Lucius could tell that his family and friends had tried to make this room home for him. A colorful throw on the bed, some stuffed animals that had obviously been provided by Grace, and flowers, lots of them, brightened the place up for what was probably only a two-day stay.
But Josh’s parents could probably have afforded the entire wing of the hospital to themselves, if they’d wanted it. Looking at the faces of the boy’s mother and the man Josh called Uncle Danny, though, Lucius thought that his parents would probably have given all of their fortune if only Josh would get well.
“I was hoping to find Felix around,” Lucius said, trying not to sound censorious. Felix Salinger, Josh’s father, owned the local network news station and was purported to be one of the richest and most powerful men in Chicago. The perception around town was that Felix held the purse strings and controlled the direction the family took. Lucius, though, had seen the family—and he used the term loosely, because Charles Calder and the other people in the Salinger orbit did not appear to be related by blood—working together in something that could be best described as syzygy as opposed to patriarchy. So perhaps presenting his case to Julia Dormer-Salinger, Felix’s ex-wife, and Benjamin “Danny” Morgan, his current lover, would hold some weight.
“I’m afraid Felix had to be at the office today,” Julia said, understanding in her porcelain-blue eyes. “We’re trying to balance ourselves so there’s somebody here should Josh need us, and I’m afraid Felix drew the short straw today.”
Josh mock-coughed. “Babysitting. Babysitting.”
And Dylan “Grace” Li was having none of it. “Yes, we’re babysitting you. If you hate it, get better.”
Josh narrowed his eyes. “I liked you better when you told the rest of us to fuck off. Can we go back to doing that?”
“No, because I like being grown-up enough to lord it over you. Get a job, find a boyfriend, and stop wasting our time in the cancer center. I’m getting bored.”
“Piss off. I’m enjoying the rest.”
“Then you take what you can get. Now, you’re the one who said to listen to the man, so shut up and listen.”
Lucius smiled at them, enjoying their banter, and then he noticed their hands clenched tightly, and he realized Josh was in a great deal of pain.
He sucked in a breath and adjusted to the idea that his usual smooth boardroom theatrics weren’t necessary here; in light of the circumstances, they’d be downright rude. Without another word, he pulled a stool up behind him and scooted closer to the bed, addressing Benjamin Morgan and Julia Dormer-Salinger across the bed, Josh in the center of the it, and Grace perched on the edge.
Charles Calder, he noticed, was leaning against the doorframe slightly behind the bed, almost as though he was a security guard or hired muscle, which didn’t surprise Lucius at all. The last time he’d seen Charles Calder, the man had kissed him senseless, disrupted a formal gala, and dismantled an explosive device all in the same evening. Something told Lucius that Mr. Calder would be all ears for whatever the rest of the group was planning.
“So,” he said into what was obviously a waiting silence. “When we first met, I was trying to track down stolen tech that was bleeding my company dry.”
“Did you find the internal source that was providing information to Sergei Kadjic?” Benjamin Morgan asked.
Lucius nodded. “Yes. It was much easier once the distributor was taken care of. We just looked for an employee looking jumpy as fuck and trying to find a buyer for his information. Done. The guy is in custody, and he’s looking at five-to-ten, and my company is running slightly better,” he said. But while he kept his voice smooth, it was the “slightly” that bothered the hell out of him.
That wasn’t lost on the other people in the room.
“Slightly?” Josh said. “Did you hear that, Uncle Danny? He said after all we went through to get rid of Sergei Kadjic, his company is running ‘slightly’ better.”
“I did hear it, dear boy. I am, in fact, overwhelmed by Mr. Broadstone’s praise. What about you, Julia? Are you swoony yet?”
Julia Dormer-Salinger, an impeccably beautiful woman with blond hair swept up off her nape, a charming summer frock in white, and a thin cardigan in pale pink to ward off the hospital chill, fanned her face in an imaginary hot flash.
“Almost, Danny. I may need ice.”
Lucius contained a smile, but he was the only one. Josh, Grace, and even Charles Calder all let out smirks. Charles may have even given a soft snort. These people surely did enjoy keeping each other amused.
He thought of Josh and Dylan’s clenched hands and decided he’d better kick things in gear.
“My tech is still leaking, but that’s not the worst part,” he said bluntly. “The worst part is how it’s leaking and what’s being taken with it. Thomas Daren, the guy who was handing off projects to Kadjic right and left, did so one project at a time. He’d smuggle the information out in a thumb drive, or later on, a small chip. Old-school stuff. But what’s happening now isn’t a project or a discrete unit of things. It’s random. Someone will buy up stock before I was about to, or one of my supply chains will be disrupted but not another. It’s like somebody is getting random bites of information from my computer servers and using it to sabotage me. But that’s not the worst part either.”
“Really?” Julia said, sounding fully concerned. “Because that’s pretty frightening. Someone with a purpose is easy to find, Mr. Broadstone. Somebody with a random vendetta is much harder to track down.”
“I know it,” Lucius said grimly. “I’ve reorganized my office twice and replaced all of my hard drives at the administration level. Each time the disruptions stopped for about a week, and then they’d start up again. It’s like somebody is gathering data from the ether, and we just can’t figure out where to plug the leak.”