The Tycoon's Proposition

When they reached his condo, she hurried into the kitchen to fix their meal. Judging by the way he’d eaten yesterday, she figured he was ready for scrambled eggs, hot cooked cereal and juice.

Before long she breezed into his bedroom with the tray. “How’s it going?”

He was seated at his desk. “I’m almost through.”

“You sound like your voice is getting stronger. There’s more deep tone than whisper. It’s a wonderful sign.”

“I have to admit I’m relieved.”

“That’s why you need to protect it for another day at least.”

He had to be so thankful to be getting back to normal. While she waited for him to join her, Terri set two places at the table. In a minute he got up and brought her the laptop.

His gaze darted to the food. “You must have been reading my mind.”

“I thought you were about ready for junior meals today.”

His chuckle turned into laughter.

“Careful you don’t pull out those stitches under your chin.”

He sat down at the table. “It’s okay, they’re the dissolving kind.”

Terri ate a bite of her eggs before she began reading the words at the top of the screen. The time had come to find out exactly what had happened on that fateful day.

On many occasions your ex-husband showed up for work late, or didn’t report at all. More often than not he was hung over. The foreman gave him several chances to turn things around, but the same thing kept happening.

In order to fire him, the foreman had to go through my office first and obtain permission. Carlos looked into the situation and gave your ex-husband one final warning. But it was to no avail. At that point, Carlos brought the problem to my attention because I have the final say.

I looked over your ex-husband’s work application. He’d listed his last work experience in Baton Rouge. I made a phone call. It turns out he’d left that job to come and work for my company. According to the man in charge there, Richard hadn’t been very reliable and would probably have been let go before long.

It’s my policy to give any man a chance to work and prove himself. There’s nothing I dislike more than to fire an employee, especially if he has a family. Your ex-husband indicated he had a wife, Terri, his next of kin. He put his home address as Lead, South Dakota.

On the day in question, I waited until he was through with his work, then approached him on the ship. I told him I would run him to shore because I wanted to talk to him alone. He realized what was about to happen and became defensive.

Unfortunately there was a tropical storm further out at sea and we were feeling the effects of it. When I realized he hadn’t put on his life preserver yet, I ordered him to get it on because we were in for a ride. He refused, so I turned the boat around and headed back to the ship. It was a good deal closer than the shore which you couldn’t see.

To my horror, a speedboat traveling out of control suddenly came at us out of the darkness. Two young men without preservers who’d probably been on a joy ride in the storm crashed into us broadside, slicing the tender in two. Their bodies went flying.

One look at Richard and I realized he’d been knocked unconscious. I tried to reach him, but fuel had spilled from the tank, spreading fire. It separated us. I saw the others engulfed by flames before they slipped beneath the water. They never resurfaced.

I swam around frantically looking for Richard, but he was nowhere to be found. Three men were gone. I felt so damn guilty for being alive. The last thing I remembered was a fisherman pulling me into his boat. Before I blacked out, I remember crying out your name and begging him to get in touch with you.

“What a nightmare for you!” Terri cried. “Thank God you survived!” Without conscious thought she reached out to cover his hand. “Promise me you won’t ever feel guilty again. If Richard hadn’t refused to put on a life preserver, he would probably have lived. Like those young men, my ex-husband always did feel immortal.”

He shook his head. “If I’d waited to fire him in Carlos’s office at the dock, none of this would have happened. There’ve been several deaths because of heart attacks or natural causes, but until now I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the company has never had a drowning.”

Terri jumped to her feet. “You can’t go on living with ‘what if’s!’ Obviously you were trying to do the right thing by letting him go when no one else was around. I admire you for sparing him any embarrassment or shame. It wasn’t your fault he wouldn’t wear a preserver, or that a speedboat ran into you. Accidents happen.”

He eyed her solemnly. “According to Carlos, the police have determined that two Brazilians on holiday further down the coast were the ones who died. I’ve hired a diving service to search for the bodies. So far they haven’t turned up anything. Carlos told me the coast guard believes it’s a futile exercise at this point.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, Ben. Now that I’ve been out where the accident happened, I realize how deep and treacherous it is. The underwater current has probably swept them out to sea.”

“Can you live with that?”

Beneath the anguish, she heard something else in his voice.

“Of course I can! If you’re laboring under some illusion that I’m still in love with Richard, then you haven’t been listening to me. He killed my love years ago. Naturally I’m sorry he had to die this young, but it happened.