Mistress of the Game

Actually, there's another rule. I didn't tell you about it because it never happens...

You are supposed to win. You have to win by losing.

What if she won back Kruger-Brent, but lost Gabe?

She pushed the thought from her mind. She would win the game. She had to. Once she had Kruger-Brent, and her revenge on Max was complete, then she would make it up to Gabe. He wasn't going anywhere.

Kruger-Brent failed to make payments on a loan in Singapore. The bank foreclosed on one of its properties. The amount involved was so small, Max never even knew about it. A Singaporian middle manager was fired. Kruger-Brent refinanced. End of story.

A few weeks later, a similar oversight in Germany led to another loan being called in. Again the amount was small.

Lexi made a note of the dates.

Karen Lomax, a financial journalist at the Wall Street Journal, received a phone call. After she hung up, she turned to her colleague Daniel Breen.

"Hey, Dan. You heard anything about credit problems at Kruger-Brent?"

Daniel Breen shook his head. "Have you?"

"Some lady just called. Said I should look into bad loans in Asia. Think there's a story in it?"

Daniel Breen shrugged. "Only one way to find out, I guess."

The cards were being dealt.

Gabe opened the file in front of him, skimming through the pictures.

"So she's not having an affair?"

The private investigator shook his head. "From the evidence I've seen, sir, no, she's not." Gabe's shoulders sagged visibly with relief. "However..."

Gabe looked up.

"There are some...anomalies."

"What sort of anomalies?"

"Financial. If you turn to page twelve of the written document, it's all in there."

Gabe turned. Slowly, methodically, he started to read.

The first few weeks of Gabe's love affair with Lexi had been like a dream.

Gabe had not believed it possible that he could love again after what had happened to Tara and his children. Certainly not while his grief was so raw. But in those first miraculous weeks at Robbie's African hideaway, Lexi had breathed life into his deadened heart. When Gabe woke in the small hours, sweating and screaming Tara's name, Lexi would wrap her arms around him and hold him till the nightmare passed. Gabe spoke about his children often, returning again and again to the terrible events of his birthday like a dog crawling back to its vomit. Lexi listened. He poured his guilt into her hands, and she took it from him, as gently and graciously as if he'd been giving her a bunch of flowers.

But eventually, inevitably, real life intruded upon their lovers' idyll. Gabe handed over the day-to-day running of Phoenix to others, content to focus on Lexi and his charity work. If Tara's murder had taught him one thing, it was that love and life were too precious to be wasted pushing paper around an office.

Lexi didn't see things that way. She could no more stop working than stop breathing. Templeton was based in New York. Gabe moved to the city to be with her. He enjoyed New York, the energy and the excitement, but he never stopped feeling like a guest in Lexi's apartment. As a first step toward building a new, joint life together, Gabe bought an exquisite period house in Bridgehampton. Somewhere for them to get away, to make time for each other.

"What do you think?" He led Lexi around the wood-paneled rooms, each simply but beautifully furnished with chesterfield couches and Irish linens from the White Company. "I tried to make it peaceful. An escape from the city."

"It's...it's cute." Lexi tried to sound enthusiastic. But inside she thought: I don't want to escape from the city.

Gabe's face fell. "You don't like it."

"I do! It's not that. It's just...when are we going to use it?"

"On weekends."

"I work weekends, baby."

Lexi didn't just work weekends. She worked early mornings and late nights. She worked Thanksgiving and Labor Day. Gabe hadn't realized that her fateful trip to visit her brother in South Africa was the first vacation she'd taken in over five years.

It wasn't only the long hours. It was the secrecy. Lexi often talked in her sleep, rambling about Kruger-Brent and Max and revenge. She seemed to be anxious that time was running out. But when Gabe asked her, "Time for what?" Lexi pretended not to know what he was talking about. Not long ago, Gabe had been shocked when David Tennant, Lexi's right-hand man at Templeton, mentioned in passing that the company was in trouble.

"Lexi's been liquidating assets faster than any of us can keep up. The money disappears into these obscure holding companies, then poof, it's gone."

When Gabe challenged Lexi about this, she was dismissive.

"David's a worrywart. I've moved some cash around, that's all."

"He says you're stripping Templeton bare."

"He's exaggerating."

Conversation closed.

Recently it had reached the point where Gabe felt he had to make an appointment to speak to Lexi at all. When he did, all the subjects he wanted to discuss - marriage, children, their future - were off the agenda.

"I can't have children, Gabe. I've told you."

"Can't or won't?"

This made Lexi angry.

"Fine. Won't. What's the difference?"

"There's a lot of difference! Why won't you? What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of anything. Stop harassing me! You want me to spend more time with you, but when I do, you give me the third degree."

Hiring the private investigator was a low point. But Gabe couldn't take any more. He had to know what it was that Lexi was keeping from him. He loved her, but he was tired of sitting home, alone while Lexi flew God knows where on a never-ending business trip. He wasn't her lover. He was her layover. That's when it hit him.

Maybe she's found someone else?

"I'm afraid I don't fully understand this." Gabe handed the file back to the PI, a fat man with the ruddy cheeks of a heavy drinker and a paunch so swollen it spilled over the edge of the couch, hanging almost to his knees.

"Ms. Templeton is a trustee of your charity?"

"She is, yes."

"She's authorized to make financial transactions on its behalf?"

"Yes. But that's just a formality. Lexi's celebrity is a useful tool for us. It helps to raise money. She's not involved in the day-to-day business of the foundation."

"Which makes it all the more curious that she's made a number of sizable withdrawals from the charity's accounts."

The PI pulled a red pen out of his jacket pocket. He handed the relevant sheet of paper back to Gabe with the amounts and dates circled. Gabe stared at it for a long time.

"You're sure it was Lexi who authorized these withdrawals."

"Yes, sir."

She's stealing from me? From the charity? It makes no sense.

"Do you know why?"

"No, sir. Not yet. I'm afraid your fiancee is a regular David Blaine when it comes to money. As soon as she get her hands on it, it vanishes. The paper trail around her is so complex, it's damn near impenetrable."

Gabe pulled out his checkbook. Scribbling down a number, he ripped off the check and handed it to the investigator. The fat man's eyes bulged.

"Penetrate it."

"Yes, sir. We will, sir. Thank you, sir."

Waddling down the driveway of Gabe's Bridgehampton beach house, clutching his check like a talisman, the PI marveled at the stupid things men did for love.

The PI had seen hundreds of pictures of Lexi Templeton. Blow-job lips on an angel's face. Tits and ass to die for, but classy with it. A woman like that could screw any man she wanted. But she'd picked this old, white-haired shell of a guy who just happened to have bucket loads of money and a trusting nature?

Maybe McGregor thought he was safe because the lady was rich herself. If so, he was an even bigger fool.

Didn't he know that rich women were the greediest of all?

It was Friday morning. Max sat in his corner office at Kruger-Brent staring at the photographs on his desk. His little boys, George and Edward, were five years old now. Max's office had countless silver-framed pictures of them, hand in hand, grinning at the camera. There were photographs of Annabel, too, and of Eve as a young woman at the height of her beauty. But it was Max's sons who mesmerized him, their innocence flooding the room like sunlight.

That's what childhood ought to look like. Happy. Pure.

August Sandford stormed in.

"Have you seen our share price? What the hell's happening?"

August Sandford had not aged well. His once thick chestnut hair had thinned, exposing too much middle-aged scalp. The muscled physique of his twenties had long since turned to fat. Kruger-Brent had made him a rich man, on paper. But this morning, August had seen the value of that paper drop by almost 15 percent. With a wife, three kids and a demanding mistress to support, August's stress levels were permanently set on high. This morning, the sweat patches under his arms had grown so big they were about to start dripping.