Mistress of the Game

"Templeton? It doesn't mean that much to me."

Now Gabe was confused. "But...you've been crying."

"Not about Templeton." Lexi sniffed.

This is it. This is where she's going to come clean about the money. Ask to make a fresh start.

"Kruger-Brent's share price got decimated today. Wiped out. They could...it might mean the end of the company."

Gabe recoiled as if he'd been stung.

Kruger-Brent? She's crying over Kruger bloody Brent?

It was the last straw. Gabe hadn't hit another human being since almost killing that poor man in London thirty years ago. But he could feel his fists twitching. Did Lexi have no shame at all? She'd stolen money, not just from him, the man she was supposed to love, but from the thousands of AIDS victims who desperately needed it. But that didn't bother her. Oh no. All she cared about, all she'd ever cared about, was that godforsaken company. Gabe remembered his father, how he'd died broken and embittered, destroyed by his obsession with Kruger-Brent. I traveled halfway across the world to avoid the same fate. And here I am, in love with a woman every bit as poisoned and corrupted by Kruger-Brent as my dad was.

Oblivious to his anger, Lexi went on.

"There have been some credit problems. I didn't realize it was that serious, but obviously it must be. The market can sense Max's weakness like a shark smelling blood."

"I don't care." Gabe's voice was barely a whisper.

"What?"

"I said I'm NOT INTERESTED!"

Suddenly he was shouting. Screaming. Lexi had never seen him so angry.

"Kruger-Brent can go to hell, for all I care, and the same goes for Max Webster. You stole from my foundation."

Lexi said nothing. Gabe could see the wheels turning in her brain as she calculated her options. Deny? Explain? Apologize?

Everything's a game to her. It's all about winning and to hell with the truth.

Eventually she said: "I didn't steal. I borrowed."

"Why?"

Another pause. "I can't tell you." She hung her head. "But it was for something very important."

"More important than getting retrovirals to terminally sick children?"

"Yes," Lexi answered without thinking, from the heart.

Gabe looked at her with a mixture of horror and disgust. Was she really so far gone that she thought a business deal was more important than saving lives? Apparently so.

His disappointment was more than Lexi could bear. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"You'll get the money back, Gabe. You'll get twice what I took. I promise."

"It's not about the money." Gabe put his head in his hands.

Lexi thought: He looks so tired. So defeated. Have I done that to him?

"It's over, Lexi. I love you. But I can't go on."

Lexi felt the walls caving in. She wanted to cry, to scream: No! I love you. Please don't leave me. Don't go!

And yet she knew she couldn't keep him. Gabe was good and honest and true. He deserved a normal, happy life. She had done what she had to do. Gabe would never understand it, even if she told him. Which, of course, she never would.

It took every ounce of her self-control for Lexi to stand up, pick up her bag and walk to the door.

"I love you, too, Gabe. I'm sorry. You'll get your money."

Gabe stood in the doorway, watching her car drive away.

Good-bye, Lexi.

On Monday morning, when the markets opened, Kruger-Brent stock was down by almost 90 percent.

On Wall Street, rumors were rife. Someone had inside information about Kruger-Brent, and it was bad:

The default on the Singapore bank loan was the tip of a bad-debt iceberg.

A massive accounting fraud was about to be uncovered.

One of the "wonder drugs" of the firm's pharmaceutical division was going to be exposed as a lethal killer.

Not since the banking crisis of 2009 had the markets seen such a huge company brought to its knees overnight. A couple of traders emerged from the woodwork, admitting that they'd taken huge bets on the company's demise. Carl Kolepp, owner of the legendarily aggressive hedge fund CKI, was one. The Wall Street Journal estimated that over the weekend, Kolepp had personally made $620 million out of Kruger-Brent's misery.

Lexi Templeton, like the rest of her famous family, had lost everything.

Max Webster made a statement on CNBC, appealing for shareholders to stay calm, echoing Roosevelt's famous line that there was "nothing to fear but fear itself." Like millions of others, Lexi watched Max's broadcast live. She was shocked by how ill he looked, how frail and gaunt. The world was on fire, and Max was burning.

Think of it as preparation for the flames of hell. Bastard.

Max's statement calmed no one. By Tuesday, it was all over. Hundreds of thousands of Kruger-Brent employees all around the world woke up to find themselves out of a job. Tens of thousands of shareholders saw their money go up in smoke. Across America, the headlines screamed:

KRUGER-BRENT BANKRUPT!

U.S. GIANT COLLAPSES!

In the midst of all the commotion, few people noticed the short press release from Templeton Estates, announcing that the firm had ceased trading.

By Thursday, the press stopped hounding Lexi for interviews. She had given a statement, expressing her profound sorrow at Kruger-Brent's passing and making it clear that she had nothing more to say.

The entire extended Blackwell family was door-stepped by photographers, gleefully cataloging their spectacular fall from grace. Talk about the mighty fallen! The media gorged itself on schadenfreude like a blood-drunk mosquito. Footage of Peter Templeton looking old and frail outside Cedar Hill House was aired on all the major news channels, who were running back-to-back retrospectives of Kruger-Brent's illustrious history. Interviews with Kate Blackwell from the 1960s were dusted off and replayed, pulling in enormous ratings for the TV networks. America had grown up with the Blackwells and Kruger-Brent. It was, as Robbie Templeton told reporters outside the Royal Albert Hall in London, the end of an era.

Eve Blackwell, as ever, remained barricaded in her self-imposed prison on Park Avenue.

Max Webster's whereabouts were unknown.

Two weeks later, the furor began to die down. Lexi Templeton slipped quietly out of her apartment one night at about six o'clock. Taking a series of taxis, making sure she wasn't followed, she arrived at a nondescript Italian diner in Queens around seven.

He was at the table, waiting for her.

Lexi sat down. "Have all the transfers been made?"

"As agreed. Seventy percent for you, thirty for me. A bit harsh really, considering I did all the work," he joked.

Lexi laughed. "Yeah, and I took all the risk. I staked every penny I have on borrowing the additional stock we needed. I broke my own company - begged, borrowed and stole." She pushed the thought of Gabe from her mind. "If the market hadn't panicked, I'd have been wiped out."

"But they did, though, didn't they?" Carl Kolepp grinned. "How do you feel?"

Lexi grinned back. "Rich."

"Good. The spaghetti's on you."

They ate and celebrated. What they'd done was completely illegal. Short selling was one thing. But manipulating a company's stock price through an orchestrated campaign of misinformation? That was something else. Lexi had used her inside knowledge to defraud shareholders. If she and Carl were caught, they were both looking at a long stretch of prison time.

But we won't be caught.

This time Lexi had covered her tracks completely. All threads linking her to Carl Kolepp had been meticulously destroyed. Unless one or the other of them confessed, they were home free.

Carl asked Lexi: "So what'll you do now? Buy yourself an island somewhere peaceful? Fill your swimming pool with Cristal?"

The suggestion seemed to amuse her.

"Of course not. This is where the real work begins."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to rebuild the company, of course. Buy back all the decent businesses. Get rid of all the dross Max acquired in the last ten years. I've halved my own score. Now I'm going to double my opponents'."

"Excuse me?"

Lexi laughed. "Forget about it. Private joke."

"Let me get this straight." Carl Kolepp looked puzzled. "You bankrupted your own company just so you could rebuild it?"

"Uh-huh. I lost so I could win."

"Has anyone ever told you you're a little bit nuts?"

Lexi smiled. "A few people. Apparently it runs in my family."