The Tycoon's Secret Child (Texas Cattleman's Club: Blackmail 1)

He shivered as the wind slapped at him, and he finally gave up and walked back into his suite. With everything else going on, he didn’t need a case of pneumonia. Closing the doors behind him, he went to the fireplace and flipped a switch to turn on the gas-powered flames.

It was quiet. Too damn quiet. He stared at the fire for a minute or two, then dropped onto the couch, propping his boots up on the sturdy coffee table. Late afternoon sunlight came through the windows in a pale stream, the fire burned, and his brain just shut down. He needed to think, but how the hell could he when he was distracted by his own body’s reaction to the woman who’d lied to him since the moment he met her?

“Isabelle Gray.” How had she managed to get hired under a false name? Didn’t his damn personnel department do a better job of checking résumés than that? “And she’s rich,” he exclaimed to the empty room. “Why the hell was she working for me anyway?”

But the “rich” part probably explained how she’d gotten away with changing her name to get a job. She’d been able to pay for whatever she’d needed to adopt a different name. Closing his eyes, Wes remembered the slap of shock he’d felt when looking for Isabelle Gray online only to find Isabelle Graystone. The names were enough alike that the search engine had hooked onto her real identity. Seeing her picture, reading about who she really was had been yet another shock in a day already filled with them.

He had no explanation for any of this, and checking his watch, Wes saw that he had several hours before he could go back and demand she give him the answers he needed. What was he supposed to do until then?

He dragged his cell phone out of his pocket and turned it back on. He’d had it off during his visit to Belle’s house since he hadn’t needed yet another distraction. Now, the message light blinked crazily and he scrolled through the list of missed calls.

Starting at the top, he hit speed dial and waited while his assistant’s phone rang.

“Hi, boss,” Robin said.

“Yeah, you called. Anything new?” He got up and walked to the bar in the far corner of the room. He opened the fridge, saw the complimentary cheese plate and helped himself before grabbing a beer. Twisting off the cap, he took a long drink to wash the cheese down and gave Robin his attention.

“IT department reports they’re no closer to discovering who this Maverick is or even where he sent that email from.”

“I thought they were supposed to be the best,” he complained.

“Yeah, well, IT’s pretty impressed with Maverick,” she

said wryly. “Seems he bounced his signal all over hell and back, so they’re having a time pinning it down.” She took a breath and said, “You already know that email account’s been closed, so the guys here say there isn’t much hope of running him to ground.”

Perfect. He had his own computer experts and they couldn’t give him a direction to focus the fury still clawing at his throat.

“What else?” Another swallow of beer as he plopped back onto the couch and stared at the flames dancing in the hearth.

“Personnel did a deeper check on the name you gave them, and turns out Isabelle Gray’s name is really Graystone. Her family’s got holdings in pretty much everything. She’s an heiress.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I know that.”

“Oh. Well, that was anticlimactic. Okay. Moving on.” She forced cheer into her voice. “On the upside, IT says the Twitter trend is dying off. Apparently you’re down to number ten today instead of number one.”

“Great.” Wes made a mental note to check with his IT guys on the status of his Twitter account when he got off the phone. What he really needed was for some celebrity to do something shocking that would be enough to push him off the stage entirely.

“And the warehouses are set up for delivery of the doll. Everything’s ready to roll out on time.”

“Good.” He set the beer on the coffee table and rubbed his eyes in a futile attempt to ease the headache pounding there. “Keep on top of this stuff, Robin, and make sure I’m in the loop.”

“Boss,” she said, “you are the loop.”

He had to smile and he was grateful for it. “Right. Did you hear from Harry today?”

“Yep, he’s on it. He’s working with PR to put a spin on all this, and when he’s got the ideas together, he says he’ll call you to discuss it.”

“Okay. Look, I’m going to be staying in Colorado for a while.”

“How long?”

“Not sure yet.” However long it took to make sure the mother of his child understood that she was living in a new reality. “You can always get me on my cell. I’m at the Swan Hollow Palace hotel—”

“Swan Hollow?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled to himself again. “Weird name, but nice town from what I’ve seen.”

“Good to know. I still can’t believe you made the reservations yourself rather than let me handle it as always.”