A Bride for the Billionaire Bad Boy (The Romero Brothers, Book 2) (7 page)

But as much as he wasn’t commanding headlines, he was
still in hot water with some of his contractors.

Lucas sat in the boardroom of Romero Foundation on the
forty-third floor of the tall glass high-rise in the downtown Toronto core. The
view on the lakeside was breathtaking below. The July sky was a cloudless blue,
yet Lucas’s mind was filled with dark clouds.

It had been four weeks and he still couldn’t shake
Maxine Summers out of his system or his mind. He fought to keep his distance
from her by having
D’Andre
, his tech, guy go over to
the Dream Weddings, Inc. headquarters to personally help them get their new
e-system up and running. Why hadn’t he done it himself? He had to get hold of
his emotions and put things into control.

He had his connections look into who the heck was
sending Maxine the hate mail, too. So far, they received some lukewarm leads
but nothing substantial, yet. Lucas thought of himself as her guardian angel.
Invisible. Yet present. A grin touched his lips at the thought.

“I say we do business as usual and those who prefer to
go by headlines and rumors can go to—"

“Lucas!” his grandfather interrupted, fuming. “We’ve
just lost one of our biggest clients, the Carlson College! Do you not care?”

“Of course I care,” Lucas fired back, leaning forward
in his chair. He felt his blood burn inside his veins. He folded his hands tightly
in front of him on the table.

“That program meant everything to me, Grandfather. You
know it did!” Lucas asserted. He was about to break but maintained his cool.
Carlson College had a very close place in his heart but he wasn’t about to go
there.

 
“Well
then, I’m glad we got that settled. I’m sorry to say this, Lucas, but sometimes
we need to take aggressive means to clear our good name. The college does not
want to be associated with you or your program because of the recent headlines
in the media. Including the most recent one. That woman has been giving
interviews on talk shows right and left.”

“I don’t care what she wants to do with her spare
time. I’ve got a foundation to run, Grandfather.”

“And a reputation to protect. A family business to
run,” Toni added, pinching his lips.

“One thing’s for sure, Lucas. We don’t want to lose
more contractors. First, the college makes the announcement they are severing
ties with us. Who knows who else will follow?” Zack spoke up in a serious tone.
A tone of voice Lucas had not heard from him in a while.

Was Lucas playing with fire? What else was he to do?

“Listen, she wants to play games. I do not negotiate
with extortionists. We’ve been through this already. She’s good alright,” Lucas
chuckled. “I wonder who put her up to this. She knows it’s too risky to do a
paternity test until the baby’s born, which would prove once and for all she’s
a liar, so she figured she’d drag my name through the mud for the next few
months until she delivers hoping to gain some financial advantage. Have any of
you thought of how that would look even if I was crazy enough to pay her off
for the sake of a pristine image?”

Zack nodded thoughtfully.

Lucas’s
team of close advisors were
also in agreement, silently at the table. The truth was that Lucas ran that
division of the foundation dealing with software developments, which included
the famous Healthy Start Pre-screening programs used at dozens of clinics
across the province.

“I understand, Lucas. Please try to understand my
point of view as well. I’m your grandfather. I may have come from a different
era where business practices differ from today but it’s out of love for you why
I’m being tough. I’d rather it come from inside than outside. It hurts me to
see your name tarnished while your great ideas suffer negative publicity. Do
you understand that, Lucas?”

Lucas could feel the tension in the boardroom.

Though the advisors and he were close, it almost
seemed as if they were squirming in their seats. Talk about uncomfortable. He
wondered why he allowed his grandfather to attend. Oh, right. Out of respect
for him.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Toni Romero was the one who initially gave each of his
grandsons their startup cash flow and the connections to get started. Of
course, the rest they did on their own with their own ideas and initiatives and
their own blood and sweat and precious tears.

They each opened their own division within the
foundation and hired their own staff and grew business from their one million
dollar startup to their multi-billionaire dollar empire. The tech world took
off in ways that surprised even Toni.

Of course, they’d had a string of successful stock
investments and wealth building strategies that literally soared. All in the
name of helping others achieve their best potential. Still, Toni insisted in
continuing to be a presence in their business from the shadows. It gave him
something to live for.
Something to hope for.
He was
still useful and wanted to be their ever-present guide. It’s just that they didn’t
always see eye to eye on everything or agree with everything.

“You need to do damage control, Lucas. Pronto,” Toni
continued, “The media is painting a picture of you as an unstable young man who
has a wild side and takes nothing seriously. Unfortunately, sometimes what
sells isn’t the good news or the good things you do day-to-day to run this part
of the foundation. They love it when you make a mistake.”

“Because it makes them look good,” Lucas finished the
sentence with a taste of bitterness in his mouth.

Lucas sighed deeply and leaned back in his chair once
more. He gazed out at the view of the Toronto skyline. The other tall buildings
glistened under the shining sun. It was a picture perfect day outside. He
wished he could say the same about inside his office.
Or
inside his heart.
The sun certainly wasn’t shining there at the moment. It
was a dark and cold place inside him. He felt as if nothing could make that gloominess
go away. Nothing.

Lucas thought for a minute. Was the foundation
seriously blaming him personally for the loss of their biggest contract? What
was he supposed to do? Barricade himself inside his own home and become a
recluse?
Never to associate with anyone again?
Never
speak or say anything? Ridiculous.
And not happening.

He remembered an old saying he’d read somewhere in
college. “Well,” Lucas broke the silence in the room. “You know what Aristotle
once said, right? ‘
To avoid criticism
say nothing, do nothing…'”

“Be nothing,” Zack added with a smirk as he finished his brother’s speech.

“And we all know, Lucas is not one to go away quietly, Granddad,” he
said with an air of coolness.

“What do you mean by that?” Toni leaned forward in his chair across the
table.

“They’ll be people who criticize me no matter what I do. I’m not playing
into their game. Nor will I go away quietly. I’m truly sorry we lost
the…Carlson College account,” Lucas said as he rose from the table. “But we’ll
move forward on all the other trial programs for the new version of updated
software programs across the board.”

“And?”

“And those who are with us, are with us, and those who aren’t…well, I bid
them adieu.”

“You’re not leaving the meeting now, are you?”

“Yes.”

“But we’re not finished yet,” his secretary Mary pointed out.

“I’m finished. Ever since the meeting started, the agenda has always
come full swing to my behavior or my actions that cause embarrassment for the
corporation and the foundation. Well, I’m taking a break…” Lucas glanced down
at his watch. “Right now!”

Lucas walked over to where his grandfather was seated and kneeled beside
him. “Granddad, I love you. It has nothing to do with you. I just need to work out
some things.”

The elder Romero did not look the least bit impressed.

“Listen, why don’t we meet back tomorrow morning?” Zack posed to the
team. “Lucas and Granddad, I’m sure you need to discuss a few things.”

Those words provided the cue for everyone else to clear out of the
boardroom.

Lucas got up from kneeling and heaved a sigh. His grandfather’s face was
stone cold. Lucas shoved his hands in his pockets and paced by the window.

“What is with you, Lucas? Why do you have to be such a hardhead? The
more you encounter opposition, the more you try hardest to be a jackass.” The
pout on his grandfather’s face was priceless.

In spite of
himself
, Lucas turned to face his
grandfather and burst out with a hearty guffaw.

Soon, his grandfather’s lips melted into a smile then he, too, laughed.
“Lucas, what am I going to do with you, grandson?” The affection Toni had for
Lucas was evident in his voice.

Lucas and his grandfather always had this understanding with each other
as long as they’d known each other. It was always an inside thing that no one
else could understand.

“I don’t know, maybe give me back to the stork that delivered me to my
parents. Probably the old bird lost direction and sent me to the wrong family.”
Lucas shrugged.

He watched as his grandfather mockingly rolled his eyes and shook his
head. “Are you alright, grandson?”

“I’ll be fine, Gramps. Don’t worry about me.”

“Are you sure? Lucas, you’re a fine young man. Sometimes you can be a
bit rough around the edges but you’re so brilliant at all the work you do and
the lives you’ve saved through that wonderful Healthy Start pre-screening
program. You’ve made so many people happy. I just want to see you happy, my boy.”

“I know, Granddad,” Lucas answered softly.

“Now, what about that nice young girl, Maxine?”

Oh, boy.

Here we go again. Now how did I know he was
going to bring her name up?

“Granddad!” Lucas arched a brow. “Please, drop it.”

“But you two looked so happy together at Antonio’s
wedding. And she seems like a very nice, thoughtful girl. Remember she helped arrange
Lucy and Antonio’s wedding without Lucy knowing? She’s a good friend, Lucas.
A true friend.
Friends like that don’t grow on trees. I
think she’d make a fine—"

“Granddad,” Lucas scolded in a lovingly warning tone.
“I don’t think Maxine or any woman is the answer to my troubles right now.
Besides, we can’t just get with people because we want to fix things in our lives.
It wouldn’t be fair to them or to us. It should be done for the right reasons.”

Whatever those reasons were, of course.

The truth was, Lucas didn’t see himself following in
Antonio’s footsteps any time soon. He really didn’t care for marriage or
lifelong commitment to one woman. Period.

The thought shot a dagger straight to his heart. He
had come close only once in his life when he was fresh out of high school. Then
that tragic day...

Lucas blinked hard to avoid tears stinging his eyes.

He wasn’t about to take that solemn trip down memory
lane again. Ever. The past was dead and gone.

“Okay, Lucas,” Toni broke through Lucas’s
concentration. “Very well. I’ll let it go for now. But I’m not going to let it be
buried forever, you know. I saw the way you looked at Maxine at the wedding and
Lord knows she has something for you. She couldn’t keep her eyes off you
whenever your back was turned. Geez!” Toni feigned shock by shaking his head
and slapping his hand on his forehead.

She
couldn’t keep her eyes off me?

Lucas thought deeply.

Really?
Geez, Granddad, why didn’t you tell me this before?

CHAPTER EIGHT

What a whirlwind the last few weeks were, Maxine
thought to herself as she pulled up into the parking lot of the nursing home to
visit her mother. Luckily, the dirty hate mail had slowed down to a trickle.
The only odd piece of correspondence she’d received was from some foreign
prince requesting her phone number, driver’s license and banking information so
that he could wire fifty billion dollars into her personal checking account.
Yeah, sure!
She automatically spammed
that with the rest of said type of emails.
 

The bottom line was that whomever was stalking Maxine
seemed to have cooled.
At least for now.
She wondered
if Lucas had anything to do with it.

A smile touched her lips at the thought. In fact,
Lucas had dominated her thoughts once too often during the past few weeks. At
times she thought she was
wide awake
in a dream. Lucas
kissed her hand. Oh, the silky, erotic touch of that soft kiss. Imagine that! What
would she be feeling if he’d done more that day? She was still buzzing for his
soft lips on her again. The man really knew how to kiss. She’d dreamt about
him, fantasized about him pleasuring her with his lips and with his firm body. But
all she had was the sweet memory of his kiss. Would she be treated with more
servings of his delicious chemistry any time soon?