Full Bloom (18 page)

"I
still think this is a really stupid idea." Emily announced as she reluctantly climbed out of the Mercedes and stood looking doubtfully at her parents' home.

"Wives are supposed to give their husbands lots of moral support. You're supposed to fluff up the male ego and tell him how brilliant and bold he is." Jacob closed the door on his side of the car and walked around the front to collect her.

Emily wrinkled her nose at him. "Where did you get that notion?"

"All men know how wives are supposed to behave. We're born knowing."

"Is that right? It must come as kind of a shock for each new generation of males when they discover that women don't always behave the way they're supposed to, hmm?"

Jacob shook his head mournfully. "It's a shock, all right. But we persevere."

"How optimistic of you." Emily caught hold of his hand as they walked to the front door. "But I still think coming to see my family after only being married for three days was a big mistake. This is our honeymoon. Why should we spoil it?"

"You're just nervous about facing them, that's all."

"Confrontations with my family are not my most favorite way of passing time."

"Calm down," Jacob said soothingly as he rang the doorbell. "There isn't going to be any confrontation. We simply accept their warm congratulations and then we ask what the hell's going on with Morrell and the Fowler deal."

"In that order?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Well, for one thing—" Emily began, and then stopped abruptly as the door opened. The
Ravenscrofts' middle-aged housekeeper smiled at her.

"Hello, Emily. Good to see you again. Come on in. You, too, Mr. Stone. The family is expecting you. They're all in the garden room."

"Thanks, Myra. We know the way," Emily murmured.

"You'll be staying for dinner?" Myra asked.

"No," said Emily.

"Yes," Jacob said simultaneously.

Myra glanced from one to the other. "Well, which is it?"

Jacob grinned. "We'll be staying unless we're thrown out. That's about all I can tell you at the moment. But knowing the Ravenscrofts, I think you can count on feeding us."

Myra chuckled. "I think so, too. They won't let either of you get away too quickly." She arched an eyebrow at Emily. "Especially you, young lady. You've managed to throw the whole family into a tizzy again. Not for the first time, I might add. But don't worry about it. It's good for them. They would all have become completely overbearing and incredibly dull years ago if it hadn't been for you. You keep them on their toes and a little off balance. They need that. The rest of the world runs too much their way most of the time. See you at dinner."

Emily watched Myra head for the kitchen and then turned to Jacob. "Well? Are you ready? We might as well get this over with."

"Relax. You're not going to your execution. I'll handle everything."

Emily groaned. "I can't believe you're being so casual about this."

"You think this is the worst thing I've ever walked into?" Jacob asked quietly.

Emily frowned, thinking about it. "Probably not," she admitted at last. "How do you do it, Jacob? How can you be so cool and strong in a crisis? I envy you."

"I got my assertiveness training on the job," he explained laconically. He paused and then added, "Myra's right, you know."

"About what?"

"About you being good for your family. You're good for me, too. You may have turned us all prematurely gray, but you'll keep us from becoming too complacent and set in our ways. Things are never dull around you, sweetheart."

Emily grinned for the first time that afternoon. "That's the amazing thing about nature, isn't it. There's a role, no matter how minor, for every living creature, even us mosquitoes."

Jacob stopped at the entrance to the glass-walled garden room that lined the back of the Ravenscroft home. He pulled Emily into his arms and kissed her with quick, rough passion. "You're not a mosquito. You're a sexy little passion flower, and your role in my life is not minor. You're the most important thing that ever happened to me."

Emily walked into the tiled garden room, flushed with the aftermath of Jacob's kiss and the sweet satisfaction of knowing she was loved. At that moment, she felt certain she could face anything, even a bunch of Ravenscrofts.

And they were all there to put her certainty to the test.

"Darling!" Catherine exclaimed, moving forward to hug her daughter. "What a surprise you've given us. We had no idea you were planning marriage. How could you keep it a secret? We're all in shock."

Emily smiled wryly. "Now, Mother, we all know it takes a lot more than an unexpected marriage to shock a true Ravenscroft."

"Hello, Jacob," Drake said with a welcoming grin. He held out a hand, which Jacob shook without hesitation. "Congratulations. Now she's your problem."

"Drake!" Catherine admonished. "What a thing to say."

Gifford Ravenscroft nodded coolly at his new son-in-law, his gaze speculative. "I always did say your greatest asset, Stone, was the fact that no one around you ever really knew for certain what you were thinking. You moved quickly this time, didn't you?"

Jacob smiled faintly, his eyes as watchful as those of his former employer. "Not really. I've been waiting for Emily for a long time."

There was an uncomfortable hush as everyone absorbed the meaning of that, and then Drake broke the uneasy silence to ask Jacob and Emily what they wanted to drink. After that, Catherine, with the automatic skills of a good hostess, managed to find a more neutral topic.

Of all the people in the room, Emily thought, her brother seemed to be enjoying himself the most. It was as if he was secretly very amused by the whole event. When he caught Emily's eye, Drake winked reassuringly.

A few minutes later when he handed her the glass of wine he had poured for her, he said in a low voice that reached her alone, "Take it easy. Stone's been in worse situations than this."

Emily's eyes widened, and then she chuckled. "That's what he told me. But I can't help it. My stomach is tied in a knot."

"Take a couple of sips of the wine," Drake advised before he moved off to refill his mother's drink.

Emily followed his advice and then sat down in an antique wicker chair. It was a relief to get off her feet. Jacob, who had been politely talking to her mother, took a chair near Emily, a glass of Scotch in his fist. He glanced first at Drake and then at Gifford.

"What's been happening with Morrell?"

Gifford's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "It's under control."

Drake nodded. "We signed the papers on the Fowler deal yesterday. Morrell knows he's out of the running on that project. It's too late for him to try anything underhanded." Drake shot a quick, hooded glance at his sister.

Emily pointedly ignored him and sipped her wine.

"I assume you followed that up with a little insurance?" Jacob inquired dryly.

Drake nodded. "I followed that lead you gave me and did some research on the Satterly deal. You were right. Morrell was walking a very shaky line on that one. That stock was bouncing all over the place when he started buying it. He had to have been using inside information. It wouldn't take much work to turn up some concrete evidence to turn over to the Securities Exchange Commission. I discreetly let Morrell know RI was willing to go to the trouble of investigating his connection with Satterly ourselves if he gave us any more problems. He's not stupid. He knows when he's beaten."

"Do you really think he sent those punks after Jacob?" Emily asked, still unable to believe the Damon she had known would sink to that level.

Drake shrugged. "We'll never know for sure. It could have been a simple case of attempted assault and robbery. We can only be grateful it was Jacob who drove into the garage at that particular moment and not you. We told you when you rented that apartment that the garage looked dangerous."

Emily made a face at him which Drake ignored. He continued his summary of events, his eyes on Jacob. "Morrell sure as hell played innocent. But I let him know we had our suspicions about that garage incident and that we did not want to see any more unfortunate coincidences happening to any member of the family or to any of our friends. I warned him that we would use the Satterly deal to bring down his whole empire if anything happened. He'll watch his step now."

"Reassuring," Jacob commented blandly as he took another swallow of his drink.

"A pack of wolves," Emily murmured almost to herself.

"What was that, dear?" Catherine asked.

"Nothing. I was just making a general comment on the ways of big business."

Jacob looked at her. "You have to be able to defend your own, honey, or you and yours will get trampled. Just because we're not living in the jungle any longer doesn't mean the law of survival of the fittest has been repealed."

"Grandmother always said it was possible to conduct good business and maintain good ethical standards at the same time," Emily said.

Jacob shrugged. "She was right. For the most part. But sometimes you have to fight and when you do, you use whatever weapons you've got."

"I'm afraid Grandmother Ravenscroft was something of an idealist," Catherine said sadly. "She was very noble and high-minded about things, but she didn't always understand the business world."

"There's something I would like to know," Emily continued. Everyone looked at her. "Why was Damon so determined to beat you on the Fowler deal, and why did he want to hurt RI? Why was he looking for revenge?"

"I told you, it's just an old business score he wants to settle," Gifford assured her mildly.

Emily met her father's gaze. "I want to know the truth."

Her parents stared at her, clearly surprised by her insistence. But apparently they were getting accustomed to their daughter's new brand of assertiveness.

"Well," Gifford explained slowly, "it goes back to a big project down in South America that was put out for bid a couple of years ago. Morrell's people thought they had it all sewed up, but we decided to take a shot at it. We got lucky because of some contacts we had made on a previous operation down there. In South America, as in most other places around the world, it isn't necessarily the low bid that wins. It's who you know in government and industry that counts. RI has excellent contacts in South America. When we put those together with a bid that was more or less on a par with Morrell's, we got the job."

"It was just another business deal to us," Drake said. "But Morrell took it personally. He swore at the time he would get even, but we figured he was just letting off steam. Until we found out a few months ago that he had started seeing you, that is. Then we knew he was up to something and he intended to use you to get it."

"You decided the something he was after had to be a chunk of RI, right?" Emily tapped one nail on the arm of her chair. "You just assumed that because the man had started dating me that he intended to marry me so he could control those shares. Without any real evidence, you took it for granted he was up to no good."

"Emily," Jacob interrupted mildly, "calm down. They assumed right and you know it. Morrell admitted as much that day he came to your apartment."

"That's not the point," Emily declared, warming to her theme, "it's the way everyone instantly jumped to the conclusion that I and my precious shares needed to be protected that irritates me."

"Emily," Jacob tried again, his voice still mild, "you did need protection."

"I did not," she announced baldly. "I never in a million years would have married Damon Morrell. He was only a casual date as far as I was concerned. But no one bothered to ask for my side of the situation before jumping all over me with hobnail boots. Oh, no, you all leaped to the conclusion that I was in imminent danger of marrying. Not only that, you all assumed that if I did marry, I would automatically turn the RI shares over to Damon as if it were some sort of dowry. Well, I've got news for you. I would never have done that. I couldn't turn those shares over to someone outside the family, even if I wanted to. In fact, I can't even sell them to someone outside the family."

She had their attention now. They were all watching her in stunned amazement.

"What do you mean, you couldn't give or sell those shares, Emily?" Drake finally asked.

Emily smiled grimly. "Grandmother gave me those shares on her deathbed, but what no one here knew was that there were a few strings attached. Remember how she called me in and spoke to me alone the night before she died?"

"I remember," Catherine said with a small frown.

"She told me then that one day I would assume the role she was relinquishing."

"She saw herself as the company's corporate conscience," Gifford said slowly. "She didn't interfere often, but when she did she was as stubborn as all hell."

"Exactly," Emily agreed. "I hate to break this to all of you, but I'm afraid she selected me to take her place. She said I would eventually have to become RI's conscience. Ravenscrofts were born hunters, she said, and they were very good at what they did. They knew how to survive. But she felt they occasionally needed someone to pull on the leash. She gave me enough shares and enough potential power in RI to do that if it ever became necessary. I told her I didn't think I could handle it. I reminded her that I always seem to lose when I go up against the rest of you. But she said that someday things would be different. She said I was her granddaughter and she knew me. She said I just needed time."

"Emily," Catherine said weakly, "this is incredible. Why haven't you ever said anything about this before?"

Emily shrugged. "She told me to bide my time and wait until I felt confident before I tried flexing any muscle. She said I needed to grow and mature but that at some point in the future I would be ready to handle the job. She made me promise never to sell or give away my shares unless the family sold the firm outright. As long as Ravenscrofts run RI, I have to retain possession of those shares and I have to keep my seat on the board. She said she was entrusting the future of the family and the firm to me."