Stolen: The Billionaire Deception (2 page)

It took me a full five seconds to find my voice. It seemed like minutes, or even hours as he stood there waiting for me to shake his hand. On the verge of an embarrassingly long pause, I finally took it and felt a spark of electricity shoot up my arm just with that simple touch. I mentally kicked myself in the butt and again I re-focused.

“
Hello Mr. Hunter. I’m so pleased to meet you, and happy to be here.”

“
Have a seat Miss Summers, and please, call me Seth. Mr. Hunter is my father.”

That was what I needed to snap back to reality. Yes, this man was absolutely beautiful, and yes, the room felt like it was suddenly charged with sexual energy… but I was here to destroy this man’s father and if I had to, him in the process. I needed to hold onto the anger I felt surge through me when he’d mentioned his father’s name. It was going to get me through what I needed to do.

I sat down in one of the chairs opposite him just as a middle-aged, balding man with a paunch rushed in the door. “I’m sorry, Seth. I just got out of the meeting with the auditors.”

“
It’s fine, Harlan, we were just about to start. Harlan Broderick this is Erin Summers. Harlan is our CFO and he is also someone the person who accepts the position you are interviewing for will be working closely with.”

“
I’m honored to meet you Miss Summers. I read your portfolio and I have to say I wasn’t only impressed, I was quite envious of all that you’ve accomplished at such a young age.”

“
Thank you, sir. I’ve heard great things about you as well,” I told him. I wasn’t making that up. My research about Hunter Corp. had netted me more than one fan of his. It seemed that he was a competent, intelligent man who was also very easy to work with. He attracted clients to the company like flies.

“
Please, no sir’s around here unless you run into the senior Mr. Hunter in the hallway,” Harlan said. It was good that they kept mentioning him. It kept that anger surging. “Call me Harlan,” he said.

“
Thank you,” I said to him. “And both of you please call me Erin.”

“
So Erin,” Seth said, opening the file he had in front of him. “What do you know about the position you’re applying for today?”

“
The CBDO is in charge of developing elaborate business plans and designing and implementing processes to support business growth…”

“
And how would you support business growth?” he asked.
Not by stealing it
, I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “Through customer and market definition. That would include working together with clients as well as business partners such as suppliers and sub-contractors, JV partners, our technology providers…”

Seth was nodding, and Harlan looked impressed. Seth started to ask another question, but I wasn’t quite finished with that one yet. “I would also be responsible for building and maintaining high-level contacts with our current and prospective customers and other business and project partners.”

Seth smiled. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I found it easier to hate him when he didn’t look good enough to eat for lunch.

“
Very good,” he said. “So let me ask you this… let’s say you bring in a prospective customer and he’s on the fence about his business with our company versus another. Would you hand him off to our marketing director from there?”

“
Absolutely not. Once I identified a prospective client, it would be my job to drive them through to the contract award. I’d do that of course by emphasizing to them how skilled we are at identifying new customers and markets and developing new approaches to old markets. I would also be on top of all proposals and follow their preparation from start to finish.”

The men looked at each other. I could tell that my business acumen was not only impressive to them, but somewhat startling. No doubt, even though they’d obviously read my resume and portfolio they still hadn’t expected a twenty-four year old woman to be so prepared. Harlan went next, asking me what other strong skills I had that I thought would be beneficial for this position.

“
Well, one thing I have had a lot of success with at Lyon is developing marketing strategies.” I gave them some examples of that and then I went on to say, “I have also managed entire proposal teams and client account managers… very successfully if I might add.”

The interview lasted about forty-five minutes. Seth was obviously smart and in spite of being James Hunter’s son, well-educated and suited for the role he currently filled within the company. I wasn’t sure if that was more to my advantage or disadvantage… I guess time would tell. He asked me a lot of tough questions, and I answered them. I didn’t feel like there was anything he asked me that I wasn’t familiar with. Harlan seemed to like me a lot. I think I had him at the description of my job duties. Seth also seemed impressed with me and not bored or in a hurry to get rid of me so that was a good sign. They gave me the opportunity to ask questions and once again I was prepared with some of what I thought were intelligent, insightful questions and comments. When the interview was over, Harlan told me once more how impressed he was with me. Then I turned to Seth, who seemed to trap me in his blue gaze.

“
I’m also impressed with the amount of work you put into researching this company. A lot of people forget that’s a vital part of an interview. I’m glad that you didn’t. Listening to you talk about our company sounded as if you’ve already worked here for a decade. I think you could teach me and Harlan a few things that we didn’t know.”
If he only knew.
“We have a few more interviews and hope to make a decision by early next week, so someone will be in touch Erin. Thank you so much for coming in.” I shook both their hands and thanked them. I could feel my insides shaking as I made my way outside. As I was going through the outside door after saying good-bye to the receptionist, a tall man with dark hair and gray at the temples was coming in the door. He was well-dressed in an expensive suit and his skin was tanned and healthy looking with just a touch of fine lines around his dark blue eyes. I didn’t have to look twice to know it was James Hunter… the man who had stolen my life.

He didn’t even seem to notice me as he somewhat rudely brushed past me and barged his way into his son’s office unannounced. He was just as ill-mannered as I would have suspected a thief to be.

~

CHAPTER THREE

~

I walked out of Hunter Corp. with my head held high, smiling at everyone I saw and if anyone didn’t know better they would think I had just landed a job in the executive suite I came out of. Once I made it to the parking garage and got into my car I just sat there for a long time, allowing my body to tremble and shake the way it had wanted to do all day. It was taking every bit of brain power I had to keep myself steady during the interview. It actually felt good to allow them to do what they needed to do.

When my hands were steadier I reached into my bag and took out the bottle of water I’d put in there this morning. I took a healthy drink and then I had to sit there a while longer while my irritable stomach settled. The nerves I’d been tamping down all morning finally wanted their just dues and they were turning into seeds of self-doubt that planted themselves inside my head. I was suddenly afraid that the anger I felt when Seth mentioned his father had shown through my facade. At the time, I thought that I was hiding it well, but now I had to ask myself whether or not I really had. I was not a good liar. I hadn’t practiced it much in my lifetime. What if he saw through me? What if he saw the angry look in my eyes when he mentioned his father? For starters I wouldn’t get the job. Could they damage my career beyond that if they wanted to?

I consciously slowed down my breathing and took another sip of my water. I leaned my head back into the seat and closed my eyes, allowing myself only positive talk in my head. The interview had gone great, better than most of the ones where I’d gotten the job. I was fine, everything was going to be just fine. My nerves were coming down slowly. I concentrated on the fact that I needed to stop second-guessing myself; it wasn’t going to do anything but agitate me, right? I thought about passing James Hunter in the hall and I had to wonder if I would be able to do that every day without ever letting him see the anger and the hate that I had felt for him for so long. That anger was what motivated me most days. Taking back what was mine from James Hunter had become so important that my entire life was designed around it at this point. I’d put my life on the back burner. It was one of the things Grant used when he was in lecture mode about what I was doing. At twenty-four years old everything I did was with one end goal in sight… to get back what that man took from me when I was too young and too innocent to fight for it. I rarely dated and a relationship would just take precious time away from my plan as far as I was concerned. I would have time for all that later when I was running my own company.

I took one last drink of water and another deep breath and I started the car. I was still practicing the self-talk as I drove home. I was intelligent and capable; I graduated from my MBA program at the top of my class. I’d excelled at practically everything I’ve ever done in my life. When I put my mind to it, I can do anything; I will excel at this as well. I talked to myself like that from the parking garage at Hunter Corp into the parking stall in front of my apartment just outside of the city.

I walked into my apartment with a great feeling and my head once again held high. I’d taken some time off that I had coming from Lyon’s. I felt bad about job shopping, or even thinking about it when I was on the clock there so I’d cashed in on two weeks of vacation. It was only a portion of what I had coming. I didn’t take sick days, I didn’t take days off, and since I was thirteen years old, I hadn’t been on a vacation. I’d thought it was a good idea at the time, but after being home for five minutes the wheels in my head were turning again and I realized that I probably would have been much better off if I had something more productive to keep my mind on while I waited for Seth’s call. Seth Hunter, the man who sat in the chair that I should be sitting in and looked so comfortable doing it. That thought caused another surge of anger to boil its way to the surface. As I walked around the apartment fluffing pillows and straightening pictures on the walls I could actually feel my blood pressure rising at the thought.

I was suddenly that little girl again. I could see my thirteen year old self. I was privileged, raised by two loving parents in a wealthy home in a part of upstate New York that was completely untouched by the grime, pollution and crime of the city. I was over-indulged at times, but not spoiled rotten. My parents taught me the value of hard work, honesty and integrity. I was happy… and I was naïve. I had no idea how fast a person’s life could change. In the blink of an eye that day, I had gone from someone’s much-loved child to an orphan.

Louisa Romano was my mother’s housekeeper. She was an amazing, fun, vivacious, loud Italian lady in her fifties and I loved her. She was at our home more than my parents were sometimes because of their hectic schedules. She had morphed from a housekeeper into a cook and a babysitter and a best friend. It was poor Louisa, who was saddled with the task of telling me that there had been an accident that day,

“
Honey…” She was late and I had been worried she wasn’t coming that day.

“
Louisa!” I ran into her arms and after a few seconds I realized that she wasn’t letting me go. Louisa wasn’t a small woman and she was holding me too tight. When I wriggled free at last, I realized that her pretty red cheeks were covered with tears. “Louisa, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

She took my face in her hands and said something in Italian. It was something I since learned meant, “Poor baby girl.”

“
You’re scaring me,” I told her.

“
I’m sorry, baby. It’s terrible news… Your parents, they were in an accident.”

“
Oh my God! Where are they, Louisa? Will you take me to them?”

She collapsed in a torrent of tears then and I knew before she pulled up her tear-stained face and looked at me again that I was never going to see them again. The next few weeks were the worst of my life. First there were the funerals and the wakes. My parents knew a lot of people, so the house was never empty. Then came the trip to the lawyer’s offices. Louisa would go with me and I was so numb at the time I didn’t realize that they were searching for other relatives as far away as Ireland. They finally found some cousins of my mother’s in Belfast who said they would take me.

“
Louisa no! Please don’t let them take me!” I begged her, clutching onto her dress and refusing to be torn away.

Louisa ran her hand soothingly along my long curls and said, “Don’t cry baby. No one is taking you.” She filed a petition for custody and because I was a teenager and Louisa had a sterling reputation in her own neighborhood, it was approved. In my thirteen year old mind, Louisa would live in the big house with me until I was old enough to make it on my own…

Two weeks after that we were called back to see the lawyers. They were different ones this time and Louisa told me that it was about my inheritance. I sat and listened as they talked about my father’s business and how he supposedly owed so much money against it that even selling the house and all the furnishings wouldn’t save it. That was the first time I heard James Hunter’s name. His lawyer was there, and he said that James could pay the debt and in doing so, the company would revert to him. They talked in a lot of big terms that my young mind didn’t understand, but when the day was over I understood two things: I was losing the only home I had ever known, and I was losing my father’s legacy.