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Courtney had suggested a meet-up to discuss...something?
Being a cagey Brit, the guy hadn’t specified what, but Cade could make an educated guess. He had his suspicions both deMarco and Courtney were involved in the recent spike in the share price of Helberg Holdings. Courtney probably wanted them both to give him a free run... But no way in hell was that happening.
Helberg was a heritage brand—old-school, traditional, with a legacy which went way back. The company also had a real estate portfolio to die for, which Cade knew Landry Construction could bring back to its former glory.
Now Reed Helberg was dead, the company and all its assets were up for grabs. Owning that name, that history, that legacy would prove Landry Construction had class, something money alone couldn’t buy, and would finally allow Cade to reclaim a miserable memory from his childhood, which Helberg had incidentally been a part of.
No way was anyone taking Helberg away from him. Not even his squash buddies...
But as Cade went to shut his locker, his phone buzzed. A text from Dan Carmichael, the CEO of the PR consultancy he hadhired to work on brand management for the planned Helberg buyout, appeared on screen.
He lifted the phone back out of his gym bag. And scowled.
Cade, we have a problem. Have you seen the puff piece in Blush about you and deMarco and Courtney? It’s getting a lot of traction on social media. I’m not sure being called out as one of the #OneDateWonder billionaires is what we want for the brand atm.
OneDateWonder? What the...?
He clicked on the link Dan had added, because he had never heard of a magazine calledBlush. He scoured the headline, then the piece itself—which was illustrated with a host of snapped shots of him and Adam and Zane at a string of events in the last couple of months with a lot of different dates. And cursed. Loudly.
His chest tightened and his blood pressure spiked, his fury matched by the frustrating sense of impotence, as he scanned the comments on social media which Dan had also flagged.
Apparently, he, deMarco, and Courtney were at the centre of a gathering viral storm, featuring a bunch of insulting hashtags—#OneDateWonders,#billionaireblueeyedboysclub,#mancandysummerand#catchthemifyoucanamong them.
The internet debate, focussed exclusively on their sex lives, made all three of them look like jerks.
Could this derail what he wanted to achieve with Helberg?
Making Landry Construction respectable, aspirational, and the leading brand in high-class luxury properties was his life’s work. But just when he was about to take the next step, thefinalstep, some dumb magazine article had decided to turn his private life into a dirty joke.
He slung his cell in his gym bag and slammed the locker door.
He could take a joke as well as the next guy, but having his private life ridiculed reminded him way too forcefully of beingmocked as the only kid in senior high who didn’t have a prom date—because he couldn’t afford a corsage, let alone tux hire. He wasn’t that cast-off kid any more. He could buy whatever he wanted now. But he’d be damned if he’d let anyone laugh at him for clickbait.
He walked into the sauna and dropped onto the bench opposite Courtney. The view of the Manhattan skyline through the treated glass reminded him of how far he’d come since being shunted around a string of small towns in Louisiana—a the foster kid nobody had wanted to keep.
He cut off the pity party in his head as he picked up on the conversation between Zane and Adam. Didn’t take long to figure out his hunch had been right about Courtney’s motives for calling this meeting when the Brit added, ‘I need you both to back off...’
‘Helberg? Not happening...’ Cade said bluntly.
‘No can do,’ Zane added, making Adam Courtney frown.
‘It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, y’all,’ Cade drawled.
He didn’t let on he had personal skin in this game. Revealing how important it was to him to buy the company would make him look weak. And while he liked these guys well enough, they weren’tthatclose. Plus, he knew they both had a killer instinct—from the way they played squash.
‘Then we have a problem,’ said Courtney with a gravity Cade had come to expect from the guy. After all, he’d inherited his family’s business at twenty-eight.
He certainly had a lot more gravity than his kid sister, Charlotte, Cade thought ruefully, recalling something he’d discovered a couple months back.
Adam Courtney was the older brother of the poor little rich girl he’d crossed swords with in Vegas four years back and had never been able to forget...completely.
The family connection had been a surprise. Cade would not have put the measured, well-spoken, close-lipped guy sweating manfully opposite him together with the wild child who’d been shaking her booty on a table. Cade had never spoken about that long-ago encounter with Courtney because he’d been trying to forget the girl’s luminous green eyes, her fragile beauty, and her inappropriate come-on ever since.
So why the hell are you thinking about her now?
‘Actually, we have problems. Plural,’ Cade said. He needed to focus on that article and not his close encounter with Courtney’s sister—which was ancient history.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Adam replied, with just enough frustration to rile Cade.
