Lexi didn’t know. There was only one associate-level job available in the Internet division. Her job.

“Apparently you’re scheduled to start in real estate. With me.”

It took Lexi less than forty-five seconds to reach her father’s office. Bursting in, too angry to speak, she began signing at Peter at a hundred miles an hour.

“What the hell are you playing at, cooking up a deal with Max behind my back?”

Peter played dumb. “Slow down, darling. No one’s cooked up anything.”

“You signed off on the Internet budget increase!”

Peter shrugged. “Harry Wilder made a strong case.”

“It wasn’t Harry’s case, it was Max’s. He wants to make a whole bunch of acquisitions, companies that he knows nothing about. It’s madness. Wilder and the others are only backing him because they think he’s going to be chairman.”

Peter was silent. He’d made no secret of the fact that he did not want Lexi to take over Kruger-Brent. Had things been different with Robert, maybe he could have assumed the mantle one day. That was what Kate Blackwell had wanted. But Robert had chosen his own path. The idea of Lexi taking his place filled Peter with horror. She’d already been through so much. She had no idea what Kruger-Brent really was: a monster, a curse that swallowed people whole. Kate Blackwell had been consumed by it. Her son, Tony, was driven mad. Peter’s own hopes and dreams had been sacrificed to the monster, for Alex’s sake. But he wanted something better for Lexi. A normal life, a husband, children.

Lexi, however, had other ideas.

“August Sandford told me you’ve guaranteed Max a job in Internet. Is that true?”

Peter looked uncomfortable. “It was Jim Bruton’s decision.”

“You’re the chairman, Dad. You knew that’s where I wanted to work. They’ve dumped me in real estate, a total dead end.”

“Listen, darling-”

“No, Dad. You listen. Just because you don’t want me to become chairman, you think you and Max can bury me in real estate. Well, screw you and your little boys’ club. It’s because I’m a woman, isn’t it?” Lexi was furious. “This is such bullshit. Kate Blackwell was a woman and she was the best chairman Kruger-Brent ever had.”

“She was,” Peter murmured. It couldn’t be denied. “Master of the game. That’s what people used to call her.”

“Mistress,” Lexi shot back. “Mistress of the game. Which is exactly what I’m going to be, whatever you or Max or any of the other sexist pigs around here think.”

Peter watched her go, a whirlwind of righteous indignation, slamming his office door behind her.

She’s so like Kate, he thought.

His heart was filled with foreboding.

Outside in the corridor, Lexi forced herself to take deep, calming breaths.

Real estate? Why not accounting? Why not the goddamn mail room?

The real-estate division was known to be one of Kruger-Brent’s sleepier businesses. If there was a fiery center to the company, real estate was as far removed from it as it was possible to be.

Max thinks he can bury me alive in there with August. Out of sight, out of mind.

We’ll see about that.

Lexi’s cell vibrated in her pocket. New message, sender unknown. She read the four words on the screen. Suddenly nothing else mattered. Not Max, not Kruger-Brent, not anything.

She bolted into the ladies’ room, walking straight into a cubicle and locking the door. Only when she knew she was alone did she read the text again, allowing her eyes to linger on the most beautiful sentence she had ever read:

The pig is dead.

Lexi’s knees gave way and she slumped onto the toilet seat, tears streaming down her face. For years she’d allowed herself to believe that she’d shaken off the ghosts of her childhood, and the terrible things that had happened to her. Now she saw this for the fantasy it was. The pain would always be there. Always.

There could be no closure. Not in this lifetime.

Only vengeance.

Lexi savored its sweetness for a few precious moments. Then she dried her tears, erased the text from her phone and walked back to her office as if nothing had happened.

NINETEEN

CAPE TOWN WAS UTTERLY UNLIKE ANYTHING GABE MCGREGOR had ever seen.

After a twelve-hour economy-class flight on SAA that was a circus in itself-a family of eleven tried to bring a crate of live chickens on board as hand luggage, and several grown men fell asleep in the aisles-Gabe emerged bleary-eyed into the arrival hall at Cape Town International Airport to begin the new millennium not just on a new continent, but in a new world. People of every different race and creed swarmed the marble concourse like multicolored ants. Men in traditional African robes and women balancing brightly woven blankets or earthenware on their heads mingled with Asian businessmen in bespoke suits. Half-naked street children skipped around the luggage carousel alongside towheaded American kids dressed head to toe in Ralph Lauren, visiting Cape Town with their parents for the glitzy millennium New Year’s parties. Unpleasant, sour smells of sweat and travel were overlaid by the sweet coconut scent of shea butter, expensive aftershave and the delicious, barbecue tang of boerewors, the traditional Cape Dutch sausages sold by vendors outside. Every one of Gabe’s senses was assailed by something new.

I wonder if this is what it felt like for Jamie McGregor all those years ago. Stepping off his boat, the Walmer Castle, onto a wharf of unfamiliar sights and sounds.

Like Jamie, Gabe had never been away from home before. Unless you counted three days in St. Tropez, or family holidays on the Isle of Mull in an RV when he was eight (Gabe didn’t). Both men had come to South Africa to make their fortunes, determined to love the country, to make it their home.

Soon all these sights and sounds and smells will seem normal to me. I have Africa in my blood, after all.

“I hate sodding Africa. I want to go home.”

Gabe was slumped on a bar stool in an Irish pub in Camps Bay. Did they have Irish pubs on the moon yet? Probably. At least one McGinty’s. He’d been in Cape Town for a week, during which time he’d been mugged at gunpoint, had his wallet and passport stolen, developed a mysterious stomach bug that had him on his knees over the toilet bowl every night, and failed to find a place to live. Oh, and had every square inch of his white Scottish skin bitten to death by mosquitoes the size of small bats.

“Why don’t you, then?”

The girl was American. A brunette with merry green eyes and a full, womanly body that Gabe couldn’t take his eyes off of. After eight years in prison, he’d learned an even deeper appreciation of the female form, and this girl’s form was exquisite.

She introduced herself as Ruby.

“Why don’t you go home?”

“I can’t.” Gabe hoped he wasn’t blushing. Christ, she was gorgeous. “I only just got here. I can’t go home till I’m rich enough to pay everybody back.”

“You’re not rich, then?”

“Not yet.”

“Why d’you hate Africa?”

“How long have you got?” Gabe locked his gray eyes onto Ruby’s green ones and decided he hated Africa a lot less than he did two minutes ago. “Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you about it.”

They chatted for more than hour. Ruby was from Wisconsin. She’d come to Cape Town ten years ago to model.

“Ten years ago? How old were you then? Six?”

Ruby smiled. “I was thirteen. I quit the business at seventeen.”

“Why?”

“Too old.”

Gabe roared with laughter.

“And too short. At seventeen, your growing days are over.”

Gabe glanced down at her endless legs.

“You realize there are NBA pros shorter than you? Hell, there are probably apartment buildings shorter than you.”