“Too late for everything. I’m dead, you see. My boy killed me.”

Foul green slime began to ooze from the old man’s nostrils.

“Why did you do it, Max? I loved you so much.”

Keith?

A terrible, unearthly stench filled Max’s office. He started to choke, clutching his desk for support.

“Get out! You’re dead! Get out and leave me alone!”

“Max?”

“I said GET OUT!”

August Sandford was shaking Max by the shoulders.

“Max! Can you hear me? Are you all right? Max?”

“Oh God. I killed him!”

“Killed who?”

That was all they needed in a crisis. A chairman who was losing his marbles.

Slowly, Max emerged from the nightmare. The terror began to fade. It’s okay. I’m in my office. August’s here. It was a dream, that’s all. Just a dream.

“I’m sorry.” He smiled weakly at August Sandford. “The stress gets to me sometimes. I’m fine.”

Like hell you are.

Max forced himself to look at the screen in front of him. This was the real nightmare. And he hadn’t the first clue what to do about it. Sensing his indecision, August took charge.

“You need to call a board meeting. Right now. We need to find out who’s short-selling our stock and why. If it’s the credit rumors, we can address that. But we have to act fast.”

August Sandford hurried out of the room. Max stared at the open door, half expecting his father’s ghost to reappear. Annabel’s right. I need help.

He pressed a buzzer on his desk.

“Tell the board I’m convening an emergency meeting.”

His computer screen was flashing.

Fifteen percent down.

Sixteen…

“I want everyone around that table in fifteen minutes.”

Lexi was clearing her desk at Templeton when David Tennant knocked on her open office door.

“Come in.” She smiled at him warmly. David Tennant did not return the smile, or the warmth.

“I came to give you this.” He handed her a sealed white envelope.

Lexi joked. “I take it from your expression that it’s not an early Christmas card?”

“No. It’s my resignation.”

Lexi looked taken aback. “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. I thought we were partners, Lexi. But partners don’t lie to each other.”

“David! I haven’t lied.”

David Tennant shook his head in disbelief. “Haven’t lied? You’ve done nothing but lie for months. Lexi, you’ve plundered the company balance sheet without mercy, despite solemnly promising me you would stop. Our cash reserves are so low we can barely afford a hot dog. You refuse to tell me, to tell any of us, what you’ve been buying.”

“I haven’t been buying anything,” said Lexi truthfully. “It’s true that at one time I was acquiring businesses.”

“From Kruger-Brent.”

“Yes,” Lexi admitted. “But I stopped that years ago.”

“Really. So where is the money, Lexi?”

Lexi picked up a brass paperweight on her desk and studied it intensely. When she spoke, she did not meet David Tennant’s eye.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

David Tennant turned to go.

“Wait! Please, David. Trust me. All the money I’ve borrowed from Templeton will be repaid. With interest. This deal that I’m working on could make us a fortune.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“It will. But if worse comes to worst, I can refinance Templeton.”

“How?”

Lexi looked at him brazenly. “By borrowing against my Kruger-Brent stock.”

“Lexi, have you looked at the markets this morning? Kruger-Brent’s stock is in free fall.”

“What do you mean ‘free fall.’ They’re down?” She switched on her computer, trying to hide her excitement. It’s started.

“Not down. Crashing. Something’s going on over there. People are dumping KB shares as if they were live hand grenades. Unless Max Webster can turn the tide, they could be bankrupt by Monday morning.”

The stock price popped up on Lexi’s screen. Her hands started to tremble.

In other circumstances, David Tennant might have felt sorry for her. If Kruger-Brent did go under, Lexi stood to lose a fortune. But having watched her strip the value out of his 10 percent stake in Templeton without a shred of remorse-seven years of work up in smoke!-he wasn’t feeling at his most charitable.

He walked out of the office without looking back.

After he’d gone, Lexi sat at her desk for a long time.

They could be bankrupt by Monday morning.

If this doesn’t work, I’ve destroyed the thing I love most in the world.

An hour later, Lexi left the office and drove out to the Hamptons. This weekend with Gabe had been on the schedule for months. She couldn’t cancel. She had to behave normally. Act like nothing has happened.

Gabe saw Lexi’s Aston Martin DB7 pull into the graveled driveway. He watched from their bedroom window as she stepped out of the car.

“Our” bedroom. That’s a joke. Lexi can’t have spent more than six nights here all year.

As always, her beauty took his breath away. She wore a plain gray wool business suit and cream silk blouse, her blond hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. But she still shone brighter than the polestar. She always will to me. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. Maybe, somehow, she’d have an explanation for taking the money? For all the secrecy, all the lies? Clinging to faint hope, he went downstairs.

Lexi dropped her weekend bag in the entryway and hugged him fiercely. Gabe saw instantly that she’d been crying. Tears of remorse? Guilt?

“What’s the matter?”

Lexi followed him into the sitting room. She sank down onto the white couch that only a few short hours ago had borne the weight of the fat PI.

“Is there something on your mind? Something you want to tell me?”

Not until that moment did Lexi realize how much pressure she’d been under. The greatest gamble of her life was under way. She longed to unburden herself to Gabe. But she knew she couldn’t.

“I’m not sure where to begin.”

Gabe felt the love well up inside him like freshly struck oil. She looked so forlorn and vulnerable.

She really is sorry. She’s going to confess everything. I’ll forgive her. Everything will be all right.

“Templeton’s going under.”

Gabe hid his surprise. It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. Was that why she’d stolen from his charity? To prop up her business? Hardly the most noble of reasons, but perhaps in desperation…

“David Tennant resigned today. I’m going to have to let the others go, too.”

“I’m sorry, darling. I know how much that business means to you.”

Lexi looked up at him with genuine surprise.

“Templeton? It doesn’t mean that much to me.”

Now Gabe was confused. “But…you’ve been crying.”

“Not about Templeton.” Lexi sniffed.

This is it. This is where she’s going to come clean about the money. Ask to make a fresh start.

“Kruger-Brent’s share price got decimated today. Wiped out. They could…it might mean the end of the company.”

Gabe recoiled as if he’d been stung.

Kruger-Brent? She’s crying over Kruger bloody Brent?

It was the last straw. Gabe hadn’t hit another human being since almost killing that poor man in London thirty years ago. But he could feel his fists twitching. Did Lexi have no shame at all? She’d stolen money, not just from him, the man she was supposed to love, but from the thousands of AIDS victims who desperately needed it. But that didn’t bother her. Oh no. All she cared about, all she’d ever cared about, was that godforsaken company. Gabe remembered his father, how he’d died broken and embittered, destroyed by his obsession with Kruger-Brent. I traveled halfway across the world to avoid the same fate. And here I am, in love with a woman every bit as poisoned and corrupted by Kruger-Brent as my dad was.

Oblivious to his anger, Lexi went on.

“There have been some credit problems. I didn’t realize it was that serious, but obviously it must be. The market can sense Max’s weakness like a shark smelling blood.”