Page 3 of Vicious Kingdom

His voice crackled with anger. “You can come out now, little spy.”

Chapter 2 – Leonardo

The only redeeming quality about the Providence Club was that one could reach it by water. Unfortunately for me, my favorite speedboat was docked at the marina. I’d had a board meeting that went late, so driving down here was the only option.

I wouldn’t have come at all if the widow for Lawson Oil hadn’t offered dinner.

Which I reduced to cocktails. Mine sat empty on the table in front of me, and my fingers itched to signal the waiter for another.

Instead of drinking on the patio, however, Mrs. Lawson insisted we drink at a table in the lodge’s steakhouse with a view of the lake. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. If she came back from the bathroom and suggested dinner, it would be hard to negotiate out of the offer. I’d dropped several hints already that I was pressed for time, but to a woman who’d spent her life fluttering around society, spending her husband’s money, and never doing a day’s work in her long life, she wasn’t easily dismayed.

“Baldwin!” a voice called out from across the restaurant.

I turned in my seat, narrowing my gaze at the media mogul. What this man lacked in tact, he made up for in business practice. There was no buying his company…not for want of trying.

The stodgy man scuttled through the tables while his wife disappeared behind the half-wall, on her way to the lodge’s lower level where an indoor bar made patrons feel plebian but one step outside onto the patio brought back the luxurious feeling of class.

“Good evening,” I said coolly.

“It is,” he smirked. “Just thought I’d say hello to a fellow journalist.”

I owned one media company. After buying it, and after the long process to rebrand it into Blitz News, I’d made the executive decision not to sell. Keeping a source where we could publish our narrative was vital to my family’s bigger picture.

But I had more potential to be a nun than a journalist.

“Your piece on the international conflict was most unfortunate. You should really visit places before you publish such strong opinions.”

I stared at the man in front of me. No, it wasn’t a joke. Alfred Hertz was critiquing the work my company produced.

The bastard.

I nearly bought his company once. Before I discovered the woman I was mad for was his daughter.

My fingers curled involuntarily around my napkin. Thinking of that woman had a way of inciting a fury that could barely be controlled.

“I stand behind the pieces my journalists write. They do their research, and their op-eds are based in fact.” My answer packed a warning.

“But visiting a place lends a priceless validity,” Hertz insisted.

“Lies can be spun regardless of the writer seeing the situation firsthand,” I countered.

“Well, perhaps your board of directors needs to have a better handle on what they publish. If you’d like, I can recommend some individuals to shore up your leadership,” Hertz lisped.

My chair scraped across the worn oak floor as I rose. “There are no job openings.”

I strode past him. Baldwin Acquisitions—the company I ran the day-to-day activities of—oversaw many other companies. Each had good men and women managing them, so I didn’t have to be involved in their business. I relied on my people and rarely had to interfere. The intricate structure of trusts owning holding corporations, which in turn had operating corporations, was a web a pee-brain like Hertz couldn’t even fathom.

Mrs. Lawson smiled pleasantly as she lingered near the hostess stand. “That was…entertaining.”

I hmphed. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“Oh, I took the valet.” She fell into step beside me.

I made to take a right to the main entrance, but a click of her tongue told me we were going toward the opposite direction.

Kill me now.

Of course she parked on the lower level. Which meant we had to go downstairs, across the patio, and down the stairs to the waterfall seating area. Perhaps that was as far as she would expect my gentlemanly behavior to take her, and I wouldn’t have to walk the whole length to the valet booth.