Star-Crossed Lovers

Star-Crossed Lovers

Prologue
 
“Damn him!” Charles Logan looked at his son with bitter gray eyes. “I don’t suppose we can prove it?”
 
Jonathan Logan shook his head, the same hard emotion reflected in his blue eyes. “Not a chance, Dad. The inspector was smart enough not to put the money in his own bank account, and my source at city hall won’t go on the record with what he knows.”
 
“But he’s sure it was Stuart?”
 
“Who else?” Jonathan laughed shortly. “The inspector was paid to keep us tied up for weeks while he looks at every piece of wire in the building; he’s not about to accept our word that the electrical work is up to code. And you can bet Stuart’s building has already been approved. Unless we do something to slow Stuart down, we don’t have a hope in hell.”
 
The elder Logan turned to stare out the window of his tenth-floor office. In the distance, between two other buildings, he could see his own latest effort rearing skyward. From the outside it looked complete, but even now his crews were at work doing what they could inside it. Until the inspector passed all the wiring in the massive building, most of the work couldn’t be finished.
 
Though always fiercely competitive with his nemesis, Charles Logan never permitted slipshod work due to haste. But on this job, he had pushed his crews to do it right and fast, because there was so much at stake.
 
And now…
 
“Dad? We aren’t going to take this lying down?” Jonathan’s voice was incredulous. “If Stuart finishes his building first, he’ll get the Techtron contract and it’s worth millions. He’ll crow all over Atlanta that he beat us—”
 
“He’s not going to beat us.” Charles’s voice was deadly quiet. “No matter what we have to do, he’s not going to beat us.”
 
—
 
Frowning, Brandon Stuart gazed out his office window as he listened to one of his foremen. He said nothing until the man finished his report, then turned to stare at the man.
 
“We’ve dealt with these suppliers for years, Carl. What the hell’s going on?”
 
The foreman shrugged helplessly. “Beats me, boss. To hear them tell it, half the material we order is out of stock, and the other half turns out to be not what we ordered. I’ve had to send four trucks back just this morning. It feels to me like we’re being stonewalled.”
 
“Logan,” Brandon Stuart said, making the name a curse.
 
The foreman blinked. “I don’t see how, boss. Unless—well, I suppose they could be favoring his orders over ours. All the places we’re having trouble with supply him, too.”
 
“I want it stopped,” Stuart said in a voice that grated. “I don’t care what it takes, or what it costs, I want it stopped. I won’t let that bastard beat me!”
 
—
 
“They don’t know about it?”
 
“No, my love, they don’t. They don’t know how strongly the seeds of hate took root.”
 
Troubled, she said, “Dangerous.”
 
Cyrus Fortune smiled at his lady, but though the smile glowed with the love he always showed her, there was little reassurance in it. “The wild card, I’m afraid. I can’t be sure how the others will react to it. But a festering wound must be opened to let the poison out.”
 
“She’ll be hurt.”
 
Cyrus sighed heavily, his benign dark eyes fully expressing his sorrow. “I don’t see how it can be avoided. That wasn’t a part of my plan. But I should have anticipated what he would do.”
 
“Nonsense.” Her tone was bracing, but she softened it with a smile. “At any rate, I feel sure you’ll do what you can to lessen any unanticipated blows.”
 
“What I can.” Cyrus glanced out the small window at the thick white clouds beneath them and sighed again. “But where there is love—real or manufactured—there must be pain as well. Some blows can’t be softened.”
 
There was nothing she could say to that, and she knew him too well to pretend answers she didn’t have. Instead, her small hand slipped into his, and she remained silent while the sleek jet cut downward through the clouds toward its landing on the island of Martinique.