Mac took a deep breath before continuing. “I saved every goddamned cent I could. Often skimping on heat and food. I knew I wanted something better from life, but I also knew I’d have to work for it. Nobody in the fucked-up world I inhabited back then had done me any favors, and I didn’t see that changing any time soon.”
“You really are Mr. Self-Reliant.”
His stare was uncompromising as he looked at her, and she saw hardened steel in the gray depths of his irises. “What other choice did I have?”
“Crumble. Fold.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know how to do either of those, honey. I’m just not made that way.”
“You were certainly tough and self-reliant. There’s no doubt about that, but it sounds like you were unhappy, too.”
“Often I was, but that just made me strive all the more.”
“What did you do for fun? Did you have any joy in your life at that time?”
“Very little except for…”
“Except for what?”
“Except for reading. I loved books, and I’d devour anything I could get hold of. Some of it trashy, some of it informative, some of it downright inspirational and thought provoking.”
“Ah, I see a pattern emerging here.”
“Right from my early days in the care system I was an avid reader. My life was devoid of hope, but books allowed me to travel to magical, far-off places. Places I thought I’d never actually visit. Reading helped me escape the misery of my childhood.”
She watched his face light up as he became animated, passionate even. “There’s something about the written word, Kendall. Something magnificent, life altering even.”
“Yes. Yes you’re so right, Mac. I felt exactly the same way when I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I can remember being elated for days afterward. His way with words just blew me away.”
“Yeah, that’s right, honey. You feel it, too, don’t you? That’s yet another connection we share.”
Obviously energized, he continued. “Words have the power to change the world. They have the power to make and also bring down governments. The power to turn people’s lives around. The power to turn despair into hope.”
The way he spoke with such feeling and passion, she felt her heart beating out of her chest. Even talking books, Mac made her feel sexy as hell, and she knew her pussy was wet with arousal.
Enjoying his sheer zest for life, she now understood for the first time how he’d come to be the most feared and revered newspaperman on the East Coast. Against the odds, first he’d survived, then he’d thrived, and finally he’d triumphed. The man, her man was an inspiration.
“I was managing to save about fifty bucks a week to begin with, but it wasn’t enough. I had big plans for the future, so I needed more.”
“You could have robbed a gas station,” she joked.
“The thought did occur.” He winked at her, letting her know he wasn’t really serious. “For the next four years of my life, I was never in one place for very long. I regularly crisscrossed the country to find the best paid work I could.”
“What jobs did you do, Mac?”
“Anything and everything, honey. The dirtier the job, the better it paid. You have to remember I had no formal qualifications to fall back on, so I couldn’t get a job as a lawyer or a doctor or anything respectable like that.
“To give you some idea of what it was like back then, I vividly remembering working as a deckhand on some godforsaken rust bucket of a trawler that plied its trade off the coast of Argentina. I’ve never seen so many fish in one place.” He shook his head. “Jesus Christ, that was the hardest, most physical job I’d ever done, but the pay was real good. I also worked down the mines in both Colorado and West Virginia. Laid pipeline across Utah. Drilled oil off the coast of Texas. All these jobs were physically demanding, taking their toll on my body, leaving me too tired to spend the money I’d worked so fucking hard to earn. That was no bad thing though. In fact, it was exactly what I wanted, and all part of my plan, because by the time I was twenty-three I was worth a hundred thousand bucks. I’d worked every goddamn hour I could to make that money. Often working double shifts to the point of exhaustion.”
She leaned across and kissed him full on the lips. “Wow. Twenty-three, and a hundred thousand bucks. So you were a driven guy even way back then.”
He took her head in his hands and kissed her right back. “I’ll never be anything else, honey, until the day I die.”
“What happened next?”
“I kept reading.”
“Reading?”
“Yeah, only now I included the financial broadsheets as part of my self-made education. This was just about the smartest move I ever made, Kendall. After a while I learned to recognize which businesses were up and coming and which were on a downward spiral.”
“Let me guess. You put your money in one that was under performing.”
“You got it. You’re one smart girl.”
“Let me guess again. This crippled business was your first newspaper.”
“Yeah, right again, the Ohio Chronicle.” The sheer pride showing in his silver-gray eyes made her feel proud, too. “I did my research as any good investor should and found that the circulation had dropped for seventeen straight years in a row, going from a peak of over one hundred thousand copies a day down to less than six thousand. The paper was a basket case. Badly managed and on its knees, the business was just a few months away from closing down for good. The Chronicle first hit the presses in 1842 and since that time witnessed some great historical events, including the American Civil War and the first moon landing. I didn’t want to see it fold, so I put in an offer and waited. Two weeks later I got a reply. The Ohio Chronicle was mine lock, stock, and barrel. For the giveaway price of seventy-five thousand bucks, I now owned a newspaper that employed eight people.”
He leaned across and tenderly kissed the top of her head. “The kid from the care home was starting to go places, honey.”
“Hollywood could make a film about you, Mac. That’s inspirational.”
“It was touch and go, and for the first three months circulation dipped even lower, dropping below five thousand copies a day at one point, until slowly, myself and my team started to turn it around. Within five years the circulation was running at over a hundred thousand copies again, and the money just kept rolling in.
“My hard work was beginning to pay off, but despite my success I couldn’t afford to sit back and relax. That type of attitude can prove fatal in the newspaper industry.”
“When do you ever relax? You’re a workaholic.”
“You’re right. I did the exact same thing with four other failing newspapers, the Dallas Echo, the Baltimore Planet, the Chicago Herald, and the Boston Spirit, using the profits from my first baby the Ohio Chronicle to finance their purchase.” Kendall watched him puff up with pride. “Goddamn it, if I didn’t turn those bastards around, too, making a huge success out of every single one of them.”
“Wow, that’s just awesome, Mac.”
“Hard work, too.”
When she glanced down, she saw his cock was rock hard again, and instantly knew that Mac was a guy turned on by power and achievement. Well, she was turned on by his power, too. Turned on by the fact that he was incapable of quitting, no matter how hard things became. She searched her mind for the Hollywood blockbuster from the eighties. The one starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Ah yes that was it—The Jewel of the Nile. How did the song go again? She caught herself humming the catchy tune, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” That gladiatorial attitude summed up Mac perfectly.
Unable to resist his hard-on, she gently stroked it, feeling it twitch appreciatively in her hand. “Go on, boss. Nearly there.” When he looked across at her, she knew her provocative choice of words hadn’t been lost on him.”
“Mmm, it feels so good when you do that.” Mac was horny again. When wasn’t he? But before she could move in for the kill, his cell phone began vibrating on the nightstand. Mac turned and glanced at the small glowing screen. “Hold your horses, honey.” He removed her hand from his erect prick and then raised himself onto his elbow. “I’d better take this. It’s Frank Carrell.”
Chapter Twelve
“Yes!” Mac knew he positively barked down the line, but he didn’t want anything to get in the way of sex with Kendall. “Whatever it is, Frank, it had better be good.”
“It is, Mr. Buchanan, I’ve just received word from my sources in the Mexican police. They tell me that Karl Graves has been found dead in an expensive hotel room in Tijuana.”
Mac nodded. “Is that so?” Well, he certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep because some worthless piece of human excrement had breathed his last.