Prologue
SURROUNDED BY respectful minions, Andrew Colton Tyler III strode through the hallways of DataProx Enterprises as if he owned the place. Which, in a way, he did. The very successful and profitable company had been started twenty-five years earlier by his father and uncle, who had been financed by their own wealthy father.
Andrew’s uncle had since died, single and childless, and his father was semiretired, leaving thirty-four-year-old Andrew in the president’s chair. No one currently employed by or associated with DataProx harbored any doubt of who was now in charge.
A young employee, her arms loaded with paperwork, barreled out of a doorway, in a hurry to reach her destination. She froze in her steps when she spotted the small but terrifying group headed in her direction.
Immediately noticeable because of his height, Andrew Tyler was in the center of the cluster. His coffeebrown hair was just slightly disheveled—he had a habit of running a hand through it when he was annoyed—and his coolly handsome face was set into lines of grim determination behind his gold-rimmed glasses. He wore a suit that the young clerk suspected had cost more than her monthly salary. Even his tie probably cost more than she made in a week. And the gleaming gold watch on his left wrist looked more expensive than the little car she drove to work each morning.
Four men and two women, of various sizes, races, and ages, but all dressed in comparably expensive businesswear, marched almost in formation around their employer, giving the appearance of a military escort for a high-ranking official. The young clerk shrank back against the wall to allow them to pass, hoping they’d never even see her.
She wasn’t so fortunate. Andrew Tyler spotted her immediately. During the weeks she’d worked for him, she’d gotten the impression there wasn’t much that he missed.
He gave her a nod and a smile that didn’t warm his frosty blue eyes. “Happy New Year,” he murmured perfunctorily. He didn’t add her name; she was well aware that he didn’t even know it.
She knew his, of course. “Happy New Year, Mr. Tyler,” she squeaked in return.
He nodded again and kept walking, his half-dozen shadows right on his heels. The young woman watched as they disappeared through the doorway into the research and development department, probably to spread their less-than-enthusiastic holiday sentiment there. Only when they were out of sight did she allow her breathing to return to normal.
She turned and hurried on her way, intensely aware of passing time. Only another hour until this New Year’s Eve workday ended. She couldn’t wait. She and her husband of seven weeks and three days had big plans for their first New Year’s Eve as a married couple. Some rowdy fun was in store for her that evening. And she had all the next day to recover before reporting back to work on Thursday, January 2.
She couldn’t help wondering how Andrew Colton Tyler III would spend the evening. Probably at a dull, snooty party, she suspected, remembering the bored, dissatisfied look in his ice-blue eyes. Mingling with the other rich and famous, all of them much too “cool” to let go and really party. She’d bet he wouldn’t have near as much fun as she and her Bobby had in store for themselves.
Regardless of his wealth and position, she wouldn’t consider trading places with Andrew Colton Tyler III, she decided, happily counting the minutes until quitting time. As far as she was concerned, there were a lot more important things in life than money and power.
She wondered if Andrew Colton Tyler III would agree.
1
ANYONE WHO WAS ANYONE in Memphis was seen at a particular country club on New Year’s Eve, and Andrew Colton Tyler III was certainly someone. He hadn’t missed one of these galas in ten years. And, he thought as he stood brooding on one side of the crowded ballroom, he couldn’t tell the slightest bit of difference between this affair and the nine others he’d attended.
The guest list was basically the same; only the most impressive of newcomers was brought into this august crowd. The clothing was different, of course—no woman in the room would be caught dead wearing the same dress twice to a splashy occasion like this—but similar in expensive style to all the fancy duds they’d worn before. The music was the same, played by technically skilled, practically interchangeable musicians with little expression on their faces.
Even the conversations were the same, Andrew thought with a swallowed sigh. An original topic hadn’t been introduced into this crowd since 1977.
A cluster of beautiful people drifted past him toward the dance floor as the musical ensemble prepared for their next set after a very brief break. Andrew nodded in response to a few acknowledgments, smiling perfunctorily at a witty one-liner he
’d heard at least a half-dozen times already that evening. He glanced at his gold watch. Just after ten o’clock and already Skip Hampton was repeating himself.
It was going to be a long time until midnight.
It wasn’t that Andrew didn’t like these people. He’d known most of them all his life. They were his friends, his peers. He understood them, and they him.
It wasn’t even that he wished he were someplace else. He’d chosen to attend this evening, just as he had all thoseNew Year’s Eves before. This was the life he’d been trained for since birth.
When some of the wealthy friends of his youth had rebelled against generations of Old Southern traditions and had struck out for more adventurous pursuits, Andrew had made a deliberate decision to remain, to take over the growing and thriving computer software company founded with money his great-grandfather had made in farming and banking. He’d accepted then that with the money and power would come duties and responsibilities.
Keeping up appearances at the club had been expected of him as much as the competent performance of his job.
He spotted his mother and her second husband across the room, surrounded by their contemporaries. His father would make an appearance closer to midnight, probably accompanied by one of the lovely, younger women whose company Andrew Colton Tyler, Jr., so enjoyed.
Maybe he should have brought a date, Andrew reflected, glancing around the room at the many couples in attendance. Maybe that would have eased his vaguely unsettled feeling that something was missing in this lavish holiday celebration.
He sipped his champagne, thinking that it had been a while since he’d been involved with anyone. Too long, perhaps. Ever since his fiasco of an engagement had ended two years ago, Andrew had been commitment shy. Asking someone to the New Year’s Eve party might have implied a bit more than he was ready to concede with anyone he’d dated in the past couple of years.
He intended to marry, of course, and to continue the prestigious family line. He was growing more impatient with each passing day to have that part of his future settled. For the past six months or so, he’d been discreetly looking for a suitable mate, though no one he’d considered thus far had quite fit his requirements.
This time, he would choose more wisely. Someone like him, he’d decided. Serious, reliable, secure in her own interests. Ashley had never been satisfied. She’d complained about the hours he spent at work, his lack of interest in the endless round of parties she so loved, his inattentiveness to her needs when business concerns distracted him.
Finally she had realized that he would never be the man she wanted to make him into . She’d met and married an international hotel magnate and they were now living in one of the four or five luxurious homes he maintained around the world, mingling with the rich and famous and living the life of high society that Ashley had so craved. A life Andrew would have hated.
He drained his champagne glass and wondered at his uncharacteristically introspective mood. Must be the significance of the occasion, he mused. The end of an old year, the beginning of a new one. Closing fast on the start of a new century. Not surprising that he was spending the evening looking ahead, reevaluating his—
Like a balloon deflated by the prick of a pin, Andrew’s mind suddenly emptied of all rational thought. He stood frozen in place, the empty glass in his hand as he stared across the room at the woman who’d suddenly moved into his line of vision.
She was the most stunning woman he’d ever seen.
He told himself she wasn’t exactly beautiful. Not classically beautiful, anyway. But he found that it didn’t matter. She was breathtaking.
Her hair was dark, almost black. She wore it pinned up into a cascade of demure curls that just touched the nape of her slender neck, bared by the low back of her sleeveless, body-hugging, long black dress. Stones glittered in her ears, and discreetly at her throat. Her face was a delicate oval, her eyes dark and artfully shadowed. Her mouth was painted scarlet, in notable contrast to her fair skin and black dress.
She smiled at something someone said to her, and Andrew could almost feel himself being pulled toward her, as though her smile were a magnet drawing him inexorably forward.
“Andrew. Hey, Andrew,” someone said, trying to detain him.