Kat Cantrell – Wrong Brother, Right Man (страница 2)

Val snorted and didn’t bother to cover the flash of annoyance. “You act like your test is a punishment. LBC is an amazing place, full of dedicated people who work as a team to change the world. You’ll emerge a better person from your stint there.”

Val, on the other hand, was being set up to fail. Deliberately.

The hot spurt of injustice wouldn’t ease. Death had only been another step in Edward LeBlanc’s diabolical need to ensure Val understood that he was not the favored son. If he and Xavier weren’t twins, he’d wonder if he had even a drop of LeBlanc blood running through his veins.

But he’d counted on his inheritance to bolster the flagging donations at LBC. People were starving on the streets of Chicago, and Val was doing his part to feed them, one meal at a time.

Having a basic need met allowed people to feel more secure in their future. Val would never abandon those he helped.

He needed that money. The people he served needed that money. The things he could do with half a billion dollars—it was mind-boggling. Val had already poured a lot of his own personal fortune into the coffers, but LBC was a large organization that required a dizzying amount of overhead. More than seemed appropriate most days, given that it took away from money being funneled into food supplies.

And Xavier was going to be the conquering hero as he did Val’s job.

“At least you have a shot at passing your test.” Xavier sneered. “Raising profits over the billion mark at LeBlanc within six months was already in my plan. I have those dominoes set up. All you have to do is push them over. But I have to become a fundraiser.”

He said the word with distaste. Likely because he had no clue what it meant to be selfless, to spend time in pursuit of something honorable as you sacrificed your time, day in and day out, to better someone else’s life.

“Should be a piece of cake for someone with your connections.” Val flicked his fingers. “Ten million in six months is essential. So it’s not a lark that you can do or not do if you don’t feel like it. The organization will collapse if you fail. It hardly matters if I pour more money into LeBlanc’s coffers, but people depend on LBC for survival.”

Val gave his money gladly. LBC didn’t depend on it to stay afloat, but he believed in his cause and in setting an example.

Glowering at Val’s casual dismissal of his responsibilities, Xavier tapped an expensive pen against his laptop. “If LBC is in such dire straits, Dad should have allowed me to write a check. But no. He specified in the will that I have to raise the money through donations as some kind of character building exercise. It’s ludicrous.”

On that, they agreed. But not much else.

Before Val could blast apart Xavier’s assessment of LBC’s current state—which was not dire—Mrs. Bryce stuck her head into the office, glancing between the two of them with eyebrows raised. “Your one o’clock is here, Mr. LeBlanc.”

“Thank you,” Val said at the same time as Xavier, who stared at him balefully as he processed that he’d already lost his admin to the new CEO.

“You have a one o’clock?” his brother asked and shook his head with bemusement. “Would you like my suit too?”

That straitjacket? Not even if it came with a hot redhead inside it. “That’s okay. I’ll take your chair. I have an interview.”

No time like the present to get this crap-storm of a party started.

Xavier stood and then turned a shade of green that looked horrific. Which meant Sabrina had walked into his office. Excellent. Too bad Val had forgotten his popcorn.

Sabrina Corbin swept into the CEO’s office as if she owned it, her cool smile dropping the temperature faster than an arctic front. Holy hell. Tactical error. She was far more beautiful than Val remembered and far frostier. Xavier needed to go, stat.

“I believe you two know each other?” Val flipped a hand at Xavier’s ex as he skirted the desk to sink into the newly vacated seat. He locked eyes with the woman he’d only met once but desperately needed.

Sabrina had insight into the mind of LeBlanc’s CEO. Who better to assist Val into a checkmark for his task than an executive coach Xavier had dated?

Suddenly, he really wanted to know what had happened between them. And how he could do better than his brother. It was a complication he hadn’t seen coming, but there it was. He wanted Sabrina to choose him over Xavier, especially since Xavier had had her first.

“Sabrina.” Xavier’s expression smoothed out, magically eliminating a good bit of the tension. “Nice to see you. I was just leaving.”

With his brother’s exit, the rest of the tension should have gone with him. It didn’t. Sabrina turned in Val’s direction, and he resisted the urge to check under his seat for icicles.

“Shall I call you Valentino or Mr. LeBlanc?” she inquired as she slid gracefully into the spot Val had just vacated, crossing a mile of leg under the pencil skirt she wore like a second skin.

Even her stilettos looked like she kept them in the freezer. What would it take to warm her up? Instantly, his body got in on that action, every nerve poised to figure that out. Did she like slow and romantic? Fast and blistering hot? Both, spread out over a long weekend?

“You should definitely call me Valentino but not under these circumstances,” he told her with a lazy smile.

Sabrina lifted a brow. “Mr. LeBlanc then.”

Ouch. His grin widened. That had Interesting Challenge written all over it, and he did enjoy besting his brother or he wouldn’t have contacted Sabrina in the first place. “Thanks for coming by on short notice. You up for the job?”

“My last client succeeded in her goals three months before our deadline. If your check clears, I’m up for whatever you throw at me.”

Well, now. That perked Val up considerably. “Like I told you in the email, I have to run this joint for six months. I’m not corporate in the first place, but the terms of my father’s will say I have to move the needle from 921 million to a billion dollars in revenue by the end of the fourth quarter. I need you to be my ace in the hole.”

To her credit, she didn’t blink at the sums of money being thrown around. “You have to raise profits eight percent in six months?”

“You did that math in your head?”

Coolly, she took his measure, clearly amused. “Anyone can do that math in their head. It’s the easiest math problem in the world.”

He could do all sorts of things in his head, but math wasn’t one of them when the majority of his thoughts for the last five minutes had been more of the carnal variety. For example, he could imagine what Sabrina would look like spread out on his desk, cinnamon hair flowing as he pleasured her. And once he’d got that stuck in his head, there was no going back.

She’d be gorgeous as she came. Of course she would. Xavier didn’t do second class.

“You’re hired,” he said.

Smart did it for him in so many more ways than sexy. Combine the two, and he was going to have a very difficult time keeping his hands off Sabrina Corbin for the next six months.

Of course, no one said he had to.

“We haven’t even discussed the contract yet.” Her expression had that not-so-fast feel that raised his hackles. “You should know that I’m very difficult to work with if you don’t take this seriously. I don’t deal well with less than one-hundred-percent focus from my clients.”

As subtle digs went, that one was a doozy. She was essentially saying Don’t flirt with me.

“I can guarantee I will be focused,” he assured her, his smile slipping not at all, and it wasn’t even a lie. He was great at multitasking and, when Sabrina was the subject, focus wasn’t going to be a problem. “I can’t—I won’t—fail at this.”

And with that, his throat tightened, and he did not like the wave of vulnerability that washed over him. But this was so far out of the realm of what he’d expected from his father’s will. Prove you have what it takes, Val, his mother had insisted when he’d railed at her for accepting this insanity.

But why did he have to prove anything? Val had always spun gold out of straw when it came to feeding hungry people. Corporate politics bored him to tears, and Edward LeBlanc had never fully appreciated that Val had taken after his mother instead of him, which was at least half the problem.

“Oh, you will not fail. Not on my watch,” Sabrina promised, her hazel eyes glittering with something mesmerizing. A heat that Val would never have associated with her, if he hadn’t seen it personally. “I thrive when others give up. You might even say it becomes personal.”

A jab at Xavier? Now he had to know. “Because you have a score to settle with my brother?”

She didn’t so much as blink, but recrossed her legs, which was as telling a gesture as anything else she could have done. “Xavier is irrelevant to this discussion. I take my work seriously. I don’t have anyone else to rely on, and I like it that way. I’m a consulting firm of one, and that’s served me well.”

Oh, so she was one of those. Ms. Independent, with no need for a man. “So you dumped him.”

“Are you going to constantly read between the lines when I speak?”

“Only when you force me to.”