In the center of his steel-and-suede office, Trent Tan-ford leaned forward in his chair and tossed the letter into the trash. He felt no anger, no concern, just a desire to get back to work. He was no stranger to threats— e-mailed, snail-mailed or otherwise. He'd received them from his father; from recently fired and subsequently pissed-off employees of his family's media empire, AMS; from women, past lovers who had refused to accept the end of a relationship.

The threats were irritating, yes. But impactful?

No.

The thirty-one-year-old media mogul knew who he was and what he wanted—in business and in life—and no amount of outside influence was going to change that.

Trent signed a stack of contracts as outside the floor-to-ceiling windows to his left, the sun crept up the horizon bringing with it a hot new August day and an office building buzzing with activity.

"Good morning, Mr. Tanford."

Trent's door was open, as it usually was before 7:00 a.m. He nodded at one of his new young executives as she passed by, a pretty and brilliant redhead who had just graduated New York University the previous year. He glanced at the clock on his monitor. "Six-thirty. Good for you."

"Yes, sir." She smiled an ultraprofessional smile and moved on.

Trent went back to work. She was pretty, but he never dipped his pen into the company ink pot, not to mention the fact that she was way too young. But he did like redheads. In fact, he had a date with one tonight. A woman who was just as pretty, but not nearly as brilliant. Which was fine. Trent sniffed as he recalled their date th