Chapter One

Peter Aaron Kelly looked around his suite of offices and grinned. He'd done it. He'd made it happen. And he'd pulled it off right on schedule. He patted himself on the back as he made his way into the private lavatory that was as big as his family's living room back in Idaho.

Pete, as he liked to be called, stared at his reflection in the huge plate glass mirror that took up one entire wall of his private bathroom. He straightened the knot in his tie. Not just any knot but a Windsor knot. He loved Windsor knots because they looked so neat and finished. The suit wasn't half-bad either. Custom-made Armani that draped his lanky frame to perfection. Not that he normally wore such attire, but it was a special day, and he owed it to his people to look his best. If he showed up in his jeans, a washed-out, ragged Berkeley T-shirt, and his tattered baseball cap, no one would take him seriously. The power suit and the Windsor knot shrieked: PAY ATTENTION.

The eight-hundred-pound gorilla and founder of PAK Industries continued to study himself in the mirror. No one would ever call him handsome. Nor would they say he was cute. Articles, and there were hundreds of them, said he was "interesting." One even said he was "chameleon-like," whatever the hell that meant. Those same articles then fast-forwarded to his financials and more or less said he could be ugly as sin because no one cared, and with all that money in the bank, he was the CIC. His secretary had to translate that for him. CIC, she said, meant Cat in Charge. If he wanted to, he could start purring right then. He laughed at the thought.

"Hey, Pet

...