Page 23 of The Player

He fixed her with an incredulous stare. ‘Let me get this straight. You want a publishing contract and a marketing job here? After basically telling me to stick my offer—’

‘Call it a WAG’s prerogative to change her mind.’ She smiled, hoping it would soften him up. ‘What do you say? Do we have a deal?’

‘What we have here is you not telling me everything and then having the cheek to try and coerce me into giving you a job too.’

‘Take it or leave it.’

Yeah, as if she could afford to call his bluff.

If he left it, she’d be back to strapping on her stilettos and smiling for the cameras again. She shuddered.

After a few fraught seconds, the sensual lips that had explored every part of her body eased into a smile.

‘You drive a hard bargain, Liza, but you’ve got yourself a deal.’

Liza could’ve hugged him. She settled for a sedate shake of hands, though there was nothing remotely sedate about the way her body buzzed as his fingers curled around hers.

The part of her plan where she kept dealings with Wade strictly business would be sorely tested.

Chapter Ten

Wade had given up trying to figure out women a long time ago.

He dated them, he wooed them, he liked them, but that’s where it ended. Any guy who lost his head over a woman was asking for trouble.

He’d seen it firsthand with his dad.

Not that he’d begrudged the old man happiness, far from it. Quentin had raised him alone after his mum died when he was a toddler, devoting his time to his business and Wade with little room for anything else. When Wade started uni, Babs had come along and his dad had been smitten. Wade had been appalled.

He’d seen right through the gold-digging younger woman; probably why Babs had hated him on sight.

The feeling had been entirely mutual.

But Wade had seen the way his dad lit up around Babs and while he’d tried to broach the delicate subject of age differences and financial situations, one ferocious glare from his dad had seen him backing down.

Quentin and Babs had married within a year, and as much as Wade hated to admit it, Babs had been good for his father. They’d had a good ten years together, but Wade left for London after two. He couldn’t pretend to like Babs and vice versa, and he saw what the barely hidden animosity did to his dad. It caused an irrevocable tension between them, and while neither of them mentioned it, it was there all the same.

Wade had stayed away deliberately, only catching up with Quentin on his infrequent trips to London, invariably alone. They talked publishing and the digital revolution and cricket but Wade never asked how Babs was and his dad never volunteered the information.

He hadn’t seen his dad in the fifteen months before his death and Quentin hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth about the heart condition that had ultimately killed him, resulting in the biggest regret of Wade’s life and the sole reason he was here, trying to save the company that had meant the world to his dad.

He should’ve known about his dad’s dodgy heart. He should’ve had the opportunity to make amends for deliberately fostering emotional distance between them. Instead, Quentin died and guilt mingled with sorrow for Wade, solidifying into an uncomfortable mass of self-recrimination and disgust.

He didn’t trust easily and his scepticism of Babs had ultimately driven his dad away.

He regretted it every day since.

Hopefully, saving Qu would help ease the relentless remorse that he’d screwed up when it came to Quentin.

While Wade had left Qu a long time ago, he kept abreast of developments, and when rumours of employee dissatisfaction, low print runs, poor sales, and financial strife reached him in London following Quentin’s death, he knew what he had to do.

Throw in the fact his dad had barely been buried before Babs started flinging around terms like ‘white elephant’ and ‘financial drain’ in relation to Qu, and Wade had had no choice.

He’d appointed his deputy as acting CEO in London and hightailed it back to Melbourne as fast as he could. Just in time too, judging by the board’s lukewarm response to his plans to save the business.

As for his confrontation with Babs before the party yesterday…he’d been right about her all along.

Thank goodness his dad had been smart enough to leave a precise will. Babs got the multimillion-dollar Toorak mansion and a stack of cash. Wade got the business. But sadly, the bulk of his dad’s shares had passed on to Babs too, and that meant they now had equal voting rights with the board of Qu Publishing.

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