Page 16 of Passion and Deception

Maggie shook her head, blinking again. “I’m your waitress tonight,” she replied, trying to sound professional, but she knew that some of her hurt was leaking out in her tone. She sounded wobbly and…and weak!

Maggie was not weak! She’d had to cower and tremble in the past. Too many men had betrayed her trust. Her father! Her boyfriends! The previous owner of this damn club! And now Ramit! He’d betrayed her, pretending to be a good, honest, hardworking man.

He’d lied! He wasn’t good. He wasn’t honest or hardworking. He was obviously a wealthy jerk who was going to enjoy bossing her around!

“My boss had a particularly excellent Glencairn bottle of scotch. I highly recommend it.”

Chapter 12

Ramit glared down at Maggie, not sure what the hell was going on. She worked here? He knew Sean and Matteo, and had dined with the third owner, Levi Harris, but the other men in this room, especially the two he was supposed to meet tonight, were mostly bastards of the worst kind! Plus, he didn’t like the thought of Maggie, his Maggie, serving other men.

“Your Highness,” someone called out, interrupting whatever he might have said next. Ramit turned and found a short, stout man coming towards him, followed by a bland fellow with brown hair and grey eyes.

“Gentlemen,” he replied, trying to eliminate the irritation from his voice. “If you don’t–”

“Have you traveled west to see our prairie lands? They are spectacular.”

Prairie! That was the code word. His eyes narrowed on the short guy. “I haven’t. What are they like?”

He’d been to the prairies of Nebraska. They were extraordinary. But he didn’t want to talk about scenery right now. He waited for the confirmation code word.

“Lots of sunshine and grass.”

Bingo.

“Gentlemen, I’d love to hear more about these prairie lands. Would you care to take this conversation outside where we can enjoy the stars?”

The three men moved off, unaware of Maggie’s confused gaze following them.

Ramit continued walking until they were at the edge of the stone patio. They were in the shadows here despite the strings of overhead lights.

He waited only long enough to ensure that they were alone before he turned his furious gaze on the short, pathetic “men”. “Okay, gentlemen, tell me what the hell you want!” he replied with as calm a tone as possible.

The shorter man, Humphrey Todras, shuffled his feet. He was the key, Ramit sensed. He was the weaker of the pair. “We aren’t going to release the pictures of your sister, Ramit.”

His eyes narrowed on the short, pudgy man and fury simmered inside of him. “I have not given you leave to address me so informally,” he pointed out flatly. He’d use his anger later. Right now, he wanted to let these two worms think that they were in control.

“I apologize,” the cockroach replied with a slight bow. “Your Highness, we only used the pictures of your sister to get your attention.”

The taller man, still short by Ramit’s standards, spoke up now. “Your Highness, we have an amazing opportunity to build a highly profitable, mixed-use building at a site right on the Annapolis Harbor. We’d like to let you in on the ground floor of this project as one of the primary investors.”

Ramit knew that these men didn’t truly want him to invest in their project. This was a shakedown. These men had sent him salacious pictures of his sister and a man, then engineered this meeting in order to blackmail him.

“And how much is this…honor,” he tried to keep the sarcasm out of his tone, but suspected that he’d failed, “going to cost me?”

They named a figure that made Ramit want to laugh. But the stout fellow continued, describing the building project. “We’re not trying to blackmail you, Your Highness.” He looked at his friend, then at Ramit. “This is a genuine business relationship.” He gestured with his half-filled glass of beer, moving it around the small circle formed by their bodies. “The three of us will be the primary investors, however, we have several more business people who are fighting to get in as well.”

Right! Ramit clenched his jaw tightly in a valiant effort to smother the disbelief. “So, why was I selected as one of your primary investors?” he demanded. Now that he had the names of his blackmailers, and the reason, he could get his security team to look into the issue.

And then he would then crush these termites!

Both men looked at each other, then back at Ramit. “We read an article about a condominium site that you sponsored two years ago. It’s a raging success and we were hoping that you could lend your expertise to our project.”

Ramit gritted his teeth, but sipped his scotch to hide his fury. When he lowered the glass, he looked out at the darkness. He knew that there were beautiful rolling hills in the distance, dotted with trees and horses. The horses were probably secured in the barn on the other side of the house overnight, safely tucked away in their stalls and happily full from their evening meal.

Ramit wished that he was tucked away. With Maggie. Hell, he wanted to be back at her place, enjoying whatever culinary disaster she might make instead of dealing with these two buffoons.

Looking back at them, he nodded. “So, let me get this straight. You two couldn’t find any other investors, so you hired someone to follow Princess Ciara, my only sister, and found her in a compromising position, took nude photos of her, then sent copies to me in order to blackmail me into financing your project. Am I missing any salient details?”

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