Page 30 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

The perspective against the rail, with the treetops below and behind him, made him seem bigger than he was. Her faint blocking lines gave him the suggestion of an invisible suit of armor, too, increasing the impression that he was strong. Powerful.

It was strange to see himself like that when he’d spent a year feeling like quarry, hamstrung and outgunned.

This was the ambitious man he’d been before he’d left for Chile, the one who had been confident in who he was, but it exposed how he’d also become harder. Hardened.

A splat of rain landed on the pensive line of his mouth, snapping him out of his introspection.

He took the pad and pencils into the house, thinking to leave them on the table, but when he carried his things out to the garage, the sketchpad was among them.

One week later, Jasper stood outside the REM-Ex boardroom, flicking through his phone while he waited for the board to assemble themselves.

“What you’re seeing are the actions of a disgruntled ex,” Vienna had said of Neal’s accusations when she held a press conference shortly after she had left Tofino. “I can’t and won’t speak for Mr. Lindor except to confirm that he and I were staying in the same summer house for the same reason. We both wanted privacy during a difficult time.”

Neal had then gone ahead and revealed Vienna’s infertility. According to Amelia, Vienna had promptly lashed back by having Neal fired from Wave-Com for breaking a nondisclosure agreement regarding family privacy. He’d lost all his perks in one swoop, including his condo, company car, and cell phone.

Jasper was grimly proud of her for going full scorched earth on the bastard.

Now she was in Germany, where photos were emerging of her at a lavish wedding. It was held at some fancy palace hotel and every snapshot showed her smiling and beautiful. Different. She wasn’t the woman who had padded barefoot through the house, hair in a low ponytail, face clean of makeup. She wore elegant gowns and diamonds in her ears. A man in a tuxedo—Remy Sylvain, the caption read—stood with his arm around her while they beamed at each other with unmistakable affection.

Not his business, Jasper assured himself, clicking off his phone and ignoring the churn of gravel in his gut.

Vienna had moved on. Fine. He had no quarrel with that. They’d made no promises to each other.

But it ate at him.

“Sir? Everyone is present,” his new executive assistant informed him.

Not everyone. Orlin Caulfield, President of REM-Ex, was beaming in via video conference along with a handful of other board members. He scoffed the second Jasper was introduced.

“You’reKeady Holdings?” Orlin said of the company Jasper had formed on his return to Canada. “I knew something was off when I couldn’t find anything about the company that’s been buying up our shares these last weeks. This is not an acquisition offer, gentlemen. It’s an HR dispute. Meeting adjourned.”

“Thisisan acquisition offer,” Jasper said firmly, not bothering to take a seat. “Since the board is legally required to consider all serious offers, stick around.”

“How serious could you possibly be?” Orlin scoffed.

Jasper named a share price that had everyone sitting up and looking at one another.

“The shareholders will want to hear about that, won’t they?” Jasper said knowingly. “I’m not attaching a lot of strings, either. My only condition is an environmental audit going back for the last five years. And an independent investigation into Saqui Melilla’s death.”

Figuring out who were the rats on this particular ship was as easy as watching which faces turned to stone. A couple of the remote screens went black.

“This is a stunt,” Orlin charged. “You’re about to find yourself in the middle of a very grave safety violation. One that could end in criminal charges.”

“No, Orlin. You are.” Jasper leaned on the table and looked at the ring of uncomfortable expressions around him. “I strongly suggest the board remove this liability from the helm. Immediately. If you don’t, I will fire him the minute I’m in charge. I assume that those of you with nothing to hide will support my takeover and the ensuing investigations. As a one-time offer, I will allow anyone worried about what might crawl out from under a rock to quit the board, sell your shares to me, and flee to a country without extradition agreements. Those who want to fight me had better have the capital to back up the legal bills. I sure do.”

He could see the bluster bleeding out of everyone as he spoke. They were all looking to each other and casting uncertain glances at the stony-faced Orlin.

“Do we need a special resolution?” Jasper pressed. “All in favor of selling the company to Jasper Lindor, raise your hand. I think that’s two thirds, isn’t it?” He said to his assistant as they counted the votes. “Bring in the rest of my team. Let’s close this deal.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

VIENNAHADBEENhome from Germany for more than two weeks, but couldn’t seem to shake her jet lag.

She’d been going through a lot, she reminded herself. It was natural that she would have a hard case of the blues, but she had weathered bad press and bruised feelings before. This was different. She was heartsick over Jasper and the way things had ended between them.

He seemed to have landed on his feet. In a press conference he declared, “Given how my friend and interpreter, Saqui Melilla, was killed, I feared my own life was in danger. Now that I’m back in Canada, I’m looking forward to working with REM-Ex to find who was really responsible for Saqui’s death and hold them accountable.”

With that hand grenade thrown firmly back into REM-Ex’s court, Jasper had proceeded tobuy the companyin a hostile takeover, forcing an independent investigation, the kind they should have performed in the first place. According to reports, he’d been an early adopter of cryptocurrency and had quietly made a fortune that he had rolled into mining investments through the years. The REM-Ex board approved his purchase and installation as presidentbecausehe was revealed to be so successful in their field.

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