I’m late, J.D. That traffic is a nightmare,” the newcomer said. He was tall and lean, with hair like sunlight shooting through gold flakes. His features were classically handsome—long lashes, a strong blade of a nose, a mouth that was firm and decisive.
The eight years since she had seen Richard Green had definitely been kind to him. He had always been sexy, the sort of male women always looked twice at. When they were teenagers, he couldn’t seem to go anywhere without a horde of giggling girls around him, though he had barely seemed to notice them.
Now there was an edge of danger about him, a lean, lithe strength she found compelling and seductive.
J.D. rose and shook his hand. “I appreciate you filling in for Phil at the last minute.”
“No problem.”
The attorney looked over J.D.’s shoulder and she saw shock and disbelief flicker across the stunning blue eyes that had lost none of their punch even after eight years.
“Anna!”
In a different situation, she might have rushed to hug him but he was sending out a definite “back off” vibe.
“You two know each other, obviously,” J.D. said.
She managed to wrench her gaze away from Richard, wondering how she could possibly have forgotten his sheer masculine beauty—and how she ever could have walked away from it in the first place.
The reminder of how things had ended between them sent a flicker of apprehension through her body. He looked less than thrilled to see her. Could this merger become any more complicated? Her family was fighting against her tooth and nail, the hospital administrator was marrying her sister in a month’s time, and she and the hospital attorney had a long and tangled history between them.
How was she supposed to be focused and businesslike around Richard when she couldn’t help remembering exactly how that mouth had tasted?
“Richard lived only a few blocks away from the house where we were raised,” she finally answered J.D., and was appalled to hear the husky note in her voice. She cleared her throat before continuing. “We went to school together and were…good friends.”
Friends? Is that what she called it?
Richard listened to her with a mixture of anger and disbelief.
He supposed it wasn’t strictly a lie. They had been friends through school. Both had been on similar academic tracks and had belonged to many of the same clubs and after-school organizations. Honor Club, Debate, Key Club. Even later when they went off to different universities, they had stayed in touch and had gotten together as often as possible with their other friends.
Yeah, they had been friends. But there had been much more to it, as she damn well knew, unless she’d somehow managed to conveniently wipe from her memory something that had certainly seemed significant—earthshaking, even—at the time.
What the hell was she doing here? Why hadn’t somebody—J.D. or Peter Wilder or Phil Crandall, his absent partner—warned him?
He had heard from Peter and Ella that Anna was working for Northeastern HealthCare, their dreaded enemy. He just had never dreamed she would be a part of the conglomerate’s efforts to take over Walnut River General.
She had changed. She used to wear her hair down, a long, luscious waterfall. Now it was tightly contained, pinned back in a sleek style that made her look cool and businesslike. Her features were just as beautiful, though some of the bright, hopeful innocence he remembered in the clear blue of her eyes had faded.
How could she sit across the board-room table, all cool and gorgeous like some kind of damn Viking princess, acting as if her very presence here wasn’t a betrayal of everything her family had done for this hospital and for this community?
The depth of his bitterness both shocked and disconcerted him. What did it matter if the NHC executive was Anna Wilder or some other mindless drone they sent?
Either way, the outcome would be the same.
NHC was determined to purchase the hospital from a city council eager to unload it and a solid core of doctors and administrators was just as determined to prevent the deal.
Richard numbered himself among them, even though he was here only in a fill-in capacity for his partner.
Yeah, he had been crazy about Anna once, but it had been a long, long time ago.
That fledgling relationship wasn’t significant in the slightest. It hadn’t been important enough to her to keep her in Walnut River and whatever might have been between them certainly had no bearing on the current takeover situation.
“Shall we get started with the hearing?” he said icily.
She blinked at his tone—and so did J.D., he noted with some discomfort.
Richard had built a reputation as a cool-headed attorney who never let his personal feelings interfere with his legal responsibilities. He supposed there was a first time for everything.
After a long awkward moment, Anna nodded.
“By all means,” she replied, her voice matching his temperature for temperature.
Chapter Two
Two hours later, Richard understood exactly why Anna Wilder had been brought into this takeover.
She was as cold as a blasted icicle and just as hard.
While the NHC attorney had been present to vet the information offered by the hospital side, all of them recognized that Anna was truly the one in charge.
She had been the one leading the discussion, asking the probing questions, never giving an inch as she dissected their answers.
Richard had certainly held his own. Anna might be a tough and worthy opponent but he had one distinct advantage—he was absolutely determined to keep NHC from succeeding in its takeover efforts while he was still alive and kicking.
“Thank you, everyone.” Anna stood and surveyed the men around the boardroom table with the sheer aplomb of a boxer standing over the battered and bloody body of an opponent.
“We’ve covered a great deal of ground. I appreciate your forthrightness and the hospital’s compliance with the municipal council’s disclosure order. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll take this information back to my superiors and we can go from there.”
Richard gritted his teeth. Until they could find a way out of it, the hospital administration had no choice but to comply with the municipal council’s strictures.
For now, city council members controlled the purse strings and they appeared eager to escape the costly hospital business that had been a drain on taxpayers for years.
Even the NHC contretemps a few weeks ago involving charges of corporate espionage hadn’t dissuaded them.
The only bright spot in the entire takeover attempt was that the municipal council seemed genuinely committed to listening to the opinion of the hospital board of directors before making a final decision to move forward with the sale of the hospital to NHC.
Right now, the board members were leaning only slightly against the sale, though he knew the slightest factor could tip that ultimate decision in either direction.
Who knows? Maybe the NHC bigwigs would take a look at the hospital’s tangled financial and personnel disclosures and decide another facility might be more lucrative.
Though he was committed to doing all he could to block the sale, Richard was nothing if not realistic. He wasn’t even the hospital’s lead attorney, he was only filling in for his partner, who had called begging the favor only an hour before the meeting.
Before he knew Anna Wilder was on board as the NHC deal-closer, he would have jumped at the chance to step up and handle the merger discussions. Seeing her at the board table with her sleek blond hair yanked ruthlessly into a bun and her brisk business suit and her painfully