Three gorgeous men and one powerful dynasty worth fighting for…
THE PARKS EMPIRE: SECRETS, LIES & LOVES
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September 2009
The Parks Empire: Secrets, Lies & Loves
Featuring
Romancing the Enemy by Laurie Paige Diamonds and Deceptions by Marie Ferrarella The Rich Man’s Son by Judy Duarte
The Millionaire’s Cinderella
Featuring
Renegade Millionaire by Kristi Gold Billionaire Bachelors: Gray by Anne Marie Winston Her Convenient Millionaire by Gail Dayton
THE PARKS EMPIRE: SECRETS, LIES & LOVES
LAURIE PAIGE
MARIE FERRARELLA
JUDY DUARTE
Laurie Paige has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a romance Writers of America RITA®Award finalist for Best Traditional romance and has won awards from Romantic Times for Best Special edition and Best Silhouette in addition to appearing on the USA TODAY bestseller list. Recently resettled in Northern California, Laurie is looking forward to whatever experiences her next novel will send her on.
To Judy, Allison and Vanessa
for the good times at Sundance.
Chapter One
The private telephone line rang in the quietly luxurious office located above Parks Fine Jewelry, West-Coast rival to Tiffany’s in New York.
Walter Parks lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he said without preamble. He listened to the message with no expression, then asked one question. “You’re sure?”
The caller answered affirmatively.
“Send me a copy of the death certificate,” Walter ordered the private detective. “No, not here,” he said a trifle impatiently as if the man should have figured it out for himself. “To the post office box.”
In twenty-five years, he’d well learned how to cover his tracks. The post office box was with a private postal service two doors down the street. No one in his family knew of it. But then, no one in the family knew much of anything that he didn’t want them to know.
He replaced the phone and stood by the window, watching the December rain fall endlessly from the winter sky. The only place as cold and dismal as San Francisco could be in the winter was San Francisco in the summer on days when the coastal fog shrouded the city.
So. Marla was dead. About damned time. Twenty-five years he’d had to worry about her, and had even felt guilty at times about her and her pack of brats. But no more.
As his old man, poor as the proverbial church mouse, had often said—life was what it was and a man had to look after his own fate.
Walter had found that to be true. The gods of fortune smiled on those who grabbed each opportunity when it came along. A slow man was a loser. That man wasn’t him.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to sense the weight rolling off his back, to experience the easing of it in his spirit. Realizing he didn’t feel lighter in heart, body or soul, he grimaced. No matter. The last link to his past, the dangerous part of it at any rate, was gone.
He put a hand to his chest. A little heartburn there. He should eat healthier. He knew it. And no alcohol, except for a couple of glasses of wine. That was good for the ol’ ticker, according to the doctors.
The rain pelted the windowpane in a wind-blown fury, sending an odd chill along the back of his neck. He rubbed the spot, then started as the phone rang again. Glancing at the light, he saw it was his office line.
“Parks,” he said upon answering.
The caller was his oldest son, destined to one day run the company. Pride lifted his spirits. He and Anna had produced a fine brood, if he did say so himself.
Cade was the best of the bunch—smart, handsome and coolheaded. Walter had wanted the boy in the office with him, but Cade hadn’t been interested in the diamond and jewelry business, the wheeling and dealing on a global level. He’d been fascinated by the law. Walter had conceded a lawyer wasn’t a bad thing to have in the family.
Now the boy worked for a prestigious law firm—something Walter had personally seen to—and handled the business of the jewelry company from contracts to taxes. At twenty-nine, Cade already knew every aspect of the diamond trade. He was in position to take over when Walter needed him to. The boy’s sense of responsibility would see to that.
“Cade, how about some lunch?” Walter asked in a jovial tone. “Top o’the Mark in half an hour?”
“Fine. I have the information you wanted on King Abbar and his son, Prince Lazhar, of Daniz. The king is ill. I understand the son handles most of the details of running the kingdom nowadays. Shall I bring the folder with me?”
“Yes.”
Walter smiled as he hung up. Daniz was one of those tiny European countries most people had never heard of. Which showed how stupid most people were. Its diamonds were some of the finest in the world. A new find, its mines produced pink-and champagne-colored stones, which fortunately were becoming the rage among the celebrity crowd…with a few judicious gifts here and there on his part. A sharp deal with the ruler could be lucrative for them both.
Two pieces of good news in one day. A fine way to start the new year. The gods were truly smiling, even if the heavens were not. He instructed his secretary to call for his car and hardly noticed the rain as he headed to lunch.
Sara Carlton shivered as a gust of wind hit her. Someone needed to tell the weatherman that winter was six months ago and it was now June, not January.
Pulling her jacket closer around her, she stared at the elegant house standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a whole block of equally expensive Georgian-style homes.
Since she’d done her homework before moving from Denver to San Francisco, she knew a kindergarten teacher, which she was, couldn’t afford the rent on such a prime piece of property in the St. Francis Woods area of the city. Fortunately she didn’t have to.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Rachel Hanson commented.
Rachel was a kindergarten teacher at Lakeside, a prestigious private school only three blocks from there and the place, come Monday, where Sara would also be employed. Rachel was also the older sister of Sara’s best friend from her high-school days back in Denver. She had taken Sara under her wing when Sara had written for information about teaching positions in the city back in January.
Five years older than Sara’s own twenty-nine years, Rachel had graduated