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were brothers, after
all, their bond forged in the blast furnace of adversity. It was
also to be expected that Sebastian would spout facts to negate
emotion he didn’t understand.
    “Elder,” Mitch murmured finally, an edge in
his voice, “you don’t know from guilt.”
    “Mitch—”
    “Shut up, Taight,” Bryce rumbled. “You have
no idea.”
    So the three of them stood there a moment
longer in silent companionship. Trust Sebastian to bear Mitch’s
temper with equanimity whether he deserved it or not.
    Ah, well. That was what brothers were for.
Mitch had no one else to vent on, that was for sure.
    Mitch pushed away from the glass, turned
with a well-practiced hearty cheer he rarely felt, and rubbed his
hands together. “All right. Let’s get this party started.” He
looked at his board of directors.
    Sebastian Taight.
    Bryce and Giselle Kenard.
    Knox Hilliard and Justice McKinley.
    Morgan Ashworth.
    All here to implement the reorganization of
Hollander Steelworks, which had begun to stumble under the weight
of its own success.
    Then there was Eilis Logan, Sebastian’s
wife, Mitch’s biggest customer for J.I.’s products, who had come to
look after the health of her own company. Mitch had no doubt Wall
Street and the rest of manufacturing were waiting for news of this
meeting.
    Ah, but it had to be done. This
reorganization would rejuvenate his company while taking a lot of
weight off Mitch’s shoulders.
    Never mind the idea to reorganize had taken
root while getting quite a bit closer to proving that Greg Sitkaris
was a thief.
    Never mind it had come up while Mitch stood
in the midst of a hundred or more beautiful, scantily clad
women— knowing he could have any one of them (or more) if he
so much as crooked his finger...
    “We’re missing somebody,” Mitch said,
needing to shake that off. Another layer of his guilt, wanting to
move on.
    Not knowing how.
    Or with whom.
    “Cassie St. James,” Sebastian said as he
seated Eilis at the foot of the conference table. He proceeded to
position himself as close to her as he could without pulling her
onto his lap. “Traffic must be heavy.”
    “Who is she?” Mitch asked as he sat at the
head of the table, and the others, who seemed to be waiting to see
if Mitch were truly okay, followed his lead.
    “Me,” Sebastian said, “version 2.0. Cassie
wrote her MBA thesis on my rationale for deciding whether to fix or
raid any given company.” Mitch raised his eyebrow and Sebastian
nodded. “She got roundly pummeled and ridiculed for daring to
suggest that my decision was predicated on the teachability of a
company’s leaders.”
    Mitch, along with almost everyone else,
stared at Sebastian in shock. “She figured it out?”
    “She sent me her thesis before she turned it
in; had it down to the last detail, examples, anecdotes, quotes,
patterns, data analyses, and footnotes wherever she could see a
deviance from my norm. She speculated that could indicate Knox’s
involvement into any particularly complex project I was working on.
That really got trashed.”
    “You told me about that,” Knox said. “Did
you go back her up?”
    “I would’ve if she’d asked, but she didn’t.
She refused to budge in her defense, though, and ended up nearly
getting herself drummed out of her program. I told Jack about it,
so he hired her. He’s been wanting a clone of me on his staff for
years.”
    “Have you ever met her?” Mitch asked.
    “I have not and furthermore, I’ve only
communicated with her by email once—to get her to do this.”
    His brow wrinkled. “You’re handing the whole
thing over to her?”
    “Yup. I didn’t want to end up sleeping on
the couch for the foreseeable future.”
    Eilis chuckled.
    “How long has this woman been with
Jack?”
    “About a year, I think. He hired her just
before she was scheduled to defend her thesis.”
    Mitch let every suspicious thought he had
show on his face and, predictably, Sebastian read him correctly.
“Mitch,