Shanahan's Revenge

By Julie Mac

What happens when you fall in love with your worst enemy?
 
When the CEO of one of New Zealand's biggest companies steps down, heir apparent Kate McPherson and Australian outsider Sam Shanahan are left fighting for control of McPherson & Co.

But Sam hasn't just travelled to New Zealand for business. He's there to avenge the wrongs done to his mother three decades ago, and he's determined that no one–especially not his beautiful arch rival–will get in his way.

Poised to take over the company from her father, Kate has fought hard for her success and will do anything to defeat the stranger who's after her job–no matter how strong the chemistry between them.

Sam and Kate are driven apart by ambition and drawn together by fiery attraction. And between them sizzles a family secret that threatens to blow Kate's world apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: May 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781760370398

Julie Mac

Julie Mac loved writing stories from the time she started school, so a career in journalism and PR writing was a natural progression. These days, she relishes the freedom of writing fiction: her characters can do and say anything she wants them to, and there's no risk of misquoting anyone. Julie writes contemporary romance and likes nothing better than to have her characters surprise her. She and her husband live on a lifestyle block in pretty countryside just north of Auckland. She enjoys beautiful landscapes, the company of friends, and of course, good books. A Father at Last is her debut novel.

Book preview

Prologue

‘Brains, my backside!’

Sam Shanahan dropped his iPad on the stark chrome-and-glass coffee table and took a long pull on his beer.

He closed his eyes, but still the headline stared up at him: Brains and beauty in one dynamite package. It was uncharacteristically and, in his opinion, quite unnecessarily cheesy for the normally conservative online business weekly.

Daddy’s spoilt little rich girl, more like.

He picked up the iPad and skimmed the story again. Not that he needed to. He’d read it twice in the taxi on the way back from Darling Harbour to his apartment in Sydney’s newest residential tower.

The first part of the story was straightforward enough.

Kate McPherson was poised to take the helm of New Zealand’s leading industrial company, McPherson Enterprises, started from nothing by her great-grandfather nearly a hundred years ago.

She was young—only twenty-nine—but clever, the story said, clever enough to already be general manager of the company’s giant forestry division.

Sam’s understanding of the story was that pretty much everyone, from shareholders to the head of the NZ Stock Exchange, expected the lovely Ms McPherson to step neatly up into her father’s shoes when he stood aside as chief executive officer in two months’ time.

Well, that was obviously the plan, but first there was to be some posturing.

Kate McPherson was quoted as saying she was proud of her achievements; proud her climb up the career ladder was the result of plain, old-fashioned hard work and talent.

Nepotism, she said, was an ugly word.

‘Yeah, right, babe,’ Sam muttered.

So at the time her father, recently remarried after long widowhood, announced his impending retirement as CEO, she insisted the position should be advertised.

Sam couldn’t decide whether she was a master—or mistress—of manipulation, or just extremely naïve. McPherson’s board was well known for its stability and loyalty to the founding family. And with no rivals, siblings, or relatives of any description waiting in the wings, Kate McPherson was a dead cert for the job.

The story veered off into an assessment of her personal qualities. Most was glowing praise from interviewees—more PR spin than objective reporting, thought Sam, although one source, a rival who’d since left McPherson’s, labelled her ‘one tough lady’.

He grinned and took another swig of beer. We’ll soon see how tough you are, sweetheart.

The last paragraph dwelt solely on her looks, and a quick glance at the by-line buried in the intro told him the reporter was male.

Figures.

He studied the photo beside the story. Kate McPherson, he had to admit, was a stunner. Understandable that a male reporter might become less than objective when interviewing a woman like her. Not that she was Sam’s type, with all that curly dark hair and olive skin; he definitely preferred blondes. Besides, he liked women with backbone and integrity—not brattish daddy’s girls who thought men could be wrapped around their little fingers.

The photographer had taken the photo full on, so it seemed she was looking straight down the lens of the camera at him. Funny, thought Sam. Her eyes should have been brown, but they were blue, a startling incongruity with that dark colouring.

He swore softly, crossed to the window that filled a whole wall of his living room and looked at the photo again. In it, he saw something unexpected, something which touched him deep inside. Somehow, the photographer had captured in her eyes a surprising vulnerability, a softness, a sadness, even. Strange, he hadn’t noticed it when he’d looked at the photo in the taxi. Maybe it was something to do with the light up here on the seventy-ninth floor, where the sky poured in unfettered.

He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. This is dumb, he thought, but he couldn’t stop it. He could see another pair of eyes, also blue, also in the face of a young woman, awash with tears, sad beyond all reason. He could smell the mice and damp in that grotty flat so long ago, hear the gut-wrenching despair in her sobs: ‘My baby. My beautiful baby. They’ve taken away my baby.’

Sam snapped open his eyes and downed the rest of his beer. Below, Sydney sprawled in vibrant, sassy splendour, fringed by the ink-blue harbour and hazier coastline way beyond. Somewhere in the city streets a siren shrieked, but he saw and heard none of it.

Even in the air-conditioned coolness of his luxury apartment, sweat had broken out on his brow. He crossed to the breakfast bar, pulled another beer from the fridge, flipped the top and allowed himself a grim smile.

Revenge would indeed be sweet.

Chapter 1

Kate’s father was going to be really mad if she crashed this plane.

Not that she would. Crash the plane, that is. She’d calculated the risks. Sure, it was potentially dangerous landing in this crosswind.

But there was no time. She had to be back in Auckland for the board meeting at two o’clock.

Below her, the turquoise sea churned, whipped to wild white peaks by the remnants of a cyclone up in the Pacific, and the wind bumps intensified as she crossed from sea to land. But she stayed on course, her decision helped by a mental image of the directors eyeing her empty chair at the boardroom table. Now wasn’t the time to test their good will.

She held the Cessna steady as she approached the airstrip, a steep, grassy slope high on a farm on New Zealand’s remote Northland coast. Briefly, she touched her fingers to the delicate gold chain at her neck. The descent was steep and she had to ride the aircraft’s bucking and shuddering as it made contact with the ground near the bottom of the airstrip.

There was more battering from the crosswind as she screamed up the short slope and pulled to a textbook halt just metres before the strip ran out. Kate exhaled a long breath before she turned to taxi towards the corrugated iron shed where the farm’s fertiliser was stored.

And saw the man.

He drove a big four-wheel drive through the airstrip gate, braked close to the shed with a spurt of dust, and leapt out.

He moved quickly. She was aware only of impressions; long legs in jeans, sun glinting on tousled black hair, barely restrained aggression.

‘And who are you?’ she wondered aloud as she ran through her shutdown routine.

A real estate agent, perhaps, cheekily hoping to cash in on the sale of her late grandparents’ farm? Coastal land up here was a goldmine just now, with overseas buyers keen to grab their own slice of heaven.

No doubt he’d been in the middle of telling his prospective and very valued client just how quiet and secluded the place was when the noisy, low-flying Cessna shattered the peace.

Tough, buddy. The place isn’t even on the market.

She pushed a wayward fall of curls back from her face and automatically checked her lipstick in the hand mirror tucked into a netting pocket on the side of the cockpit. If there were going to be words, she may as well look her best.

She jumped down from the plane, expecting him to be there, but to her surprise he wasn’t.

The sound of creaking wire drew her eyes to the other side of the paddock. For a fraction of a second Kate didn’t understand what she saw. Then she sucked in a sudden breath of horror as comprehension dawned. An animal—a horse—lay thrashing on the ground. With each desperate swing of its legs the fence groaned and sagged. The man squatted beside the animal.

Kate ran. He didn’t look at her when she stopped behind him, breathing hard from her run.

‘That would have to be the dumbest piece of flying I’ve ever seen.’ He spoke quietly, but there was fury in his words. ‘Couldn’t you see what was happening below you?’

Kate gazed silently at the blood dribbling from rips across the horse’s chest, then at the strands of wire binding two of its legs. The man’s large hands gentled the tormented animal. He stroked its neck and held the head that thumped against the ground as the animal struggled to get up, its eyes showing rims of white around the velvet brown irises.

She had seen what was happening below. It was there now, replaying in her mind, crystal clear. The Cessna banking unsteadily as she swooped low round the hillside. Grazing sheep scattering into the safety of a clump of totara trees far below the airstrip and off to the right. One more circle to satisfy herself the sheep were safe before lining up for landing.

‘I did.’ Her voice ragged. ‘I did see. I cleared the strip before landing.’

The hot scent of the horse’s sweat and blood hit her nostrils hard.

The estate agent jerked his head around, registering surprise—she supposed at the fact she was a woman. He stared at her face for several seconds, then turned back to the horse, speaking soothingly to the animal.

‘Easy, boy, easy now.’ He continued his stroking.

Kate wasn’t sure, but she thought the horse was relaxing. Either that or it was weakening.

He spoke again. His back was to her, but she had a feeling he was talking through clenched teeth.

‘I could bloody have you in court for this. I should have you in court.’ He swung round to face her. His eyes were the colour of the sky on a midsummer’s day—a hard, bright, flinty New Zealand sky—and he had a couple of days’ black growth stubbling his jaw.

He’d be handsome if he wasn’t so savage, thought Kate. She crossed her arms over her chest, stepping back a pace. He didn’t look like an estate agent.

‘You deserve to lose your pilot’s licence for this,’ he said.

She looked away, wanting to see the bush, the sky, anything but the sad scene in front of her. Her breath was still coming in ragged bursts. Shame washed over her, followed by a hot tide of regret. She dragged in what she hoped was a steadying breath even as she felt her heartbeat ramp up a few more notches.

‘I’m truly sorry for what’s happened.’ She edged back another half-pace. ‘Believe me, I would never deliberately cause an animal to suffer. Never in a million years. But this was an accident, a genuine accident.’

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth as the horse whickered softly. ‘I happen to be a very good pilot,’ she added defensively.

‘Lady, you might be the best pilot in the world, but you were nuts to land on a strip like this in such a gusty crosswind—’

‘I’ve done it before—’

‘—and in a paddock where there are horses.’

‘But there shouldn’t be horses here!’ Kate knew she sounded illogical, but the smell of blood, the horse’s agony, the man’s anger, were scrambling her brain in a way she wasn’t used to.

‘The fact is …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I cleared the strip of sheep, but I didn’t see any horses. And anyway … I don’t understand … why are there horses here? This is private property. We graze sheep.’

Her voice had risen and she was swamped with guilt when the injured animal increased its thrashing again.

‘Keep your voice down,’ the man snapped, running his hand reassuringly along the brown neck. ‘You’ve done enough damage already. As for the horses being here—the land is mine, the horses belong to me.’

‘What? What are you saying?’ Kate stared in disbelief, and he stared right back up at her, eyes ice-hard with anger.

The land wasn’t his. The guy was obviously living in some sort of fantasy land. She’d call the police when she got back to Auckland.

The stranger turned again to the horse, briefly examined one of the cuts on its chest, then looked up at Kate. ‘I’m saying that if you had even half a brain in that pretty head of yours, you would have done some checking in advance of landing.’

She breathed deeply. This guy just wasn’t catching on. ‘I don’t have to ask permission. I’m Kate McPherson and this is my family’s farm. You’re a bloody trespasser.’

His derisive snort made her want to step back further, but she held her ground, even when he stood up and she could see how much bigger he was than her.

‘I don’t give a damn if you’re the Queen of England, sweetheart. You had no right to be using this airstrip without my permission.’

Kate maintained her control with great difficulty. Her heart was thudding ominously, and embarrassingly she felt telltale heat spreading across her cheeks. Reaction to the horse’s distress was making her feel slightly sick, but she was also afraid—this stranger was obviously deranged, quite possibly physically dangerous. Being close to him was like being in a cage with a snake, coiled and ready to strike.

Fuelled by a potent cocktail of emotions, her breathing was still far too fast.

Her mind homed in on a story she’d read on the internet headlines this morning: holiday homes in remote coastal areas were being broken into and used for the lucrative manufacture of methamphetamines. She inhaled as deeply as she could. Stay calm, be logical, she told herself.

‘You have one hell of a cheek, mate.’ She kept her voice low for the sake of the stricken horse. ‘You might think occupation gives you some sort of right to this place, but you’ll soon find out otherwise.’

He laughed, a deep rumbling laugh that touched his mouth but failed to warm the arctic eyes.

The laughter was brief. Once again, he squatted beside the horse, and with infinite care ran a hand down the foreleg nearest the ground. ‘See this bump?’ He looked back at her.

She nodded.

‘It’s a break—a bad break, irreparable.’

She nodded again. A broken leg usually meant an animal had to be put down, she knew that.

‘We can fix those cuts on his chest, but we can’t do much for his leg.’

He was watching her face, and though she said nothing, he seemed to know she understood.

‘Stay here with Trojan while I get my gun.’ He stood, grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to the horse’s head.

‘I want you to stroke his head and neck. And keep talking all the time. I don’t want him to be frightened while I’m gone.’

Kate looked up at the man, horrified, but the hard eyes showed no mercy. Bending her knees, she placed a tentative hand on Trojan’s neck and immediately pulled back from the animal’s cold, clammy skin as a memory sent a tremor through her.

She was a little girl again, lying beside her mother in the garden, alone, holding her hand while they waited for the ambulance. Her mother’s skin had felt cold and clammy too, and she wouldn’t answer her small daughter’s desperate pleas to wake up.

Tears prickled Kate’s eyes as she stared at the horse. His head was still now and his breathing weaker. He was dying, she knew, and she didn’t want to be here, alone with him, when life left him.

‘I can’t—can’t do it,’ she whispered, then cleared her throat. She was feeling sick now, in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’ve got