Heart and Soul

Episode 83

And They Say Romance Is Dead

By Allan Craig

 

A cool morning breeze blew through the open door leading to the balcony of Diane and Joseph’s luxurious penthouse, the muffled sound of traffic passing down below drowned out by the soap opera Diane had watched in secret for as long as she could remember, scenes of a woman holding up a gun to her husband as he and his mistress struggled with bed sheets to hide their modesty playing out in front of her. Diane sat in her brown leather armchair, pretending to read the morning’s newspaper as soon as she caught sight of Joseph descending down the staircase of their penthouse apartment typing a message into his PDA.

 

“Off out so early?” Diane lowered the newspaper to look at her fiancé, her attention secretly fixed on the television screen as a gunshot was fired and the screen went blank.

 

“I’ve got a meeting with my lawyer.” Joseph responded, concealing the fact that his lawyer was none other than Madison Chase, the young woman who Diane hadn’t exactly grown fond of during Joseph’s last working relationship with her.

 

“Do you feel like lunch at the country club today?”

 

“Can’t make it, honey.” Joseph kissed his wife-to-be on the cheek before picking up his briefcase. “I told John I’d meet him at lunchtime.”

 

“Well aren’t you two awfully chummy these days?” Diane joked as she sipped on her tea. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were comparing notes.”

 

“Just plotting world domination.” Joseph joked, although Diane knew that the truth of the matter wasn’t exactly far from Joseph’s statement.

 

“Why is it that I don’t think you’re joking when you say that?”

 

“Who said I was joking? Listen, I need to go, I’ve got a meeting with my accountant. How about dinner tonight? At the country club?”

 

“I suppose I can pencil you in.”

 

“I’ll see you then.” Joseph kissed Diane on the cheek again before quickly making his way out of the apartment, just as the commercial break finished and the action on her television screen returned to Eternal Flame, just as Pierce wrestled control of the gun from Cassandra in order to save the life of his lover. With one eye fixed firmly on the TV screen, Diane opened Joseph’s laptop and began sifting through the files stored on his computer. Instantly hit by a multitude of file causing Diane to wonder where to begin. Technology not being her forte, Diane closed the laptop, defeated but not deterred from finding out what Joseph was up to.

 

 

Kimberley Sterling’s eyes opened in an unfamiliar bedroom, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling as an oh-too-familiar hangover agonised her head. She peered cautiously below the unfamiliar sheets of the empty bed, confirming her worst fear; she was naked.

 

What have I done? She asked herself, scrambling to pull on her clothes as she tiptoed across the bedroom, opening the door and peering out into the open plan living area, her heart sinking to the pit of her stomach as she caught sight of a Josh Denman standing by the fridge in his boxers. After stopping for a few seconds to admire his surprisingly toned physique, Kimberley quickly shut the door and got dressed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and picking up her purse, hoping that she’d be able to make a quick exit, but knowing that was damn near impossible.

 

“I was beginning to think you were never going to wake up.” Josh smiled cheerfully as Kimberley entered the living room.

 

“Last night…we didn’t…did we?” Kimberley mumbled, the hammer pounding against her forehead showing no sign of relenting. Before Josh could answer, Kimberley took a deep breath and bit the bullet.

 

“Um, yeah, we did…” Josh couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“Listen, I was totally hammered last night…” not that she remembered, but the pounding headache seemed to indicate heavy consumption had taken place the previous evening.

 

“We both were.” Josh interjected, hoping to put Kimberley’s mind at rest.

 

“…it was sex, that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything. No strings, right?” Kimberley continued, steamrolling over Josh’s attempts at conversation. “I seriously have to run, I was supposed to meet Taylor and Kimberley for lunch twenty minutes ago. I’ll, um, call you, or something.”

 

Before Josh could say another word, Kimberley had made her way out of the apartment and closed the door behind her. Josh couldn’t quite comprehend what had just happened, Kimberley’s odd behaviour was totally understandable considering the amount of tequila they had consumed the night before, but already he was dreading the awkward run in that was sure to follow.

 

 

Kristen Masters stood in the elevator on her way up to Shane’s office at Sterling Enterprises, eager to enter and exit unnoticed as she dropped off the cell phone Shane had left at home that morning. She dug her hands into the pockets of her coat as she walked forcefully through the elevator doors and down the corridor that led to Shane’s office.

 

“Kristen, hey.” Greg stopped in his tracks as he made his way from the board room, setting his sights on Kristen as he made his way to his office. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Shane left his cell phone at home.” Kristen explained, hoping that the awkward encounter with her former lover would be as short as possible. “I’m just dropping it off.”

 

“Do you have a minute?”

 

“Not really, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to catch up on at the restaurant,” getting swept up in the romance of her whirlwind affair with Shane Baldwin had forced Kristen’s parents out of retirement to take over at The Bungalow, and despite her best intentions to rectify that situation, her head was too much in the clouds to concentrate on work.

 

“Please.” Greg pleaded, looking Kristen in the eye with a gaze that she was powerless to resist. They made their way into his office and Greg pushed the door close behind him. “So what are you doing with Shane Baldwin?”

 

“If this is what you wanted to talk about…” Kristen made her way towards the door and opened it, not about to tolerate Greg telling her every reason why she shouldn’t be with Shane.

 

Greg took Kristen’s wrist and turned her to face him in the hope that eye contact would somehow force her to admit her feelings for him, vow to end things with Shane and ride off into the sunset with him like in the soap operas his mother had watched since he was a little boy. “You know that what you’ve got with Shane doesn’t even come close to what we had.”

 

“You’re right.” Kristen began. “What we had. Key word there, Greg…past tense. You and me…it’s never going to happen, I’m with Shane now.”

 

“He’s not good for you, Kris,” Greg could almost feel the clichéd soap dialogue beginning to flow out of his mouth.

 

“Oh yeah? And how would you know?” being told how bad her fiancé was for her was bad enough, but the fact that it was coming from the guy who couldn’t bring himself to publicly admit he was in a relationship with her forced Kristen’s back up even more.

 

“Come on, Kristen, the guy put his own son in hospital…”

 

“That was an accident,” defending Shane wasn’t going to go down very well, Kristen knew that, but she also knew the man underneath the reputation, a side to Shane that nobody else could see.

 

“The guy’s a drug lord, Kristen; his own kids wont even talk to him. He’s calling the shots at the company my dad built from the ground up. What kind of guy does that?”

 

“He bought his half of this company fair and square, Greg, you cant hold that against him.” Kristen yelled. “Why cant you just be happy for me? If you really loved me, you’d let me be with the man that I want to be with.”

 

“But he’s not the man you want to be with Kristen, and we both know it. I am, and the sooner you admit that, the better,” as much as he felt like he was banging his head against a brick wall in their conversation, Greg was determined that Kristen would know exactly how he felt about her in the hope that she would admit she felt the same.

 

“I don’t have time for this.” Kristen shook her hands free of Greg’s grip. “Seriously, Greg, this isn’t happening anymore. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Shane, I’m happy with him.”

 

“But you don’t love him.”

 

“I don’t have to defend my relationship with Shane to you,” refusing to listen to another second of Greg’s tirade against Shane, Kristen stormed towards the door of the office, determined not to look back as she exited the office.

 

“See, you cant even say it…” Greg yelled as Kristen stormed out of the office and walked towards the elevator. Outside Greg’s office, Shane slid away from the doorway out of Kristen’s sight; having just been privy to the secret conversation between Greg and Kristen, he was intrigued, and determined to find out more about Kristen’s past with her sister’s ex-husband.

 

 

“Thanks for coming by.” Marc smiled after opening the door of his home to see Dr. Tyler Davis standing outside. He had called Tyler following a few choice words from Greg about how Megan was coping with the twins in the hope that if Megan couldn’t open up to him about what she was going through, she could open up to her old friend.

 

“Not a problem, bro.” Tyler insisted, rubbing his hands together as he escaped the cold breeze blowing through the city into the warmth of Marc and Megan’s cosy home. “So where’s Megan?”

 

“In the kitchen, do you want me to come in with you, or…”

 

“It would probably be better if we spoke alone.” Tyler advised Marc. “Nice place you got here. Is the kitchen just through there?”

 

“Yeah, I’m going to go upstairs and check on the twins. Give me a shout if you need anything.” Marc smiled again at the handsome black doctor before making his way up the stairs. Tyler proceeded through to the kitchen, where Megan stood at the counter sipping on her umpteenth coffee of the morning; it may have only been eleven fifteen, but Megan was already nearing the bottom of her first pot.

 

“Tyler!” Megan grinned upon seeing her old friend; pleasantly surprised at the sight of the friend she’d barely seen since his relocation back to Oakridge. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I thought I’d drop by, you know, see how you’re holdin’ up…” the fact that Marc had called and asked him to come by didn’t exactly seem worth mentioning.

 

“Can I get you anything?”

 

“I wouldn’t mind some of that coffee you’ve got there, it smells damn good.” Tyler nodded to the coffee pot, and Megan obliged by filling up a mug with coffee, topping up her own in the process before relocating to the table with Tyler. “So, how’s being a mom treating you?”

 

“As good as can be expected,” Megan lied, refusing to admit that she could barely cope with the pressures of motherhood, “I mean taking care of the girls is totally exhausting, but that’s just part of being a mother, isn’t it?”

 

“I mean yeah, it is, but you need to remember to take time for yourself as well.” Tyler urged his friend. “Don’t be running yourself into the ground trying to take care of those girls all by yourself…”

 

“I just want to be a good mom,” in fact, she just wanted to be a ‘mom’, something she felt she’d missed out on growing up with Diane for a mother. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

 

“Not at all, but if you’re going to keep wearing yourself out like this by trying to do everything all by yourself, then you’re not going to be the best mother you can be to these girls. You’ve gotta learn to take it easy every now and then or you’re going to burn out.”

 

Tyler was right, and Megan knew that, but she refused to take a back seat with her kids the way her mother did with her, even if it meant that she barely had a life of her own for the next eighteen years.

 

 

“Here she is!” Taylor Sterling laughed as Kimberley made her way into Bite, a trendy New York deli style café in downtown Oakridge. “Cute dress…a little dressy for lunchtime, but cute none the less.”

 

“Didn’t you have that on when you went out last night?” Kendall looked up from her BlackBerry, her cousin’s peculiar outfit choice distracting her from some ‘urgent’ email Shane had sent her regarding the circulation of one of the magazines Sterling published.

 

“Yeah, and speaking of which, thanks for standing me up, Tay.” Kimberley glanced around, hoping to catch the attention of a waiter from behind her oversized Chanel sunglasses as she smoothed down her tight black dress in an attempt to add a few extra inches to the hemline.

 

“I texted you saying I couldn’t go out,” Taylor defended herself. “And that’s totally besides the point…so, who was the lucky guy?”

 

“Nobody.” Kimberley insisted as she peered over the top of her sunglasses. “Who’s a girl got to sleep with to get a black coffee around this place?”

 

“You tell me. You didn’t come home last night and you’ve still got last night’s makeup on…it has to be a guy.” Kendall teased her cousin.

 

“Unless you’ve done a Lindsay Lohan on us and we should be asking who the lucky girl was?” Taylor added with a wicked grin.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kimberley scrunched her face up as she fumbled inside her Chloe handbag for some aspirin, making peering down to the various cosmetics that lined the bottom of her bag in an attempt to avoid the peering eyes of her cousins, unsuccessfully hoping they would suddenly drop the subject. “If you must know, it was Josh.”

 

“As in Natalie’s brother Josh?” Kendall did her best to hide her surprise, although the very idea of Kimberley sleeping with the brother of the girl Leo had gotten pregnant didn’t sit very well with her considering how tragically Leo and Natalie’s connection had been broken. “That wasn’t a little awkward?”

 

“Awkward is an understatement.” Kimberley had spent the entire cab journey downtown lamenting her poor judgement, realizing that making such a swift exit without resolving anything with Josh might not have been the best idea after all. “I’ll be back in a sec, I need to go powder my nose.”

 

“Take your time, Kim, it’s not like we’ve been waiting half an hour to order or anything.” Taylor yelled, half jokingly, as Kimberley made her way across the restaurant to the ladies’ room.

 

“Oh great, this is just what I need.” Kendall buried her head in her iced tea in the hope that Cal wouldn’t catch sight of her as he entered the café and approached the counter.

 

“Am I missing something?” Taylor clocked the dishy doctor and then glanced back at her cousin.

 

“It’s nothing, just the last few times I’ve seen Cal I’ve been a royal bitch to him, no big deal.” Kendall sighed, trying her best to dodge Cal’s line of vision, “He just always seems to catch me at the worst possible times.”

 

“Well maybe you should go over there and apologise.” Taylor decided that if she was missing Eternal Flame she might as well get some sort of midday entertainment from somewhere, even if it was an awkward encounter between her cousin and the dashing Dr. Ryan.

 

“You’re right,” although Kendall didn’t exactly love the concept of apologising to Cal, she hadn’t exactly been forthcoming to him on a few too many occasions, but what would apologising to him achieve?

 

“Either you go and apologise to him, or I’ll call him over here and it can be really nice and awkward.” Taylor warned.

 

“You wouldn’t…” Kendall began, although the look on her cousin’s face told her otherwise. “Fine,” she relented, standing up and smoothing down her dress. She walked across the café to the counter where Cal stood, waiting for his order. “Hey…it’s Cal, right? Can I talk to you for a sec?”

 

“If you promise not to bite my head off for no good reason…” Cal played it casual, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead rather than at Kendall.

 

“I promise.” Kendall sighed. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted towards you. You know, you’ve really got a knack for catching me at the worst possible times.”

 

“And that makes it okay?” Cal was beginning to enjoy seeing Kendall grovel.

 

“Of course it doesn’t.” Kendall pleaded. “I just really wanted to say sorry…it wont happen again.”

 

“How about you make it up to me over dinner?” Cal suggested, instantly breaking the tension.

 

“I’m sorry, what?” Kendall failed to see where Cal’s offer had come from; she had been nothing but horrible to this guy and he was asking her out on a date?

 

“Dinner. On me, of course.”

 

“I don’t think that’s such a good…”

 

“You want to make it up to me, right?” Cal smiled.

 

“Okay. One dinner.” Kendall reluctantly allowed a small grin to appear on her face, after all, there were worse ways to apologise to someone than letting them take you out for dinner.

 

 

Diane sat in her car, out of sight as she watched Joseph cross the street to the secluded coffee shop where he was meeting with Madison Chase. She watched them through the window, wishing she could hear their conversation as Joseph sat down opposite the young lawyer, wishing she’d planted a bug on Joseph’s watch like Cassandra had done with Pierce a few months ago on Eternal Flame.

 

“Thanks for meeting me here.” Joseph managed a half smile as he sat down.

 

“Don’t mention it,” Madison glanced at the Rolex hanging from her delicate wrist. “Although I’ve got a very full schedule today, so we’ll have to make this brief.”

 

“So what have you got for me on Baldwin?” Joseph asked.

 

“Keep your voice down.” Madison hissed. “I don’t exactly want to go around broadcasting the fact that I’m going behind Shane’s back and working for you at the same time. I’m looking into a few avenues right now…obviously I cant work as fast as I’d like to or he’d suspect something was going on. I trust you understand just how dangerous this is…”

 

“I understand, it could cost you your career…”

 

“It could cost me my life.” Madison snapped. “And I’m not about to put myself in a position where I’m in too deep, Shane Baldwin’s a very powerful man. Remember the deal we made?”

 

“Madison, I can promise you that you will be very well looked after if our plan works out.” Joseph assured the beautiful lawyer.

 

“And if it doesn’t work out?” Madison knew through her work with Shane just how ruthless he could be, and was beginning to learn that being on his bad side wasn’t somewhere she wanted to be. She knew what she was doing with Joseph was risky,

 

“That’s not an option.” Joseph leaned in close; there was too much at stake for both of them should things not work out as they’d planned. Neither of them could afford for this to fail, so Joseph knew that they were going to have to watch their backs at all times.

 

 

“So how’s Megan doing?” Will asked as he stood in the doorway of Marc and Megan’s home.

 

“Tyler just left; I asked him to come over to talk to her, help her put things into perspective.” Marc explained as he closed the door, ushering Will into the home and blocking out the cold winter air that had fallen on Oakridge. “I mean we can all tell her over and over again that she needs to let us help out, but she’s not going to listen…”

 

“So you’re hoping that someone whose impartial might help her see that she needs to let us help out?” Will nodded. “I dunno, Marc, are you sure that was a good idea? What if she just thinks you’re going behind her back about all of this?”

 

“If its stops her from running herself into the ground, then I don’t care.” Marc had grown to feel the strain of Megan trying to shoulder the pressure of looking after both girls twenty-four-seven, his wife was headed for a breakdown and he was eager to do anything within his reach to prevent that.

 

“Even still, was Tyler Davis really the best choice to talk to her?” Will wasn’t entirely sure that his sister’s boyfriend was the best choice for anything; from what he’d heard about Tyler from Cal-which wasn’t much-he had a feeling that Ashley could do far better, but he didn’t want her to learn that the hard way.

 

“Tyler and Megan are old friends; and we know she’s not going to listen to any of us.” Marc reasoned. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

 

 

Two half eaten salads sat in to-go boxes on the coffee table of the luxurious apartment Ashley shared with her mother and John.

 

“I’m not listening to this.” Ashley Abbot felt like she was banging her head against a brick wall with Cal as she sat on the couch reading a text message from Tyler. “When are you going to accept that I’m with Tyler, and that I’m happy with him?”

 

“You can do better than Tyler Davis.” Cal assured his cousin. “The sooner you see that you’re wasting your time with Cal, the better.”

 

“You need to stop doing so many night shifts; you’ve been watching too many soap operas. You know what? I might be more open to your so-called advice about Tyler if you told me why you hated him so much.” Ashley stood up and began to pace the floor of the luxurious apartment she shared with her mother and John. “I mean, you go on and on about how Tyler isn’t the right guy for me, that I can do better, that he’s no good, but you don’t give me anything to back it up with.”

 

“It’s not relevant.” Cal had hoped that his past with Tyler had been buried long ago, but now that both of them were working together and Tyler was dating his cousin, although lately it seemed like he was being forced to revisit it practically every day. “You just need to trust me on this, Ash.”

 

“I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind about who I can and cannot date, Cal.” Ashley couldn’t believe that Cal was lecturing her yet again on the reasons why she shouldn’t be dating Tyler. “It’s not like I’m some teenager who blindly follows the wrong guys anymore, Cal, I know the wrong guy when I see him, and Ty isn’t it. It’s not like we’re getting married and having kids together, we’re just having fun. What’s the problem?”

 

“The problem is that Tyler Davis is a jerk.” Cal didn’t know what else he could do to stress that fact to his cousin. “You’re going to realize that someday, Ash.”

“And until then, we’re having fun.” Ashley placed herself back down on the sofa. “Now are we watching this movie or not?”

 

 

As night fell on Oakridge, Kristen Masters smiled as she sat in the penthouse she shared with Shane, watching as he popped a bottle of champagne while she set the table for the Chinese takeout that had just been delivered.

 

“You know, only you could make champagne and Chinese takeout seem like a romantic night in,” a sly grin appeared on Kristen’s face as she arranged the cartons of Chinese food on the table.

 

“What’s the point in going to stuffy restaurants all the time?” Shane shrugged his shoulders as he filled two glasses with champagne. “When I’m sitting across a table from you I have to fight every urge to jump across the table and rip your clothes off.”

 

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t rip this, it’s new.” Kristen motioned to the silk shift dress that hung from her slender frame.

 

“Don’t worry, it wont be on for long.” Shane promised as he held out Kristen’s seat for her, tousling her wavy blonde hair as she sat down at the table.

 

“You know, I never could work these things.” Kristen giggled as she struggled to get to grips with her chopsticks.

 

“It’s simple.” Shane leaned over Kristen as she sat at the table, gently guiding her fingers with his hand as she picked up a piece of chicken with the chopsticks. “The knack is all in the thumb. See? Totally simple.”

 

“Give me a fork any day.” Kristen remarked as Shane cupped her hand inside his.

 

“Now what would be the fun in that?” Shane kissed Kristen’s neck as he tried again to educate her with the chopsticks, gently manoeuvring her fingers into place as he inhaled her scent.

 

“Getting the food in my mouth without making a mess.” Kristen closed her eyes as she felt Shane’s lips on the side of her neck, enjoying the few seconds of pleasure that seemed to go on for an eternity, only beginning to fade when she began to realize that Shane’s lips were no longer touching her skin.

 

“Sometimes trying new things is good, Kristen, otherwise you just get stuck in a rut wondering about missed opportunities.” Shane pulled away and walked over to the kitchen counter, allowing Kristen a fork as he removed one from the silverware drawer. “You know, I saw you stop by the office today.”

 

“Really? Your assistant said you were in a meeting.” Kristen stood up. She had made a swift exit following her encounter with Greg, but by the time she’d remembered she still had Shane’s cell phone and made her way back to the office, he was otherwise engaged.

 

“I was. And on my way to that meeting I saw you in Greg’s office.” Shane edged closer to Kristen, the soft lighting illuminating her delicate face. “You both looked pretty intense. Is there something going on there I should know about?”

 

“Not at all.” Kristen insisted, unsure of just how much Shane had witnessed. “Greg and I…we were together a while ago…way before you and I met. We didn’t tell anybody because it wasn’t the right time, and at the end of the day it just wasn’t going to work out, it just wasn’t meant to be.”

 

“But you did love him at one point?”

 

“Sort of. I mean I thought I did at the time, but looking back, no…he didn’t want anyone to know about us, he still had all these feelings for Carrie that he wasn’t sure about…and you know the last thing my family would have needed was the drama that comes from me being with my sister’s ex husband.” Kristen supposed, the truth of the matter being that she’d never truly gotten any closure on her relationship with Greg, despite her being the one to end it, because it never felt like it was over, although since meeting Shane she’d begun to open herself up to the possibility that she could be happy with another man.

 

“And your feelings for him now?”

 

“Non existent. I mean he’s my nephew’s father, my sister’s ex, but that’s it.” Kristen wrapped her arms around Shane’s broad shoulders. “You’re the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, not Greg.”

 

“That’s all I needed to know.” Shane responded by planting a gentle kiss on Kristen’s lips. For now he was sure that Greg Sterling wouldn’t be a threat to his future with Kristen, and if he ever came to be, Shane vowed to deal with Greg the way he would with any other threat.

 

 

“So, you and the dishy doc.” Kimberley parked herself down next to Kendall on the sofa in the Sterling mansion’s conservatory. “What’s going on there?”

 

“Nothing at all,” Kendall insisted, not really having any idea where her dinner with Cal could lead. “It’s just dinner, that’s all.”

 

“Believe me, it’s never ‘just dinner’, Kendall.”

 

“You of all people should know that.” Kendall teased her cousin. “Does the name ‘Josh Denman’ ring a bell?”

 

“Oh get over it!” Kimberley hated the fact that both Taylor and Kendall had been teasing her about her drunken clinch with Josh all day, the fact that both of her cousins were younger and less experienced than her was beginning to be glaringly obvious to her. “So we had sex, Big deal.”

 

“And that’s all it is, just sex?” Kendall asked, although Kimberley wasn’t so sure. She’d done the whole ‘no strings’ thing so many times, and now she was starting to think that maybe a stable relationship wasn’t such a bad idea; the only question was: was Josh Denman the guy to do it with?

 

 

“Just sex?” Cal raised an eyebrow as he sat in Theatre with Josh. “That’s pretty harsh, man.”

 

“Tell me about it.” Josh sighed as he took a sip of his beer; all day he’d been unable to stop himself from thinking about the awkward encounter with Kimberley that had occurred that morning in his apartment. “I cant believe she just bolted like that.”

 

“Just how drunk were you guys last night?”

 

“I cant even remember getting home.” Josh couldn’t believe how drunk he’d got, never mind that he’d allowed himself to take Kimberley back to his place in that state.

 

“And all that there was to remind you was a condom wrapper on the floor…and they say romance is dead…” Cal joked.

 

“You’re one to talk, man. I don’t exactly see you fighting the ladies off with a stick, do I?” Josh teased his friend.

 

“Actually, I’ve got a date with Kendall Sterling.” Cal couldn’t believe how easy it was to persuade Kendall to go out with him; he’d had her down as a challenge, but maybe the real struggle was going to be for her to open up to him.

 

“And how exactly did you manage that? I thought the girl hated your guts for getting into a fight with Leo a while ago?”

 

“You know how it goes, Denman…the girl could only resist the Cal Ryan charms for so long…” Cal grinned, his confidence walking that fine line between cocky and arrogant.

 

“You’re some piece of work, man.”

 

 

“You really are some piece of work, Joseph Sterling.” Diane hissed as she paced the floor of their penthouse apartment. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out about your little dalliances with Madison Chase? I thought I made my feelings on that woman perfectly clear.”

 

“You did, but that woman, as you put it, is one of the best corporate lawyers on the East Coast, and she’s exactly what we need to make sure that we’re the ones in control of Sterling Enterprises.”

 

“I’m sorry, we? I thought you were going after the company with John and Kendall?”

 

“And what would be the point in that? I’m not going to just let John be the one calling the shots when Baldwin’s out; and that would be exactly what would happen if I continue to work with John and Kendall.”

 

“Joseph, didn’t you learn anything from the last time?” Diane rolled her eyes. “There are some things more important than that blasted company.”

 

“You wont be saying that when we’re reaping the benefits of having millions of dollars at our disposal.”

 

“We’re hardly living on the poverty line, Joseph,” as much as Diane craved power and respect, she failed to see Joseph’s need for going after something that never belonged to him in the first place.

 

“It’s not my fault if my brother was stupid enough to sign everything over to Jackie before she died.”

 

“It’s not like he was expecting her to kill herself, was it?” Diane did her best to ignore the images of her and Jackie struggling to gain control of the gun that fateful night that Jackie met her maker. Still, Joseph didn’t need to know that morsel of information, not now or ever. “Seriously, Joseph, I don’t see what the fuss is about. You’ve made a good enough name for yourself without having to take control of John’s company. You’ve only just got Kendall and John to trust you again, is it really worth throwing all of that away? Even if you did gain control of Shane’s half of the company, you’d still have to run everything by Kendall and John, and you know they’d simply render you powerless anyway. Is it really worth all of this hassle when the end result is only going to be trouble?”

 

Joseph kissed his fiancée tenderly on the lips, hoping that it would silence her; he knew she was right, him double-crossing Kendall and John could have disastrous consequences for all of them, but if he succeeded, he knew the power he would gain would be more than worth it.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…