Full Bloom

you rented that apartment that the garage looked dangerous."
    Emily made a face at him which Drake ignored. He continued his summary of events, his eyes on Jacob. "Morrell sure as hell played innocent. But I let him know we had our suspicions about that garage incident and that we did not want to see any more unfortunate coincidences happening to any member of the family or to any of our friends. I warned him that we would use the Satterly deal to bring down his whole empire if anything happened. He'll watch his step now."
    "Reassuring," Jacob commented blandly as he took another swallow of his drink.
    "A pack of wolves," Emily murmured almost to herself.
    "What was that, dear?" Catherine asked.
    "Nothing. I was just making a general comment on the ways of big business."
    Jacob looked at her. "You have to be able to defend your own, honey, or you and yours will get trampled. Just because we're not living in the jungle any longer doesn't mean the law of survival of the fittest has been repealed."
    "Grandmother always said it was possible to conduct good business and maintain good ethical standards at the same time," Emily said.
    Jacob shrugged. "She was right. For the most part. But sometimes you have to fight and when you do, you use whatever weapons you've got."
    "I'm afraid Grandmother Ravenscroft was something of an idealist," Catherine said sadly. "She was very noble and high-minded about things, but she didn't always understand the business world."
    "There's something I would like to know," Emily continued. Everyone looked at her. "Why was Damon so determined to beat you on the Fowler deal, and why did he want to hurt RI? Why was he looking for revenge?"
    "I told you, it's just an old business score he wants to settle," Gifford assured her mildly.
    Emily met her father's gaze. "I want to know the truth."
    Her parents stared at her, clearly surprised by her insistence. But apparently they were getting accustomed to their daughter's new brand of assertiveness.
    "Well," Gifford explained slowly, "it goes back to a big project down in South America that was put out for bid a couple of years ago. Morrell's people thought they had it all sewed up, but we decided to take a shot at it. We got lucky because of some contacts we had made on a previous operation down there. In South America, as in most other places around the world, it isn't necessarily the low bid that wins. It's who you know in government and industry that counts. RI has excellent contacts in South America. When we put those together with a bid that was more or less on a par with Morrell's, we got the job."
    "It was just another business deal to us," Drake said. "But Morrell took it personally. He swore at the time he would get even, but we figured he was just letting off steam. Until we found out a few months ago that he had started seeing you, that is. Then we knew he was up to something and he intended to use you to get it."
    "You decided the something he was after had to be a chunk of RI, right?" Emily tapped one nail on the arm of her chair. "You just assumed that because the man had started dating me that he intended to marry me so he could control those shares. Without any real evidence, you took it for granted he was up to no good."
    "Emily," Jacob interrupted mildly, "calm down. They assumed right and you know it. Morrell admitted as much that day he came to your apartment."
    "That's not the point," Emily declared, warming to her theme, "it's the way everyone instantly jumped to the conclusion that I and my precious shares needed to be protected that irritates me."
    "Emily," Jacob tried again, his voice still mild, "you did need protection."
    "I did not," she announced baldly. "I never in a million years would have married Damon Morrell. He was only a casual date as far as I was concerned. But no one bothered to ask for my side of the situation before jumping all over me with hobnail boots. Oh, no, you all leaped to the conclusion that I was in imminent danger of marrying. Not only that, you all assumed that if I did marry, I would automatically turn the RI shares over to Damon as if it were some sort of dowry. Well, I've got news for you. I would never have done that. I couldn't turn those shares over to someone outside the family, even if I wanted to. In fact, I can't even sell them to someone outside the family."
    She had their attention now. They were all watching her in stunned amazement.
    "What do you mean, you couldn't give or sell those