Page 92 of Idaho

"It's too much to ask me to trust my daughter to you. I don't know anything about you," he said.

"You're going to bring her to me," I told him firmly.

"I won't." His gaze swept the room, before landing on me once more. "Whether you choose to believe me, or not, I love my daughter. I won't sell her to some...American...for a quick fix to the problems you're creating. My people will be more willing to work with me than some foreigner." He turned and walked out, leaving me grinding my teeth together.

"I'm going to dismantle everything you have, piece by piece," I muttered.

Thomas hung back, waiting for the duke to leave the office before he spoke. "Eva's here," he told me.

"What?"

"It's true," Harold Wayworth said. "We met with her and her father yesterday. She's been handling our account with him for years." Harold gave me a grim look. "They were unwilling to match your offer. The duke thought I'd never go through with my threat of taking our manufacturing elsewhere." He shrugged. "He was wrong."

My jaw clenched as I thought about what to do. "I'm going to break into her hotel room," I finally said. "It doesn't matter if I go to jail as long as my brothers aren't there with me. I'm willing to face those consequences if I have to."

"Jail is the least of your worries," Thomas said. "I doubt even you can take on the amount of men the duke brought and stay alive. The entire family is here. Every royal guard was brought to protect them."

Harold smiled at me. "Now I understand why you are giving us such a great deal. I was suspicious at first, you offered such amazing terms. But I understand now. She is a lovely young woman."

"Yeah." I nodded to him, taking in Thomas's new information.

"I have an idea, and maybe a way to repay your…generosity in this deal," Harold said, standing up. He'd taken over the business from his father fifteen years ago and he'd jumped on the opportunity to expand his manufacturing to the United States market. Honestly, this deal I made was going to make him, Luxembourg, and myself vastly wealthy. The duke and his country would benefit from the taxes and tariffs right alongside us.

"What's that?" I asked.

He flinched at my cold tone, but managed a weak smile. "We planned a rather lavish party for tomorrow night," he told me. "To celebrate our merger." He looked back and forth between us. "I'd like to extend an invitation to you, Mr. Sharpe. There will be many people there, from businessmen to royalty. The duke and his entire family will also be in attendance. It's a ball," he explained.

"A ball?" I asked. "Those still happen?"

Harold chuckled, "Yes, and my wife has been nagging me for some time when she could host the next one. Once you contacted me, I put her straight to work."

"And if our deal hadn't gone through?" I asked, arching a brow.

"Then it would have just been a party," he said with a shrug.

A thought occurred to me. "There's going to be a lot of powerful and wealthy people there."

"There will," he admitted.

"Is Richard Krier on that list, by chance?" I asked, eyes narrowing. A huge party, where Krier knew the duke's family would be, was the perfect place to try for Eva again. Knowing she would be there tomorrow night and could be in danger, made something dark and dangerous curl inside me, ready and waiting. She would be coming home with me. And it would be the end of Krier. I wanted to start a life with my girl where she wasn't having to look over her shoulder, waiting for someone to attack.

"Why yes, he confirmed a few days ago and planned to fly into the country today, if I'm not mistaken."

"Do you have a security company set up yet?"

"Oh... Um. We have a standard contract, but it's really a general presence. Most people travel with their own security, trying to coordinate all of them is usually not worth it." Harold told me.

"Why don't you let me handle it instead? Email me the details for this ball and I'll take it from there."

"Wonderful," he exclaimed. "My wife can't wait to meet you."

"Thank you, I look forward to it." I watched as Harold and his men gathered their things and left my office.

"I have to go, too," Thomas told me and left as quickly as he'd come.

Andrew sagged against the wall. "That was intense," he said. "Is it always like that?"

I'd forgotten he was there, watching everything. He didn't normally join me during meetings, but since he'd followed the duke in, he just stuck around. "Yes," I replied. "I'm going to need you to work overtime tonight, Andrew."