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window behind his desk, smooth jazz playing softly in the background.
    He was about to take a well-deserved break, a long weekend off, no work, no radio and no family, completely alone and devoid of drama. He intended to take either his plane out of its long hiatus or his boat down the coast and just relax for a few days. He sighed deeply, savoring the idea, but then his thoughts crowded with business again.
    He glanced at his watch, then out at the view.
    It was dark and the glittering lights of Los Angeles shone and reflected across the city like tiny diamonds tossed out and scattered on black velvet. He loved the night, and from twenty-five stories up the cityscape view was spectacular. Looking out at the impressive skyline often stilled his thoughts. But nothing short of a miracle could do that tonight.
    True, he lived a charmed life, one of affluence, money and power. But with affluence and power came responsibility, and his was more than most. With work as his only outlet, the boredom of life was his future—tame, safe and monotonous at best. He feared following in his father’s footsteps, a slave to the boredom of excess.
    He was the oldest son of divorced couple Rachel and Marcus Daley, second-generation media entrepreneurs. His grandfather, deceased founder of Daley Communications, was in his time a pioneer in the African-American broadcast industry. Over sixty-five years in the business, the Daley family owned more than eighty-five broadcast stations. Their satellite and base of operations were in this twenty-five-story building in the heart of L.A., which was also the main radio station that broadcast in syndication nationally.
    When his grandfather died, he left the majority of stock to his daughter-in-law and not to his disinterested playboy son, Marcus, causing their teetering marriage to deteriorate instantly. Their subsequent bitter divorce had torn the family and business apart even more, and Jackson was hard pressed to bring it together.
    Host of a nightly radio talk show, Jackson also served as vice president and general manager of the broadcast division of Daley Communications. His father was at the moment president and CEO. And since the death of his mother six months ago, the hierarchy of control wavered between the two, causing an already deep rift to expand even further.
    Rachel, like her father-in-law, overlooked Marcus and left Jackson with the majority of stock control, which sent Marcus storming into court to contest the will and regain complete control of what was once his father’s company. The bitter litigation had leaked out to the media, creating not only nervous board members but months of newspaper gossip and fabricated speculations. The once-admired Daley family name had become tabloid fodder.
    So at the request of his sister, the company’s public relations director, Jessica Daley, Jackson once again asked for a meeting with his father to hopefully settle matters at least publicly. But dreading the inevitable, Jackson knew what was coming. The discussion they’d had a hundred times or more would be rehashed. He looked at his watch. It was time.
    He walked to his father’s office on the other side of the building, knocked, then walked in without waiting for a response. He glanced around the room. Exaggeratedly decorated along the lines of big and obnoxious, the huge space and overly elaborate furniture nearly dwarfed his more than six-foot frame. His father’s taste ran toward the overstated.
    Without looking up, Marcus Daley, sitting behind his ornate desk, began speaking. “I hope you’ve come to tell me that you’ve reconsidered my suggestion.”
    â€œYour what?” Jackson asked, taken off guard by the left-field question. Then he remembered a conversation he’d had with his father earlier in the week about announcing an engagement between his associate, George Cooperman’s oldest daughter, Shauna, and himself.
    They’d dated, at