A/N: So I actually had no intention of writing a Tuha-Dacey fic at all but then my good friend, PurpleRose4, presented me with this incredible idea and it wouldn't leave me alone. So then, this fic was born. This is the only part I've written for it so far but the entire thing is outlined so I definitely know where I'm going. Just some forewarning that initial updates might not be so fast.

As always, thanks for reading.

Prologue

"That duplicitous son of a bitch!"

The outburst elicited an appalled gasp from every person present within the conference room. The sounds reverberated through the silence that followed Tara Desai's uncharacteristic show of temper. At twenty-seven years of age, the woman rarely, if ever, lost her composure. She was renowned for her cool, methodical poise when under pressure. She never raised her voice. She didn't have to. One chilling glance from her piercing, whiskey colored eyes was enough to cow even the most intrepid of adversaries.

She was a beautiful woman but her beauty was often overshadowed by her steely personality and ruthless drive. Her abundant, dark waves were pulled back from her face in a sleek but severe bun which as fastened at the nape of her neck. Not a single hair was ever out of place. She used makeup sparingly, just enough to maximize the glow in her earthy skin. Tara Desai had an attractiveness that was alluring but also advertised strict inaccessibility. One could look but touching was only allowed for those she deemed worthy...and among those were precious few.

Her lithe figure was concealed behind chic business jackets and pressed pencil skirts of either slate gray or deep black. She seemed adverse to color altogether. The two vanities she allowed herself were the small, diamond stud that adorned her left nostril and the sparkling ruby pendant that hung from her slender neck. It was the one gift her father had given her without restraint, the one thing that she had never had to earn from him.

Those employed by her whispered that it was perhaps the contentious relationship that she had shared with her father which made her seem so cold and unfeeling. She was an automaton, a merciless taskmaster. Nothing at all could ruffle her. It was as if she had ice water pumping in her veins rather than warm, red blood. Which was all the more reason why her explosion of anger was surprising...and frightening.

Tara flexed her slim fingers against the armrest of her chair, her calculating stare trained directly on the estate attorney seated across the table. "Read it again," she ordered, her tone clipped and authoritative.

The attorney cleared his throat nervously. He supposed that he was well within his right to remind her that he was doing a formal reading of her father's will as a mere courtesy to her. No one truly sat for the reading of a will anymore. That was a dated tradition which had been born out of illiteracy and the need for a official reading centuries ago. In modern society, copies of the document were provided for the appropriate parties and that was that. However, Tara Desai was a traditionalist and, upon her father's death, she had insisted that the Desai family be gathered together to hear the last will and testament of her late father Aravinda Desai. The attorney wisely refrained from pointing any of that out to her because the glare she was giving him felt as if it might disintegrate him on the spot.

Consequently, there was a slight tremor in his voice when he replied, "I understand that this is not at all what you were expecting, Ms. Desai. But I assure you, these are the terms Aravinda stipulated prior to his death."

"Read...it...again," she said, each word enunciated through even, white teeth.

At that point, the attorney realized that he would have to be a fool to refuse her again and he was no one's fool. He read that stipulated portion of the will again.

"To my grandson, Daniel, I bequeath 80 shares in Desai Corporation and 90% of my assets, the bulk of my estate," the attorney recited, "He should receive 25% of his inheritance upon his eighteenth birthday and the remaining 75% upon his twenty-fifth birthday. My eldest child and daughter, Tara Desai, will remain as acting CEO until Daniel reaches the age of 21, at which point he should become a full board member and the acknowledged CEO of Desai Corporation."

After he was done speaking, Tara sat in ominous silence. Her only betrayal of emotion was the subtle twitching at the corners of her mouth. "So I'm to understand..." she began in a deceptively thoughtful tone, "...that my father left nearly the entirety of his estate to a toddler?"

Vikram Desai, Tara's younger brother by three years and the father of the aforementioned toddler, inched his fingers across the glossy surface of the conference table to cover his older sister's clenched hand. Like Tara, Vikram was also stunningly attractive but his affable nature and natural charm made him far more approachable. While Tara was feared and often hated, Vikram was genuinely liked and approved of by all who met him. Vikram had a way of disarming with his words and his friendliness. He seemed to all who knew him as a man unassuming and without ambition but that was a deliberate choice on Vikram's part. After all, how could the enemy prepare for his arrival if they never knew he was coming in the first place?

He gave his sister's fingers a reassuring squeeze. "Tara," he cajoled softly, "this doesn't have to mean anything. There's no reason to become upset over this. It's just as you said. Danny is still a child, a baby really. It will be years before he's ready to assume any sort of responsibility for Desai Corp. In the meantime, you are still the CEO of this company."

She snatched her hand from his grasp. "Did you not hear the same thing I did, Vikram?" she hissed, "My position is only temporary! That old bastard screwed me yet again!"

He knew there was little use in trying to appeal to her reasoning side. Tara became a hotbed of emotions wherever their father was concerned, her bitterness stemming from long harbored insecurities that had bloomed in early childhood. She had practically spent her entire life trying to prove to Aravinda Desai that she could be the son he had always wanted. She was forever seeking his approval and forever falling short.

Vikram, on the other hand, had given up on pleasing his father only a short while after he had entered into his early twenties. By then he had accepted that he would never be the son that Aravinda imagined he should be. Like Tara, he would always be lacking in some fundamental way. The problem had lain in Vikram and Aravinda's very different personalities. Where Aravinda Desai had been calculating and shrewd, Vikram had instead been quiet and ploddingly meticulous in his actions. Vikram was almost manipulative in his efforts to get his way, using charm rather than brute displays of strength to conquer his enemies. Unfortunately, that was much too soft an approach to suit his father. He never came to appreciate his son's particular talent for winning people over.

According to Aravinda Desai, Vikram was too sentimental, too malleable, too much like his mother to carry on the strength of the Desai legacy. Vikram had always seemed to lack the single-minded ambition that had come so naturally to Tara because he did not show her same tenacious, bulldog spirit when it came to bending others to his will. In Aravinda's estimation, Vikram was the teddy bear to her tigress and that disappointing fact was something Aravinda Desai had rarely let his son forget. He often said that it was as if Vikram and Tara had switched bodies while maintaining their gender.

The one thing Vikram had done right in his father's eyes had been to marry Karen Kincaid, a very beautiful and very rich young heiress from a high powered family with whom Aravinda had hoped to create a formidable business merger. Yet, even that bit of pride over Vikram's success in wooing the young woman hadn't lasted long. Karen Desai had died shortly before Danny's second birthday in the first trimester of her second pregnancy.

As a result of the mysterious circumstances surrounding her sudden death, bitter contention and outright suspicion had existed between the Kincaid and Desai families ever since. The powerful union that Aravinda had imagined would arise from Vikram and Karen's marriage consequently fizzled into nothing. That was yet another thing Aravinda never let Vikram forget. Vikram concluded soon after that he would never find favor in his father's eyes so he decided from that moment on to seek his own interests instead.

"Don't be shortsighted in this, Tara," he advised his sister when she continued to stew, "You're failing to see how you can turn this situation to your advantage. This is an opportunity for you to teach Danny all that you know, to mentor him-,"

Tara cut him a sharpened look. "-I have no desire to mentor him!" she snapped, "Why would you even suggest such a thing? We both know he shouldn't exist at all!" Vikram had very little time to react to the cutting words before Tara's countenance relaxed abruptly into an inscrutable mask and she sucked in a deep, restorative breath. "But you're right," she said with astonishing serenity, "there's nothing to be done to change it now. Father's wishes are legal and binding and they must be respected." She turned a cool glance towards the attorney. "Thank you for your time. Please, have the copies made and faxed to my office."

As she scraped back her chair and rose to exit the conference room without another word, Vikram was left with no choice but to hastily spring from his chair as well and scurry after her. Despite his calling her name, Tara maintained her purposeful strides out of the estate attorney's office, her heels clicking sharply against the polished floor as she headed towards the elevators. Vikram caught up with her just as she reached the gleaming, chrome doors. He snagged hold of her elbow before she could punch the button for the first floor.

"Don't be this way," he urged her softly, "Talk to me."

"What is there to say?"

"Are you angry with me? Do you blame me?"

Once again, she snatched from his hold but this time her lips were curled in a subtle sneer. "Why ever would I be angry with you, little brother?"

"Because Father used me to humiliate you one final time," he said, "Because everything you worked so hard to achieve has just been given to the child I had with her...the child you despise."

Her lips thinned in a tight line. "It's true. It certainly doesn't please me, Vikram. Did you expect it to?"

"You have to know that I didn't choose this or ask for this," Vikram told her earnestly, "I never wanted the company, only your happiness. I certainly didn't covet it for Danny. This was all a game for Aravinda. You have to see that Danny is merely a pawn in all of this, Tara! He doesn't understand what any of it means!"

"It doesn't matter. This would have never happened if you'd never married her in the first place!"

The elevator doors pinged open at that moment. Vikram seized the opportunity to take hold of Tara's hand and tug her inside in the hopes of affording them more privacy. Once they were out of the hallway, he punched the button for the top floor and then rounded to face her. Tara's aggravated protests over his actions were silenced when Vikram stepped closer to her.

His tone was low and pleading when he said, "Don't hold what happened against me, Tara. You know why I did that. You know why I married her. It was for you. For us."

"Are you going to tell me that not even a tiny part of you wasn't hoping for his approval?" Tara challenged, "That you didn't once enjoy playing house with that insipid bitch?"

"The only approval I want is yours."

"We both know that's a lie! You weren't supposed to have a child with her at all, Vikram! That was a line that should have never been crossed!" Tara hissed, her impassive veneer slipping to reveal genuine hurt, "I made my peace with the marriage but to conceive a child with her, not once but twice... Really? That was never part of our agreement! I deserved better! Now we have this situation on our hands and who do you think will have to clean up your mess...just like always?"

The unspoken threat in her words caused Vikram's Adam's apple to bob spasmodically with nervous dread. "It won't have to come to that," he reassured her, "I swear it. Danny is my son. He's good. He's not a threat to us, not like she was."

"I've heard this argument before. You said the same thing when you first married her and look what happened. In the end, I had to intervene, didn't I? I am forever fixing your mistakes, Vikram. Even when we were children you never considered the consequences! You cannot see what a danger he is because you're too blinded by sentiment."

"Not this time. This time is different. I won't be the type of father to Daniel that Aravinda was to us! I know that if you gave him a chance, you could love him, Tara. He could be ours if you let him."

She shook her head doubtfully at the proclamation. "You make far too many promises that you don't keep, Vikram."

He pulled her into his arms, undeterred by how stiffly she held herself against him. He enfolded her in his embrace nonetheless, stroking her back until she softened against him, her body aligning with his. Vikram brought his face close to her cheek, his lips glancing across her skin and his breath warm breath raising gooseflesh against it when he whispered, "Tara, you know me. You know I would do anything for you. I want you to be happy. I'll make this right."

Tara reached up to cradle his cheek in a lingering caress that was a mixture of genuine affection and disappointment. However, her touch conveyed only tenderness when she brushed a sweet, lingering kiss across his parted lips though her eyes remained stony with resolve. "I hope you truly mean that, my dear brother...because I intend to hold you to it."