by Anna DePalo
Attempts at resuscitating Jack had proved futile. Minutes after the crash, the race had finished under a yellow flag. Noah had won, only to learn Jack had been taken to the hospital but had been declared dead upon arrival. A later investigation had concluded Noah wasn’t to blame for the crash.
Until the accident seven years ago, Noah had been in the news a lot. He had sex appeal in spades, and that, combined with his high-testosterone racing career, had been enough to net him a dozen magazine covers and have him named one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive.
But after the accident, he’d holed up. Then, after a few months, he’d made a public announcement that he was retiring from racing. He’d gone back to M.I.T., gotten his doctorate in computer science and then joined the family firm.
He dropped out of the public eye for a short time after the accident, but he came back with a vengeance. In his new incarnation as a playboy, he was seen squiring around models, actresses and, yes, even a reality-show contestant. He was back making regular appearances in People magazine, in Us Weekly and in the local gossip columns.
Kayla had known about the accident, of course. People talked, still.
But she hadn’t known the details of the fatal crash or of Noah’s life at the time. She’d still been in college at that point. However, having read the news articles, the past—Noah’s past—was all very fresh for her.
She remembered his reaction back at the book-launch party when she’d brought up the racing accident—he’d shut down immediately—and she cringed inwardly again.
And, as she walked around Whittaker Enterprises with Noah, everything she’d read was at the back of her mind.
“I’ve been doing some research on nanotechnology,” she said conversationally.
“Really?” he said. “What have you discovered?”
“Probably lots of things I should have been hearing from you instead.”
He laughed.
“So,” she said, “instead of my telling you what I’ve discovered, why don’t you tell me what you know?”
“All right. Have you heard of Moore’s Law?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, Moore’s Law basically says data density in computers will double about every eighteen months or so.”
She nodded. “How does Moore’s Law relate to nanotechnology?”
“I’m getting there,” he said, giving her an amused look. “If you’ve done your homework, you know nanotechnology concerns the manipulation of atoms. It gets its name from the fact that the structures it studies—atoms and the like—are measured in nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.”
“Right.” So far everything he’d said was in line with her research.
“The potential applications for nanotechnology are practically limitless, from handheld supercomputers to faster diagnoses for cancer.”
“Wow.”
“Exactly. People in the computing field are racing each other to harness and use nanotechnology, even though it’s still a young field. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that a scanning tunneling microscope was developed that could study atoms. But now nanotechnology is the biggest thing since computers.”
“Are you saying that Whittaker Enterprises has developed a product that uses nanotechnology?”
He smiled. “I haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet. You’ll have to stay tuned.”
“But—”
“Come on,” he said, interrupting her, “let me introduce you to people and then get out of your way. You’ll start to get a picture of what we’re all about.”
She sighed. At least she’d made some progress. “Okay, great.”
Noah, she soon learned, had organized the computer side of the business into project teams, each headed by a team leader. The teams were small groups flexible enough to make things happen.
She jotted notes as she talked to people. One group had developed a new, ultra-slim handheld PDA that was about to launch on the market. Another was testing a super-light portable DVD player. Small seemed to be the name of the game. However, no one brought up nanotechnology in any detail. She got the sense that information was rather sensitive.
Everyone, however, sang Noah’s praises. He was smart, easy to work with, unflappable and had enough stamina to work around the clock if necessary—all of which, of course, she felt compelled to bring up later when she caught up with Noah outside his office.
“So, apparently your reputation is that you work hard and party harder.”
He smiled. “You sound annoyed.”
“It’s the kiss of death for reporters. No dish, no dirt, no anything.”
He held up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t tell them to hold back, just to keep their mouths shut about confidential business information.”
“Everyone’s afraid of antagonizing the boss, I bet.”
He shook his head. “Our attrition rates are very low for the industry, and we pay top dollar. People are here because they want to be here.” When she had no ready reply he said, “Come on, I’ll take you to lunch.”
She reluctantly accepted. Lunch, as it turned out, was not in the building’s well-stocked cafeteria, which she’d passed earlier in the day, but in Carlyle, at a charming little bistro.
She ordered the French onion soup, a half sandwich and a healthy serving of information from Noah.
He just laughed and ordered the crab cakes.
“So,” she said after their food had arrived and they’d dug in, “I’ve been reading a lot about you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not writing about me anymore in your column, so what’s there to read these days?”
“I meant about your past. I’ve been coming across articles while researching Whittaker Enterprises.”
His eyes flickered. “The past can’t be changed, so I don’t spend too much time examining it myself.”
“You had a great racing career going,” she said. “I didn’t realize how successful you were until I went back through the news reports.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin and took his time answering. “What? Would it have changed how you wrote about me in your column?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She hadn’t realized Noah had been such close buddies with the driver who’d been killed. It made sense though: they’d belonged to the same racing team. “It would have given me a different perspective though.”
He seemed to wait for her to go on.
“Auto racing seemed like an odd choice for you.”
He shrugged. “You’re not the first person to make that observation. The truth is, though, there are a lot of similarities between auto racing and what I do now. Professional auto racing is all about the technology.”
“How did you even get interested in it?”
“In a word?”
“Yes.”
“Go-carts.”
She raised her eyebrows. For once, he was looking earnest, instead of using his customary half-amused expression.
“It was a friend’s birthday party,” he explained. “It took place at a racetrack, and we got to race around in these little carts. I was hooked.”
“And you were how old?”
“Ten. I moved up to real cars in my teens. Took a hiatus from competitive racing for a while in college, and then I was back at it.”
“Until the accident,” she corrected.
He sat back, took a breath and then expelled it slowly.
“Yeah?”
He said it like a challenge.
“Why did you choose to quit? From the articles I read, you were a hot commodity, poised for a great career if not the record books.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a choice. Some things aren’t. If the highest card you’re dealt is a ten, you can’t put a king in play.”
She looked at him. Was he kidding her? He was gorgeous, wealthy and talented. “Most people would look at you and say you definitely got dealt a king in the card game of life.”
“Most people don’t
know me,” he said, then added pointedly, “even if they think they do based on what they read or write about me.”
She took the jab and kept going. “They don’t need to know you to understand you grew up privileged—”
“Yeah, but sometimes it doesn’t matter how wealthy you are, you still have to deal with the irrevocable moments of life.”
“Is that what the accident was? Something you wish you could take back if you could? Is that why you threw away the racing career?”
He motioned the waiter for their check, then looked back and studied her for a second. “Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe the racing career threw me away. Or, maybe, Kayla—” he said, drawing out her name “—I just decided I didn’t want to race for the next ten or twenty years and that developing cutting-edge technology was more appealing.”
He was the closest to really ticked off that she’d ever seen him, and that included the time of their confrontation at the book-launch party. She shifted in her seat.
He narrowed his eyes. “I hope there isn’t some sort of strange reporter’s instinct at play here. You know, digging for some weird psychological profile for your article.”
She hadn’t been thinking about that—had only wanted to have her curiosity slaked—but now that he mentioned it…. “And what if there is? Is the accident the reason you became the hard-partying Noah of the past few years?”
After signing the check, he looked up. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. If you really want to understand what makes the techie guy in me tick, then look at my experiences at M.I.T. and at the office, not on the racetrack.”
She wasn’t so sure about that. Not so sure at all.
Six
There was no place to hide.
She’d looked.
A party hosted under a white tent afforded no inviting nooks and crannies into which a single woman seeking to avoid a fate worse than death could cram herself. Particularly a woman dressed in a sequined halter top and black sheath skirt and two-and-a-half-inch heels. For the sake of future events, she’d have to make a polite suggestion to the Charlesbank Association.
The evening had started off innocuously enough. Noah had picked her up, appearing more sinfully good-looking in a tux than any man had a right to look. Her pulse had kicked up a notch, a response that she was growing used to. She’d come to admit to herself that, yes, okay, she did find him very attractive—who wouldn’t? But she knew better than to think that acting on any attraction between them was a good idea, recent kisses aside.
Once they’d arrived at the charity benefit, Noah, as promised, had introduced her to the mayor as a journalist who worked for the Boston Sentinel and who was gathering material for an in-depth profile on Whittaker Enterprises. Fortunately, the mayor had not seemed to connect her face to the Ms. Rumor-Has-It column. And Noah had been right: with his introduction and implicit endorsement, the mayor had been friendly and approachable.
Unfortunately, though, after that brief interlude, the evening had turned from one where she was playing with nice, friendly dolphins to one where she was swimming with the sharks.
First, she’d run into Fluffy, who’d been eager to make sure Kayla would mention her in Monday’s column.
Then Buffy the Man Slayer had homed in on Noah. Evidently, she’d taken to heart the hint in Kayla’s column and decided Noah would make a lovely addition to her all-male menagerie.
Kayla was thankful Huffy, at least, wasn’t around to add to the drama. According to word of mouth, she was still in Europe, presently flirting with a German count who was dancing attendance on her. Kayla had no doubt the two of them would soon hit the European gossip magazines.
Kayla wondered whether Noah would be crushed by the news. She glanced over at him now and caught his look of mild irritation from across the room, where Sybil LaBreck had run him to ground.
Under other circumstances, Kayla might have felt some pity. Under present ones, however, she was too busy dealing with her own problems.
Because, just as she’d been breathing a sigh of relief, she’d turned around and spotted Bentley Mathison IV.
For an instant, she’d frozen. Then she’d embarked on her present and so-far-fruitless search for a hiding spot.
Bentley Mathison and his wife wouldn’t recognize her, but she still had no interest in encountering them. Particularly here. Particularly now.
Giving up on the tent, she headed toward an exit. She could take a moment outside to collect herself.
As she made her way toward a gap in the tent, she recognized Noah’s siblings as they entered along with their spouses, and groaned at the timing.
Trapped, she made a complete 360-degree turn, looking for at least a potted plant that might afford some camouflage.
Noah, she noticed, had disentangled himself from Sybil’s clutches and was heading her way. His family, with Allison Whittaker in the lead, was bearing down on her from the opposite direction. And, she noticed, Bentley Mathison and his wife were making their way toward all of them, too.
She dredged up a smile. It was the least she could do when her life was bearing down on her with all the horror of an impending train wreck.
“Noah!”
“Allison!”
“Kayla!”
Help! Kayla thought.
“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” Allison said.
“We didn’t know you’d be here, Noah.” Allison looked for affirmation at the dangerously good-looking man next to her.
Kayla knew Connor Rafferty by sight. Rumor had it that he’d carried a torch for Allison for years before they’d recently begun seeing each other and gotten married.
Bringing up the rear, behind Connor, was a tall, dark-haired man who looked as if he’d stepped off the pages of GQ magazine and whom Kayla knew by sight to be Noah’s older brother Matt.
Behind Matt, Kayla noticed that Noah’s other brother, Quentin, and his wife, Liz—whom she knew from various social functions that she’d covered in the past for the Sentinel—had already been waylaid by a couple of other guests nearer the tent’s entrance.
Noah shrugged. “Until recently, I wasn’t sure I’d be showing up either.”
Allison looked from Noah to Kayla, zeroing in on the arm that Noah had just slipped around her waist and was using to guide her forward.
She couldn’t blame Allison for looking confused. After all, mere days ago, Kayla had been the bane of Noah’s existence.
“Allison, Connor, Matt, this is Kayla.”
Allison reacted first. “Kayla and I have been introduced to each other before.” She looked at her brother, her lips twitching upward. “I’m just surprised Kayla’s here with you.”
Kayla felt herself grow warm, but Noah said, “I guess you haven’t heard that Kayla is shadowing me because she’s doing a profile on Whittaker Enterprises for the Boston Sentinel.”
Allison raised her eyebrows, and Connor and Matt, though they refrained from making any comment, wore looks that said they found it all highly entertaining.
Allison opened her mouth to speak, but, before she could say anything, a voice caused all of them to turn.
Bentley Mathison, who until now had remained quiet, spoke up. “Noah and Matthew Whittaker.” He stepped forward, hand outstretched and chuckling too heartily to sound sincere. “How long has it been?”
Kayla winced. Bentley Mathison’s audacity was stupendous, especially in light of the fact that, if it had been a long time, it was entirely due to his thirty-six months spent behind bars for tax evasion and misappropriation of funds.
“Bentley,” Noah said, nodding in acknowledgment and, reluctantly, it seemed to Kayla, accepting the proffered hand. “Yes, it’s been a while.”
“Too long,” Bentley said jovially. He then turned to greet the other Whittaker siblings and introduce them to his wife, Margaux.
Allison, Kayla noticed, appeared cool during the introductions. And, no wonder, Kayla thought. As an assistant district attorney who
’d recently been harassed by a defendant in one of her cases—before Connor had reportedly led the police to the culprit—she doubtlessly did not suffer criminals, past or present, gladly.
When Noah turned and introduced Kayla to the Mathisons, she tried to appear unaffected. Nevertheless, her hand was clammy and cold as it was grasped by Bentley Mathison’s.
Her biological father.
She looked into his pale blue eyes—as clear and cold as a winter sky—and could not believe this was the man who’d set her life on its trajectory, and, in fact, the man responsible for her very existence.
Unbidden and uninvited, her mind busied itself looking for resemblances. She dreaded finding any.
She caught Noah looking at her oddly.
It was then she realized she’d been holding on to Bentley Mathison’s hand.
Embarrassed, she murmured, “Nice to meet you,” and then withdrew her hand.
She was vaguely aware of conversation continuing to flow around her, but she was in a weird state where she heard everything but took in nothing. Mostly she faintly discerned that Bentley was attempting to ingratiate himself with the Whittakers—probably in the hopes of resuscitating business contacts—and that the Whittakers were responding with varying degrees of polite detachment.
No one apparently noticed how uncomfortable she’d become. No one except Noah, apparently, since she caught him tossing her a quizzical look or two.
At some point, she heard Noah say, “Excuse us.” Then, without waiting for a response, he tugged her toward the dance floor. He guided her into his arms and they started swaying to a slow tune.
“What was that all about?” he asked finally against her hair.
“What?” She tilted her head back to look up at him.
“Your Medusa impersonation when you were introduced to Bentley Mathison. I thought you were going to turn him to stone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If I did have a reaction, it’s only because the man is a shameless unreformed criminal.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Strong words.”