by Carol Caiton
With a hand on the doorjamb, he turned into the office that had belonged to Michael for nearly three years. It looked nothing now like it had when he'd occupied the space however. A vase of silk flowers sat on the credenza behind Holly's desk. And she clearly liked the muted pastel colors of impressionist art. Several small prints were arranged on the wall beside the door.
She looked up as he entered, but the somber expression on her face nearly stopped him in his tracks. Something was wrong.
"What is it?"
She gestured toward the monitor on her left. "Nothing's wrong. It's just that you're not going to be happy about this."
Scowling, he continued forward. How the hell would she knew what made him happy?
Observing her as he approached, he acknowledged three things in quick succession. First, he didn't welcome the fact that an employee, especially one he'd known only briefly, was able to guess at his likes and dislikes. Unlikely as it was, unless the system had linked him with someone who rubbed him on the raw, like Hannah Breckenridge, Holly shouldn't have the first notion as to what might make him happy. His antipathy toward Hannah, however, had become common knowledge, so he could justify her foresight if such was the case.
As well, if the computer matched him with another R-link, there was a good chance he'd rip the monitor off Holly's desk and hurl it across the room. After his experience with Nina, it would certainly be reasonable for Holly to suppose that an R-link match wouldn't be to his liking.
But the third of his sudden epiphanies wasn't as definitive or as easy to explain. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why, but he was now uncomfortable with the fact that Holly knew the name of his blue link. So far as he could tell, the woman who had replaced Michael was trustworthy. She'd done nothing to indicate otherwise, so there was no solid basis for his discomfort. But something, or the nuance of something, had put him on alert. It was only gut instinct, but he wasn't prepared to ignore it.
Rounding her desk, he braced a hand on its surface as she rolled her chair away to make room for him. The screen was filled with gibberish only she or Michael would comprehend and it took a minute for him to scan the lines of code before he zeroed in on a surname that stood out in caps. A name he couldn't believe he was staring at.
BRECKENRIDGE.
He physically flinched.
BRECKENRIDGE.
No—
BRECKENRIDGE.
His brain didn't want to accept what his eyes were locked on.
BRECKENRIDGE.
. . . after you became available again, eight more blue applications were submitted.
BRECKENRIDGE.
The word making the rounds is that you may be on the lookout for another woman who's ready to share those good looks and wealth.
BRECKENRIDGE.
Ripping his gaze away, he stepped back. Anger, rich and seething, roiled up inside like a living animal.
"Simon—"
"Exit that program right now and forget you ever saw her name," he ordered through clenched teeth.
Taking another step back, he waited for Holly to roll her chair in place and remained only long enough to watch her fingers move over the keyboard.
Ignoring the common sense that told him to go back to his office and shut the door until he was human again, he turned instead down the corridor that led to Hannah's office. All the while, Holly's words swam around in his mind.
The word making the rounds is that you may be on the lookout for another woman who's ready to share those good looks and wealth.
Roiling anger seethed and churned. One side of his face ached from the pressure of clenching his jaw.
Her door was open.
Gripping the doorjamb, he swung around the threshold, prepared to give her five minutes to gather up her things and get out. But she wasn't at her desk. She was nowhere in sight. Her chair was pushed back, the phone was ringing, and the screen saver on her monitor floated aimlessly on a field of black.
Crossing the carpet, he walked over to her desk and stirred the mouse. The phone stopped ringing as the monitor came to life and he found himself staring at the confidential bid proposal he and the rest of the board had agreed on for the purchase of a tract of land adjacent to RUSH's east wall. Hannah was trusted with sensitive material relative to her position and she knew to log off of her computer before leaving her office, or to password-protect her screen saver if left for a brief interval.
The telephone began ringing again and he let it ring.
Walking back around the desk, he turned one of her guest chairs so that it faced the door, then he sat down to wait. Propping both elbows on the padded arms, he steepled his fingers and stared.
Forty minutes later, his temples throbbed. The phone had rung a total of six times and he was still sitting there. Still waiting.
Rising to his feet, he turned the chair back to its original position. She could be at lunch, or it might be a couple of hours before she returned if she was out on the grounds doing something for Elliott.
Striding back to the door, he turned the lock, exited into the corridor, and pulled it closed behind him.
Halfway across reception he saw the entrance doors slide open and there she was, stepping across the threshold. Her laughter rang out as a gust of warm air rushed in, sweeping up under her short gold skirt and tossing her long hair in front of her face.
He scarcely noticed the girl beside her, laughing as well as she held her uniform skirt down. It was Hannah he was focused on, Hannah who quickly lifted her hands to brush the hair out of her eyes, ignoring the skirt that now fluttered up around her thighs.
The doors swept closed, her hands came down to smooth her skirt into place, and his eyes traveled up—up to the deep cleavage exposed by the same two open buttons that she claimed had slipped free the last time she'd raised her arms.
The girl in the Urns & Leaves uniform said something and they laughed again. Then they turned in his direction and Hannah's eyes skimmed past him, jumped back, and locked.
He knew the anger he felt, having reached a dangerous level, glittered in his eyes. She staggered to a stop and stood staring at him, not ten feet away.
"You've been at lunch," he stated, his tone clipped but carefully controlled.
"Yes, I—"
"You didn't log out of your computer," he stated. Then he waited for that bit of information to register.
He knew, when the color drained from her face, that she remembered what she'd been working on.
"You left sensitive material accessible to anyone who might have walked into your office."
She didn't move. Not even a blink of her eyelids.
"For forty minutes," he added. "At least forty. I know because I sat in your office and waited."
She stared.
"I should fire you on the spot for that alone," he told her.
She wanted to answer, he could see it. But she wouldn't. Because he was the boss, she was his employee, and she knew she was in the wrong.
"I'm going to have you written up," he told her crisply. "For your carelessness, and because I've already spoken to you once today about your attire."
Shocked eyes dropped to her gaping blouse and her fingers rose swiftly to close the offensive buttons. Again.
"This is a professional office, not Threshold," he bit out. "If you're so eager to put yourself on display, do it after hours. There's a pillory in the courtyard over there for that purpose."
Her head snapped up. Anger flared in her eyes. She opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by the little server from Urns & Leaves who began shouting at him in Japanese, or possibly Chinese. Whatever the hell it was, her words ran together with furious speed while she covered the few feet that separated them, raised her arm, and slapped him hard across the face.
Absolutely stunned, he snared her wrist in midair before she could lower it. At the same time, a man dressed in jeans and a dirty T-shirt rose from one of the seats in the waiting area and started to appr
oach.
Simon glowered down at the girl. "You have three seconds to tell me who the hell you are."
She tugged at her wrist, but he held fast. Her eyes glared up at him, furious. "Jessica!" she shouted again and tugged. "Jessica Breckenridge!"
Breckenridge?
Silence echoed through the moment, surrounding him in a fog of confusion as he assimilated what his mind wanted to reject as impossible.
BRECKENRIDGE.
He released the girl's wrist so fast, she stumbled back.
"Jessica?" The man who looked as though he'd just walked off a construction site called to her.
BRECKENRIDGE.
Simon watched her spin around, blonde hair, the same pale shade as Hannah's, caught up in a clip at the back of her head.
"Kyle," she murmured.
The man stretched out one arm in an obvious offer of refuge and she didn't hesitate. Hastening across the lobby, she was folded into a protective hold and a pair of mean brown eyes stared at him with open hostility.
BRECKENRIDGE.
There were two of them.
Sisters? Cousins? Breckenridge had been spelled out in caps when he'd scanned the gibberish on Holly's monitor. He hadn't bothered to look for a first name because there'd been no reason to. Only one woman with the last name Breckenridge was a member of RUSH.
But he'd been wrong. There were two. And one of them was his.
Recoiling from the irony of it, he wondered which of them it was. Was it the one he'd raked up one side and down the other, threatened to fire, and accused of lascivious appetites? Or was it the one who looked like she hadn't yet graduated from high school, for Christ's sake—the one presently clinging to another man because Simon had man-handled her.
Goddamn it, what was it about his psychological profile that the linking system kept pairing him with young virgins? And why did he sink to the lowest form of civility when it came to interacting with a woman to whom he was supposed to be perfectly matched? He had a healthy respect for women in general, yet he'd treated Nina the same way, all but calling her a whore when natural curiosity drew her attention to the gate at Threshold. And hadn't she sought refuge in another man's arms as well? —And then she'd married that other man for God's sake. What had become of the cool-headed logic that had guided him all his life?
"Simon?"
Looking over his shoulder, he found Malcolm standing in the archway behind him, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
"Come to my office, will you?"
Meeting those pale, ice-blue eyes, Simon clenched his jaw and gave a curt nod. The request had been spoken in a calm British accent but was, in essence, a direct order from RUSH's CEO.
Technically Malcolm was Simon's equal. But Simon had crossed a line, crudely insulting an employee, and was prepared to yield. If it took a stern lecture from Malcolm to put things back in order, then he was willing to sit there, keep his mouth shut, and listen. Because once again, for all that he prided himself on the analytical qualities of his mind, he didn't know how to begin to repair the damage he'd done.
"Hannah, I'd like to see you as well," Malcolm added. "And you, Miss Breckenridge."
Then he shifted his attention to the unknown male who continued to hold the young Breckenridge girl close to his side. Inclining his head in courteous acknowledgment he said, "She'll be out shortly if you'd care to wait."
Dirty and sweaty the man might be, but Jessica Breckenridge didn't appear to mind. She stood beside him, one arm around his waist, her free hand resting on his chest as though the two had an established, long-standing relationship. Friends maybe. But they weren't linked because they weren't lovers. Simon knew that look of innocence in the girl's eyes. He'd seen it too often to mistake it.
He watched as the man bent his head and murmured something in a quiet tone to the girl. She looked up, nodded, then eased her arm from around his waist.
So who was this Kyle she trusted to keep her safe? He could ask Holly run a search on all the Kyles in the system, but he was reluctant to ask anything more of her. That peculiar sense of unease he'd felt in her office continued to linger, so he would restrict his requests to legitimate business concerns until he was comfortable with her again. Meanwhile, he could engage Michael's services for the kind of information he wanted.
CHAPTER 7
Hannah didn't know when she'd ever felt so humiliated, so powerless, or so terribly proud to have a sister. That Jessica would even consider striking a man, much less carry through with it, astounded her. Hadn't she just admitted to growing up in a culture of female repression? Their father had conducted business in a part of the world where women were considered second-rate citizens. So where had all that courage and righteous indignation come from?
At the moment, she stood in the embrace of a man who looked as though he'd been out in the hot sun, working on someone's car. She clung to him as though seeking protection from Simon's wrath and that was an image more in keeping with the impression Hannah had of her. Still, Jessica was accustomed to moving in high-powered circles. She had inherited their father's business acumen, had, in fact, become his partner, moving enormous sums of money from bank to bank, country to country, with an eye on the various markets. She had invested for kings—or at least through the advisors of kings—as an international broker. But striding up to Simon as she had, outraged and self-assured, it was clear she'd developed hidden strengths while moving in those high-powered circles.
Hannah, on the other hand, had stood in mute horror, furious with impotence while wanting, needing, to do exactly what her sister had done. She'd even opened her mouth to demand an apology—finally. But crossing swords with Simon would have gotten her fired. It may well get Jessica fired. And her one burning thought was that she and her sister would lose the chance at a blue link if he or Malcolm rescinded their memberships and ordered them to collect their things and leave the premises.
Angry tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Emotions continued to storm inside her so that her hands shook at her sides. She should have applied for a blue link as soon as she'd detected Simon's hostility. He'd always treated her with cool indifference and she'd often wondered if he purposely avoided her. But it had never been as bad as it had been lately. He never used to be vulgar, had never spoken to her with such vehemence . . . as though he hated her.
Brushing aside her hair, she caught him staring at her hand and quickly lowered it. She would not let him see her tremble, would not let him know how badly he unsettled her. The fear and dismay swirling beneath her anger was a weakness he'd latch onto and take advantage of to attack her again.
Lifting her chin, she met his gaze straight on. But he threw her off balance because the aggression she expected to see in his eyes was gone. For the first time in memory he looked at her with a sort of quiet contemplation. His usual intensity—the stern, intimidating businessman—had been replaced by an expression that was almost . . . regretful?
Tearing her gaze away, she looked over as the man in the dirty T-shirt said something softly to Jessica. Then Jessica eased away from him and started toward Hannah.
"Where are we going?" Jessica whispered as they walked along the corridor and passed by Hannah's office. The door was closed, courtesy of Simon, no doubt. And rightly so. Leaving her computer on was a blunder that could have been costly.
"To Malcolm's office. At the end of the corridor."
"Yes, but who's Malcolm?"
"He's the CEO. The chief executive officer of RUSH.
Jessica's brows shot up. "Are we going to be fired?"
She answered honestly. "Maybe."
"No," came Simon's deep voice from behind.
Jessica glanced over her shoulder, but Hannah stiffened and stared straight ahead. She hadn't realized he was close enough to hear them.
As was the norm, two chairs sat in front of Malcolm's desk. The arrangement was positioned midway into the room, with a wall of windows at his back so the sun shone in over his shoulder. Perpendicular to that ra
n another bank of windows, and in front of them stood the life-sized statue of a naked woman, her head bent so that her face was hidden, both arms raised and partially extended, as though warding off an enemy or beseeching the Almighty.
It had shocked Hannah the first time she saw it. The lash marks striped across the woman's back and buttocks, deep enough to have caused horrible suffering if they'd been real, had drawn her eye. And now, every time she saw it, appropriately named A Cruel Passion, her heart sighed with empathy for the pleading agony so beautifully sculpted by the artist's hands.
"Ladies," Malcolm said, gesturing toward the two chairs. He waited for them to be seated before taking his own chair and Simon, surprisingly, maintained a non-threatening distance off to the right. Hannah wouldn't have been surprised if he'd positioned himself on the corner of Malcolm's desk as an intimidating presence, but that wasn't the case.
"Hannah," Malcolm said, "I see the resemblance. Introduce us, will you?"
"This is my sister Jessica. Jessica, this is Malcolm Speeridge, CEO of RUSH, and Simon Yetzer, our statistician."
Both men nodded, then Simon turned to Malcolm and said, "Before we take this any further, I have something to say."
He looked directly at Hannah and she was too startled to look away.
"I apologize for my comment about Threshold. It was personal and offensive and I shouldn't have said it."
Shocked, she wanted to ask him why he had. She wanted to ask him what she'd done to cause the antipathy between them. She wanted to ask if he was apologizing only because Malcolm had overheard, but he didn't give her a chance to respond.
Surprising her once again, he turned to Jessica. He said nothing about the slap she'd delivered but instead seemed to dismiss it. "I have no idea what you said to me, but I don't doubt it was deserved."
Malcolm lifted a silver pen from his desk, leaned back in his chair, and regarded Jessica with curious interest. "Enlighten us, please. What did you say to Simon?"