Luke shifted his weight and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Of course," he went on, "your grandfather has reached the stage in his life where he wants to enjoy himself. He loves to poke around the world on buying trips, so we only involve him where there are major disagreements or decisions. You probably know that for the past five years or so your father has been the de facto head of Conover-Dunne. You mentioned other responsibilities, and I assume you meant the chairmanship of Dunne Industries, the umbrella corporation of C & D and our other interests. You're quite right in thinking that Bill would like the time to concentrate on investments in areas like real estate and perhaps even manufacturing. I wouldn't have accepted his job offer if a shot at the top spot hadn't been part of the package. Within five or six years I expect to be president. Your father will run Dunne Industries and your grandfather will retain the title of chairman of Conover-Dunne."
"I see," Randy said. Luke Griffin certainly didn't lack either ambition or self-confidence. Unable to resist needling him a little, she drawled, "I suppose I should polish up my rendition of 'Hail to the Chief'."
She was surprised that Luke would take her seriously. "You sound unhappy about my role here," he said, "and I want you to know that I understand your feelings. But you also have a great deal to learn, and the sensible thing to do is to let me teach you."
Randy quickly corrected him. "I'm not unhappy about your role in the company, only a little in awe of your ego. As far as what I have to learn goes, I recall that on the phone you implied that the lessons would include more than business." Randy shot him the kind of provocative smile that had captivated more men than she knew. "Just what do you propose to teach me?"
She knew almost immediately that she'd gone too far. Luke was looking at her in the same intense way that he'd looked at her so often in Maine. But then his jaw clenched and his gaze swung to one of the magazines on the table.
"Your father wants you to start by getting an overview of the types of problems that come up," he said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. "The reason he asked me to work with you is that my job involves solving problems in a wide range of areas—areas your work during the summers never exposed you to. Naturally I'm in the field a lot, and sometimes I'll take you along. I'll also have you do a lot of background reading. For example, we're in the process of reviewing feasibility studies for a store in Dallas, and we're in the middle of construction in Bal Harbour, Florida. We've got a serious problem in White Hills and in the next few weeks we've got to make some decisions about how to solve it. Once you've gotten an overall picture you'll be taking our executive training program. Then you can pick an area to work in, assuming there's an open slot for you."
"We?" Randy repeated with a seductive smile. "Is that the royal 'we' you're using?"
"We means Bill and myself," Luke replied coolly. "And Miranda—please stop what you're doing. I'm finding it damn hard to ignore."
Randy supposed she had been a little too flirtatious. In fact, if she'd behaved this way in Maine Luke would have pulled her into his arms and suitably punished her. In Maine, of course, she'd been a woman of the world. Here in New York she was only an innocent child who was presumably too naive to understand that she was playing with fire.
Holding out her hand, she said, "All right, Mr. Griffin. Let's shake hands on a successful professional relationship."
Luke took her hand for a couple of seconds but didn't release it afterward. Instead he turned it palm upward, the motion so subtle that had Randy not been aware that he was looking for the scar on her thumb she never would have guessed it. Fortunately she healed quickly and well and not a trace of the cut was visible. She caught Luke's fleeting frown out of the corner of her eye.
He got up from the couch and motioned for Randy to do the same. "There's a free office down the hall," he told her, walking to the door and holding it open for her.
The office was small, windowless and contained only the essentials: metal desk and chair, bookcase, lamp and phone. It wasn't very appealing, but then, Randy was only a trainee, even if her middle name happened to be Conover and her last name Dunne. Several thick, spiral-bound reports were sitting on top of the desk.
"I want you to look through these carefully," Luke said. "You'll find sales figures for the White Hills store for the last four years, broken down by department and analyzed in a number of different ways. When you're finished take a drive out to the store and look around. I want you to compare our location with our competitors' locations. You should also go down to the city government offices and check out things like planned construction, rezoning requests and so on. I want a recommendation from you as to whether we should close the store, renovate, look for a new location or make only minor changes."
"Will that be all, sir?" Randy said, trying not to be intimidated by this assignment.
"Isn't it enough?" Luke laughed, and walked out of the office.
During the rest of the week Randy threw herself into the task of becoming an instant expert on the White Hills branch of C & D. She saw nothing of Luke Griffin; he was out of the office more often than not, trouble-shooting on Long Island, checking the progress of renovations in suburban Washington or lending his considerable charm to a buyers' meeting in New York City.
Randy spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning poring over the detailed statistics contained in the reports Luke had left her. When inflation was taken into account the picture was depressing. Until three years ago the store had done moderately well. Sales per square foot, though not as high in most other branches, were acceptable. In subsequent years, however, although receipts in current dollars had risen, inflation and increased operating costs had meant an actual drop in earnings. Some departments, such as children's clothing, had resisted the trend and continued to do well; others, such as junior apparel, had experienced painful declines.
The store, C & D's first suburban branch, was located far from other major department stores in the city. There was a motor inn under construction in the area, which meant detours and traffic snarls, dirt and dust and general inconvenience to the shopper. With the streets ripped up as they were, Randy had trouble even finding her way into the parking lot.
She spent the rest of Wednesday in the store, remaining until it closed at nine o'clock. As she walked through department after department she tried to understand the reasons why some prospered while others were failing. It apparently had little to do with how well-displayed the merchandise was; the junior department, with its pop music and trendy appearance, was fun and appealing and yet it attracted fewer and fewer customers.
The signs of the building's age were everywhere. The architecture was boring, the space chopped up by pillars, the lighting old-fashioned. Basically it was a three-story stack of boxes. Yet the uninspired atmosphere didn't deter wealthy women from continuing to shop in the store's designer boutiques.
By the time Friday afternoon arrived Randy had waded through more planning documents, commission reports, committee meeting records and permits than she hoped to see for the next two years. The woman she'd talked to at City Hall, she thought wearily, had been too receptive for her liking. She'd learned that a major new county building was under consideration for a site near the store, and that the nearest highway interchange was scheduled for a complete reconstruction. A number of smaller projects were in various stages of planning and development, yet Randy estimated that it would be at least four years before all the proposed projects were completed. Unfortunately, there were no plans for any other retail outlets, which might have brought additional shoppers into the area.
On the other hand, should C & D decide on a new site, favorable locations were available. It seemed to Randy that no amount of renovation could turn a fundamentally mediocre store into the type of elegant building that housed the competition. Westchester County was a good market; many women preferred to avoid the transportation problems and crowds in Manhattan and shop locally. A new store in a good location would earn enough
extra profit to justify the expense of site acquisition and construction.
Late Friday afternoon, as Randy sat in her office making notes on her conclusions, her phone rang. The ring, as opposed to an intercom buzz, meant that the call was coming from outside the building. She was puzzled when a male voice murmured something unintelligible in a foreign language.
"Uh… who were you trying to reach?" she asked with exaggerated distinctness, thinking that the man probably spoke very little English.
"Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth," was the response. "Randy? Is that you?"
Randy immediately placed the voice as that of Aaron Gregov, the professor she'd met in Cambridge. "Aaron! It's nice to hear from you," she said. "Where are you?"
"In New York. I came down last night to talk to some foundation people about funding one of my research projects. When can I see you?"
Randy had put in a long, tedious week and the prospect of going out was appealing. "I'd love to get out for dinner tonight," she said. "Why don't you stop by the apartment to meet my parents and have a drink and then we can go someplace to eat? And please come casual, Aaron. I think I'm too tired for anything fancy."
Aaron said it sounded perfect and told Randy he'd see her at six. At five-fifteen she went down to her father's office to walk home with him, only to find that he was tied up in a meeting and had left word that she should go ahead without him.
It was a warm, humid evening in New York. Randy, perspiring from the eight-block walk, headed for the shower as soon as she walked into the apartment. Then she dressed in snug-fitting jeans, a red tube top and a short-sleeved print blouse which she left unbuttoned and tied at the waist.
She was brushing her hair when her mother peeked into the room. "Umm—very sexy," she teased. "Is that in Luke's honor?"
Randy was baffled by the question. "Luke? What does he have to do with it?"
"He's coming over for dinner. We're having the fish he caught last weekend. I assumed you knew, Randy."
"I haven't seen him since last Tuesday, Mom. I have a date with a guy I met in Cambridge."
"He came all the way from Cambridge to see you?" Emily asked, sounding as baffled as Randy had been only moments before.
"He's here on business. His name is Aaron Gregov and he teaches history at Harvard. Respectable enough for you?" Randy's mouth quirked at her mother's befuddled expression.
"Well, of course, darling. But Luke…"
"What about him?"
Emily regarded her daughter for several long seconds, then lifted an expressive shoulder in a half-shrug. "I told your father to let you live your own life. Serves him right!" She flashed a slow wink at Randy and left her to finish dressing.
Randy, both annoyed and amused by her father's presumption, quickly finished brushing her hair and applying her makeup. She walked into the living room to find Luke and her parents talking, a bottle of sherry on the table in front of them.
"Hi, Dad. Sorry I missed you at the office," she said. She turned to Luke, who had made himself completely at home in her parents' living room. "And I'm sorry I'll miss your fish tonight."
"Somehow I doubt that," he said, apparently unconcerned by that fact. "But you should be. It's not every night you get a chance to eat dinner with me."
"Really?" Randy glanced at her father and couldn't pass up the opportunity to pay him back for his matchmaking. She knew that Luke wouldn't take her comments seriously, but Bill Dunne certainly would. "I was under the impression from Dad that all I had to do was snap my fingers and you'd come sniffing after the family fortune like a bloodhound hunts rabbits, Mr. Griffin."
Bill Dunne almost choked on his sherry while Emily calmly sipped hers and attempted to suppress a smile. Bill was revving up for a stern lecture when Luke laughed and remarked, "You seem a bit jumpy tonight, Miranda. Am I working you too hard?"
Randy smiled back at him. "Definitely, Mr. Griffin. That's why I'm going out."
"You should have said something. It seems to me that if I'm the cause, I should get first shot at providing the remedy."
"What did you have in mind?"
"I couldn't possibly tell you in front of your parents."
This verbal sparring, a substitute for a far different sort of love play, was setting Randy's body on fire. She wondered how she could possibly spend hour after hour in Luke's company without giving up and throwing herself into his no-doubt astonished arms. Fortunately for all concerned, at that moment the intercom buzzed and the doorman announced that Dr. Gregov was downstairs. Randy opened the front door and waited for him, but when he walked up and looked her over his confusion was apparent. "Do I have the right apartment?" he asked. "The Dunnes?"
"You've found them, Dr. Gregov," Randy said.
"Randy?" He studied her face. "But—your hair…"
"Was a wig." She took Aaron's arm and led him into the living room. "Don't you like me as a blonde, Aaron?"
His response, in full view of her parents and Luke, was to tip her chin up and kiss her lightly on the mouth. "I like you any way at all, princess," he said.
Randy introduced him to her parents and Luke and then poured him a glass of sherry. Once he was seated he started to explain how he and Randy had met.
"You have a charming daughter, but the only time I've seen her she was wearing a dark wig. She and your older daughter cooked up some scheme to pass her off as a Yugoslavian princess, and it worked beautifully. Everyone was falling over himself to meet her." He smiled at Randy. "Not that they wouldn't anyway. I teach European history, so I knew she was a ringer. I lured her into the garden and made a pass at her, just to see what she would do. She never stepped out of character till I told her I knew she was a phony. I'm afraid I exacted payment for my silence—a kiss in the garden and this dinner date."
"I'm surprised you didn't insist on a quicker payback," Luke said casually. "In Cambridge, that is." Only Randy understood the reason for his comment, and it was all she could do not to laugh.
"I would have," Aaron answered, "but she was leaving town for New Hampshire."
"Then we'll have to let you go," Luke drawled. "We can't allow Miranda to welsh on her obligations."
"I'd hardly call it an obligation, Mr. Griffin." Randy looked up into Aaron's eyes, her smile entrancing. "I only wish all my royal duties were as pleasing as this one, Dr. Gregov," she murmured, using her Princess Elizabeth accent.
"You can see that the world lost a promising actress when C & D gained a future executive," Bill told Aaron.
Randy rose to leave, taking Aaron's hand to pull him up along with her. "Don't you mean president?" she said with a wink.
A friend of Aaron's, a professor of Asian history, had recommended an unpretentious little restaurant in Chinatown. Although the place had a plain linoleum floor and paper placemats on its formica-topped tables, the aromas wafting out of the kitchen promised a superb meal.
"Jim told me that they serve Americans different food from Asians," Aaron explained. "I thought we'd try something authentic." When the waiter approached, he proceeded to order in a combination of some Chinese dialect and English, asking for items that weren't on the menu and communicating well enough, since the waiter kept smiling and nodding and writing.
The food, when it came, was unlike any Randy had tasted. The flavors were stronger, the soup fishier, some of the ingredients unidentifiable. When Aaron asked if she'd feel reassured to know what she was eating she quickly shook her head. "I'll enjoy it more if I don't know where it came from," she admitted.
They took their time over dinner, talking about Randy's experiences in Hollywood and Aaron's travels in Eastern Europe. On the way back uptown they stopped for American dessert and coffee, returning to the Dunnes' apartment about ten. Randy's parents and Luke had finished dinner and were back in the living room, discussing business.
"Don't you three ever stop?" Randy asked.
"I'm getting a private report tonight, darling," Emily told her. "After all, I'm a major stockholder.
Since Mother and Dad are off poking around Europe, the least these two handsome men can do is to keep me informed about what they're doing with my money."
Randy led Aaron into the kitchen and poured him another cup of coffee. They talked for half an hour until Randy, yawning, apologetically explained that it had been a hard week and she was tired. At the kitchen door Aaron turned her into his arms and tipped her chin up for his kiss. The touch of his mouth against her own wasn't unpleasant, but her body failed to ignite the way it always did when she was near Luke Griffin.
Sensing her minimal response, Aaron lifted his head. "What's the matter, princess? Too tired?"
"I suppose," she murmured.
"Come on, Randy. What's wrong? Something's changed between Cambridge and New York."
It was only fair to be honest with him. "I'm sorry, Aaron," she said. "I met someone else, and…"
"Griffin? Your boss?"
"How could you tell?"
He shrugged. "There's an electricity between the two of you that's pretty hard to miss." He took her hand and led her to the center of the kitchen, well away from the door. "Look, Randy, I'm not going to stand here and pretend I had only friendship in mind when I called. But if you're not interested, you're not interested. Why don't I call you next time I'm in town? If your feelings have changed, fine. If not, I'd enjoy getting together for lunch, or maybe a play. Okay?"
"You're very understanding," Randy said.
"Understanding has nothing to do with it. I enjoy your company. Besides, I figure I can sponge a free meal from your parents, or better yet, a place to stay."
"Any time," Randy answered. She and Aaron returned to the living room, where Aaron shook hands with the two men and kissed Emily's hand with practiced smoothness. Randy walked him to the elevator afterwards, raising her face for a good-night peck as the door opened and waving goodbye as it closed.
She was yawning when she let herself back into the apartment. Her mother got the first good-night kiss and her father the second. Then she came to Luke.
An Act of Love Page 13