"Good morning, Maureen." She all but sang it, and thrust out a clutch of daffodils.
"Oh, thank you. They're lovely."
"Everyone should have daffodils this morning. Absolutely everyone." Natalie shook back her hair, scattering raindrops. "It's a gorgeous day, isn't it?"
Drizzling and chilly was what it was, but Maureen found herself grinning back. "Absolutely a classic spring morning. You've got a conference call scheduled for ten. Atlanta, Chicago."
"I know."
"And Ms. Marks was hoping you could fit her in afterward."
"Fine."
"Oh, and you're due at the flagship at 11:15, right after your 10:30 with Mr. Hawthorne."
"No problem."
"You have a lunch with—"
"I'll be there," Natalie called out, and swung into her office.
For the first time in recent memory, Natalie bypassed the coffeepot. She didn't need caffeine to pump through her blood. It was already swimming. She hung up her coat, set her briefcase aside, then moved to the office safe behind her favorite abstract print.
Taking out a pair of disks, she went to her desk to draft a brief memo to Deirdre.
An hour later, she was elbow-deep in work, making hasty notes as she juggled information and requests from three of her branches on the conference call.
"I'll fax authorization for that within the hour," she promised Atlanta. "Donald, see if you can squeeze out the time to go to the flagship with me—11:15. We can have our meeting on the way."
"I've got an 11:30 with Marketing," he told her. "Let me see if I can push it to after lunch."
"I'd appreciate it. I'd like tear sheets of all the ads and newspaper articles in Chicago. You can fax copies, but I'd like you to overnight the originals. I'll be checking in with L.A. and Dallas this afternoon, and we'll have a full report for all branches by end of day tomorrow."
She sat back, let out a long breath. "Gentlemen, synchronize your watches and alert the troops. Ten a.m., Saturday. Coast to coast."
After she closed the conference, Natalie pressed her buzzer. "Maureen, let Deirdre know I'm free for about twenty minutes. Oh, and buzz Melvin for me."
"He's in the field, Ms. Fletcher."
"Oh, right." Annoyed with her lapse, Natalie glanced at her watch, calculated time. "I'll see if I can catch him at the plant later this afternoon. Leave a memo on his voice mail that I should be by around three."
"Yes, ma'am."
"After you buzz Deirdre, get me the head of shipping at the new warehouse."
"Right away."
By the time Deirdre knocked on the door and stepped in, Natalie was tapping at the keys on her desk computer. "Yes, I see that." Phone tucked at her ear, she gestured Deirdre to a seat. "Put a trace on that shipment. I want it in Atlanta no later than 9:00 a.m. tomorrow." She nodded, tapped. "Let me know as soon as it's located." Thanks."
She hung up, brushed a stray hair from her cheek. "There's always a glitch near zero hour."
Deirdre's brow wrinkled. "Bad?"
"No, just a slight delay on a shipment. Even without it, Atlanta's well stocked for the opening. But I don't want them to run low. Coffee?"
"No, I've already burned a hole in my stomach lining, thanks. Or you have." She aimed a steely look at her boss. "Bonuses."
"Bonuses," Natalie agreed. "I have the percentages I want you to work with right here. Salary ratios, and so forth." She smiled a little. "I figured you wouldn't be wondering about how best to murder me if I did the preliminaries."
"Wrong."
Now Natalie laughed. "Deirdre, do you know why I value you so highly?"
"Nope."
"You have a mind like a calculator. The bonuses were earned, and I also consider them a good investment. Incentive to keep up the pace during the weeks ahead. There's usually a dip after the initial sales in a new business, both in profit and in labor. I think this will keep that dip from becoming a dive."
"That's all very well in theory," Deirdre began.
"Let's make it reality. And since it's basically a standard ratio across the board, I'd like you to hand the problem over to your assistant. That way you can concentrate on running the audit."
Still smiling, she handed over the disks, and her memo. "A great deal of what you'll need to run will be parallel with tax preparation.
Take whatever time, and however many bodies in Accounting, you feel you'll need."
With a grimace, Deirdre accepted the disk. "You know why I value you so highly, Natalie?"
"Nope."
"Because there's no budging you, and you give impossible orders with such reasonableness."
"It's a gift," Natalie agreed. "You might want these hard copies."
Deirdre rose, hefting the file. "Thanks a lot."
"Anytime." She glanced up with a smile as Donald poked his head in the door.
"I'm clear until 12:30," he told her.
"Great. We'll head out now. Take your time," Natalie repeated to Deirdre as she crossed to the closet for her coat. "As long as I have the first figures on this quarter's profit and loss, and the totals from each department, by the end of next week."
Deirdre rolled her eyes at Donald. "Reasonably impossible." She set the disks on top of the file. "You're next," she warned him.
"Don't let her scare you, Donald. She's just gearing up to pit black ink against red." Natalie sailed through the door. "Just make sure the black wins."
"Quite a mood she's in," Donald murmured to Deirdre.
"She's flying, all right." Deirdre stared down at the files. "Let's hope we can keep it that way."
"Perfect, isn't it?" Content after their visit to the store, Natalie stretched out her legs in the back of the car, while her driver threaded through the lunch-hour traffic. "You'd never know there was a fire."
"A hell of a job," Donald agreed. "And the window treatment's spectacular. The salesclerks are going to be run ragged come Saturday."
"I'm counting on it." She touched a hand to his arm. "A lot of it's your doing, Donald. We never would have gotten off the ground like this without you, especially after the warehouse."
"Damage control." He brushed off her thanks with a shrug. "In six months we'll barely remember we had damage to control. And the profits will bring a smile even to Deirdre's face." He was counting on it.
"That would be a real coup."
"Just drop me off at the next corner," he told the driver. "The restaurant's only a couple of doors down."
"I appreciate you making time to go with me."
"No problem. Seeing the flagship back in shape made my day. It wasn't pleasant visualizing the office torn up like that. That wonderful antique desk ruined. The replacement's stunning, by the way."
"I had it shipped out from Colorado," Natalie said absently, as something niggled at her brain. "I had it in storage."
"Well, it's perfect." He patted her hand as the car swung to the curb.
She waved him off, then settled back, dissatisfied, when the car merged back into traffic. Then, with a shrug, she gauged the traffic, the distance to her lunch meeting, and decided she had time for one quick phone call.
Ry answered himself on the third ring. "Arson. Piasecki."
"Hi." The pleasure of hearing his voice wiped out everything else. "Your secretary's out?"
"Lunch."
"And you're having yours at your desk."
He glanced down at the sandwich he had yet to touch. "Yeah. More or less." He shifted, making his chair squeak. "Where are you?"
"Looks like Twelfth and Hyatt, heading east, toward the Menagerie."
"Ah." The Menagerie, he thought. High-class. No tuna on wheat for lunch there. He could see her, ordering designer water and a salad with every leaf called a different name. "Look, Legs, about tonight—"
"I was thinking about that. Maybe you could meet me at the Goose Neck." She rolled her shoulders. "I have a feeling I'm going to want to unwind."
He rubbed a hand over his chin. "I, ah… Com
e by my place instead. Okay?"
"Your place?" This was new. She'd stopped wondering why he'd never taken her there.
"Yeah. About seven, seven-thirty."
"All right. Do you want me to pick up something for dinner?"
"No, I'll take care of it. See you." He hung up and sat back in his chair. He was going to have to take care of a lot of things.
He picked up Chinese. It was nearly seven when Ry carried the little white cartons up the two flights to his apartment. He took a good look around while he did.
It wasn't a dump. Unless, of course, you compared it with Natalie's glossy building. There was no graffiti on the walls, but the walls were thin. As he climbed the steps, Ry could hear the muted sounds of televisions playing, children squabbling. The steps themselves were worn down in the centers from the passage of countless feet.
As he turned onto the second floor, he heard a door slam beneath him.
"All right, all right. I'll go get the damn beer myself."
Lip curled, Ry unlocked his door. Yeah, he thought. It was a real class joint. There was a definite scent of garlic in the hall. Courtesy of his neighbor, he assumed. The woman was always cooking up pots of pasta.
He let himself in, flicked on the lights and studied the room.
It was clean. A little dusty, maybe. He barely spent enough time in it to mess it up. It had been nearly three weeks since he'd spent a night there. The sofa that folded out into a bed needed recovering. It wasn't something he'd noticed before, or would have bothered with. But now the faded blue upholstery annoyed him.
He walked past it, taking about half a dozen steps into the alcove that served as his kitchen. He got out a beer and popped the top. The walls needed painting, too, he decided, chugging the beer as he looked around. And the bare floors could have used a carpet.
But it served him well enough, didn't it? he thought grimly. He didn't need fancy digs. Just a couple of rooms a short hop from the office. He'd been content here for nearly a decade. That was enough for anyone.
But it wasn't enough, couldn't be enough, for Natalie.
She didn't belong here. He knew it. And he'd asked her to come to prove it to both of them.
The night before had been a revelation to him. That she could make him feel the way she'd made him feel. That she could make him forget, as he'd forgotten, that there was anything or anyone on the planet except the two of them.
It wasn't fair to either of them to go on this way. The longer he let it drift, the more he needed her. And the more he needed, the more difficult it would be to let her walk away.
His divorce hadn't hurt him. Oh, a couple of twinges, he thought now. Plenty of regrets. But no real pain. Not the deep-rooted, searing kind of pain he was already feeling at the thought of living without Natalie.
He could keep her. There was a good chance he could keep her. The physical thing between them was outrageously intense. Even if it faded by half, it would still be stronger than anything he'd ever experienced before.
And he was well aware of his effect on her.
He could hold her with sex alone. It might be enough for her. But he'd understood when he awakened beside her this morning that it wasn't enough for him.
No, it wasn't enough, not when he'd started to imagine white picket fences, kids in the yard—the kind of things that went with marriage, permanence, a lifetime.
That hadn't been the deal, he reminded himself. And he had no right to change the rules, to expect her to settle. He'd already proven he wasn't any good at marriage, and that had been with someone from his own neighborhood, his own life-style. No way was he going to fit in with Natalie, and the fact that he wanted to, needed to, scared the hell out of him.
Worse than that, even worse, was the idea that she would turn him down cold if he asked her to try.
He wanted all of her. Or nothing. So it made sense, didn't it, to push her out before he got in any deeper? And he would do it here, right here, where the differences between them would slap her between the eyes.
At the knock of his door, he carried his beer over to answer it.
It was just as he'd thought. She stood in the hallway, slim, golden, an exotic fish completely out of water. She smiled at him, leaning up to kiss him.
"Hi."
"Hi. Come on in. No trouble finding the place?"
"No." She skimmed her sweep of hair back, looking around. "I took a cab."
"Good thinking. If you left that fancy car on the street around here, there'd be nothing left but the door handles when you went back out. Want a beer?"
"No." Interested, she wandered over to the window.
"Not much of a view," he said, knowing she was looking out at the face of the next building.
"Not much," she agreed. "It's still raining," she added and slipped out of her coat. She smiled when she spotted another of his basketball trophies. "MVP," she murmured, reading the plaque. "Impressive. I say I can outscore you nine times out of ten."
"I wasn't fresh." He turned into the kitchen. "I don't have any wine."
"That's okay. Mmm… Chinese." She opened one of the cartons he'd set on the counter, and sniffed. "I'm starved. All I had was a stingy salad for lunch. I've been all over the city today, nailing down details for Saturday. Where are the plates?" Very much at home, she opened a cabinet herself. "I'm really going to have to make a sweep of the branches next week. I was thinking—" She broke off when she turned back and found him staring at her. "What?"
"Nothing," he muttered, and took the plates out of her hands.
She wasn't supposed to stride right in and start chattering, he thought, and dumped food on a plate. She was supposed to see how wrong it was, right from the start. She was supposed to make it easy on him.
"Damn it, do you see where you are?'' He whirled on her, taking her back a step.
She blinked. "Ah… in the kitchen?"
"Look around you." Incensed, he took her by the arm and dragged her into the next room. "Look around. This is it. This is the way I live. This is the way I am."
"All right." She pushed his hand away, because his fingers hurt. Trying to oblige, she took another survey of the room. It was spartan, masculine in its very simplicity. Small, she noted, but not crowded. A table across the room held framed snapshots of a family she hoped to get a closer look at.
"It could use some color," she decided after a moment.
"I'm not asking for decorating advice," he snapped out.
There was something under the anger in his tone, something final, that had her heart stuttering. Very slowly, she turned back to him. "What are you asking for?"
Cursing, he spun into the kitchen for his beer. If she was going to look at him with that confused, wounded look in her eyes, he was a dead man. So, he would have to be cruel, and he would have to be quick. He sat on the arm of the couch, and tipped back his beer.
"Let's get real here, Natalie. You and I started this thing because we were hot for each other."
She could feel the warmth drain out of her cheeks, leaving them cold and stiff. But she kept her eyes level, and her voice steady. "Yes, that's right."
"Things happened fast. The sex, the investigation. Things got tangled up."
"Did they?"
His mouth was dry, and the beer wasn't helping. "You're a beautiful woman. I wanted you. You had a problem. It was my job to fix it for you."
"Which you did," she said carefully.
"For the most part. The cops'll track down whoever was paying Clarence. Until they do, you've got to be careful. But things are pretty much under control. On that level."
"And on the personal level?"
He frowned down into the bottle. "I figure it's time to step back, take a clearer look."
Natalie's legs were trembling. She locked her knees to stop it. "Are you dumping me, Ry?"
"I'm saying we've got to look behind the way things are in bed. The way you are." He lifted his gaze. "The way I'm not. We've got plenty of heat, Natalie. The problem
with that is, you get blinded by the smoke. Time to clear the air, that's all."
"I see." She wouldn't beg. Nor would she cry, not in front of him. Not when he was looking at her so coolly, his voice so casual as he cut out her heart. She wondered if he'd been so gentle, so loving and sweet, the night before because he'd already decided to break things off.
"Well, I suppose you've cleared it." Despite her resolve, her vision blurred, the lamplight refracting in the tears that trembled much too close to the surface.
The minute her eyes filled, he was on his feet. "Don't."
"I won't. Believe me, I won't." But the first tear spilled over as she turned toward the door. "I appreciate you not doing this in a public place." She clamped a hand over the doorknob. Her fingers were numb, she realized. She couldn't even feel them.
"Natalie."
"I'm all right." To prove it to both of them, she turned to face him, her head up. "I'm not a child, and this isn't the first relationship I've had that hasn't worked. It is the first time for something, though, and you're entitled to know it. You jerk." She sniffed, and wiped a tear away. "I've never been in love with anyone before, but I fell in love with you. I hate you for it."
She yanked open the door and dashed out without her coat.
Chapter 11
For ten minutes, Ry paced the room, convincing himself he'd done the right thing for both of them. Sure, she'd be a little hurt. Her pride was bruised. He hadn't exactly been a diplomat.
For the next ten, he worked on convincing himself that she hadn't meant what she'd said. That parting shot had been just that. A weapon hurled to hurt as she'd been hurt.
She wasn't in love with him. She couldn't be. Because if she was, then he was the world's biggest idiot.
Oh, God. He was the world's biggest idiot.
He snatched up her coat, forgot his own, and raced downstairs and out into the rain.
He'd left his car at the station, and cursed himself for it. Praying for a cab, he loped to the corner, then to the next, working his way across town.
His impatience cost him more time than a simple wait would have. By the time he hailed an empty cab, he was twelve blocks from his home and soaking wet.
The cab fought its way through rain and traffic, creeping along, then sprinting, creeping, then sprinting, until Ry tossed a fistful of money at the driver and leapt out.
Books by Nora Roberts Page 420