“You’re not mad at her, are you? I swear to you, it was harmless; just a little girl talk.”
“I know, Liddy. Do I have any messages?”
“Aside from the ones I gave you yesterday when you called in, you have one other message,” she said as she handed him the messages. “It’s from Mr. C. He’s already here and he’d like to see you at nine.”
“Right,” Logan said with a dismayed shake of his head.
Liddy laughed at him, knowing what he was thinking. “Let’s face it, Logan. You’re never going to beat him in in the morning. The man is a human dynamo. He’s already here when I get in and I’m here by seven every morning.”
“Seven? I know I keep you busy, but you don’t need to get here that early, do you?” He winced when she only lifted a brow. “You do, huh?” When she nodded, he said, “Dear God, why?”
“You work hard, so I work hard.” She shrugged. “I have to get here at seven if I want to beat you. You’re a workaholic, and I want to be here in case you need me. You know as well as I do that today you’re actually late.”
Logan frowned, feeling guilty. “Then I’ll have to slow down, won’t I? And from here on out, I don’t want you in here before eight, unless it’s something out of the ordinary.”
Liddy only smiled and turned back to her computer. “I’d better get back to work. Since you were out of town, there’s bound to be a barrage of stuff today and I still need to finish up other things.”
Logan lifted a brow at her back, knowing that she wasn’t listening to him. “I mean it, Liddy—eight o’ clock, not a minute earlier.” He turned toward his office. “And since you’re in so early, I want you to leave early. Take off at four.”
She turned back around. “I’ll think about it.”
Logan shook his head and went into his office, shutting the door behind him. The woman was stubborn. He put the thought out of his mind as he crossed the width of his office to get to his large mahogany desk. He sat down in his chair and did what he did every morning before starting work. He turned and looked out the window that stretched the length of the back wall of his office.
From where he sat, he could see both Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. As usual while looking at them and ritzy Michigan Avenue, he reminded himself how he’d started his career working in a hard hat and work boots. It had been a long, hard road from there to having an executive office. The reminder always humbled him and made him feel proud at the same time. It kept him focused on his goal.
He turned back to his desk just as the phone rang. It was his private line. He answered. “Hi, sweetheart. I was hoping you’d call.”
“You were?” Chloe asked. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to know if that wicked mind of yours had come up with any other debauchery to welcome your man home with.” She chuckled low in her throat and he imagined her warm, naked, and waiting for him.
“You plannin’ on taking another trip between now and tonight that I don’t know about, man of mine?”
“No, but I’ll be coming home from a long, hard day of work. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’ll be coming home from work, too. What do you have planned for me?”
“You’re the little woman, both literally and figuratively. It’s your job to make your man happy.”
She laughed again. “If that’s my job, then what do you call what you did for me last night?”
“Mutually satisfying,” he quipped, making her laugh even harder. “Anyway, Chloe. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice. After all, it’s been all of an hour since I last saw you.”
He laughed. “Do you think this honeymoon period will ever wear off?”
“Oh, yeah. Soon I’ll be calling you to yell at you about leaving the toilet seat up or something else stupid.”
“What are you going to do for the next few hours before going into the station?”
“I thought I’d take another look at swatches and maybe go visit that antique store again.” Chloe had recently landed a position as host of a children’s television show for a local television station. She taped at one o’clock.
“Okay, have fun. Just remember not to let it stress you out,” he reminded her. They’d recently closed on a new house and were decorating. She’d gotten so frustrated that she’d fired the decorator.
“That decorator deserved to be fired,” she said and he heard the sulk in her voice. “He kept insisting on that chrome and steel, techno-looking crap when we told him that we didn’t like it.”
“You don’t have to convince me; I know he needed to be let go. Anyway, sweets, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”
“Love you back. Bye.”
Logan sat in John Carter’s office waiting for him to complete a phone call. He studied the older man, wondering what he’d do once he retired. Carter Building and Contracting was his life and, besides that, people rarely retired at the age of fifty. John was fit and trim and despite the head full of gray hair and years of putting in long hours building his company, he still looked much younger than his actual age. Lines bracketed his eyes, but that was really it.
“Sorry about that, Logan,” John said and stood. “The call couldn’t be avoided.”
“Not a problem, John. What’s up?” Logan hid his smile at the other man’s restless movements. The man was always full of energy. Even now he was imperceptibly rocking back and forth on his toes and his eyes were snapping with vitality.
John clapped his hands and rubbed them together. He started pacing back and forth behind his desk. “There’s been a lot of talk lately about my retirement. I’m sure you’ve heard it, just as I’m sure that you’ve been with me long enough to realize that rumors around here are usually made up of bullshit. You ever heard the phrase ‘believe half of what you see and some or none of what you hear?’”
“Yes, in one or two versions of ‘Heard It Through the Grapevine,’ I believe,” Logan answered quietly. His eyes continued to follow John as he paced.
John stopped and looked at him in surprise. “What do you know about an old song like that? That’s good music—real music. I didn’t think anyone of your generation would recognize it.”
Logan lifted a brow. He was being tested again. “I prefer Marvin Gaye’s version myself.”
The surprised approval in John’s eyes was unmistakable. “Well, all right then. Anyway, as I was saying, the rumors are true. I plan to retire in the next year or so, at least semiretire, anyway. You know that I have a daughter, but she isn’t interested in taking over and she has absolutely no experience. And so I’ll have to pick someone from within the company. That leaves you or Winston. You’re not as old as Winston and you haven’t been with the company as long, but I like your work ethic and you’re good at bringing in new accounts. You also have a background in construction, so that’s a plus.”
“Thank you, John.”
“You’re welcome, but just as I told Winston, you’re being considered for the presidency. You haven’t won it yet.”
Logan left John’s office with a light spring in his step. All his years of hard work were paying off. He’d had to deal with his father’s disapproval because he’d chosen to take a job on a construction site when he was eighteen instead of going to college, and he’d had to put in years of backbreaking work to prove himself. College had eventually beckoned, because he’d figured out that the only way to advance was to get a degree. He’d never liked school, but he struggled through it and came out on the other side in the top ten percent of his class. He’d worked forty hours a week, had taken a full course load, and had graduated in three years.
Yes, it had been a struggle, but now here he was thirty years old with a corporate presidency dangling in front of him. He wanted it, he wanted it bad, and was confident enough to believe that he deserved it. He also knew that he had stiff competition, but it didn’t concern him. He’d just continue to do what he’d been doing.
He smiled as he thought about how happy Chloe would be for him.
4
Chloe smiled one last time for the camera and hoped that this would be the last take. She had a headache and she knew that the toddlers she worked with were just as tired and cranky as she. Unlike them, however, no one would coddle her if she suddenly threw herself to the floor and had a crying fit or crawled into a corner and snuck a few winks of sleep.
“Okay, boys and girls. We’ll see you right back here tomorrow. Have an eye-opening day, and make sure you learn something new! Goodbye! Adios! Au revoir! Ciao!” Chloe repeated her lines for the fifth time and silently prayed that the little bladders of the children around her held tight. They’d already had three potty accidents on set in the past hour. She waited with bated breath to hear those six words that were magic to her ears.
“All right, everyone. That’s a wrap!”
Chloe cheered. “Yes!” She lifted one of the children off her lap and prepared to make her way to her dressing room.
“Bye, Ms. Chloe,” the children chorused and Chloe leaned down for her usual swarm of hugs.
“Bye, babies. It was good to see you today. I’m glad you came,” she said around the kisses that were being pressed all over her face. “You guys be good, okay?”
“Yes, Ms. Chloe.”
“’Kay, Ms. Chloe!”
“Love you, Ms. Chloe!”
The high-pitched voices followed Chloe as she left the studio to head for her small dressing room. She sat down at her vanity. “Phew. Another day and another few little minds—at least one or two, hopefully—nourished and opened to learning.”
As she removed the makeup from her face, she again thanked God for her current employment. She loved her job. She’d always loved children and had studied child psychology in college. After getting her master’s degree in sociology, she’d worked as a social worker with the Department of Children and Family Services, but dealing with abused and neglected children, and feeling powerless to do anything, quickly burned her out and she’d quit within the year.
Her next job was as executive director of Tomorrow’s Child, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that developed educational materials for preschool children. It was after her appearance on a public affairs show at her current station that she was approached by the director of children’s programming to help develop programming for preschoolers. She’d accepted the position and it had led to her current one as host of the block of shows for children under five that ran every morning from seven to ten.
Her life had changed so much in the past seven months. First she’d met Logan and then she’d gotten her dream job. Perfect man, perfect job—her life was better than it had ever been. She wouldn’t say that she’d fallen in love with Logan the first time she’d met him, but she had fallen in lust and had wanted to get to know him. There was just something in his eyes that drew her.
After a couple of weeks of getting to know one another, they’d slept together. And after a couple of months of trying to spend virtually every waking moment with each other, they’d moved in together. She’d had no idea that her cousin’s begging her to come to the company’s Christmas party with her would turn into something so wonderful. The only reason she’d gone with Liddy was because her cousin had only been at the company for a month and hadn’t wanted to attend the party alone.
Within ten minutes of her arrival, she and Logan had noticed one another. Within fifteen, they were off in a corner talking and had stayed that way for almost the entire night. It had been a whirlwind romance, yes, but she didn’t regret one minute of it. She looked down at her rings and smiled tenderly. Logan was the best thing to ever happen to her.
“Still can’t believe it, huh?”
Chloe looked up to see her director standing in her doorway with a teasing smile on his face. She smiled back. “Hi, Steve. What’s up?”
“Nothing much. I just came by to give you the revised schedule for tomorrow’s taping and you also have messages that Jill asked me to drop off.” He walked into the office and handed everything to her.
“Oh, okay, thanks. I wonder why she didn’t just transfer the calls to my voice mail.”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. But you might want to check your phone anyway. That red light is flashing for a reason.” He laughed when Chloe looked embarrassed.
Chloe rolled her eyes. “God, I didn’t even notice.”
“You’re too happy to notice anything so practical. See you later.”
“Wait, Steve, before you go, tell me how your niece is doing.” Steve had started working at the station the very day that she had, so they had a special bond. One day he’d looked so distressed and had made so many mistakes that she’d taken him aside and asked if there was anything wrong. He’d told her that his four-year old niece had a really bad asthma attack and had to be hospitalized.
“Oh, she’s much better, Chloe, thanks. She’s back at school three days a week and bragging to all her friends about how Ms. Chloe from the TV came to the hospital especially to see her. Thanks again for doing that, by the way. She was thrilled. She’ll never forget it. Neither will my sister or her husband.”
“It wasn’t a problem. She’s so sweet and adorable. And besides, Steve, you’ve done a lot for me. Your being here made this job easier than it might have been. I’m not used to being in front of the camera and you’ve made it comfortable for me. But anyway, you should have gotten your niece on the show. Why didn’t you?”
“You sound like my sister, and I’ll tell you what I told her: auditions were closed by the time I thought about it,” Steve answered.
“Well, what the hell kind of uncle are you?” Chloe asked in phony outrage. “A good uncle would have had her here the first day!”
Steve smirked. “Again, you sound like my sister. She’s high maintenance too—”
“Hey!” Chloe protested.
Steve laughed. “I gotta go. Don’t forget to check your messages. See you later.”
“Bye, Steve, and thanks,” She laughed and turned to her phone, thinking again that she was lucky he was her director. She pressed in her password, leaving the receiver in its cradle so she could go through her paper messages while she listened to her voice mail. The first voice mail was from her dad checking to see if they were still on for Sunday dinner. At the same time that she listened, she read a message from an old college roommate. The next one was from that same woman and so was the next one. Frowning, she deleted her dad’s voice mail so she could hear the next one.
The voice that came out of the machine was a jolt from the past: “Hi, Chloe, it’s Mary Pasik, remember me? Well, I was Mary Tanner when you knew me. Anyway, I was watching TV with my kid today and who should I see but little old you. You could have knocked me over with a feather! I said to myself, ‘Give her a call, Mary, and see if you and your old best friend can get together for lunch.’ Remember all the fun we used to have together? Especially that one incident in particular—” Mary laughed and Chloe cringed because the laughter managed to be both grating and sly. “You know what I mean, don’t you? God, that was a wicked time! Anyway, you look good, Chloe, and good for you for getting such a high-paying job. I’m so impressed! Call me, okay? Here’s my number.”
Out of habit, Chloe scribbled the number down on a piece of paper. In a sort of daze, she deleted the message and listened to the next one. It, too, was from Mary and it was pretty much a repeat of the first one. She sat back in her chair and sighed. Mary Tanner. She hadn’t heard from her since they were nineteen and Mary had dropped out of school. “Well, shit,” Chloe said. “Not now.” What was she going to do? The one person she didn’t need in her life right now had actually called her. She could ruin everything.
All of her energy and excitement from moments before gone now, Chloe slumped down in her chair and dialed her cousin’s number.
“Hi, Liddy.”
“Hey, Chloe. What’s wrong? And before you say ‘nothing,’ just know that I can hea
r the ‘something’ in your voice, so give.”
If Chloe hadn’t been so upset, she’d have laughed. “I wasn’t going to deny it. You’re not going to believe it, but Mary Tanner called me.”
“Mary Tanner? That bitch roommate of yours from college?”
“Yeah, her.”
“What does she want?”
“She didn’t really say in her message, but I can tell it’s not going to be good for me. She said something about an incident and I can only assume she’s talking about the picture I took. She tried to laugh it off like it was a joke, but I can tell that she doesn’t really think it is.” Chloe stopped herself because the anger she was feeling wouldn’t be contained. “Frigging hell, Liddy!” she said. “Why did she have to contact me now? Damn it!”
“Do you think she’ll try to use it against you?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s Mary. And besides, she’s left me five messages in the space of a few hours. That doesn’t bode well.”
“Shoot,” Liddy breathed. “You’re right, this is bad. What are you going to do?”
“I thought about calling her back and cursing her out—making her admit that she’s up to no good. I could totally preempt her.”
“Sounds like a plan to me. Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I don’t want anything to do with her. She just brings back such bad memories. I can’t believe I let her fool me for so long.”
“Which bad memories? You mean when she slept with your boyfriend? Or was it the part when she told all your friends that you got all your good grades by cheating?”
Chloe grimaced. “All of it,” she answered and thought about the girl who had been her roommate during their freshman year of college. They’d become fast friends from the first. They’d done everything together. They were so close, and Chloe had been so trusting, that it had been months before she’d realized that Mary was really a sneaky little worm of a girl who drew people in with her charm. Chloe had realized the hard way that Mary wasn’t really a friend but a user, and she’d stopped dealing with her. But not before they’d had their one little, youthful indiscretion together. However, Chloe couldn’t even blame Mary for that, for she’d done it freely. She’d just thought it would be fun. Now it was back to bite her in the ass. She sighed.
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