by Lucy Monroe
Alex could think of a lot of amusing ways to spend time with Isabel. None of them included meeting John Harrison.
Chapter 9
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Isabel had been wrong.
Harrison wasn't waiting docilely for them to arrive. He paced the floor, irritation coming off him in waves. Alex let her go ahead of him into the room and noticed that her father's attention focused on her with cold precision. Alex knew that as soon as Harrison realized who had accompanied her, his anger would shift to a new target Alex didn't mind facing Harrison's anger.
He did mind the prospect that Isabel might share her father's fury.
"What the hell do you think you're doing threatening me?" Harrison demanded. "I thought you'd grown out of these petty little emotional displays, Isabel."
Isabel, who had been smiling happily at her father, clearly intent on giving him an affectionate hug, stopped midstep in her progress across the room. Her face lost the telltale signs of happiness. It lost expression altogether, and her hands fluttered to her sides like deflating balloons.
Alex's body tensed with battle readiness. He knew that Harrison was a bastard, but how could he be such a stupid one? He must realize that his words had hurt her, and yet the man's entire focus seemed to be on how she had put a cramp in his schedule.
Certainty welled up inside of Alex. One more cruel word and he would take a much more personal sort of vengeance against Hypertron's president. Coming up behind Isabel, he rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
The tension he felt there was reflected in her voice when she spoke. "It's nice to see you too, Dad. It's been a long time."
Harrison's face registered chagrin. "Not that long."
He didn't sound sure of the statement.
Isabel sighed and Alex rubbed the side of her neck with the pad of his thumb. Her shoulders relaxed slightly and she shifted closer to him. He transferred his focus to her father. The signs of stress were all there: exhaustion lines around eyes the same color as Isabel's, tense jaw, gray hair that looked as if he'd been running his fingers through it, skin pale from spending too much time under fluorescent lights.
John Harrison knew his company was in trouble.
Alex searched inside himself for satisfaction at the signs of the other man's troubles, but all he could feel right now was apprehension that his plans with Isabel were going to end up just as wasted as Hypertron.
"Alex, I'd like you to meet my father, John Harrison." Isabel spoke quietly, her voice practically begging him to not be offended by her dad's behavior. "Dad, this is my friend Alex Trahern."
Alex waited for the words to sink in. It was a sign of Harrison's preoccupation and obvious tiredness that he got all the way through extending his arm and shaking Alex's hand while meeting Alex's gaze before the shock of recognition widened his eyes. He'd never actually met John Harrison, but Trahern was an uncommon name, and Alex looked enough like his father for someone who had worked so many years with his dad to guess at the connection.
The explosion didn't come.
Harrison turned to Isabel and the look in his eyes could be read only as disappointment. What the hell?
The older man actually looked defeated. "Why did you bring him here, Isabel?"
Her shoulder rose and fell under Alex's hand. "Because I wanted you to meet him."
John Harrison nodded, the aggression draining out of him and making him appear even more worn out than before. "You wanted me to meet the son of the man I supposedly ruined, is that it?"
"What are you talking about, Dad? Alex's father is dead."
Harrison rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Don't play games with me, Isabel. You're on one of your crusades, aren't you?"
Apparently giving up on getting a straight answer from her father, she turned to face Alex. "What's he talking about?" Her soft green eyes were filled with confusion.
He squeezed her shoulder again and answered her father. "The only crusade your daughter is on right now is to have her father meet the man she's going to marry."
Father and daughter exclaimed in unison.
"Like hell!"
"Alex!"
"Is this true?" Harrison demanded of Isabel.
She gave Alex a withering look before turning to face her father. Alex waited for her to deny it. Once she found out about his dad's connection to Hypertron, the chances of a marriage taking place would go to nothing anyway.
"I wanted you to meet him. After all, I met his mother. It only seemed appropriate that we keep things even," she said, sidestepping the marriage issue altogether.
Harrison looked stunned. Alex didn't blame him. Isabel hadn't denied the engagement.
She wasn't finished. "Now, would one of you kindly explain what else I'm missing here?" she asked, fixing them with a glittery emerald stare that dared them to refuse.
Alex caught Harrison's gaze and challenged him with his own to answer Isabel's question.
The older man cleared his throat. Surprisingly, he looked less than willing to discuss the past. Alex would have thought he would use the first opportunity available to poison Isabel against him. "It's a long story, Isabel. I don't have time to go into it right now."
Isabel shook her head. "Not good enough. You've been telling me all my life that you don't have time for what's important to me. It's not going to fly this time. Start talking."
The emotions vibrating in Isabel's voice struck a chord deep in Alex. He could hear the pain of a woman who had always taken a back seat to her father's company in his affections and priorities. Alex wanted to protect her from the pain of her father's rejection and from the upset that learning the story about Ray Trahern was going to cause her.
He couldn't do either.
This might be the only chance Alex would ever have to hear Harrison's excuse for stealing Ray Trahern's discovery and causing his death, but he didn't care. All that mattered right now was that Isabel was going to be hurt, and Alex couldn't stop it. He reached out and cupped her shoulder again, trying to communicate with his touch that what her father was going to say had nothing to do with them. He almost sighed aloud with relief when she didn't pull away.
Harrison ran his fingers through the silver streaks of his hair, leaving it more disheveled than before. He looked just like what he was, a man on the edge of disaster. "Ray Trahern worked for me at Hypertron. He was one of the best design engineers I've ever had, one of my best friends."
Alex was shocked by Harrison's claim to friendship with his father. It made what had happened even more obscene. But he wasn't surprised by the compliment to Ray Trahern's abilities. Alex already knew his dad had been the best. Only the best could have discovered the technology that had done so much for Hypertron's bottom line.
When her dad stopped speaking, Isabel prompted him. "What happened?"
"He developed a new technology and he wanted to patent it, then sell it to Hypertron."
"I don't understand." Confusion laced Isabel's voice. "Did he do the developing at home?"
Alex answered for her father. "No, my dad did his work in his office, using Hypertron's equipment."
Isabel turned her head and let her confused eyes focus on Alex. "If he used the company's equipment, how could he patent the technology? Didn't it already belong to Hypertron?"
"That's what your father argued, but Dad did all the developmental work after hours."
Isabel's expression was troubled. "Didn't he sign an intellectual property rights agreement? I thought Hypertron required that of all their employees."
"We did and he did, but Ray felt that he had the right to his development." Harrison's voice sounded weary rather than argumentative.
"He did have a right to that technology, damn it," Alex said. "He worked long hours for Hypertron, gave your company everything that he had. It was common knowledge that employees could use the equipment after work hours for their own pursuits."
"The arbitration board found in Hypertron's favor," Harrison replied.
> Alex didn't argue that point. He didn't have to because it didn't matter. It wasn't the loss of the patent or the money his father could have made from it that drove Alex's revenge. It was the death of his father.
He looked Harrison right in the eye. "You're right. They found in your favor and my father died the night he lost the case."
Isabel's gasp of dismay broke the tension arcing between Alex and her father.
Harrison reached out to touch his daughter, but she moved away from both him and Alex, her arms crossed over her body in a defensive gesture, the look in her eyes disturbing.
"It wasn't like that," Harrison said. "I'm not responsible for Ray's death. Damn it, he was my friend. I offered a damn good discovery bonus, but he turned me down. He wanted his day in court."
Alex couldn't let that pass. "A limited bonus was hardly a fair offer for something that was already making Hypertron money hand over fist."
Harrison expressed anger for the first time since his initial irritation with Isabel. "It was already making money for my company because Ray had incorporated his design into three lines of our products without my approval. He had me over a barrel and he knew it. I couldn't let him have the patent. It would have meant the end of my company."
"And your company is all that ever really mattered to you, isn't it Dad? At least since Mom died." Isabel's broken whisper tore at Alex's insides.
Harrison looked as if Isabel had used a knife rather than words to slay him, but he didn't deny her accusation. In an action that Alex could have sworn was reflex, the other man looked down at his watch.
Isabel noticed the action as well. "We've taken up enough of your time. I'm sure you'll want to get to the office now." She turned to Alex. "Are you ready to go?"
He nodded. He didn't dare speak. He felt as if he and Isabel were on a precipice, and he didn't want to go over.
"Isabel." Harrison's voice arrested her and Alex at the door. "I haven't been a good father, but I do care. Don't let him use you to get revenge against me. Don't let him hurt you like that."
Isabel's response was to lead the way outside.
* * *
Alex looked out the window at the rain-washed fields sloping away from his farmhouse. He wanted to break the unnatural silence that had gripped Isabel since leaving her father's house, but he didn't know how.
She hadn't even protested when he'd brought her here rather than to her apartment, and she had gotten out of the car and followed him inside without a murmur. She sat on his couch sipping a glass of wine he'd forced on her when they first came in, her expression remote.
"He wasn't always like this."
Coming after such a long stretch of silence into the stillness of the room, Isabel's words acted like a sonic boom to his senses. He pivoted away from the window to face her.
"Isabel—" He didn't know what he would have said because she interrupted him.
"I have memories of the time before my mother died. We were a happy family. He cared. He really did. The pictures in our family photo albums are almost scary, they were so happy. We were so happy."
He walked over and squatted down in front of her until their eyes were level. "That's why you want to get married and have a baby, isn't it? You want to recreate that happiness. You've got guts, sweetheart. Probably more guts than anyone I've ever known."
Her eyes widened. "I'm not—"
He wouldn't let her deny it. "Most people would run from family and commitment after the pain you've been through, but you're willing to take a risk, to try to make your own happiness. I admire you."
She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled. "Why didn't you tell me about your dad and Hypertron?"
He'd been waiting for this question, but unfortunately he still didn't know if he had an answer that she could live with.
He brushed her cheek and she opened her eyes.
"You didn't trust me after the fiasco with Marcus. If I told you about my dad and Hypertron, you would have run as far and as fast as you could in the other direction."
She acknowledged the truth of that with a nod. "But I should have known. Why didn't I know? Isn't that something a father would tell his daughter? I mean I wasn't a kid. I know the industry. We could have talked about it." Her bewildered and wounded words made him wince.
Alex couldn't explain why her dad hadn't bothered to tell her, but he could speculate. And he figured so could she. That's probably why she sounded so wounded.
"It wasn't in the papers. You know how obsessed with secrecy the hi-tech industry is. Your dad and mine agreed to arbitration so the dispute would stay out of the media. Neither one of them wanted Hypertron's stock to dip, and my dad had to consider finding future employment. Even if he'd won the case, the earning potential on technology is limited. In the computer industry some new technologies are obsolete within two years."
"I know."
Of course she did, but talking about it gave him time to marshal his thoughts in other areas, not that it was doing a whole lot of good. Failure and fear stared him in the face.
"My dad said they were friends…" her voice trailed off as if the thought she'd been about to voice had evaporated.
"Yes." It still shocked him. "I guess it makes sense. My dad was in charge of one of the design teams. He would have worked pretty closely with your father. They both spent enough time at Hypertron to develop a relationship outside of business."
He was thinking out loud, but she seemed to agree.
"I guess," she said. "I know Dad spends more time at Hypertron than anywhere else. Did you notice how overworked he looked? He needs a vacation."
He'd be getting one. Soon. After St. Clair took over Hypertron, John Harrison would have all the time in the world to devote to his relationship with his daughter and to regaining his health.
"Alex?" She was biting her bottom lip.
He reached out and gently nudged it from between her teeth with his fingertip. "Yes?"
"Why did your dad put the technology in three product lines without getting my father's approval?"
Alex shot to his feet and paced back to the window. The scene outside was no more inspiring than his thoughts. "I don't know. It's not totally uncommon in the hi-tech world for a design team lead to make such a decision."
"But three products?"
Alex's hands clenched. "Would it have mattered if it were ten? The truth is, he made a boatload of money for your dad and brought Hypertron to the next level of competition in the computer industry. That kind of thing deserved a lot more than a bonus and a pat on the head. My dad wanted the recognition that owning the patent would give him."
"Did my father know that?"
Again, Alex didn't know. He spun back to face her. "Does it matter?"
She shrugged. "You tell me."
"None of it matters to us."
Her expression closed. "My dad was right about one thing. You're the kind of man who would want revenge."
He couldn't deny it. He'd never lied to her and he never would. He might not always tell her everything because it could hurt her, but he wouldn't he. He squatted down next to her again. "Yes."
She looked pained. "I really thought you were different, that my connection to Hypertron didn't matter to you."
Different from whom, he wanted to demand, but right now he had to deal with the matter at hand. "It doesn't. You have nothing to do with your dad's company in the present and you sure as hell had nothing to do with what happened two years ago."
She surveyed him with an expression so vulnerable his heart ached. "Am I part of some revenge plan against Hypertron?"
"No." He gently cupped her cheek and met her gaze, his own as compelling as he could make it. She had to believe him. Their future depended on it. "What we have together has nothing to do with Hypertron, your father, or my father. It's between us, sweetheart."
He brushed his lips lightly across hers and then leaned back, keeping their gazes locked. Would she believe him?
She took a deep breath
and let it out slowly. "I want to believe you."
"Then do. I'm not using you, sweetheart. From the first time I saw you, it's been about you, not your connection to your dad's company." He didn't think that now was the time to tell her about the picture in his investigative file on her and how long he'd fought the attraction. "In fact, that was the one thing holding me back from getting involved with you."
"You mean because I'm John Harrison's daughter?"
"Yes."
"And now?"
"I told you, what we have is between us." He'd told her he wanted to marry her; she had to know he wasn't fighting the attraction any longer.
"You should hate me along with my father."
Hate her? He didn't even hate her father. Not anymore. He still wanted revenge, but he was more interested in seeing the company—which had been built up on his dad's development—dismantled than he was in the man who owned it
And the feelings he had for Isabel did not resemble hate in any shape or form. He desired her. He needed her. Being with her made him feel content, complete. If he believed in love, he might even think he loved her. He was sure that he was as close as he would ever get to that emotion.
"I don't hate you." The words were inadequate. "I need you."
She reached up and wrapped her fingers around the hand that held her face. "I'm not just a cog in the wheel of your vengeance?"
"You're the woman I want to marry."
Her eyes widened and she bit her lip again.
"Marry me, Isabel. You want a family. I'll give you one."
"My list…"
He didn't know what she was going to say about it because she let her voice trail off.
"I meet your requirements. You know I do."
"What about love?" she asked quietly.
"You didn't say anything about love on your list." If he sounded accusatory, it was because he didn't know anything about the kind of love she was talking about.
"The list is not some sort of contract, Alex. It's a guide. My guide!" The anger seemed to come out of nowhere after her silence and stillness.
Realizing that words were inadequate and that he didn't have the ones she wanted to hear anyway, he locked his mouth over hers. She didn't respond, nor did she pull away. She maintained the almost complete motionlessness that had marked her since leaving Harrison's house.