The Other Side - J. D. Robb [161]
She laughed. “I figured that’s why you wanted me to call, so I just beat you to the punch.”
“It wasn’t the only reason I wanted you to call. I like knowing you’re safe. I also like falling asleep with your voice in my ear.”
“Me, too.” Her voice was warm and cozy.
“I like having you here more.”
“Me, too.”
They went silent, remembering their night together—dreaming of the next one.
“I put you on speed dial. Cops, poison control, pediatrician, you, Jimmy’s school, my parents, my plumber, who also happens to be my best friend . . . ”
“I’m flattered.” She really was. Picking up her BlackBerry: “I see you’re already in my speed dial.”
“Number five,” he said in his defense. “In the middle, not too high, not too low, not too presumptive, easy access.”
She laughed, and the sound was so strange in the early morning quiet of her office—well, in her office, period—she thought the paint might crack.
“I’ll use it tonight.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Still smiling, she sighed contentedly. She had someone waiting to hear from her—personally, not professionally. Elbows on her desk, chin on her fists, she entertained the notion of grabbing her purse and skipping out for the day until her eyes lowered to the Longwire files in front of her.
Her analysis of their financials was not going well, and her recommendations to Barren Electronics, who very much wanted to buy out Longwire, wasn’t going to please anyone—including, most likely, her bosses, who liked keeping their customers happy at all costs.
She settled into her chair to work—putting Ryan on the back burner until she went home and the sisters in the fridge till the weekend.
It rained on Thursday—not unheard of, considering the high humidity in northern Virginia in late summer—but as she’d worn her favorite summer silk suit that day, perhaps she should have taken it as an omen when the light intermittent sprinkles that were called for that day turned out to be a six-hour deluge.
Add to that the urgent call to her boss’s office before her first cup of office coffee and his anxious frown when she opened his door, and she should have known that her life was about to encounter some very slippery doo-doo.
Well, it was bad enough when he asked if she was ready to present her conclusions on Longwire Industries to the president and board of directors of Barren Electronics—they were eager and anxious and pressuring him for answers. Her deadline was still a few weeks away, but she had her deductions and barely enough time to prepare a PowerPoint presentation before the ten o’clock meeting. She was a professional. She could handle short notice. Her make-me-or-break-me moment was coming . . . and it was, just not in the way she thought.
To say the Barren board, especially the chairman, had a negative response to her due diligence on Longwire was an understatement. They seemed furious that she hadn’t been able to manipulate the numbers to make it appear a more favorable acquisition for their stockholders. The chair in particular kept trying to catch her boss’s eye to run interference, but he looked as if he was completely oblivious to the situation—giving her plenty of rope to hang herself with, she supposed.
But sometimes it has to be about more than just the job. She’d never cheated on a test, lied about her age, or submitted a false report in her life. And as nervous as she felt—nauseous actually—she knew her findings were accurate and her recommendations were the best for Barren Electronics.
She stood her ground for nearly ninety minutes, giving and regiving her presentation behind a calm facade she was far from feeling, with only the occasional twitching of her fingers to give her away.
When her cell phone began to vibrate on the conference table beside her laptop, she quickly turned it off, using steely determination not to look at the caller ID to demonstrate her commitment to her work to those around her. Five minutes later she was tested again, and she made a mental note to ream her assistant for putting calls through when she was in conference.
But not five minutes after