the door from closing. Rain stepped inside and pushed the button for the sixth floor. Before the door closed she saw Jack Ford walking toward the center.
This Jack Ford wasn’t the same man she’d met in her ill-fated foray into the loft in the small hours of the morning. Now he was the image of what she’d labeled him that night, a corporate suit. He was in one of those suits, done in dove gray, double breasted, sleekly tailored and probably obscenely expensive, as expensive as the leather briefcase clutched in his free hand and the leather shoes on his feet. He was on a cell phone, and his face, even more sharply angular in the clear light, was set in an expression of extreme concentration. The tension in him the night before had only intensified, and she had the impression that whatever was going on right then, wasn’t good.
He stopped right by the doors to the center, and closed his eyes as the elevator doors finally slid shut. She was inordinately relieved that he hadn’t seen her. At least working in the center, she wouldn’t have to be around him at all. There was no way they’d get involved. Her use of words shocked her slightly. Involved? He didn’t even exist in the same reality she did and even more importantly, he wouldn’t want to.
Chapter Three
Jack knew the cat was at the loft to stay, at least until Zane and Lindsey’s lives calmed down a bit. The cat came and went as he pleased, and he only bothered with Jack when it came to food. Food ruled the cat, and the cat ruled his world as he perceived it. This morning he’d shown up and decided that it was time to eat, just as Jack was leaving the loft. Foolishly he’d gone to get the food, put it out for the cat, spilled some of the tuna on the sleeve of his jacket and had to change. All in all, it had made him more than fifteen minutes late getting to the office.
He’d barely come in the main entrance of LynTech when his cell phone rang and it was Eve. He’d been trying to make contact with her by something other than e-mail for the last two days, and now that she was on the line, he was rushed. He kept walking, and spoke into it, “Finally.”
“Yes, love, finally,” she said, her voice faintly tinny on the line. “I’ve been trying to catch you everywhere, and the cell phone number you gave me kept cutting off before it connected.”
“Well, I’m on another continent,” he said, nodding to the security guard at the front, a tall, well-built man in a tailored khaki uniform.
“I know. And that’s—”
A beep cut off her next word and he didn’t hear it. “Eve, I’ve got another call coming in. Let me call you when I get to my office. Where are you?”
“At Father’s.”
“Okay, give me ten minutes,” and he clicked over to the other call. But before he said anything, he heard a voice somewhere ahead of him. Her voice. Rain’s. He couldn’t make out the words, just that it was her voice, but when he looked up, he didn’t see her.
He hadn’t seen her again at the loft, either, and he’d thought she’d left with the old hippie for a trip. Someone on the bottom floor had said George was out of town, that he always took off like that. But for that single moment he’d been sure he’d heard her, then he’d realized how ridiculous that would have been. No one at LynTech would be walking around with bare feet, tie-dyed T-shirts or waist-length hair.
“Ford here,” he said into the phone as he stopped in the corridor by a set of brightly painted doors with Just For Kids on them.
It was Martin Griggs, the negotiator for EJS with LynTech. Jack pushed the elevator call button, hoped that he wouldn’t lose the signal in the car, and by the time he stepped out into the corridor, he’d forgotten about voices and was focused on business again. He assured Griggs that it wasn’t anyone at the top level of LynTech who let word of the deal leak out, and by the time he got to his office, Griggs had agreed to try to get E. J. Sommers in on a conference call.
Jack hung up, and put in a call to Quint Gallagher in New York, who was there for his son’s wedding. Gallagher had known E. J. Sommers in the past and he could be an edge for them. But all he got was a voice mail service and he left a message. He hung up, went into the office they’d given him for the duration and was just taking off his jacket when Rita Donovan, executive assistant to both Zane and Matt Terrell, came into his office.
“Mr. Ford,” the thin, dark haired woman said in her usual staccato voice. “I was looking for you. Mr. Holden needs to talk to you as soon as you’re in.”
“Okay,” he said as he put his suit coat over the back of his chair. “Where is he?”
“His office. His wife’s not feeling well, so he’s staying with her.”
“I’ll be down right away,” he said.
She turned to go, but stopped. “Oh, Mr. Ford, a Miss Ryder called about fifteen minutes ago. She’s been trying to reach you and couldn’t get through.”
He’d forgotten about calling Eve back, and that bothered him. He wasn’t sure why he thought it, but if he just talked to her for a while, some of the insanity that seemed to be falling into his life would disappear. “I need to call her back. Can Zane wait a few minutes?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
He glanced at his watch and then at Rita. “Okay, could you call Miss Ryder and tell her I’ll get back to her within the hour?” He scribbled her number in London on a sheet of paper and crossed to give it to her. “And tell her I’m sorry.”
“Of course, sir,” Rita said as she took the paper, then left.
Jack only took enough time to print out a file he’d e-mailed to the office earlier, before he headed for Zane’s office. Once he arrived, he thought no one was there. Then he looked past the cluttered desk in the large office, into another room across the way. He didn’t know what the original purpose of that room had been, but it was being used as a playroom of sorts for Zane’s son, Walker.
But Walker wasn’t there. Zane was with Lindsey who was all curled up on a thick mat on the floor. Zane was beside her, rubbing her back and talking softly to her. “Zane?” Jack said, hating to interrupt, but knowing they had to talk.
Zane twisted, nodded to Jack, then leaned over his wife, said something to her, kissed her quickly and stood. He came out of the room, closed the door quietly and shook his head.
“I don’t know why they call it morning sickness, because she has it all the time.” The rangy man was in a plain white shirt, with its long sleeves rolled up on his forearms, and navy slacks. His sandy hair was mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. “She had some tofu thing last night that Matt’s wife, Brittany, swore would stay down. Well, it didn’t,” he said as he crossed to the desk. “Nothing does.”
Jack always thought that Robert Lewis might have been angling to get him together with his daughter, Brittany, in the past, but despite the fact that she was beautiful, he’d avoided being anything more then friends with her. They had been around each other by default so many times, and Robert might have thought they were more than just friends. Robert was wrong. The Brittany he knew was flaky and self-centered, a woman who went through fiancées the way a lizard shed its skin. He’d probably been as shocked as Robert when she’d finally married Matt Terrell and actually settled down to her art career and a family that included a nine-year-old boy.
People changed.
