words of sympathy before striding off down the corridor. Ryan steered Kimberley in the opposite direction, away from the offices of the senior executives and toward the boardroom. As they walked she felt his inquisitive scrutiny of her face.
“I didn’t expect to see so many familiar faces,” she admitted.
“You thought we’d have driven them all away with our evil business practices?”
Kimberley laughed and shook her head. “Not exactly. I guess I just … I don’t know what I expected.”
“Our staff is a large and recognised part of our success. We’re proud of our retention records and of our recruitment program.”
They turned into the spacious vestibule outside the boardroom and Kimberley cast a quick eye over the comfortable seating, the low tables and the artwork, before returning to the issue of staff. “I have to tell you I was most impressed with your manager at Martin Place. Is she one of your recruits? She’s quite young to be managing a store.”
Ryan paused with his hand on the door to the boardroom. Kimberley couldn’t see his face but she could see the stiffness in his shoulders for the brief moment before he turned around. “Jessica has been with the company since she left school,” he said. “She knows our product inside out. She’s earned every one of her promotions.”
From his sharp tone, Kimberley wondered who might have suggested otherwise, but she didn’t get a chance to ask. Ryan was already moving on, opening the door, and gesturing for her to precede him inside. For now she let it go, her mind and her heart and the nerves in her stomach distracted by the long, gleaming cherrywood table lined by tall-backed chairs.
“The many seats of power,” she murmured, trailing her fingertips from chair to chair as she strolled the length of the room. She could imagine her father seated at the head of this table, completely in his element, the master of all he surveyed.
She snuck a glance at her brother, found his eyes on that same chairman’s place, his expression fixed and forbiddingly stern. The rigid set of his shoulders as he’d paused at the door now made a different kind of sense. He’d been bracing himself for this. For seeing that chair and what its emptiness represented.
Quickly she closed the space between them and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. Even if she had the words, she doubted her ability to push them past the lump in her throat, especially after she glanced up and saw Ryan’s jaw struggling to contain his emotions. Lord, she thought she’d moved past this. That she’d accepted, with the news of Marise, that Howard was gone.
A mobile ringtone shattered the intense moment, and with a last comforting squeeze she stepped back to allow Ryan access to his phone.
“Yours,” he said curtly, his gaze skating off Kimberley’s as if uncomfortable that she’d witnessed his momentary turmoil. “I’ll leave you to take it in private.”
“Thank you.” If this was Matt returning the call she’d placed earlier, then she would need that privacy. “This may take a while,” she told Ryan. “I’ve seen all I need for now so I will see myself out. We’ll talk later, okay?”
“A word of warning. Don’t let Ric Perrini under your—”
“I’m a big girl now,” she cut in. “Rest assured, Perrini won’t be getting under anything of mine.”
Ryan nodded briefly and was gone in a dozen swift strides. When he closed the door behind him, Kimberley retrieved her phone and sucked in a breath. It was Matt. The moment of truth. Her stomach clenched as she put the handset to her ear.
“Matt. Thank you for calling back.” Through the phone, she heard the high-pitched prattle of a child’s voice and Matt’s deeper response. “Is Blake with you?” she asked.
“Rachel—the nanny—brought him in on the ferry.”
“He loves that ferry ride.” Kimberley’s voice thickened, remembering her godson’s barely contained excitement as he recounted imaginative “sightings” of dolphins and whales and submarines. “Can I say hello?”
“He’s on his way out.”
Kimberley’s heart dipped at Matt’s cool reply. Her hand gripped more tightly around the phone. How could she leave and risk cutting herself off from her godson? Or was the damage already done?
“When are you coming back?” Matt asked. Then, when she didn’t answer right away, his voice dropped another chilling degree. “Are you coming back?”
“I’ve been offered a job at Blackstone’s.”
“You have a job, at Hammonds. Surely you’re not considering this offer.”
“Considering, yes,” Kimberley admitted. “But there is an awful lot to think about and I hate the thought of leaving you short staffed at such a difficult time.”
“Lionel is managing the shortfall.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment, fighting the awful sense of being torn in two. The redoubtable Lionel always managed, and so did Matt…. “But that isn’t the point. I don’t—”
“No,” Matt said, cutting her off cold. “The point is, you’re contemplating this move after everything Howard Blackstone has done. Your decision should be simple—either you can work for that bastard’s company or you can’t.”
“He’s my father, Matt, and he’s gone. Please respect that this is a difficult time for me, as well.”
“If you’re suggesting that you’re mourning a man you spent the past ten years despising, then you’re not the person I thought you were.”
Stung by the frosty slap of those words, Kimberley lifted her chin. “If you can’t understand my position, then you’re not the man I thought you were, either.”
“I understand,” Matt said curtly. “You’re a Blackstone. That’s all that needs to be said. I shall take this as your resignation from Hammonds, as of last week.”
Patrice Moore alerted Ric to Kim’s presence in the building. “Any truth in the rumour she’s coming back?” the accountant asked in her usual forthright manner.
“News travels fast,” Ric said noncommittally.
“You’re not kidding. It’ll be in the gossip columns tomorrow.”
Ric didn’t doubt it. At least that would be a positive piece of press, unlike the rest of the current rumour-mongering about Blackstone’s. For a good ten minutes after Patrice left his office, he fought the urge to hunt Kimberley down to find out if the rumour bore any truth, or if her tour of the offices meant she was closing in on a decision.
During the drive back to Vaucluse last night she’d asked for time and space to reach that decision, and he had no idea what she’d been thinking or if he’d miscalculated and gone too far in revealing his intentions toward her, the woman.
He’d wanted her to know where he stood, and where she stood, so there would be no misunderstandings when he made his move. When he brought her back from Auckland, he’d thought he could be patient. That he could wait until after her father had been laid to rest and the ensuing
