like that? Why couldn’t she have just eaten her dinner like a good girl and maintained the status quo? Really, it was getting to the point where she shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper.
She spent the time before her first meeting with Jack and Hillcrest Hardware looking up whenever anyone walked near her office, and jumping every time her phone rang. She felt like a sitting duck, waiting to be ambushed by Jack from one side, or her father on the other.
By a quarter to ten, she had talked herself around to a reasonable state of calm. If her father was going to make contact with her, it wouldn’t be for some time. He’d want to leave a nice long buffer between her angry words and any future conversation to ensure she was calm and over whatever madness had had her in its grip. As for Jack—Well, she had no choice but to be ready to face him, tie or no tie.
Except he didn’t come. As the time drew closer to 10:00 and her appointment with Hillcrest, she had to use stronger and stronger arguments for not reaching for the phone to confirm Jack’s presence. She had to trust him; he was a successful, experienced executive; he wouldn’t bail on her. On the last count she couldn’t be so confident, however. They’d fought almost every time they’d been alone together for more than five minutes. There was a chance he’d see this as an extension of their battle of wills.
At 10:00 on the dot her assistant Tom told her that the Hill-crest executives were in the foyer. Caving at last, she reached for the phone and called Jack’s office. The moment Linda picked up the call she knew Jack had hung her out to dry.
“Jack, is that you?” Linda demanded anxiously.
Claire took a moment to remind herself not to shoot the messenger. “No, Linda, this is Claire Marsden. I have a ten o’clock with Jack and Hillcrest Hardware, but I’m guessing that I’m going to be handling this alone…?”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone, then, “I’m sorry, Claire, but your appointment isn’t in Jack’s diary. I guess you made it with him directly. Otherwise I would have called you earlier to let you know…he seems to be running a little late today….”
The usually competent and professional Linda sounded extremely rattled, but Claire didn’t have time to deal with the other woman’s concern for her no-good, lazy, sneaky boss. The big rat was probably relaxing somewhere, lazing around enjoying his self-appointed long weekend.
Ending the call as nicely as possible, she headed in to take on Hillcrest and his honchos.
It wasn’t a pleasant meeting, mostly because Hank Hillcrest managed to convey his deep skepticism about the appointment of Jack Brook to the magazine. The old man’s repeated references to the “so-called Jack Brook,” as though she and Morgan had made him up, became almost more than she could bear during the one-hour torture session. Somehow she managed to placate her client, spinning a yarn about Jack flying back in from a big-game safari in Africa and his flight being delayed. By the time she’d finished, Hank Hillcrest was so intrigued she began to suspect she’d have to cough up a genuine lion’s head trophy just to shut the man up.
At last she shook hands with the now-cheerful Hillcrest executives and saw them out into the foyer amid assurances that she would bring Jack out to meet them at their head office next week.
No sooner had the elevator doors closed on them than she let her smile drop. She couldn’t remember ever being so furious with anyone. She was so angry, in fact, that she was a little scared of herself, and she deliberately took the stairs to Jack’s floor in order to give herself some time to calm down. Her shirt was already clinging to her thanks to the tense meeting, and she slung her jacket over her arm as she exited the stairwell and made her way purposefully to Linda’s desk.
Linda was looking harried, and she glanced up at Claire distractedly. Almost as though she was talking to herself, Linda explained that she’d managed to reschedule all but one of Jack’s meetings, but she still hadn’t heard from him.
“Probably too scared to turn up now,” Claire suggested coolly.
Linda gave her an impatient look.
“You don’t understand. Jack has never ever done anything like this before. I know he looks casual and laid-back, but he’s always punctual, he always meets his deadlines and he always lets me know what’s going on. I’ve worked for him for two years now, and this has never happened, ever. I’m worried.”
Which made two of them, because as Linda spoke an awful image of Jack’s stupid red sports car wrapped around a tree popped into Claire’s brain.
“I take it he’s not answering his home line or his cell phone?” she ventured reluctantly.
“His home line just rings out, and his cell phone goes straight through to his voice mail.”
She saw the worry in Linda’s eyes and patted the other woman’s arm reassuringly.
“Have you checked his office? Maybe he left a note or something in there and forgot to put it on your desk.”
“I had a quick scout around, but nothing struck me,” Linda said doubtfully.
As one they turned toward Jack’s closed office door, and, at Linda’s nod, Claire stepped forward and pushed it open. Jack’s desk was a mess, which didn’t seem too unusual, but she couldn’t fail to see the tie she’d sent him strewn on the floor like an old sock.
She automatically bent to pick it up, smoothing the silk through her fingers as she continued surveying Jack’s desk. Linda frowned at the tie, curious.
“What’s a tie doing in Jack’s office? He never wears a tie. I wonder if…?” Linda’s startled eyes connected with Claire’s, and Claire could see the other woman was busy constructing an Agatha Christie plot.
“It’s okay. I bought it for him,” she explained.
Linda’s eyes went round with surprise, then her hand snuck up to cover her mouth. She was laughing, Claire realized.
“I’m sorry. I was imagining his face. It’s just…Jack never wears a tie. I don’t think he even owns one.”
“I know. That’s why I bought him one. For the Hillcrest meeting.”
Linda shot her a speculative look, and Claire guessed what the other woman was thinking. “Oh, no—it’s nothing like that. I was just trying to annoy him,” she hastily explained.
Linda looked unconvinced. “Right.”
“No, really. I wanted him to wear a tie to the Hillcrest meeting, he said he didn’t have one…It was just a joke, really.”
Linda nodded, but Claire got the distinct impression that the other woman didn’t believe her. Unwilling to dig a bigger hole for herself, she began surveying the desk again. Linda joined in straight away, but Claire was aware of her lingering scrutiny and she kept her face carefully blank.
“I don’t see anything, do you?” Linda said after a futile few minutes.
Claire was shaking her head, about to agree with Linda, when she spotted the discarded birthday card.
Frowning, she plucked it from amongst the mess and flipped it open.
Dearest Jack, thinking of you on this special day. Please be
