She followed a group of briefcase-toting men into the elevator and pressed the button for one of the higher floors. Briefly glancing at the LCD panel, she checked the time and the temperature. A groan welled up in the back of her throat—she was early. She would have to wait an extra twenty minutes. She caught an interested glance from one of the male passengers, and quickly returned her gaze to the door, before curiosity drew her eyes back. Sure enough, he was looking right at her. Sasha dropped her gaze again and barely kept from squirming. He looked to be in his late thirties with straight brown hair and a curious twinkle in his green eyes. Like the rest of the group, he wore a blue dress shirt underneath his dark suit jacket.
The number couldn’t go up fast enough for Sasha. The sooner she got off the elevator, the sooner she’d find out why her godfather had summoned her to Atlanta, and the sooner she could get back to her work. Correction: the sooner she could get the heck away from all those people. She exhaled, remembering the words from one of her previous therapists. No, she wasn’t anti-social; she just hadn’t been properly socialized. The elevator stopped and Mr. Green Eyes stepped off. Sasha let out a breath and then pulled it back in as the elevator stopped on her floor. She stepped off onto a plush Persian rug and inhaled. The slightly heavy scent of vanilla made her sneeze.
“Ms. Clayton?”
“Yes?” Sasha looked up from digging into her purse to grab another Kleenex. She wiped her nose and looked in the direction of the female voice that had called her name.
“Good Afternoon. My name is Gretchen Stevens. I’m Mr. Hawthorne’s executive assistant.”
She held out her hand in greeting. After a moment’s hesitation, Sasha shook her hand. The woman’s fingernails were perfectly manicured while hers hadn’t seen polish in months.
“The attorneys are on their way from the courthouse and should arrive within the hour.”
Sasha nodded and was careful not to examine the slight brown at the woman’s perfectly blond roots. Instantly, she compared the woman’s expertly applied makeup to the female sable’s instinctual urge to groom before coming into season. The human animal had never been the subject of her academic studies, but she couldn’t help but see the similarities with her professional research.
“Please follow me.”
She stopped in a separate room. Three walls were covered in Impressionist art and the third wall was in fact a window looking out over the city.
“Please feel free to use the laptop, watch TV or peruse the magazines while you wait.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Ms. Clayton? Coffee, tea or soda?” she asked through a toothy smile that shouted cosmetic dentistry. The assistant kept addressing Sasha by her last name, a fact that made her feel older than her thirty-one years. She opened her mouth to tell the woman who had her beat in age by at least half a decade, that her name was Sasha. But she shoved the irritated thought to the back of her mind and she recalled the Southern tradition of calling adults by their last name.
“No, thank you.” She smiled. “With the time change I won’t have any trouble staying awake. It’s the sleeping that will be difficult tonight.”
“How about a mineral water? Transcontinental flights have a nasty tendency to cause dehydration. My skin is always parched even after a short flight to New York.”
Startled, Sasha looked from the sight of the airplane flying in the horizon to Gretchen. “How did you know?”
“I made your travel arrangements. I hope that the flight and your hotel are adequate?”
“Very nice.”
“Good. I’ll go get that Pellegrino. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“No, thank you,” she responded with a hastily contrived smile. At that moment she was about to take anything to get the secretary away from her. Sasha watched the woman leave the room and sat in the stuffed leather chairs near the window. Needing something to grab a hold of besides her purse, she picked up a copy of the local newspaper and sat it on her lap.
She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. She thought she’d conquered her issues with being around people. Or she thought she had. Taking a hard look at her life for the past two years, she brutally came to the conclusion she was deluding herself. She hadn’t spent more than a total of three months in civilization since she’d broken up with Byron Jackson.
They’d covered half of the Oregon wilderness and some of Washington. They’d slept in the same tent, splashed naked in the small mountain springs and tracked a den of migrating elk. It had been about this time of the year that he’d left her for a lucrative position as a college professor and a San Francisco socialite.
Sasha opened her eyes at the stab of pain in her stomach. The day after the break-up, she’d packed her bags and jumped on a plane to Cuba to visit her parents for two week. That’s all she’d thought she’d need to get over the man she’d thought would be her life partner. Just a few days on the beach with her parents and she’d be back to her old self.
At least that what she’d told herself, until she’d returned to Oregon and walked past the campsite they’d stayed at weeks before. For months afterwards, she’d munched on antacids like they were peanuts and blamed it on a combination of stomach upset and food allergies. A quick trip to a village doctor in Vietnam had confirmed the fact that she had indeed been healing from a broken heart.
It wasn’t that he’d found someone else. It really wasn’t about Byron at all. She’d had this hope that she’d found her other half. Found the ideal relationship that her parents held. Someone who’d shared her love of animals, who understood her passion for natural research. She looked out over the wispy clouds towards downtown Atlanta and past the tall building to the skyline.
The sound of footsteps drew Sasha out of her thoughts. A glass and the signature green of the sparkling water sat on the side table next to her chair.
“Good Lord,” she muttered. “I am such a selfish wretch. Here I am at the reading of Uncle Camden’s will and all I can think about is my disastrous personal life.”
“I suck,” Sasha declared borrowing the phrase from one of the numerous in-flight movies she’d been forced to watch. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes only to open them at the sound of someone entering the room.
“Yeah, that works. Pick out something nice with orchids. Yeah, have the note read, To my favorite ski bunny, have a wonderful birthday. Can’t wait to see you on the slopes. Yes…yes…add the Belgian chocolate and something impressive. You know the kind—engraved and from Tiffany’s. Good… Good…I’ll call you later—got to take another call.”
There was a brief silence and then the masculine voice continued. “Hey, little bit, sorry I missed your performance last night. You got the flowers, right? I’m sure that you’ve got a small greenhouse in that loft of yours. The New York dance scene will never be the same since you hit the stage. Of course, I’ll be in the front row when the company comes to Atlanta. Good. I’ll talk to you later okay? And congratulations.”
In the silence, Sasha opened her eyes and thought about alerting the stranger to her presence. What a dog, she thought, and then revised her observation. Calling the man a dog was not only clichéd, but also a mistake in classification. The canine species had genetic predisposition for loyalty to their pack leader. Moreover,
