to answer, but her father wasn’t finished raving. “You can’t quit! You’re my daughter, for crying out loud!” He mopped the sweat from his brow and stuffed his handkerchief into the pocket of his golf slacks.
Marnie had been waiting for him for half the day. She wasn’t about to back down now. She’d spent too many hours arguing with herself and gathering her courage to give in.
“I’m serious, Dad,” she said quietly, her voice firm. “This is just something I need to do.”
“Bull!” Her father crossed the thick expanse of putty-colored carpet and glanced at the calendar lying open on his huge mahogany desk. He flipped through the pages while Marnie surveyed his office with jaded eyes.
Opulent, befitting the reigning monarch of a hotel empire, the suite boasted inlaid cherry-wood walls. Brass lamps, etchings, sculptures and buttery leather furniture added to the effect. Behind the office, a private bath with a Jacuzzi, a walk-in wardrobe and king-size bedroom, were available whenever Victor was too busy to drive home.
Grabbing the receiver in one hand, Victor punched a series of buttons on the phone. “Kate?” he barked, still flipping through his appointment book. “Cancel my two o’clock with Ferguson—no, on second thought—just stall him. Ask him to meet me at the site tomorrow at—” he ran his finger down a page “—ten thirty.” Scowling across the room at Marnie, he added, “Just tell him that something important came up, something to do with the opening of the Puget West hotel.”
Marnie refused to meet the anger in his eyes and stared instead through the bank of windows in his office. Glimpses of the rolling gray waters of Puget Sound were barely visible through the tall spires of Seattle’s skyline. Thick pewter-colored clouds blocked the sun and threatened rain. A jet, headed north, was nearly invisible through the low-hanging clouds.
She heard her father slam down the phone. “Okay, let’s get out of here,” he said, and dropped the letter of resignation she’d worked so hard to write into his wastebasket.
“Can’t we talk here?”
Grabbing his keys, Victor shook his head. “Not a good idea.”
Then she understood. Shoving her arms through the sleeves of her coat, she asked, “Do you still really think you’ve got some spies in the company?”
“Don’t know.”
“I thought all that was taken care of when you fired Adam Drake.”
Her father jammed a hat onto his head. “And I thought you were convinced he was innocent.”
“He was,” she said flatly. “He got off, remember?”
“He just had a damned good attorney,” Victor grumbled, snagging his jacket from the back of his chair. “But that’s over and done with.”
“Then why’re you still paranoid?”
“I’m not paranoid,” he snapped. “Just careful. Come on, I’ve got to check things out at the marina, see that the repairs on the Vanessa are up to snuff. We can talk on the way.”
“Okay,” she muttered, barely holding on to her temper. “But you can’t just toss my resignation into the trash and expect me to forget all about it. I’m serious, Dad.”
“You don’t know what you want.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said quietly.
The firmness in her tone must have caught his attention. His head snapped up and for the first time since he’d entered the office, he seemed to see her as she really was. His lips pursed tightly and beneath his tan his skin took on a paler hue. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice much lower.
He didn’t even bother changing from his casual pants and sports coat.
In tense silence they strode abreast through the corridors to the elevator. Marnie barely kept herself from quaking at his anger. He was a handsome man, a man who accepted authority easily. His features were oversized, his hair thick and white with only a few remaining dark strands, his eyes intense blue, his nose aristocratic. For a man pushing sixty he was in good shape, with only the trace of a paunch near his waist-line. And right now he was beginning to seethe.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” he said when the elevator doors had whispered shut and with a lurch the car sped down sixteen floors only to jerk to a stop at the subterranean parking lot.
“I just think it’s time I stood on my own.”
“All of a sudden?”
She slid a glance in his direction. “It’s been coming on a long time.”
“Ever since that business with Drake,” he surmised with disgust.
“Before that,” she insisted, though it was true that nothing had been the same since Adam Drake had been fired. There had been a change in attitude in the offices of Montgomery Inns. Nothing tangible. Just a loss of company spirit and confidence. Everyone felt it—including Victor, though, of course, he was loathe to admit it.
“And then you decided to break up with Kent,” her father went on, shaking his head as he searched the pocket of his jacket for his pipe. “And now you want to leave the corporation, just walk away from a fortune. When I was your age, I was—”
“—working ten-hour days and still going to night school, I know,” Marnie cut in. Her heels clicked loudly against the concrete. Low-hanging pipes overhead dripped condensation, and she had to duck to escape the steady drops as she hurried to keep up with her father’s swift strides.
She stopped at the fender of Victor’s Jaguar. He unlocked the doors and they both slid into the cushy interior.
“You should be grateful…”
Marnie closed her eyes. How could she explain the feeling that she was trapped? That she needed a life of her own? That she had to prove herself by standing on her own two feet? “I am grateful, Dad. Really.” Turning to face him, she forced a wan smile. “This is just something I have to do—”
“Right now? Can’t it wait?” he asked, as if sensing her beginning to weaken.
“No.”
“But the new hotel is opening next week. I need you there. You’re in charge of public relations, for God’s sake.”
“And I have a capable assistant. You remember Todd Byers—blond, wears glasses—”
Victor waved off her explanation.
“Well, if he’s not good enough I have a whole department to cover for me.” That was what bothered her most. She didn’t feel needed. If she walked away from Montgomery Inns, no one, save Victor, would notice. Even Kent would get by without her.
Her father fired up the engine and shoved the Jag into reverse. “I don’t understand you anymore.” With a flip of the steering wheel, he headed for the exit. “What is it you really want?”
“A life of my own.”
“You have one. A life most
