for openers, she thought, but there was no reason to tell the guardian at the gate that.
Unmoved, the woman replied, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
“But—”
The next moment Sherry found herself talking to a dial tone.
With a sigh she hung up. She was getting lazy, she thought. The way to get somewhere was in person, not over the telephone. She knew that. If the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed damn well was going to come to the mountain. With climbing gear.
Although these days, she thought, pushing herself up out of her chair, she wasn’t sure just which part she would be cast in, Mohammed or the mountain.
The meeting had run over. It was within his power to call an end to it at any time, but Sin-Jin Adair liked to choose his moments. Authority wasn’t something he believed in throwing around like a Frisbee; it was a weapon, to be used wisely, effectively. So he had sat and listened to the employees that he’d culled over the past few years, as he’d taken over one corporation after another. Keep the best, discard the rest. It was a motto he lived by.
A bastardization of his father’s edict. Except that his father had applied it to women. Sin-Jin never did.
“Leaving early, I see.”
He nodded at his secretary. Like everyone else around her, Edna Farley was the soul of efficiency. He and Edna had a history together, and her loyalty was utterly unshakable. It was another quality he demanded, but one he could be patient about. He valued the kind that evolved naturally, not one that was bought and paid for. If you could buy loyalty easily, then it could just as easily be sold to a higher bidder, thereby rendering it useless. That he paid his people top dollar ensured that they would not be tempted to look elsewhere in search of worldly goods.
“Not as early as I’d like. Go home, Mrs. Farley.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman peered out into the hall as he strode out. “Don’t forget the Cavannaugh meeting tomorrow. And Mr. Renfro said he would be calling you at eight tomorrow morning.”
“Good night, Mrs. Farley.”
Walking away, he smiled to himself as the less-than-dulcet tones of Mrs. Farley echoed behind him, reminding him of appointments he didn’t need to be reminded of. Everything he needed to know about his schedule was not tucked away in some fancy PalmPilot, but in his mind. He had a photographic memory that had never failed him.
Reaching the elevator, he pressed for a car. Just as he stepped inside, he was aware that someone had slipped in behind him. The floor had appeared deserted a moment earlier.
“Sorry,” a woman’s voice apologized a second after he felt someone bump into him from behind.
Turning around, he was about to say something when he saw that it had been the woman’s stomach that had made contact with him.
Rounded with child. The phrase came floating to him out of nowhere.
So did the smile that curved his lips ever so slightly. “That’s all right.”
Sherry looked down innocently at the bulk that preceded her everywhere these days. She placed her hands on either side of the girth.
“Can’t wait for this little darling to be born so I can move it around in a stroller instead of feeling as if I’m lifting weights every time I get up.”
Because pregnancy, children and loved ones existed on an unknown plane, Sin-Jin could only vaguely nod at her words. A rejoining comment failed to materialize. The only thing he noted was, pregnant or not, the woman was extremely attractive.
His father had said there was no such thing as an attractive pregnant woman, but then, his father had demanded perfection in everything around him, if not in himself. The man was interested in ornamental women, not pregnant ones. Like a spoiled child in a toy store, his father had gone from one woman to another, marrying some along the way. He was vaguely aware that the man’s tally stood at something like seven.
Or was it six? He’d lost count. The slight smile widened on Sin-Jin’s lips, curving somewhat ironically.
Not bad, Sherry thought. The man was almost human looking when he smiled. She already knew that he was handsome. That much she’d gleaned while surfing the Internet for more than two hours, trying to piece together anything she could find on the man. She’d discovered that Owen was right. There wasn’t anything on St. John Adair that didn’t have to do with business. It was as if he disappeared into a black hole every night when he left the impressive edifice that bore his name.
It made her feel like Vicki Vale, on the trail of Batman.
Well, Batman was smiling, she thought. Perhaps not directly at her, but close enough.
Maybe Adair had a weak spot for pregnant women. It would be nice to be given an ace in the hole because of her condition for a change.
She took a deep breath, bracing herself. No time like the present.
Leaning around Adair, Sherry pressed the emergency stop on the elevator. The elevator hiccuped and came to an abrupt, jarring halt between the eighteenth and seventeenth floors.
The smile on his lips vanished instantly as a score of different scenarios crowded into his mind. Was he being threatened, kidnapped? There’d been two botched attempts at that in the past four years. He began to doubt the woman was pregnant. It made for a good disguise, put a man off his guard.
He was on his guard now. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sherry’s smile was sweetness personified as she looked up at him. “I was wondering if you could give me a moment of your time, Mr. Adair.”
Chapter Two
For one heartbeat, there was nothing but silence within the elevator. Sin-Jin stared at the only other occupant in the car as if she had lost her mind. He wondered if she was dangerous in any sense of the word.
“Who are you?”
Sherry was ready for him. Opening her purse, she took out the press card that she’d carefully laid on top just before entering the multiwinged building that bore Adair’s name. This was not the time to fumble through the various paraphernalia that she deemed indispensable and always dragged along with her.
She held her identification card aloft for Adair’s perusal. And watched a transformation.
The unfriendly look on his face turned to something that, in a different era and country, would have reduced pagan worshipers to quivering masses of fear had Adair been their emperor, or, more probably regarded as their god. She felt a little unnerved herself.
Sherry shook herself loose from the hypnotic effect and squared her shoulders. Fierce expression or not, he wasn’t about to make her back down.
Adair’s glare was hot enough to melt the plastic on her ID. “You’re a reporter?” It sounded like an offense second only to being a serial killer.
Damn, but she could see how he could strike fear into the hearts of those around him. She reminded herself that she wasn’t afraid of anything except a magnitude-seven
