Isabel Sharpe – All I Want... (страница 3)

His cell rang. He put the laptop aside, dug the phone out warily from his pocket, then relaxed and smiled at the number on the display. Mary. He’d been dodging board member calls for the last hour, not in the mood for more concerns now that they’d undoubtedly read Marlow’s latest attack on his stepsister. Tedious bunch. Ms. Marlow must be stopped before she ruins the Wellington name, blah, blah, blah.

Any wonder he’d rather be out experiencing the real world as he was meant to? After he’d graduated from business school, what was supposed to be a month-long traveling vacation had turned into two months, then six, then over a year, until his father’s poor health brought Seth back to the company he’d worked for since he was old enough to alphabetize.

Family was family, yes. Though at times family life felt more like being incarcerated at Alcatraz.

“Hi, Mary.”

“Did you get the link I sent you? I’ve gotten three calls already from board members squawking something fierce.”

“I got it.” He kept his voice from sounding too weary. “Looks like Ms. Marlow didn’t enjoy the show.”

“Ya think? If I hear ‘This could have serious consequences’ one more time, I’m going to book a ticket to Jamaica and drink rum until it’s all over. Want to come?”

He grinned. His affair with Mary had burned hot and briefly; instant attraction had been indulged, waned, and they’d settled into a fairly comfortable friendship. Occasionally they still got together, but they’d been successful keeping their personal lives off the company gossip sheet. She was the kind of woman he liked. Smart, sexy, discreet and, best of all, not clingy. She never took their relationship to be anything but what it was.

“Sounds like paradise right about now. How often have we reassured them the risk is minimal?”

“Too many times.”

He grabbed the back of his neck and tried to massage a dent in the knotted muscles, gazing out at the black expanse of ocean with longing. Jumping for people was the part of this job he hated most. “As much as I don’t want to get involved, with everything else we have to do, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be seen taking steps, so these fine gentlemen can put a sock in it.”

And maybe they had the smallest point. He’d just as soon people didn’t keep tabs on the stores only to see if Aimee made an idiot of herself, which, given Aimee, was always a distinct possibility, though he’d decided she was worth the risk. But if people came to associate the stores with someone they didn’t respect, Seth would have to concede the Wellington image could suffer—and the board’s opinion of him would certainly tank. Yes, he wanted out of the CEO job, but he wanted out because his father was well enough to take over the company again, not because he’d run it into the ground.

“So you’re going to take her on?”

He sighed. “I’ll think of something. The bare minimum that will satisfy the board.”

“Ooooh.” Mary laughed, deep and sexy. “Should I scan the headlines tomorrow for news of Ms. Marlow dredged out of the Charles River wearing designer cement shoes?”

“I don’t think it will come to that.”

“Mmm, I hope not. I’d hate to lose you to jail time.”

He chuckled. “No chance of that. Thanks for letting me know about the blog, Mary.”

“You’re welcome. Call anytime you want to talk.” She used the husky tone that said “talk” wasn’t on her mind.

“I will. Good night.” He hung up, aware she’d been about to say more, feeling a twinge of guilt. But if he gave her an inch now, she’d grab for…seven. And he wasn’t in the mood for that kind of fun. Every ounce of his energy and concentration was necessary to make sure the revamping of the stores wasn’t going to be a colossal, extremely expensive and humiliating failure.

He swallowed the last tepid sip of after-dinner coffee and stood, bringing his favorite mug—one his mom bought him when he took her to Graceland, before she’d gotten too sick to travel—into his kitchen. He washed and dried it carefully and put it next to the coffeemaker, already sporting a new filter for the next morning’s brew. A quick wipe-down of the counters, and he filled a big glass with filtered water from his stainless refrigerator’s door dispenser.

After that, a check of the downstairs rooms to make sure they were tidy and locked up tight, then he went upstairs to his second-floor loft in the condo he’d bought even though he wouldn’t be staying long.

He strode into his bedroom, undressed and retrieved the top paperback from a neat stack under his night table. The latest Harlan Coben thriller. He needed some distraction, somewhere to go that was under control, precise, unpolluted by the wandering vagaries of real human existence.

Ten minutes later he gave up the pretense at reading. Even page-turning excitement couldn’t distract him from his growing irritation.

He turned off his light and drew up the blankets. Lay, hands folded behind his head, staring at the dotted stripes of light on his ceiling from the punched holes and chinks in his blinds. He didn’t have time for worrying about one woman’s opinion.

And yet something about Krista Marlow’s disrespect toward Aimee bordered on illogical. Something about it was too…personal. Yeah, she was funny as hell, spirited and right-on in a lot of what she said. After her first post about Aimee, he’d started checking in occasionally and had been interested by most of what she had to say.

Then a couple of months ago, after Aimee’s joke of a self-produced CD came out, around the time she landed the part in Sweatshock, the attacks on Aimee became more frequent and more cutting.

He frowned and shifted between the sheets. Admittedly he was curious.

Tomorrow he’d try to find out more about Marlow, something reassuring to report to the board. Maybe tell them he’d ask her to ease up. Worth a try. With Wellington Stores’ grand reopening on the horizon, he needed the board one hundred percent behind him. Even a small glitch was more of a glitch than he wanted.

Because the sooner he could turn the company around, the sooner he could hand the running of it back to his father, and leave again.

LUCY MARLOW SLIPPED out of the bed she shared with Link in their beautiful Cambridge condo and tiptoed out of the room. Three in the morning and she hadn’t even managed to close her eyes. Insomnia wasn’t new to her, but lately she’d been bursting into tears for no apparent reason, and she couldn’t stay in bed and cry. Link would waken, he’d want to know what was wrong. And how often could she say “nothing” or “I don’t know” without him rolling his eyes as men had been rolling their eyes at those answers for centuries, maybe millennia?

She went into their living room, chilly with the heat turned down at night, and curled up on the window seat, looking out at the parked cars on Garden Street. This time of year was always tough, when the calendar said ho ho ho, merry merry, happy happy, and somehow her mood and stress levels never quite made it there. Gifts to buy for Link, for Mom and Dad, for Krista, for Link’s relatives, her relatives, friends, coworkers. She made it harder on herself, she knew that, and Link was always telling her as if he thought she didn’t. Having to find the perfect presents, having to decorate the house, having to make cookies and volunteer and organize the office party…

An old Volkswagen van putted by, like the relic her parents had when she was very young. That seemed to be enough to trigger the insane tears that were her all-too-regular visitors these days.

Was this simple unhappiness? She didn’t feel unhappy, necessarily. She had a lovely home in a beautiful city. She was engaged to a man she loved, though he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get married or buy her a ring.

They weren’t ready for children, Link said, and what difference did a piece of paper make in how they felt about each other?

Logically? Intellectually? No difference.

But emotionally…

Well, women were the emotional ones, weren’t they. He’d marry her if she insisted, she knew that. But she couldn’t bring herself to insist. She didn’t ever want to be standing up at an altar without being one hundred percent sure the man next to her would rather be there than anywhere else in the world. Marriage should be entered into gladly and with light hearts.

These days her heart was about as light as a brick.

The beautiful, sad tears turned to fairly unattractive sobs she fought hard to keep as silent as possible. Link slept like a rock, but you never knew.

Everything else about her life was going fine. She had a nice job as an administrative assistant in a law firm downtown. She’d chosen the work deliberately, to keep her mind and energies fresh for performing, though these days she’d made friends with her limitations there. Lucy’s natural reserve was her enemy on stage—people like Aimee would always get ahead. While Krista would cheerfully disembowel the poor woman, Lucy understood the casting decision.

In retrospect, she’d taken the audition more to please Krista than herself anyway. Krista had enough ambition to spare for everyone. Lucy was a creature of habit, of routine. Unlike her sister, she wasn’t comfortable or happy constantly searching for new heights to scale.