Тесса Рэдли – Diamonds are for Surrender: Vows & a Vengeful Groom (страница 18)

Kimberley saw. It was an exquisitely designed and crafted piece. And beneath the bright showroom lights and the gleam of enthusiasm on Jessica’s face, she also saw the shadows beneath her eyes. Jessica Cotter. Suddenly she recalled why the name was familiar—not from school, but from the original passenger list for her father’s fatal flight. This was the employee who had cheated death with a last-minute change of plans.

No wonder she looked fragile.

Something of her thoughts must have shown in Kimberley’s expression, because the other woman’s smile dimmed. A hint of consternation crossed her face as she locked the necklace back in a display case. “I’m sorry. I get a little carried away when I find someone who shares my enthusiasm.”

“Don’t apologise. I was thinking of something else,” Kimberley assured her. “My mind was miles away.”

Jessica looked up, her eyes large and dark and troubled as she discerned where Kimberley’s mind might have been. “Kimberley … please accept my condolences for your loss. I know with the lack of news and everything that’s been written in the papers, this is a difficult time for you and … for all your family.”

“Thank you.” There was little else she could say, and when an awkwardness descended she grimaced at her watch. “I have monopolised you long enough for one morning. Thank you for your time and for showing me through the store. I enjoyed it very much.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“I will call in again.” Kimberley smiled and tucked her bag beneath her arm. “Perhaps next time you can talk me into buying that necklace.”

Jessica returned her smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Secrets, Kimberley thought, as she made her way downstairs.

The girl has something going on in her personal life, which is why she missed that plane and why she is still alive and why she has that haunted look in her eyes.

Immersed in her thoughts, she almost ploughed into Ryan coming out the revolving door and moving with his usual bulldog-after-a-bone tenacity. Steadying her with a hand on each arm, he scowled over her shoulder and up at the floor above before focussing narrowly on her face. “What are you doing here?”

“And hello to you, too, little brother.”

The frown suddenly changed tenor, as if he’d shifted gears to finally take in the significance of her presence here at Blackstone Jewellery. “This the last place I’d expect to find you. What’s going on, Kim?”

Eight

After Kimberley admitted that her visit to the Martin Place store was part of an inspection tour of the Blackstones’ business, Ryan walked her back downtown for a tour of the office complex. Ryan, being Ryan, made it the potted version but that was all right with Kimberley. She preferred to make up her own mind, without the rah-rah rhetoric she might have expected from someone like Max Carlton. Or Perrini.

In the high-speed elevator they zoomed their way to the executive floors, and the sudden pitch of her stomach had less to do with that speed than the prospect of seeing Perrini. How adolescent. Kimberley gave herself a stern mental slap but her nervous anticipation only escalated with each passing floor. So much for keeping business and personal compartmentalised. Perrini had always been so much better than her at that distinction.

The lift slowed and stopped several floors short of their destination. Patrice Moore, an accounting whiz she remembered for her expert input on the jewellery store business plan, stepped on board. Her smile was instant, warm, genuine. “I heard you were in the building. Nice to see you back, Kimberley, despite the circumstances.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you’re still here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” the other woman said. “They look after me well.”

The lift pinged open at the top floor, and Patrice offered a few sincere words of sympathy before striding off down the corridor. Ryan steered Kimberley in the opposite direction, away from the offices of the senior executives and toward the boardroom. As they walked she felt his inquisitive scrutiny of her face.

“I didn’t expect to see so many familiar faces,” she admitted.

“You thought we’d have driven them all away with our evil business practices?”

Kimberley laughed and shook her head. “Not exactly. I guess I just … I don’t know what I expected.”

“Our staff is a large and recognised part of our success. We’re proud of our retention records and of our recruitment program.”

They turned into the spacious vestibule outside the boardroom and Kimberley cast a quick eye over the comfortable seating, the low tables and the artwork, before returning to the issue of staff. “I have to tell you I was most impressed with your manager at Martin Place. Is she one of your recruits? She’s quite young to be managing a store.”

Ryan paused with his hand on the door to the boardroom. Kimberley couldn’t see his face but she could see the stiffness in his shoulders for the brief moment before he turned around. “Jessica has been with the company since she left school,” he said. “She knows our product inside out. She’s earned every one of her promotions.”

From his sharp tone, Kimberley wondered who might have suggested otherwise, but she didn’t get a chance to ask. Ryan was already moving on, opening the door, and gesturing for her to precede him inside. For now she let it go, her mind and her heart and the nerves in her stomach distracted by the long, gleaming cherrywood table lined by tall-backed chairs.

“The many seats of power,” she murmured, trailing her fingertips from chair to chair as she strolled the length of the room. She could imagine her father seated at the head of this table, completely in his element, the master of all he surveyed.

She snuck a glance at her brother, found his eyes on that same chairman’s place, his expression fixed and forbiddingly stern. The rigid set of his shoulders as he’d paused at the door now made a different kind of sense. He’d been bracing himself for this. For seeing that chair and what its emptiness represented.

Quickly she closed the space between them and placed a hand on her brother’s shoulder. Even if she had the words, she doubted her ability to push them past the lump in her throat, especially after she glanced up and saw Ryan’s jaw struggling to contain his emotions. Lord, she thought she’d moved past this. That she’d accepted, with the news of Marise, that Howard was gone.

A mobile ringtone shattered the intense moment, and with a last comforting squeeze she stepped back to allow Ryan access to his phone.

“Yours,” he said curtly, his gaze skating off Kimberley’s as if uncomfortable that she’d witnessed his momentary turmoil. “I’ll leave you to take it in private.”

“Thank you.” If this was Matt returning the call she’d placed earlier, then she would need that privacy. “This may take a while,” she told Ryan. “I’ve seen all I need for now so I will see myself out. We’ll talk later, okay?”

“A word of warning. Don’t let Ric Perrini under your—”

“I’m a big girl now,” she cut in. “Rest assured, Perrini won’t be getting under anything of mine.”

Ryan nodded briefly and was gone in a dozen swift strides. When he closed the door behind him, Kimberley retrieved her phone and sucked in a breath. It was Matt. The moment of truth. Her stomach clenched as she put the handset to her ear.

“Matt. Thank you for calling back.” Through the phone, she heard the high-pitched prattle of a child’s voice and Matt’s deeper response. “Is Blake with you?” she asked.

“Rachel—the nanny—brought him in on the ferry.”

“He loves that ferry ride.” Kimberley’s voice thickened, remembering her godson’s barely contained excitement as he recounted imaginative “sightings” of dolphins and whales and submarines. “Can I say hello?”

“He’s on his way out.”

Kimberley’s heart dipped at Matt’s cool reply. Her hand gripped more tightly around the phone. How could she leave and risk cutting herself off from her godson? Or was the damage already done?

“When are you coming back?” Matt asked. Then, when she didn’t answer right away, his voice dropped another chilling degree. “Are you coming back?”

“I’ve been offered a job at Blackstone’s.”

“You have a job, at Hammonds. Surely you’re not considering this offer.”

“Considering, yes,” Kimberley admitted. “But there is an awful lot to think about and I hate the thought of leaving you short staffed at such a difficult time.”

“Lionel is managing the shortfall.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, fighting the awful sense of being torn in two. The redoubtable Lionel always managed, and so did Matt…. “But that isn’t the point. I don’t—”

“No,” Matt said, cutting her off cold. “The point is, you’re contemplating this move after everything Howard Blackstone has done. Your decision should be simple—either you can work for that bastard’s company or you can’t.”

“He’s my father, Matt, and he’s gone. Please respect that this is a difficult time for me, as well.”

“If you’re suggesting that you’re mourning a man you spent the past ten years despising, then you’re not the person I thought you were.”

Stung by the frosty slap of those words, Kimberley lifted her chin. “If you can’t understand my position, then you’re not the man I thought you were, either.”