Heartbreaker
Page 18
Luke dismissed it all and met his cousin’s eyes. “Wanted to warn you that he’s still not happy about me leaving.”
Cole leaned back in his desk chair and steepled his fingers. “No surprise there. You were the golden boy, destined to run Barrett Toys...”
Bitterness colored Cole’s tone, but Luke was used to that. “That’s changed.”
“Only because you left.” His cousin shook his head. “Pop is still determined to bring you back into the fold.”
Pushing away from the wall, Luke straightened up. “Not going to happen. I’ve got my own company now.”
Cole swung his chair lazily back and forth. “It’s not Barrett, though, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. A start-up company was fun. Challenging, even. But it wasn’t like running Barrett’s. He’d poured a lot of work and heart into the family business. But feeling as he did now, that his grandfather didn’t trust him, how could he run Barrett’s with any sort of confidence? “It will be,” he said, with determination. “Someday.”
“Right. Anyway.” Cole stood up, slipped his suit jacket on and buttoned it. “I’ve got a lunch meeting.”
“Fine. Just...” He thought about Pop, rooting around for those papers and looking confused about why he couldn’t find them. “Keep me posted on Pop, will you?”
“Why?”
Luke shrugged. “He’s getting old.”
“Not to hear him tell it,” Cole said with a short scrape of a laugh.
“Yeah, I know that.” Luke nodded and told himself he’d done what he’d gone there to do—try one more time to get through to his grandfather. Make him see reason. Now it was time to move the hell on. “All right, then. I’ve got a plane to catch. So, say hello to Susan and Oliver for me.”
“I will.”
When he walked out, Luke didn’t look back.
* * *
Jamison stood at his open office door and watched his grandson. An all-too-familiar stir of frustration had him falling back into the old habit of jingling the coins in his pockets.
“You’re jingling.”
He stopped instantly and shot a look at his assistant.
“Didn’t work, did it?” she asked.
“No one likes hearing ‘I told you so,’ Donna.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t say it.”
“You were thinking it.”
“If you’re such a good mind reader,” the woman countered, “you should have known telling him that Loretta cried was a mistake.”
She had a point. No one who knew his wife would believe she’d given in to a bout of tears.
“Fine,” he grudgingly admitted. “You were right. Happy?”
“I’m not unhappy. It’s always good to be right.”
He scowled at the woman currently ignoring him as she busily typed up some damn thing or other. Donna had been with him for thirty years and never let him forget it.
Shaking his head, Jamison shifted his gaze back to Luke as he walked across the room, stopping to chat with people on his way to the elevator. He was leaving, and Jamison didn’t have a clue how to get him back. So it seemed it was time for the big guns.
“The woman you told me about. You still think she can help?”
Donna stopped typing and looked up at him. “Apparently, she’s pretty amazing, so maybe.”
Jamison nodded. He wanted his grandson back in the company, damn it. How the hell could he ever retire if Luke wasn’t there to take over for him? Cole was good at his specified job, but he didn’t have it in him to keep growing Barrett Toys. Jamison needed Luke.
“Well, I tried the easy way,” he murmured. “Now it’s time to put on the pressure.”
“Boss...if Luke finds out, this could all go bad in a huge way.”
He dismissed her warning with an idle wave of a hand. “Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t find out, won’t we? Make the call, Donna. I’ll be waiting in my office.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said as she picked up the phone and started dialing.
Jamison turned to his office, but paused long enough to ask, “Where are those statistics I asked you to print out for me this morning?”
Frowning, she looked at him. “I put them on your desk first thing.”
“You didn’t move them?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Right, right.” He nodded and tried to remember what he’d done with the damn things. Then something else occurred to him. “Okay, make the call. And Donna, there’s no reason to tell Loretta any of this.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I saw that.”
“Wasn’t hiding it,” she countered.
“I am your boss, you know.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Donna advised.
* * *
The next afternoon, Fiona Jordan walked into the restaurant at the Gables, a five-star hotel in San Francisco. The best part about owning her own business? She just never knew what would happen from day to day. Yesterday, she’d been working out of her duplex in Long Beach, California, and today, she was in a gorgeous hotel in San Francisco.
Smiling to herself, she took a breath and scanned the busy room.
White-cloth-draped tables and booths were crowded, and the hum of conversation, heavy silverware clinking against plates and the piped-in violin music streaming from discreetly hidden speakers created an atmosphere of luxury. There were windows all along one wall that afforded a spectacular view of the Bay, where the afternoon sun was busily painting a bright golden trail across the surface of the water.
But at the moment, the view wasn’t her priority, Fiona thought as she did a more detailed scan of the room. She was here to find one particular person.
When she found him, her heart gave a quick, hard jolt, and a buzz of something hot and potentially dangerous zipped through her.
Luke Barrett. He had sun-streaked, light brown hair that was just long enough to curl over the collar of his dark blue suit jacket. Gaze focused on the phone he held, he seemed oblivious to the people surrounding him and completely content to be alone.
Fiona didn’t really understand that. She liked people. Talking to them, hearing their stories—everyone had a story—and discovering what she liked about them. But she’d already been warned that Luke was so wrapped up in his work, he barely noticed the people around him.
So, she told herself, she’d simply have to be unforgettable.
Luke sat alone at a window table, but he paid no attention to the view. Fiona, on the other hand, was enjoying her view of him a little too much. Even in profile, he was more gorgeous than the picture she’d been given.
That buzz of something interesting shot straight through her again, and she took a moment to enjoy it. It had been a long time since a man had elicited that sort of reaction from her. Heck, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d felt a zing of interest.
Her gaze went back to his just-a-little-long hair and realized that it was an intriguing choice for a corporate type. Maybe Luke Barrett was going to be much more than she’d expected. But there was still the whole wrapped-up-in-his-phone thing to get past.
Fiona watched as a beautiful woman strolled by Luke’s table, giving him a smile that most men would have drooled over—he didn’t notice.
“Hmm.” Realizing that meeting Luke Barrett might call for a little extra punch, Fiona turned toward the long sinuous sweep of the bar. She ordered a glass of chardonnay, gave the bartender a big tip and a smile, took a deep breath, and studied her target.
Then Fiona tossed her long, dark brown hair over her shoulder and started for his table. The short hem of her flirty black skirt swirled around her thighs and her mile-high black heels tapped cheerfully against the glossy floor. Her dark green long-sleeved blouse had a deeply scooped neckline, and gold
hoops dangled from her earlobes.
She looked great, even if she was saying it herself, and it was a shame to ruin the outfit, but desperate times...
A waiter passed in front of her; Fiona deliberately stumbled, took a couple of halting steps, and with a slight shriek, threw herself and a full glass of very nice wine into Luke Barrett’s lap.
Copyright © 2020 by Maureen Child
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For all my readers going through a hard time, here’s hoping this story lifts your spirit.
ISBN: 9781488062759
Heartbreaker
Copyright © 2020 by Joanne Rock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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