Fire in the Wind

by Alexandra Sellers

  But the cold anger was gone from Jake's face. In the moment when she dropped her eyes he stood, and now he stared after her, his face filled with a blazing need. Unseeing and afraid of the power her need would give him over her, Vanessa almost ran to the door.

  * * *

  The next morning she met Howie Spiegel in Jake's suite as arranged, but Jake did not stay after she arrived. Howie put any fears she had had to rest. Young, bright and honest, he was simply not the sort to be capable of dishonesty on a personal scale. Vanessa could imagine that Fraser Valley Helicopter ought to go over any contracts he drew up very carefully, but this morning Jake had briefed him on the sort of arrangement he and Robert had discussed with her, and Howie seemed intent on making her future with the new company as secure as possible.

  "You aren't expected to lose money the first two years," he cautioned. "What this clause will give you is the ability to pare your prices to the bone in order to establish yourself in the market. Do you follow?" She nodded. "You will, in addition, have access to another amount for advertising in that first year, which cost will be underwritten by Conrad Corporation directly. This means, in effect, that you will be incurring a loss. It just won't go on the books as such."

  "Oh!" Vanessa made a surprised face. Robert certainly hadn't mentioned this; nor had Jake.

  "It will give you some extra leeway, Vanessa, so you should be able to come on the market with quite a little bang. What's your trademark going to be?"

  Vanessa began to laugh. Never in her life had events moved so fast around her. What was her trademark? Yesterday when she'd got up she'd had about as much idea of starting her own company as she had of flying to the moon! And now—

  "I haven't given that much thought yet," she confessed dryly. "This whole thing has been very sudden."

  "Really?" Howie Spiegel raised a curious eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like Jake."

  "It doesn't?" faltered Vanessa. "But... What do you mean?"

  "Just that Jake's usually pretty thorough." Howie shrugged it off. "But it's not my business."

  Of course, there wasn't anything to say that Jake hadn't been thinking of this for a long time, she thought uneasily. And when the right person had come along....

  "Now, you'll have profit sharing of fifty percent, once Concorp has made its designated return on investment," Howie was saying. "From the third year you're entitled to take back shares in the company to the value of your share of the profits. We'll establish a share value that's mutually agreeable."

  He was making notes on a yellow legal pad on which he had already scrawled a great many indecipherable notes while Jake had been briefing him. He referred to them now. "Now," he said, "Jake usually has a three-to-five-year restraint of trade clause as standard in his management contracts. He says he wants five with you because he expects your work to be very individualistic."

  That would mean she couldn't set up in competition with her own company. "That's okay," she said. "I'm going to be buying into this company. I don't intend to quit."

  She didn't have one complaint about the terms they discussed; there was nothing she had to argue for, nowhere she had to compromise. It was so ideal it was almost frightening. She was being given complete control; all the decisions would be hers. It was just as Jake said: all she had to do was earn a profit.

  She discovered that the venture was being financed not by Jake personally but by Conrad Corporation, which was taking a debenture to secure its investment, whatever that meant.

  "That looks like it," Howard Spiegel said finally, bringing his briefcase up onto the small table between them and throwing the yellow pad of his notes inside. They were in the lounge of Jake's suite. She had not been in the suite before in the daytime, but today rain and low-lying clouds obscured the view of the city and the ocean.

  As they stood to leave, the door opened and Jake walked in. Vanessa somehow hadn't expected to see him again before she left, and she smiled at him, feeling a little bubble of pleasure in spite of herself.

  "Hi!" she said happily.

  Jake took in the smile through narrowed eyes for one disconcerting second and then smiled back.

  "Hi," he returned. "How did you get on?"

  "Very well," said Howie Spiegel.

  At the same time Vanessa said, "I have to let Howie tell you about it. I've got a plane to catch."

  "Don't rush off," Jake said in a slow caressing voice as he reached out a hand to detain her. "I'll take you to the airport."

  Vanessa stopped as though his voice were her hypnotic control. "All right, thank you," she replied softly. Jake was looking inquiringly at Howie, but he did not take his hand from her arm.

  "Tie everything up?" he asked.

  "It's a pretty tight contract," Howie replied. "Concorp's taking a debenture, of course, which will entail a separate agreement, but I think Vanessa's own contract is quite satisfactory."

  "Oh, yes," interjected Vanessa with a smile.

  "There's a problem, of course, any time you try to guarantee employment. We eventually settled on a monetary penalty clause in the case of dismissal without just cause."

  "Mmm-hmm," said Jake, eyeing him. "What kind of penalty?"

  Howie hesitated. "A quarter mil," he said, flicking a glance at Vanessa. "And the only—"

  "A quarter million?" Jake repeated with an incredulous laugh. "For God's sake, Howie, did you tell her I was made of gold?" He flicked a glance at Vanessa, the light of angry laughter in his eyes.

  The lawyer breathed deeply. "Well, Jake, you promised not to fire her for any reason other than not turning a profit." He cleared his throat. "The only feasible protection was a penalty. We've defined 'just cause' as being limited to financial mismanagement. And the penalty has to be sizeable enough to dissuade you, or there's no point. Anyway," he said with a slightly questioning smile, "there's no question of its ever being paid, is there?"

  It was a statement, not a question. "In the six years I've been with Concorp I've never known you to dismiss anyone who was turning a profit."

  "No, there's no question of its ever being paid," Jake agreed flatly. "All right, thanks, Howie. Send me the contract Monday or Tuesday so I can sign it and get it to Vanessa in New York by Friday, will you?"

  Howie hesitated. "Jake, you know I'm working flat out on the Fraser Helicopter bid?"

  "Damn," Jake responded without emphasis. "Well, never mind, Howie. Just get this out of the way as fast as you can. The Fraser bid will just have to suffer."

  The lawyer's face gazed impassively at Jake. "Yeah. Yeah, sure," he said in a voice devoid of emotion.

  "Thanks for giving me your time this morning," Jake said. "I won't keep you any longer now. I'm sure you want to get back home."

  "Okay," said Howie. "Bye, Vanessa, I'll be seeing you. I wish you the best of luck and I'm sure you'll succeed. Not many people get a squawk of protest out of Jake their first time out." He looked back at Jake. "She's pretty tough," he said with a grin, and a moment later he was gone.

  There was a short silence as the door closed after him. Then Vanessa said, "It's late. I have to get to the airport."

  "On Saturday morning it'll only take fifteen minutes," Jake said. "Are you packed and ready to go?"

  Vanessa nodded.

  "There's plenty of time, then," he said. "Sit down and have a coffee while I make a phone call."

  Ten minutes later they were driving through heavy rainfall to the airport.

  "This rain seems to be getting worse," Vanessa observed. "Or does it just seem that way because we're out in a car?"

  Jake didn't seem to hear. He was watching the road, his eyebrows coming together in a frown of concentration as he drove. She lapsed into silence.

  "How did you and Howie settle on the figure of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?" Jake asked suddenly.

  A car roared past them, sending up a wave of water that sprayed the windshield and thrummed loudly on the metal body of the car. Vanessa felt as though she were enclosed in
a little world with Jake, a warm, safe world.

  When she spoke her voice was soft. "I'm not quite sure how we arrived at it. Howie explained to me that a penalty would be more practical than a simple guarantee, and I said that the penalty would have to be a real deterrent, and I think I asked what amount of money would really deter you."

  And that had been the moment when she truly realized that she was in the "big time," though she did not tell Jake so. When Howie had answered her question with a casual, "Oh, anything upwards of a two-fifty, I guess," she had stared at him in speechless incredulity, but Howie hadn't seemed to notice. And somehow they had settled on the figure of, as Howie put it, "a quarter mil."

  "Mmm-hmm," murmured Jake. "Well, Howie knows his business. That will certainly deter me." He laughed shortly.

  "But it can't matter," Vanessa pointed out mildly. "He said you never fire anyone who's making a profit, and I intend to make a profit, Jake. And if I don't, you can fire me with impunity."

  "Mmm-hmm," Jake responded again, "and just supposing a quarter of a million dollars in ready cash is more attractive to you than slugging it out in the hard world of business?"

  She looked over at him, noticing as she did so that the rain had increased: the world was very grey indeed.

  "My flight's going to be delayed, I'll bet," she observed. "This is halfway to a monsoon. Does it rain like this all the time?"

  "It rains one hell of a lot," he said tersely. "Didn't Jace tell you?" His quick glance caught hers. "You didn't answer the question."

  "Because I don't know what you mean."

  "Suppose you deliberately foul up in the first year—when I can't fire you for not making a profit? Suppose I've got a choice of kissing a million dollars goodbye or firing you and cutting my losses with a mere quarter million?"

  "We defined 'just cause' as financial mismanagement, Jake, not failure to make a profit. So under those circumstances you could fire me."

  "So I could," he agreed softly. "You're pretty bright, aren't you, Vanessa?"

  "Didn't Jace tell you?" she countered in response to an uncontrollable impulse.

  "You've improved with time," he said.

  "I want to know something," Vanessa stated suddenly, as a host of tiny suspicions suddenly formed a picture inside her head. She turned on the seat to face him. "There are just too many contradictions in your story, Jake. Sometimes you talk to me as though you've met me before, seen me before. You know so much about me. And it just doesn't make sense that you got all that just from talking to Jace, no matter how delirious he was."

  Jake's eyebrow went up, and his face looked suddenly stark and drawn in the grey light. "No?" he asked.

  "No," she said. Her mental vision was quite clear now. "So what I want to know is—after Jace died, did you by any chance come looking for me? Did you come to New York and watch me or even meet me, something like that? You've told me that you loved me, and you've told me that you blamed and hated me for Jace's death. And either of those...." She paused.

  "And either of those would be sufficient motive to go looking for you, is that what you want to say?" Jake finished for her in a hard voice.

  She dropped her eyes in silent agreement. For a long moment the only sounds in the car were the low roar of rain on metal and the steady swish-click of the windshield wipers. Then Jake took an audible deep breath.

  "After... Jace died I—about six months afterwards I had to go to New York on business again. I did look you up, Vanessa. I followed you around a bit. I even danced with you once."

  "Are you serious?" she whispered.

  "Yes, I'm serious," he said flatly. "I was nearly obsessed with you. I can't say exactly why. In one way I suppose I hoped that if I saw you a... it would be a cure, that I'd be able to forget you. I watched you dance with your husband. I wanted to kill him. It was an almost ungovernable thing. It scared me. I left then, and I never saw you again."

  She couldn't look at him. "So there was no photograph," she stated softly.

  "No," said Jake.

  "Jake, why have you offered me this job? Howie says you're acting out of character."

  Jake's eyes were hooded. "Howie will be lucky if he's still got a job Monday morning," he muttered. "Why did I offer you this job, is that what you want to know? Aside from expecting you to make me a profit, you mean?" He flicked a look at her, and his eyes under his hooded lids seemed almost black with an emotion she couldn't read. He said slowly, "I offered you the job because I want you, Vanessa. Because I have a ghost to exorcise just as you do. The difference is that I know how that ghost can be exorcised, and you haven't accepted it yet. I want to be around when you do." Jake's voice dropped to harshness. "Because you will, Vanessa, whether you know it or not. You will."

  The car slid to a stop in front of the airport terminal building and Jake killed the engine. The drumming of the rain on the roof suddenly seemed deafening, as though it hammered inside her skull. Wordlessly Vanessa watched as Jake lifted one lean brown hand to her hair.

  "We are going to be lovers, Vanessa," he said softly. "You know that, but you're fighting the knowledge. One day you'll stop fighting."

  Mesmerized, she gazed into his eyes as his hand cupped her head and he drew her gently to him, and his faintly smiling mouth lowered toward hers. When he stopped smiling and his eyes narrowed she closed her own against the sight. Then his passionate lips covered hers, and she trembled under his touch like the new green leaves of the trees outside that were trembling under the lash of the rain.

  Chapter 7

  Work began the moment she arrived in her Manhattan apartment Saturday night. Although she would not resign from TopMarx until she had seen the signed management contract from Jake, she would have to begin making arrangements to sublet the apartment and ship her belongings immediately if she intended to be back in Vancouver by July first.

  Vanessa's furniture consisted mostly of antiques lovingly obtained over the years, and when she stood in the middle of her apartment and looked around her after her arrival, she knew that she couldn't leave it behind. She would have to take it along into her new life. Suddenly the realization of all that would have to be done in three short weeks fell on her like a cloak, and she grimaced and mentally staggered under the weight of it.

  Moving to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee she wondered if she should put off the move till August. If she didn't produce a spring line after all, what difference would it make? If she did, she would be rushing through the next three weeks at breakneck speed, with hardly a moment's thinking space.

  When the coffee was ready she sank into a chair and lazily dialled Colin's number.

  "Guess what?" she said without preamble when he answered the phone.

  She needed no introduction; Colin always recognized her voice—and her mood.

  "You've strangled the Philistine and are now a free agent," Colin said promptly with a laugh in his voice. But he was only half-joking; he knew the "what" was something big.

  Vanessa laughed. Suddenly, at his use of the word, she felt free. Totally, marvellously free, as though she could suddenly fly. She gazed out of a window onto the dull brown brick of the building beside hers and thought of English Bay and Grouse Mountain and Stanley Park. Yes, she was a free agent, and soon she'd be flying to a new life, in a new city, with a new—she brought her thoughts up short. She had been going to think, with a new man, but for the moment she had better restrict her thoughts to the city and the job.

  "It wasn't necessary to strangle Tom, however," she replied, excitement bubbling through her voice.

  "My dear," said Colin, and his tone became ever so slightly guarded, "do I take it that you have burned your bridges?"

  Oh, Lord, he thought she meant to go and work with him. In the sudden pressure and excitement of the past two days, she had forgotten Colin's offer.

  "Yes," she said slowly, "but I'm not coming in with you after all, Colin. I'm going to be starting a business in Vancouver for Jake Conrad."

&
nbsp; "What?" Colin screeched.

  She told him all about it. He was one of the few people she could tell right now, before the contract was signed and she could feel it was definite. Colin was one friend who would keep the news quiet and wouldn't commiserate too deeply if the thing fell through next week. He understood the vagaries of fortune.

  "Well, darling, what can I say?" he asked at last. "I'm shattered. I was sure you were going to throw in your lot with me."

  "Well..." she began.

  "But of course I'm delighted for you, Vanessa. I know it's the kind of thing you really want."

  "Yes."

  The irrepressible though light-hearted sarcasm that was Colin's trademark and that she had subconsciously been waiting for finally crept into his tone. "Though why you would want to bury yourself in that little backwater on the west coast is more than I can imagine," he said, managing to make the west coast sound like the other side of the moon. "And in Canada, too, darling, which—"

  Vanessa laughed protestingly. "Now, Colin, Vancouver is a very modern cosmopolitan city. Just because people move more slowly—"

  "Well, I can see you're unregenerate, my dear. Still, this has its potential silver lining. You can be my first client, Vanessa. I shall design some sort of signature fabric for you."

  Vanessa blinked at the receiver in her hand, then put it back to her ear. It was becoming real too fast. In a very short time, decisions like that would be the order of her day. She would be choosing a trademark, a logo, a line of clothing, and her word would be law. For a moment she sat stunned as the reality sank in: from now on, she would rise or fall entirely on the strength of her own talents.

  "My God, Colin," she breathed suddenly. "Am I being crazy to think I can do this?"

  "What are you worried about, darling?" he responded calmly. "It's an ideal situation. If you don't make it, Conrad takes the loss, not you. You just get yourself another job. There's no risk at all on your side...."

  No risk. "I'm not the only one at risk in this situation," Jake Conrad had said. But Colin was right—financially, Jake was the only one at risk. And Jake certainly knew that. One failed enterprise wouldn't blight her career forever.