After lunch, he was alone in the office with the blinds open, as they were when he was present. With no imminent meetings, Zara decided that now was her chance to speak to him. She hurried away from her desk, ignoring the pain in her ankle, which had slowed her down throughout the day. At that moment, her injury was secondary to talking to her boss.
Having walk-in privileges meant the front desk assistant didn’t blink when Zara entered Grant’s office. Because she sometimes came into Grant’s office just to leave a document or pick one up without them exchanging a word, he didn’t acknowledge her entry, even after she closed the door.
Creeping forward, she was nervous about bringing up what she knew because she didn’t want this man she revered to believe she’d been snooping. They had never had an outright confrontation before, but she’d witnessed him arguing with others and it was obvious that he didn’t like to be challenged.
But there was no backing out of this, she had to take a risk. “Sir, do you have a minute?” she asked.
While he was still writing, a smile quirked his lips. “Oh, she pulled out the sir, it must be serious.” Grant pushed aside the document he’d been working on and opened his hand toward the chair beside his desk.
As per his silent invitation, she crossed to seat herself while considering how to broach the subject. “It is serious,” she said, and his smile fell away in light of his new interest.
“You know I’ll help you out of any jam,” he said, swiveling his chair in her direction.
She took a breath. “It’s you that I’m worried about,” she admitted, trying to judge the subtle changes in his expression to figure out if he was angry or just confused by her statement.
“Me?”
Their professional relationship was integral to both of their lives. They saw each other every day and were often informal, but neither had attempted to intrude on the personal life of the other. But from what she’d heard of Grant’s meeting with Kahlil they were doing some sort of business together, so as far as Zara was concerned, she was well within her rights to bring it up. Especially if Kahlil was the same caliber of man as she’d met in the parking garage, because she couldn’t believe Grant would do business with them if he knew the truth.
Except his shoulders straightened and the groove between his dark brows deepened, and for the first time she thought she might be crossing the line into inappropriate and was terrified that she might offend or disrespect him.
But she couldn’t retreat, not after being assaulted. Raven indicated that all of her recent experiences were linked to something that Grant McCormack was cooking up and after Saturday she’d come to the same conclusion herself. She needed answers.
Licking her lips, she wasn’t afraid to make eye contact because she wanted to judge his veracity when he spoke. Her respect for this man prevented her from being abrupt and so she chose to approach the subject with tact. “I’ve noticed that you’ve been distracted and erratic recently,” she said.
His brows rose. “You’ve noticed a difference in me?”
She nodded and tried to stay loose, to appear as unthreatening as she could. “I know there’s something on your mind, something going on,” she said, offering a soothing outlet in the hope it would encourage him to talk.
When his lips thinned, her initial thought was failure because she thought she read displeasure. Leaning back, the chair reclined a little and his concern turned to a greater intrigue. “What have you noticed?”
If she wanted honesty, she had to give it. “You’ve been late to work. You were delayed in your return from New York. You’ve had clandestine meetings and are expecting mysterious clients to call the private line. Something is going on.”
He locked his fingers together. “Are you concerned or is this you reprimanding me?”
Horrified that he would think her so haughty, she inhaled. “I would never reprimand you. That’s not my place,” she said. “But I am worried. As you said to me, you would help me out of any jam and I want you to know… I’m here to help you as well.”
His gentle expression of concern had been replaced by a hard frown. “Your worry is noted, although I put in many hours here at Cormack Industries. My dedication to this company has never wavered. I treat my role here with great respect.”
“I didn’t... I didn't mean to suggest otherwise... But...”
The impulse to back away from the subject and apologize engulfed her because it was clear that Grant had been offended by her suggestion he was giving less than a hundred percent. Her heart was hammering so loud that it reverberated to her eardrums and for a second she wondered if Grant could hear it.
But her gumption only returned when she visualized Raven walking out of her apartment after she had clammed up and claimed allegiance to Grant. She couldn’t chicken out of being honest with the man she had defended. As long as she had faith in Grant’s good intentions, she would remain his ally.
Raven wouldn’t be coming back, but she still needed to know what was going on. That left her with only one option: to tempt Grant into proving that her faith was founded and her trust reciprocated. He had to tell her the truth.
“What is it, Zara?” Grant asked, making her realize she hadn’t said anything for a while.
With a deep breath, she ventured to prove her trust. “I had a date on Saturday night,” she said, crossing one leg over the other and brushing her hand down her thigh. “It didn't go particularly well and... I decided to come into the office to do a little work—”
“Your own dedication is“—the furrow in his brow grew deeper. He stopped talking for a moment and she assumed he’d put the pieces together—“you were here on Saturday night?”
“Yes,” she said, with a gentle nod. “I overheard some of your meeting.” Zara had thought it was better to lead with that than with the attack. But she reconsidered her approach when he flew up out of his chair.
“Zara! I… I expect far better from you. Eavesdropping? I didn’t think that was your style.”
Having never offended him before, she tried to backpedal, which made the pace of her words kick up. “I didn’t,” she said, rising to match his stance. The glow of his disappointment cut her deep. “I heard very little. When I realized you were here, I left.”
“What exactly did you hear?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head because his disappointment merged with the anger that simmered just beneath his surface and she didn’t want to face his wrath. “I just… I wanted you to know that you don’t have to keep secrets for me. Whatever the time of day, you can call me and I’ll come in if you need someone to record meetings and—”
“No,” he said, holding up a firm hand that suggested his own panic. “That meeting is not to be recorded anywhere, do you understand? It happened in the way it did for a specific reason.”
Grant was keeping secrets. If Raven hadn’t brought that to her attention, Zara wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken her to come to that conclusion on her own. She and Grant had an honest working relationship and she couldn’t figure out why that would change when there had been no big event to cause such a fracture in their rapport.
“You know that I’m with you, don’t you?” she said, locking her gaze on his while lowering her chin a fraction. She touched the sharp tip of a pencil in the pot on his desk. “Whatever is going on, whatever you’re doing… you’re not alone.”
Grant’s anger and disappointment cleared and he scrutinized her for a few seconds. Whatever he was looking for in her, she wanted to portray her fidelity to the company and to this man who made good business decisions and had provided her with a lucrative career.
Raven was a tempting figure. Alluring in the sense that he was dangerous and fleeting, something that few women could hold onto. He’d come into a woman’s life, smash it to pieces, and then fade into the night never to be seen again. Zara did not want to trash her own life only to be left with chaos when Raven had taken what he wanted from her. Gr
ant and this company were the solid foundation of her life.
He must have gotten the message, because his frown faded. “I’m setting up a deal,” Grant said. “To sell a piece of tech that’s been protected by those in the highest levels of Cormack Industries for decades.”
“Decades?” she asked, and he again gestured for her to sit, which she did in time with him.
All previously frazzled emotion receded into their familiar corporate calm. “Technology has evolved, and in recent years there have been great advances. However, not every piece of technology is some whizz kid’s invention. Many things have been theorized for a long time. Some of our most elite R&D guys have been working patents filed in years gone by for products that were not viable with the contemporary technologies.”
“And now this piece that you’re trying to sell, it’s viable.” With a single nod, he smiled and linked his fingers in front of his chest. “I don’t understand. If CI has refined this piece and gotten it ready for market, why not sell it through conventional means? Why have unrecorded meetings in the dead of night?”
“This piece is revolutionary,” he said. A glint of excitement in his eye came closer when he leaned on the desk. “The bidding has to be private because whoever gains this prototype will require exclusive rights and they may further develop the product. Such information will of course be proprietary.”
“You’re handling the negotiations personally?” she asked.
Grant handling initial negotiations was unusual. Preliminaries were always done by vice-presidents or lower associates. If Grant wanted to be part of a significant deal, he didn’t enter the boardroom with clients until the latter stages. And giving out the private phone number was unheard of.
“This deal was important to my father and to Frank,” Grant said. “It’s the least I could do.”
Family. Grant never brought up family and he wasn’t a man who liked to expose his vulnerabilities. But it was too much of a coincidence that Raven had mentioned the McCormack family and now Grant was bringing it up for the first time in their association. Tim’s death, the meeting, her attack, it was all linked to this product.
At least she now understood one thing, if this was a deal important to his father, it made sense that Grant would want to handle it himself. “I understand,” she said.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what you saw or what you heard to anyone else,” Grant said. “A sale is imminent and I wouldn’t want to disrupt our chances of making a deal.”
“Of course not,” she said, shaking her head and straightening her spine to display her determination. “But if you need me… if you need assistance. You know that I’m here for anything you need.”
“I understand,” he said, widening his short smile. “You’re a good girl, Zara.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said, and he barked out a laugh.
“We’re long past the need for formalities,” he said, steepling his index fingers under his chin. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“I take my role here seriously,” she said, allowing herself to smile. “And I respect how hard you work and… after all you’ve been through…”
“Yes, ok,” he said, getting up to come around his desk. Taking her arm, Grant helped her out of her chair and guided her toward the office door. “But ‘Grant’ will do just fine when we’re alone.”
“Ok,” she said, clasping her fingers around his as he opened the door. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Thank you for coming to me,” he said and his warm gaze reassured her enough to relax. “Now get back to work.”
On leaving his office, she felt much better and couldn’t understand why Raven was so disturbed by a simple business deal. Going back to her own desk, she was sure she’d made the right decision to discuss the situation with Grant who offered a benign explanation. The clients who wanted this piece of technology were determined and Grant was experienced enough to handle them.
Zara hadn’t gotten as far as logging in to her computer when she blinked and got a flash of Tim’s prone body on the ground. Her outstretched fingers curled into her palms and the frost that crackled over her shoulders lowered her gaze. The men in the parking garage came into her mind. If Raven hadn’t been there to pull her out, to take on those men for her… she could be dead by now.
Grant made it sound so simple and for a second there she’d been appeased. A deal to sell a piece of equipment, there was nothing sinister about that. But there was something sinister about Tim’s death and something sinister about secret late night meetings when goons congregated in the basement.
Raven had told her on night one that Detective Kraft wouldn’t be back in touch with her and he’d been right. Grabbing for her purse, she began to search for the detective’s business card. Witnessing the death of a man should give her the right to follow-up on the investigation. Her fingers were working furiously when the phone on her desk began to ring.
Startled by the noise, it took her a few seconds to register the change in pitch. This wasn’t her standard business line or the internal intercom; this was a call on the second line, the private line.
Licking her lips, she shifted her purse from her lap onto the desk and reached for the phone. Picking up the handset, she brought it to her ear with excruciating slowness because she wasn’t sure she wanted to be any more entangled in this than she already was.
“Hello,” she said. “Grant McCormack’s executive assistant speaking.”
“It’s Sutcliffe,” said an abrupt male voice. “Tell Grant we’re on. Saturday at midnight, the Grand Hotel.”
“The Grand… ok,” she said. There was nothing threatening in that message and she actually smiled in relief as she stroked her fingertips on her upper arm and tried to relax herself.
“This demonstration better be successful or he’s going to have a lot of pissed off terrorists on his hands.”
Shock. The line died, but she didn’t hear the buzz signaling it had disconnected. Frozen in her chair, the snarl in Sutcliffe’s voice stayed with her and with each passing second, her insides got colder. ‘Terrorists.’ The word stuck in her head. What demonstration could be happening in a high-end hotel that terrorists would want to be successful?
This was no joke. She couldn’t believe that Grant had been so casual while talking about this kind of product. CI didn’t make weapons. They were inventors and investors in tech that could be adapted for medical and scientific use. They created hardware that helped people, not hardware that hurt people.
Shooting up from her desk, she abandoned her purse and headed for the door. She couldn’t even remember if she had hung up the phone or not, getting to Grant was the most important thing. Knocking on his door, she went inside to see that he was on the telephone. When he saw her, he held up a finger while he finished off his call.
“Back already,” he said after putting the phone back on its base. “What can I do for you?”
Her nerves were making it difficult for her to stand still, so she sort of swayed and forgot to blink. “Sutcliffe called,” she said, gesturing with her hands, and his smile vanished. Waving her inside, he came across the room in a rush and closed the door behind her.
“What did he say?”
She tried to catch a glimpse of his facial expression, to see if he was experiencing guilt or fear. “That you were on for the Grand Hotel, Saturday at midnight.”
Nodding, his eyes slunk away. “That was it?”
Still trying to read his emotion, she couldn’t decipher panic. “What else should he have said?” she asked, hoping that he would be honest and explain Sutcliffe’s declaration without her prompting.
“Nothing,” he said, curling his fingers around her shoulders. He smiled again, but this time it was forced, and so it didn’t serve to relax her. “There is a fundraising event in the hotel on Saturday night. Would you be so kind as to accompany me?”
“To the event?”
“Yes.”
<
br /> “At midnight?” she asked because that was much later than most corporate events.
“I wanted as few people as possible to be present,” he said. “By that time of night there will only be a few people left in the public areas.”
“The public areas?” she asked. “Should I be worried about—“
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said, giving her shoulder a belittling pat. “I will have to meet with Sutcliffe and the other potential buyers. But I will need someone on my arm for appearances and to cover for me if anyone at the party asks questions about my whereabouts.”
The idea of being present in a place where terrorists could be conducting demonstrations made her hands begin to shake. Knowing what she did, Zara began to fear she could be classified as an accessory to whatever crime may, or may not, be taking place.
When she didn’t respond, he spoke again. “You said that you were available for anything that I needed. I don’t need to be bogged down with polite civilities with a blind date and I don’t have the time to conjure up a woman who won’t require entertainment.”
Zara had gone to corporate events with Grant before. Most of the time there were other CI colleagues there with them. But if this was a secret meeting in reference to a secret deal then he couldn’t very well ask anyone else from CI to go with him, so she nodded.
“Great,” Grant said. “I’ll send a car for you around ten PM? We can enjoy the party for a while before the meeting.”
“Yes,” she said, and he opened the door for her again.
“Remember, not a word to anyone.”
Shaking her head, she let herself be pushed over the threshold and heard the door close behind her. Grant was involved in something far more serious than she’d comprehended. Unable to believe he would volunteer to plot with such people, she speculated that he could be in over his head and need help of his own. Except he displayed no signs of being fearful, preoccupied maybe, but not nervous.
Raven (Kindred #1) Page 7
