Promised Box Set

by James Kipling

  He turned from the railing and headed back to his car, programming in the latest address and checking for nearby gas stations.

  Chapter 28

  “I can get most of the negotiations for this merger settled but the Board won’t vote on it until they have the president’s position settled,” Mason told her reluctantly. He managed to convey to his father that not only was nothing ever going to make him marry Zoe or vice versa, but that so much as mentioning the idea was a sure way to kill the tenuous deal. To Mason’s relief, the business merger meant more to Terrence Hamilton than the familial one, though there was a sigh of resignation when he accepted the fact that his grandchildren would not come to solely inherit the expanded company.

  “That’s fine,” Zoe said, her voice brighter than it had been since the last he’d heard from her. “I’m about ready to come home anyway.”

  “Oh.” He was surprised. Previously she had called him in a half-panicked state convinced she’d seen Peters on more than one occasion. He would calm her down and maybe mention a few things about the state of affairs at Dunmore Corp but specifically tried to avoid saying anything that could be construed as pressure to return home. It had to be her decision to come back made when she was ready.

  And apparently she was ready. Something had obviously happened since last they spoke. It had been a few weeks and he’d contemplated calling her on several occasions to make sure she was all right, ultimately refraining from picking up the phone. The only reason he had done so now was because of the pressure he was receiving from the Board to summon her. They had been understanding at first and encouraged by her willingness to take some time – frankly, some of them had been concerned when she joined the company so soon after graduating and started putting in such long hours right off the bat. But the time they felt her absence acceptable and appropriate was past. They needed the position filled permanently and felt it only right to give her the first shot since it was her father’s wish – and if it wasn’t exactly his dying wish, it was pretty close.

  “You sound surprised.” He could hear the smile in her voice and the teasing tone that had faded significantly after Steve’s death. “And I guess you should be. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch more. We’ve just been busy lately.”

  “We?” Mason asked, his voice rising as his surprise increased. Had she met someone? He could well believe that she would keep quiet about finding a new man on her trip. As much as Mason had encouraged her to go when she was feeling guilty about how she was leaving things with Aiden, he did like the guy and could see how miserable he was over what happened with Zoe. It would make Mason feel ten times guiltier about encouraging her to go if she came back with a new boyfriend.

  “Not that kind of ‘we,’” she assured him and he breathed easier. “I made a friend in Prague and convinced her to come along with me when I decided to head to Istanbul.”

  “You’ve found yourself an old-fashioned traveling companion?” Now he was amused. “Like some turn-of-the-century wealthy widow?”

  “Precisely,” she laughed. “After Istanbul we circled back and stopped in Greece for two nights, then went back up through Italy – it was better the second time through. We spent a night in Geneva and we’ve been in England for the last few days.”

  “And who is this friend of yours? Where in Prague did you cross paths?”

  “Her name is Amy and it’s a long story.” Zoe sounded momentarily serious and Mason could tell it was something that would have to wait until they saw one another in person again. There was also a vague voice in the background that was almost certainly the Amy in question. “What matters is I’ve got her to agree to come to Cupertino with me. I’ve promised her a job with the company, probably as my personal assistant until everyone else gets used to her and we can find a department where she fits in – you said last time that Mrs. Henry wanted to let the new person in Accounts go and get another temp from the agency, right? Well, if she can hold out for a week or two, Amy might be just the replacement she’s looking for.”

  “Amy, huh? And when do the two of you plan on making your way stateside?”

  “We’re mostly waiting for Amy’s visa papers to clear. It shouldn’t be more than a few days.” Zoe paused. “I meant to call and tell you…”

  “But you wanted to show up in person, surprise me, and give me a heart attack, right? Sorry to spoil your fun by beating you to it,” he laughed away the solemnity momentarily but it quickly settled in again.

  “So… How is everyone?” she asked tentatively.

  “Everyone’s doing well,” he said carefully. “No major episodes in a while. All the Accounts are caught up and things are moving smoothly once again, now that the bulk of the federal investigation is over. They have all they need; it’s just a matter of catching Peters. Even if the stolen funds can’t be recovered, the company is in decent shape and will bounce back with time. Especially if the merger and the proposed new product lines are as successful as they promise to be,” he said, bringing the conversation back around to where it had begun.

  “Speaking of Peters,” Zoe exclaimed, suddenly perking up. “I think I’ve thought of a way to find him. Well, not necessarily a way to find him as a lead that could help me find him.”

  “Oh you do, do you? And what is this new lead and why are you telling me instead of calling Agent Boon to put his indelible resources to the task immediately?”

  “Because he hasn’t managed to catch the bastard in twenty years and I don’t want to screw this up.” Zoe aimed at making it a joke but there was a harsh honesty beneath the words.

  “Whatever you do… Be careful,” Mason advised.

  “I always am,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’m too careful,” she muttered. “Listen, I’ll let you know when our flight gets in so you can send a car to fetch us.”

  “If you think I’m going to let some car service rob me of being the first to welcome you home, you don’t know me at all,” he said with mock disgust. “I’ll start moving my stuff out of your office immediately and will give the Board a head’s up that you’re on your way. You don’t mind if I take credit for using my amazing powers of persuasion to get you home again, do you?”

  ****

  As it turned out, a storm on the East Coast delayed Zoe and Amelia’s connecting flight and Mason was unable to meet them at the airport when they landed. Amelia had been a ball of nerves from the moment they arrived at Heathrow and she had to kiss her parents goodbye. They were hardly as strict and overbearing as Amelia had painted them during the course of her travels with Zoe. Amelia tried to paint some of their softening as resulting from the news she had finally broken with John but Zoe was familiar enough with the stubbornness of being a strong-willed daughter reluctant to admit to making mistakes or experiencing failure.

  After almost two days of planes, airports, and cab rides headed away from the sun, Amelia’s nerves were fried and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into a bed and sleep. “I told you to sleep on the plane,” Zoe scolded with a laugh.

  “And you were right,” Amelia yawned. “Is that what you want to hear? Tell me what you want to hear so I can say it and go to sleep.”

  “Just wait here with the bags and I’ll get us a cab,” Zoe said, propping a drooping Amelia on a bench. “Whatever you do, don’t let them out of your sight.”

  “Something about sight. Got it.”

  An hour later Richard and Lizzie had Amelia propped up between them as they ushered her into the house and towards the second guest room (Mason was still residing in the first) while Amelia helped Zoe with their bags. It was midday and while Zoe could tell that jet lag was coming for her, she had slept a few hours on each flight and napped while they were held over in Boston. She should be able to put off crashing until early in the evening.

  She went over the house again, room by room, silently announcing her return to the spirits of her parents that she felt in the walls. Her parents’ bedroom hadn’t
been altered since she left but Lizzie had kept the dust from piling up. She would need to begin the painful process of sorting her father’s clothes into piles to donate or throw away; looking through the knick-knacks and accessories to see if there were any she wanted to keep or pass on to his friends or colleagues. She closed the door and moved on to his study. Mason had taken up a quiet residence there as well. The desk itself was clearly used regularly but anything he didn’t think it his place to interfere with or touch had been carefully lined up along the bookshelves for Zoe’s judgment.

  She was disappointed Mason hadn’t been able to meet them. Having spent the better part of two months traveling with Amelia, Zoe was excited by the prospect of introducing her to Mason. She thought they would hit it off nicely and after all the teasing and prodding she’d gotten from him on the subject of Aiden, she was ready for her revenge.

  Aiden. She struggled to push the thought of him aside but there was a knot growing in her stomach. That was the real reason she was still awake. She wanted to see him but she also dreaded it. Mason said that Aiden had recovered most of his memory and was pretty much back to his old self. Pretty much. That was the part that had her worried. How much did he remember about what happened between them before the accidents? Would he blame her for leaving the way she blamed herself?

  She wouldn’t know until she confronted him. Or asked Mason what he thought. It was still pretty early and she had the energy so she left word with Lizzie and Richard that she’d be back with Mason in time for dinner and to tell Amelia she’d gone to the office if Amelia woke before they returned; though she was pretty sure an earthquake wouldn’t wake Amelia before the next morning.

  Mason’s meeting was supposed to be over by one thirty and it was almost two now. She guessed he might have refrained from calling expecting her and Amelia to head straight to bed. Or he might be working on moving his things out of her office as promised in which case it would be fun to pop in to surprise and help him.

  Getting into her car and driving on her own was surprisingly surreal though she had only been away a few months. When she decided to head into the office, she threw on the first comfortable, business casual thing she could find – her forest green dress. As she pulled into her still-reserved parking space, she couldn’t help finding it appropriate that she fell back on it again. It’s now officially my coming home dress, she thought with a smile.

  The smile remained as she strode through the front doors and pressed the button for the elevator. Before the doors closed, a hand reached out and caught the doors, forcing them open again for a second passenger. Both of them started and flushed as Aiden maneuvered to the opposite corner after pressing the button for the third floor. Zoe was heading to the fourth.

  It was impossible to tell whether the plummeting sensation in her stomach was from the elevator rising or being in such close proximity to Aiden once more.

  “You’re back,” he remarked, keeping his eyes on the carpeted flooring.

  “So are you,” she responded. “You’re feeling better, I take it?”

  “Been back for a while… Still not a hundred percent but I think I’m somewhere in the nineties,” he said lightly.

  She couldn’t help but smile even as she took a deep breath to apologize. “Listen, Aiden, I probably should have called at some point to… talk… and make sure you were okay.”

  “Yeah, you probably should have.” She felt the coolness of his words like it had been a slap. “But you were under no obligation and your dad died. I get it. Never did want to be a burden to you or to anyone. So don’t worry about it. That night… Just forget it happened. I did… for a while at least. I can again, if you want me to.”

  She felt hot all over. Though she’d had moments while she traveled where she longed for him, her body had failed in its attempts to recreate just what it was like to be so close to him. She fidgeted in her heels, desperate to take a step closer and breathe him in, to reach out a hand and touch him, to make sure it was really him and he was really whole. Without intending to, her mind wandered to all the things they could do alone in an elevator if she reached over and pulled the emergency stop button.

  But even as she felt overheated, there was a coolness emanating from him. He leaned into the far wall as if his only wish was to merge with it and get as far from her as possible. It couldn’t be because he didn’t desire her; a careful readjustment of the placement of his arms and suit jacket suggested quite the opposite to her. Which meant that it was a conscious coolness; that he had made up his mind that he didn’t want her anymore. And she couldn’t say she blamed him.

  “I don’t want… You don’t have to… I’m…” But she couldn’t find the right words to string together and the elevator came to a gentle stop. The doors opened and Aiden exited.

  “Welcome back, Miss Dunmore,” he said with a slight bow, stiff and formal before moving along down the hall as the doors closed once more.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as the elevator started to rise. She kept her head ducked from sight as she hurried to her office, evading anyone and everyone else who might hope to welcome her back and strike up a conversation. Mason wasn’t there but the door was open. She closed and locked it behind her before throwing herself down on the sofa and succumbing to tears, trying and failing to convince herself it was just the jet lag catching up to her.

  Chapter 29

  Mason found Zoe asleep on the sofa in her office when he returned from his meeting. It was clear she had been crying and though there were a multitude of reasons she might cry, one seemed more likely than the others. He knelt beside her and gently shook her shoulder.

  She started and would have rolled off the couch but he was there to catch her. “Welcome back,” he said gently, helping her to sit up and looking away as she rubbed the remnants of tears from her eyes. She crossed to the private bathroom to assess the damage and adjust what little makeup she’d thrown on before leaving the house.

  “Thanks, Mason. I wish you could have picked us up at the airport,” she said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t,” he said coming up behind her and watching her in the mirror as she examined the way the circles under her eyes had become puffy from crying. “For one thing, I never would have let you come into the office today. I’m going to have to speak with Richard and Lizzie about not locking you in your room until you’d had a good sleep.”

  “I wasn’t tired,” Zoe protested. “I slept on both planes and napped at the airport while we were delayed. I tried to get Amy to do the same but she was too nervous about everything.”

  “I still wouldn’t have let you come here on your own for the first time in several months,” Mason insisted. “I take it you ran into Aiden?”

  Zoe looked down, neither confirming nor denying his guess.

  “You could have warned me what he thought of me,” she said quietly.

  “I think you had a pretty good idea. Most of it was stuff I knew you’d been thinking yourself. If you’d actually asked me outright about him, I would have told you more,” Mason confessed. Zoe glared at him in the mirror but he refused to look away. He was more than used to the games Zoe played when it came to the men in her life and he’d been caught in the middle on more than one occasion in college but there came a point – or rather, there came a person – where the games had to stop for everyone’s sake. As far as Mason could tell, Aiden was that person.

  Pushing past Mason and getting back into her office, Zoe moved to take the seat behind her desk, reclaiming it officially. “Look, I didn’t come here to talk about Aiden. I wanted to tell you about my idea for finding Uncle David – Allan Peters – whatever he’s going by now.”

  Mason took a seat in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. “I’m all ears.”

  “Diane.”

  “Who is Diane?”

  “Diane is Uncle David’ ex-wife. Lucas’s mother. I think she might know where he is,” Zoe said, still too cryptic for
Mason who had only a tentative concept of the family tree in question.

  “What makes you think she would know where to find him?”

  “He loved her,” Zoe said with a shrug. “I know I’ve had to rethink a lot about what I thought I knew about Uncle David, but I know he loved his wife.”

  “Didn’t he cheat on her and divorce her?” Mason pointed out.

  “She left him after the cheating thing, and cheating doesn’t always mean you don’t love the person you’re with,” she said somewhat defensively. “It just means you sometimes do really stupid shit. And as far as divorcing him and taking her to court over custody of Lucas… I remember hearing my dad and Uncle David talking about it one time. Lucas and I weren’t supposed to be listening but he wanted to know what was going on with his parents – can’t exactly say I blame him on that one. Dad scolded Uncle David for how he was treating Diane. He said he knew that she’d hurt him but that he wasn’t going to get her back by hurting her back. When there’s a lot of love… and a lot of hurt… sometimes… sometimes it’s easier to hurt them back instead of trying to forgive each other. If you forgive them… you give them the power to hurt you all over again.” She could feel the lump in her throat as she rambled, trying to find the right words to make Mason understand.

  Mason didn’t have to see the way Aiden had reacted to seeing Zoe to know it hadn’t been pretty. He’d been there on several occasions when Aiden had chanced to hear Zoe’s name and rumors of her return. It was like he froze while a protective barrier came down around him allowing him to move freely once more. If he moved before it was in place, something about him would break. But within that fortress, it was difficult to see or hear anything effectively. Mason could only imagine what it would take to break through that reinforced barricade now that Zoe was back along with the constant possibility of running into her unexpectedly. He might never let his guard down.