by Katie Dowe
*****
Samantha stared at the black velvet oblong box on the table between them. He had waited until after dessert before he presented it.
“What is it?” she asked, afraid to open the box. It was certainly too big for a ring and the way the evening had progressed with meaningless banalities she had suspected that she would not be getting a proposal of marriage!
“Open it.” He urged. She had no choice but to do so and when she did she stared at the stunning ten carat diamond and sapphire bracelet glinting up at her. “I hope you like it.”
“I do,” she said slowly looking up at him. “What is the occasion Ethan? It is certainly not my birthday or anything like that.”
His blue eyes met hers and then looked down into his wine. “It’s not working out between us.”
“So this is a parting gift and a rather expensive one at that.” She said bitterly. “What is it supposed to signify? That you are sorry you are dumping me? That we can still be friends? What?”
“I was hoping that we can still be friends.”
“Are you blind?” she cried as she snapped the box shut. “I am in love with you.”
“Please, keep your voice down,” he drained the glass and poured himself some more wine. “I want us to be civil about this.”
“You can afford to be civil. You don’t feel anything about me.” She said bitterly. “I had hopes, hopes that you allowed me to entertain. We have been together for six months and I thought that is the longest he has ever been with anyone so I am the one. I fell in love with you Ethan and you made me fell in love with you. You have met someone else. Is that it?”
“No,” he bit out feeling the guilt eating away at him. She was right! He had led her to believe that there could be more between them. “I- It’s just that there is nothing--”
“You feel nothing for me,” she said dully feeling the defeat deep inside her. “You have been showing me that for the past few months and I refuse to acknowledge it because I kept telling myself that he would change, that he was naturally aloof and I could live with that. Keep your expensive bracelet Ethan. I refuse to make you feel better by wearing it.” She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I hope you find someone worthy of your love.” She blinked back the tears as she made her way out and away from him. Ethan took up the box and slid it into his pocket, his expression grim.
*****
“Not now,” he told his sister grimly as she came into the living room. He had his booted foot propped up onto the mantel as he stared into the fire with a drink in his hand. He had been so happy to come home and realized that his mother and sisters were out for the night he had delayed going up to his suite because he did not have the strength to climb the stairs right now. But his solitude was dashed as Erin came into the living room.
“The family room is a neutral ground and I have a right to be here,” she said with a sniff as she went to pour herself a shot of whiskey. He watched her down it in one gulp and stared in amusement as she poured some more.
“Planning on getting drunk?”
“Until I cannot walk straight,” she told him grimly.
“What happened? Did you break a nail?”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of me do you?” she asked him dryly. “Well, you will be pleased to know that Adam broke up with me.”
“What did you do?” Ethan demanded.
“Me?” she stared at her brother in disgust. “It has to be something that I did.”
“Erin, your reputation as a woman who dangles a man’s heart and slowly destroys it is legendary.” Ethan drawled.
“So I am the female of you.” She pointed out.
He stared at her and then shrugged. “Maybe you are right. So what did you do?”
“It was a harmless flirtation with a guy while we were having dinner. And even though I told him it was nothing he said he did not believe me and that he had been warned about me. He said he had no intention of allowing me to break his heart. I have never been dumped before.”
“So that is what’s bothering you?” Ethan said dryly as he went to pour himself another drink. “You actually do not have feelings for Adam but your ego has been pricked.”
“I have feelings for him.” She sat on one of the sofas and crossed her legs. “What’s your problem? The last I heard was that you were having dinner with Samantha and I know that she is too into you to have dumped you.” Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Or did you dump her?”
“That’s none of your business,” he growled as he downed his drink.
“You should have done it a long time ago.”
“What do you have against her?”
“I have nothing against her.” Erin placed her glass onto the table. “She is a beautiful woman and I admire her business acumen but she is not right for you. She allows you to walk all over her and falls in line with everything you say. She is a lap dog around your brother dear and you would have been bored out of your skull before the ink dries on the marriage certificate. She was never right for you.”
“Why aren’t you this wise with your own affairs?” he asked her curiously.
She shrugged and then smiled. “I am fated to solve other people’s problems but not my own.”
Ethan laughed at that. “If you really like Adam, call him and apologize and show him how sorry you are.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I thought you did not want me to see him.”
“I changed my mind.” He finished his drink and strode to the doorway leaving her staring after him.
Chapter 7
“Put her through,” Ethan said softly as his secretary announced who was on the line. He had been toying around calling her since the past week or so because he had gotten her number but he had hesitated. Why was she calling him?
“Ms. Simmons, how are you?” he asked her cordially as he picked up the receiver.
“I would like to do an interview with you,” her voice was cultured and slightly husky and everything that he had felt when he kissed her at the club came tumbling right back!
“About?”
“Your take on the effects of war. I work as a freelancer for a newspaper under an assumed name and my editor thinks it is a good idea for me to get some perspective on what you think.”
“You mean he wants to turn the situation around,” his tone was amused as he settled back into his chair. “People are no longer camped at our doorsteps with placards demanding our heads and inciting a riot. The party that was held at the club and the money given to the cause has quelled the need for people to blame us for our part in keeping a war going. Is that it?”
“Something like that,” she said stiffly. “I for one still think that your company is culpable but I am giving you the chance to tell the people your side of it.”
“It sounds to me that you are the only one holding on to the anger Ms. Simmons.” He observed.
“Do you want to do the interview, Mr. Shaw?” she asked him sweetly.
“Of course! I would love to sit down with you and talk about what’s happening in our country.” He said in amusement.
“Is this a joke to you?”
“Not at all. I have wanted to see you since our encounter at the club. This is the perfect opportunity.”
“This is business Mr. Shaw and what happened at the club is something that will never be repeated.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What time and where for the interview?” she asked him ignoring his question.
“Right here at the office at eight. I have a full day today so we will have to meet when the staff is finished for the day.”
“I will be there,” she told him as she hung up from him.
He sat there with a quizzical look on his face and wondered about fate!
*****
Clive paced the length of his office restlessly as he contemplated his next move. He had been sure that what he had started would have worked. He had made sure that nothing w
ould have connected him to the paying off of the drug. He had wanted to push it to go out on the market and waited until the side effects create havoc with those who took it. It would have destroyed Shaw’s Holdings and he had been waiting a long time for that to happen. He was supposed to have his own company. He was supposed to have the wealth and the beautiful and graceful Evelyn but he had been cheated out of it. He had been best friends with Samuel Shaw the Second ever since they were children. They had planned and plotted together and dreamed of one forming a company together. Samuel’s father had started a small pharmacy and his son had the idea of taking it a step further. Clive had gone to medical school and had gone into private practice for a few years until Samuel had come to him with the idea of owning his own pharmaceutical company as well as other holdings. The man was brilliant and had the mind to do what he wanted to do and the direction he wanted to take. He had taken enormous risks by borrowing against his capital and it had paid off. It was supposed to have been both of them owning the company jointly instead of Samuel offering him a job as chief scientist at his lab. He had bided his time and pretended that all was well over the years. The added insult was when he had wooed Evelyn underneath his nose, the woman he had been in love with for so long. He had asked her out twice and she had gone out with him but as soon as Samuel had his sights on her she had turned from him. He had married his wife to save face but had always been in love with Evelyn. When Samuel had died, he had bided his time and waited for the time when he could offer himself as a source of comfort. She had turned to him because there had been something between them before. But he wanted more. He was waiting for her to depend so much on him that she would not turn to others. He wanted to be the one she goes to when she faces a problem. He wanted to be indispensable as far as she was concerned and he wanted her to start making the decisions and not her son. He had hinted it to her at one point but she had told him that she was comfortable with her son at the helm. He was not comfortable answering to Ethan Shaw and he wanted to change that!
The boy was too quick and too clever for his own good. He had found out that there was something wrong with the drug and had made the decision quickly not to put it on the market. The money he had paid and the victory he had thought would have been his for the taking had disappeared and he was getting frustrated. Things were going too slowly and he needed to speed it up. The next step might be to leak their relationship and force Evelyn to acknowledge them. In time, he was going to convince her to marry him!
*****
“Your brother is still in his office,” Mark whispered as she snuggled against him. “What if he comes in and finds us?”
“He is waiting to do an interview and he thinks everyone has left. Stop worrying.” She chided as she left his arm to go and pour them two glasses of wine. She had taken off her boots and was in her stockings. She handed him the glass of wine and sat next to him on the sofa. He loved being with him and was desperately trying to find a way to spend more time with him, even overnight. Her brother had an apartment where he went to when he wanted to get away but acquiring something like that would raise a lot of questions and she could not purchase anything like an apartment without questions being raised. It was so frustrating! She envied her sister for her forthrightness and the fact that she did whatever she wanted. “Tell me about your mother,” she urged him.
“I doubt that she will last the year,” Mark said as he sipped his wine and looked at her. He could not believe that this very rich and beautiful woman was with him and waited for the time when she tells him that it was over and that the job was no longer his. He cared less about the job and more about her! He had fallen in love with her and he could not bear the thought of not being with her one day.
“I have offered to get you the best oncologist in the country and you refuse.” She reminded him.
“It’s not going to help Erica and you are already doing too much.” He reached over and clasped her hands. “My pride is already dented with the fact that you are paying for my mother’s care. A private room Erica? It’s too much and I am not going to let you do anything else. Please. My mother is at peace with herself and knows the situation and has accepted it.”
“I have the money,” she turned her hands over in his and held on. “I see no reason for not wanting to spend it on the man I love.”
He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips. “I love hearing you say that.”
“I mean it.”
He pulled her back into his arms and held her close, his thoughts troubled.
*****
He ushered her into the office himself. The security guard had pointed her where to go and she had taken the private elevator up. All the way up she had prepared the questions she would be asking and had jotted down a few of them. The place was sumptuous and elegant with more than a touch of class to it. His office was on the top floor which was not surprising.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked her as soon as she was seated. She had ignored the instant pull of awareness as soon as she saw him. He had taken off his slate grey suit jack and had rolled up the sleeves of his pearly grey shirt up to his forearm revealing the sprinkling of hairs there. His pants fitted a little snugly and she had no doubt it was custom made.
“No thank you,” she had taken off her coat and placed it on the arm of the sofa she was sitting on. She wanted to get the interview out of the way and get it over with. “Shall we begin?”
“No warming up technique?’ he asked her dryly as he poured himself some scotch. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat? I could order something up from the kitchen.”
Harper stifled an impatient sigh. “This is not a social meeting Mr. Shaw. I really would like to get on with it.”
“No,” he tossed back the alcohol and put the glass away before coming over to sit next to her, unnerving her further.
“What?” she stared at him with a frown.
“I want to get to know the person interviewing me.” He said lightly as he crossed his legs.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Who is Harper Simmons and why is she bent on this path of trying to right the wrongs of society? Isn’t that what you are trying to do?” he challenged her. “What is your background?”
“I am the one doing the interview.” She told him coolly.
“And I will not be answering your questions unless I get some answers of my own.” He told her mildly causing her hackles to rise.
“This was not a good idea,” she got to her feet abruptly and reached for her coat.
“So you are running away? The questions too hard for you? Or are you afraid of what we shared at the club?” his thick eyebrows were raised and his eyes were steady on hers.
If she leaves now he was going to prove her wrong but what would happen if she stayed? She thought to herself. She sat back down and put her coat away. “My best friend lost her husband a year ago to the war, leaving her with two small children to bring up. But before that, my position on sending troops to fight some war that the government thinks it is the country’s best interest is something that I will never be able to understand. I speak up about war Mr. Shaw because I have seen the effect on people and the country. We have children dying for hunger right here in our country and the money used to supply these wars could be put to better use.”
“But don’t you believe that we live in a very uneasy society?” he asked her curiously. “War has always been from the beginning of time. I might not be a Bible scholar but I know that the fighting for territories has been from the beginning of time and it will be until the world comes to an end.”
“Is that your way of justifying what your company does Mr. Shaw?” she asked him.
“I don’t have to justify what my company does Ms. Simmons,” he said with a slight smile. “We are a holding company and it means that we own several businesses. We do not start wars or even condone it but the reality is that there are going to be wars and there will be a need for supplies in or
der to go to war. I am not going to apologize to you or anyone that we fill that need and make a profit as well. I am a smart business man and so was my father.”
“You got to see your father growing up but what about the thousands of children who never get that chance?’ she asked him. “Are you going to tell me that is not your problem?”
“I grew up privileged,” he told her quietly. “But I am not immune to the sufferings to the less fortunate. Our company is involved in dozens of charities and we try to do what we can. We run a business Ms. Simmons just like other companies but we do our parts as well.”
She stared at him for a moment and then down at the jottings she had made. “I think I have all I need.”
“Good,” she said briskly as he got to his feet. “Now that’s out of the way we can get to the fun part of the evening.”
“What do you mean?” she asked him curiously.
“We can dispense with the formalities and call each other by our first names. Ethan and Harper and you can have dinner with me.”
“No.” she told him firmly.
“Afraid?”
“Of you? I don’t think so.” She grabbed her coat with the intention of leaving.
“Then show me that you can have dinner with me without displaying your attraction for me,” he said softly.
“Attraction!” she stared at him and then laughed. He stared at her parted lips and the white teeth against the soft peach of her lip gloss and felt the desire stirred inside him. Harper felt when his mood shift and stood still as he came towards her slowly. She was rooted to the spot and could not move! One hand reached out and pulled a thick strand of hair in his fingers, feeling the silken texture of it. “I have been thinking about you since that night,” he said softly. “How your mouth felt against mine and how your body felt in my arms. I have been waiting for the opportunity to get close to you again.”
“Stop,” Harper felt trapped by his presence. He was not holding her, not really but he might as well be.
