Eve of Passion. A.C. Arthur

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       Chapter 1

      The minute he walked into the room, Janelle knew she was going to regret working from home this morning. But she’d awakened with a horrendous headache, the third one this week, and try as she might, the stress-free yoga DVD she’d purchased and the two ibuprofen she’d downed thirty seconds after rolling out of bed were not helping. The headache and tired shoulders and general feeling of fatigue were becoming an everyday occurrence for her and while she didn’t want to become worried, she was.

      Sitting at the dining room table with vendor contracts spread out in front of her, she looked up into the eyes of Darren Howerton Sr. and wanted to groan with annoyance. Sure, he was her father and there was no other man on this planet that she loved more, but his mere appearance in this room, at this time of day, meant he was about to ask her to do something. And from the way he pulled out the chair across from her with ever-so-slow movements before sitting and staring at her with almost apologetic eyes, she knew she was on point with her assessment.

      “Hi, baby girl,” he greeted her, smoothing his paisley-print tie down in front of him.

      “Hi, Daddy,” she replied expectantly.

      “Are you busy? I need to talk to you.”

      While her father didn’t openly suggest that Janelle’s career as an event planner took a second seat to Howerton Computer Technologies, as Sandra’s parents did with her career, his almost complete disregard of her career was a dead giveaway this was how he felt. So whenever he asked if she was busy, it really didn’t matter if she said she was or not—he would proceed with whatever it was he wanted. She’d blame that on her mother if Susan Howerton hadn’t died suddenly in a car accident five years ago. At any rate, Darren Howerton had gone from his own mother’s overindulging arms straight into the arms of a young and eager-to-please wife, who made him feel as if he’d hung the stars and the moon. After her death, Darren expected Janelle to pick up the torch and treat him the same way. In addition to moving back to her childhood home to help her father cope, she’d slipped right into the pattern of expectancy her mother had created. She was basically there for whatever her father needed. Back then, it had been best for both of them. Janelle hadn’t wanted to be alone—fear an all-too-prevalent part of her life at that time. And her father hadn’t been able to be alone either; he would surely have died of a broken heart if he had been.

      “What can I do for you, Daddy?” she asked, attempting to let the past remain there.

      “Ballard Dubois. Do you know who that is?”

      Janelle figured she probably should, and maybe if it hadn’t felt as if someone were driving spikes into her temples for the sheer hell of it, she could have given it a little more thought. But things being as they were, she didn’t even try. “I don’t think I do. Why? Should I?”

      Her father raised thick eyebrows, probably at the spike in her tone, but he didn’t speak of it, just continued on. She wasn’t even surprised—her wants and needs were always secondary.

      “He runs Dubois Maritime Shipping with his father, Daniel. Hudson Dubois is the family patriarch, the old coot. Each generation of Dubois is insanely intelligent, shrewd and devoted to that company. But Ballard’s the one with his hand on the pulse of a growing political concern—health care.”

      Janelle watched as her father talked, engrossed by the slightly raspy sound of his voice and the aristocratic air he exuded when speaking about his business. What she couldn’t figure out was where all this business and political talk was going. Two years ago her father had decided to hand over the reins of HCT to Darren Jr., who was three years older than Janelle and much more suited to work in the family business than she ever claimed to be. Not one to be idle, Darren Sr. announced his candidacy for a seat in the state House of Representatives about six months ago.

      With that flashback she thought of just how much she’d seen her father in the past six months. It hadn’t been often since he’d completely thrown himself into the campaign. At any rate, she hadn’t seen him this excited about anything since her mother’s death. That was why she’d stopped what she was doing and tried like hell to ignore her headache to listen attentively to what he was saying. She owed him that much and probably ten times more after all she’d put him through when she ended her engagement with Jack.

      “Health care is taking care of itself,” she replied, “or rather, the current president is wading through those muddy waters.”

      “My platform needs a strong backing in this area,” Darren continued as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Ballard, through his foreign and domestic dealings, has developed his own core of health-care reform supporters. Having Ballard and Dubois Maritime backing me would be beyond beneficial. It would give me the push I need to build an even bigger margin between myself and Oliver Windom.”

      In Janelle’s estimation, Oliver Windom didn’t stand a chance against the weight the Howerton name carried in Massachusetts. Still, she could tell her father felt very strongly about this. “Okay, I understand what you’re saying. How will you go about getting them to back you?”

      Darren СКАЧАТЬ