Bodyguard Reunion. Beverly Long
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Название: Bodyguard Reunion
Автор: Beverly Long
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Wingman Security
isbn: 9781474063128
isbn:
She took it, glanced at it and tossed it on the coffee table. “I’ll give it to Barry.”
“Tell me about Barry,” he said.
“I thought we’d covered that. He’s the chairman of the Miatroth board.”
“And...”
“How do you know there’s an and?”
He glanced at his watch. “We could probably get through this more quickly if you were more forthcoming with the answers.”
She sighed. “I’ve known Barry since I was a kid. He’s my dad’s friend.”
He did not want to talk about Jules’s father. “And that’s how he got to be the chairman of the board of Miatroth?”
“Of course not. Barry was an executive at Geneseel. That’s where we met. He later retired. It’s not unusual that former industry executives become board chairmen somewhere else.”
He had sensed that Barry cared deeply about Jules. He was confident the man was not a threat to her.
“Tell me about your schedule,” he said. “We need to start planning.”
She nodded, as if she’d accepted the inevitable. “Fine. But I’m going to order some lunch first. Charity said she was hungry. What would you like?”
To hear the truth. “Anything is fine.”
“Still like burgers?” she asked, already picking up the receiver of the phone.
“Still like turkey clubs?” he asked.
The air in the room seemed to still. They had a history. Brief, perhaps. But significant. They knew things about one another. Simple things. And very intimate things.
She put down the phone. “Is this going to work?” she asked.
“It might be best if we stop making assumptions about the other,” he said, talking as if he had a stiff board up his butt. He was rattled and hated the feeling.
“It’s hard,” she admitted. “In some ways, it doesn’t seem as if eight years have gone by. Maybe that sounds silly to you.”
No, it didn’t. But he couldn’t admit that.
She was staring at his left hand. “You aren’t wearing a wedding ring, Royce. Did you ever marry?”
Had barely dated. Had told himself, and the others who were brave enough to ask, that he was too busy working and going to school. Hadn’t been a monk, that was for sure. But the relationships were brief, unencumbered.
He hadn’t been stupid enough to think he was waiting for Jules. Just hadn’t been willing to accept something that was so much less than what he’d known that summer in New York.
“No,” he said. “Appears you weren’t married for long.”
“No,” she whispered. “Bryson deserved better.”
He could not have a conversation about the man. Eight years ago, she’d told him it was over. He’d believed her.
Had never guessed that she’d lie about something so important. Had never guessed that a few short months later, she’d hurt him so badly.
JC ordered lunch and then handed Royce a paper copy of her electronic calendar. It was color coded. “My assistant does that,” she said, a little embarrassed to be caught being so anal retentive. But he didn’t appear to care how she kept track of her life.
He pointed at the first entry, a two-hour block this afternoon, that she’d labeled “Financial Review/Cole Hager/Wallington Hotel.”
“Cole Hager. Who is that?” he asked.
“He’s the senior analyst for a large mutual fund. Our board is hoping that he’ll come out strong in support for us.”
“Isn’t it the CFO’s job to talk to investors about financial results?”
“Yes. And he’ll probably do that. But I’ve met Cole once before and it’s not that strange that he’d want to talk to me, too.”
“He can’t come here?”
“I don’t want to ask him to do that. At this point, it would look like a power play on my part and that’s not in my best interest.”
He made no response to that. Simply settled his index finger on the X that she’d used to block out 10:00 a.m. to noon the next day with Sparrow next to it. “What’s this?” he asked.
She’d written the information on the sheet after she’d printed her electronic calendar. Her assistant would be upset that it wasn’t appropriately color coded. “Sparrow is the room name,” she said. “Evidently, all their meeting rooms are named after birds.”
“What’s happening there?” he asked.
“That’s the panel presentation I mentioned this morning. I wasn’t originally scheduled to do it but evidently one of the original presenters had a conflict. Wayne Isman contacted me and asked if I’d fill in.”
“Wayne Isman. Your old boss at Geneseel?”
She was surprised that he’d remembered. “Yeah. We’ve kept in touch over the years. We do some humanitarian work in Africa together. This particular presentation is on new pathways to fighting drug-resistant bacteria. Wayne knows that’s a topic near and dear to my heart and he figured I wouldn’t need much prep time.”
“Who else is on the panel?” he asked.
“Besides Wayne and me, there’s a physician from Mass General.”
“Name?”
She knew where this was going. “Really, Royce? You think my two fellow panelists are hit men in disguise?”
“I think that they’ll be the two closest to you during the event. That automatically puts them on my watch list.”
“Fine.” She reached into her bag that was at the end of the couch and pulled out a sheet of paper. “This is hot off the press. Wayne is getting enough printed that we can give one to every attendee.”
He stared at the paper and she regretted the impulse to show it to him. Not only were there biographies for Wayne Isman and Dr. Lilah Moorhead, there was also one for her. He knew her educational background and her work history. But would he be surprised to learn that she’d served on a presidential committee? Or that she authored a white paper that had gotten her an appearance on the Today show?
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