Balancing Act (6 page)

“Thank you, Tessa.”

“For what?” she asked in confusion, staring at his wide, firm mouth.

“For agreeing to go with me tonight. For giving up some of your own time.” Seth quit talking for a moment. “I am about to make a very big mistake.” He slid his hand behind her head and leaned closer. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered as his mouth brushed hers.

“Seth.” His name came out on a breath as her heart thudded in her chest. The saner part of her agreed with him. It was a mistake. Sanity prevailed. She leaned back. As soon as she pressed against his hand, he released her and sat back.

“I’m sorry,” he said in his usual gruff voice. “That should never have happened.”

He opened his door and came around the gleaming black SUV to open the door for her. Tessa met his golden eyes again before taking his outstretched hand.

“Tessa.” He seemed to want to say something else, but stopped. “Thanks again. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

She nodded and hurried up the walk to the big, old house. She knew Seth stood there watching until she was inside. Only then did she hear the sound of the engine as the Cadillac pulled away from the curb.

Chapter 4

Seth sat in his office the next morning staring out the windows. He didn’t really see what was outside. The beauty of the sunrise over the DC skyline had no impact on him. Without giving it much thought, he snapped one pencil in two, then another and another.

Tessa.

He hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. There were so many layers to the woman, he wasn’t even sure what was real. Educated at Smith. From a Virginia family with blood bluer than his own.
Working as his secretary?
The pieces didn’t fit. Any way he turned them, they just did not fit. The logical part of his mind searched for some ulterior motive, some reason beyond needing a job for why she was working at Barrett Newspapers. He couldn’t buy into the hare-brained thought that she was there at his parents’ instigation.

And what about his feelings? She fascinated him. The way she protected her little brother, stepping in as a surrogate parent when she wasn’t much more than a kid herself. He looked forward to her arrival every morning. He had spent so many years feeling caged in this office, doing the duty expected of him, he sometimes wondered if he’d ever done anything else. Tessa brought a vibrancy that broke through the bars of his cage despite the obvious restraints she put on herself. He remembered her as she had looked last night, laughing and animated.

She stirred him at so many levels, he couldn’t even begin to describe it. But she was so young. His logical mind intruded even here, bringing him back to earth with a thud. What would she want with him? Cool, calm Tessa. Even last night, she had been the realist. Not him. And that was the biggest reason to tread with care. Underneath it all, he was too idealistic for his own good.

“Good morning, Mr. Barrett.” She greeted him with a small smile as she set his coffee on the desk.

He glared back at her. As much as his fingers itched to loosen that fiery red hair and feel it slide through his fingers as it fell around her shoulders, he would keep this on a business footing. He was not some kid fresh out of school.

“Bring the laptop and your coffee in here, Tessa. I want to work on more details on the Midwest Papers acquisition, and then you need to make arrangements for me to return to Chicago tomorrow.” He paused. “Is there any way you can go along? I know it’s short notice, but I have the feeling I could use another set of eyes and ears on the negotiations. We need to leave tomorrow morning, with a return Friday afternoon. I’m hoping this will clinch the deal.”

Her lack of an instant response showed he’d caught her off-guard. Yet she must have known travel might be a part of the job.

“It’s not a problem.” She recovered quickly. “I can have a neighbor watch Zach. She’s retired and stays at home most often. Do you want to take a commercial flight or use the corporate jet?”

“The jet,” Seth replied. “Brandon’s back, so it’s available. Pack something dressy for Thursday night. I believe we’ll be celebrating.”

She nodded.

He was relieved it had been that easy. He was also relieved when they settled down to work. Tessa was so fast at following his train of thought, it made finalizing the acquisition details a snap. She excused herself mid-morning to type up the final copies and finish arrangements for the trip.

Seth watched her go. She was back to being the ice queen again, with a vengeance. He missed the softer, befuddled Tessa who had fallen asleep in his SUV. Perhaps that was for the best. He sighed and snapped yet another pencil in two. Before she left in the afternoon, Seth made arrangements to pick her up the following morning.

* * * *

Tessa was already waiting for him, her laptop and oversized purse in one hand, a hanging bag in the other, when he pulled up to the curb in the darkness of the following morning. He strode up the sidewalk, suit coat open and tie askew, and took the bags from her, stowing them in the back of the SUV before opening the door for her.

“Coffee?” he asked, pointing to a cup from Starbucks.

Tessa glanced at the cup holder with curiosity. Did the entire world revolve around getting Seth Barrett coffee? Even to the point of Starbucks opening at this hour?

“Thanks,” she murmured, surprised when the coffee was prepared the way she liked it–plenty of cream and no sugar. She would never have guessed he even noticed how someone else preferred their caffeine. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he showed her some new aspect to his character. The problem, of course, was that what he revealed just made him more appealing.

On the long list of things Tessa had never done, riding in a private jet was definitely one of the entries, so she was amazed when Seth drove right onto the tarmac and up to the waiting aircraft. The pilot was there to help them load their belongings, and a waiting ground crew employee from the private aviation service hopped into the SUV to park it.

The jet looked like a long, narrow metal tube, and sudden trepidation filled her. Even the windows didn’t reassure her. Her palms started to sweat and her pulse increased. What if it was like being in an elevator? As she sucked in a deep breath, Seth turned, his foot on the bottom stair.

“Tessa, you have flown before, haven’t you?”

“Once or twice,” she replied in a tight voice.

He arched one thick brow and gazed steadily from those leonine eyes. “How was it?”

She shrugged. “It was okay.”

He smiled and stood aside for her to precede him. “This will be better. I promise.”

Tessa wasn’t as confident, but she stepped inside the jet and was struck right away by how open it felt in comparison to a commercial airliner. This wasn’t designed to pack people in like sardines. It had been designed for the comfort of five or six people at most. She wasn’t sure if the windows were larger, but they seemed to be.

Seth put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “Well?”

Tessa turned and smiled gratefully at him. It surprised her to see the warmth of concern in his gaze.

“This is fine, Mr. Barrett,” she sighed.

Seth chuckled at her obvious relief. “You will need to strap yourself in for takeoff, but after we’re up you can move around.”

Tessa nodded. This was so much better than the couple of times she had flown to and from school. Most often, she took the train because it didn’t feel as confining as an airplane. The whine of the engines increased as they sped down the runway. Tessa watched their ascent make everything on the ground shrink. When they reached cruising altitude, Seth came over and sat in the chair across from her, the Starbucks cup still in his hand.

“I thought we could talk a little bit about what I need you to do during our meetings today.”

Seth outlined his plans. He was presenting the final proposal to the Midwest Papers board and hoped to get their vote. She would need to take detailed notes of the meeting and be ready to go with an altered proposal the following morning if the board wasn’t satisfied with his initial plan. He wanted this deal clinched before they returned home.

“If we can reach an agreement with Midwest,” Seth added, “we’ll be a presence in more than a third of the major newspaper markets in the US. As things stand right now, that could be crucial for the future of Barrett Newspapers.” He turned his face toward the window and gazed out. Watching his reflection, she saw him close his eyes and heard him sigh.

Tessa startled him a moment later, she could see from his reaction. “You don’t really like any of this, do you, Mr. Barrett?”

Seth opened his eyes, staring at her with an intensity that might have unnerved a lot of people, but not her. Not today. She had discovered the thorn that might be making this lion snarl all the time. Although she would never let anyone take Zach from her, she did understand being confined by duty. In her case, it was a duty she loved. But was it for Seth?

“I never wanted this,” Seth admitted. “I’m tired of pretending. It’s an obligation to me. My love has always been journalism–the research, reporting, writing. The best times of my life were the four years fresh out of college. As plain Seth Barlow, I reported and wrote from all over the world.”

“Then why do you do it?” Tessa wondered if she was hoping for some validation for what she herself was going through.

Seth’s mouth quirked. “Probably for the same reason you took the job as my secretary. Out of a sense of duty. Yours is to your brother. Mine is to my father. As the eldest son, everyone assumed I would take over. I was earmarked to be the next Barlow-Barrett paper tycoon, whether I wanted it or not. Other than those four years freelancing, my entire existence has been spent trying to please Alexander Barlow-Barrett.” He paused and his generous lips stretched into a quick smile. “Perhaps we do have some things in common, hmm?”

Tessa laughed at his odd sense of humor. “An overdeveloped sense of duty is not the basis for a match made in heaven.”

Seth’s expression turned serious once again. “Maybe more than you think.”

She chose to ignore him. She had to focus on Zach. Exploring the possibility of a personal relationship with any man, let alone the scion of another blue-blooded Virginia family, was impossible.

The pilot interrupted their conversation to inform them over the intercom that they were beginning their descent. Per Seth’s request, a limousine met them at the airport. The driver took them to Midwest’s headquarters in downtown Chicago. Tessa told him she would contact him a half hour before they needed to be picked up.

She turned to follow Seth into the building, and hit the first glitch in her otherwise perfect planning. The conference room they were going to was on the twentieth floor. Tessa began to panic. She couldn’t climb that many stairs. Seth took her by the elbow and led her to the back of the elevator. She sighed in relief as she saw it was designed to give her a view of the street as they ascended.

“You all right?” he asked under his breath.

She nodded and even managed to look at him with a small smile. He stared hard at her for a moment and inclined his head. Nevertheless, she found that brief acknowledgement of her fears reassuring.

They entered the conference room exactly on time. It was another quirk of Seth’s she had at first found very amusing, as if it had been drummed into him since birth: a Barlow-Barrett was never early or late, but always right on time. As his executive assistant, Tessa found she was all but invisible to the executives of Midwest. That suited her fine. She settled into her seat behind Seth, who was given a seat of honor at one end of the conference table, and set up her laptop.

Tessa knew Barrett was putting an excellent offer on the table. Like papers all across the country, Midwest had undergone a drop in circulation that translated into declining ad revenues, and a drop in the stock value of the company. Seth’s proposal would not just buy Midwest, it would pump more money into the firm.

Barrett had done an excellent job with its other holdings in developing alternative revenue sources, like websites and joint ventures with other media, and was prepared to put the investment into Midwest to do the same thing. Tessa could tell from the financial sheets that Midwest couldn’t launch a similar undertaking without Barrett’s backing.

Tessa observed the players at the table even as she took notes, and the only reluctance she detected was on the part of Midwest’s chairman, but that could be enough to nix the deal. He was an older man, older than Alexander Barrett. Unlike the younger executives with their designer suits and slick hair, he was dressed as if his mind were on more important things than the business at hand. In fact, he reminded Tessa of her English Lit professor at Smith.

There was a break in negotiations about mid-morning. Seth excused himself and asked Tessa to join him. He took her arm and led her out to a small terrace at one end of the building.

“What do you think?” He asked once the door shut. This high above the city, the breeze ruffled her tightly confined hair.

“I think you’re not selling the chairman.”

“Damn!” Seth turned to stare out of the skyline of the city, his jaw clenching in frustration.

“Mr. Barrett… Seth,” Tessa said, “I didn’t say you
can’t
sell him on your plan. I said you’re not.”