Sweet Fortune (2 page)

“Hi, Alex.”

“Oh, it's you, Jessie,” Alex Robin said. “I was hoping it might be a client. How's Mrs. V?”

“She's going to be okay. Bruised ribs and a concussion. The doctors want to keep her in the hospital for a couple of days, and then she's going to stay with her sister for a while. But she should be fine.”

Alex scratched his head absently. His sandy hair stuck up in patches. “Poor old lady. Lucky she wasn't killed. What about her business?”

Jessie smiled confidently. “I'll be in charge while she's away.”

“Is that right?” Alex blinked again. “Well, uh, good luck. Let me know if you need anything.”

Jessie wrinkled her nose. “All we really need are a few new clients.”

“Same here. Hey, maybe we should try advertising our combined services.” Alex grinned. “Robin and Valentine: Psychic Computer Consultants.”

“You know,” said Jessie as she started up the stairs, “that is not a bad idea. Not bad at all. I'm going to give that some thought.”

“Hold on, Jessie, I wasn't serious,” Alex called after her. “I was just joking.”

“Still, it has distinct possibilities,” Jessie yelled back from the second level. She shoved her key into the door marked
VALENTINE CONSULTATIONS
. “I've already got a slogan for us. ‘Intuition and Intelligence Working for You.’”

“Forget it. We'd have every weirdo in town knocking on our door.”

“Who cares, as long as they pay their bills?”

“Good point.”

Jessie stepped into the comfortably shabby office and tossed her shoulder bag and sunglasses down onto the faded chintz sofa. Then she crossed the room to the mammoth old-fashioned rolltop desk and grabbed the phone. Best to get this over with before she lost her nerve, she told herself.

She threw herself down into the large wooden swivel chair and propped her booted feet on the desktop. The chair squeaked in loud protest as she leaned forward to punch out the number of her father's private line at Benedict Fasteners.

“Mr. Benedict's office.” The voice sounded disembodied, it was so composed and exquisitely professional.

“Hi, Grace, this is Jessie. Is Dad in?”

“Oh, hello, Jessie.” Some of the professionalism leaked out of the voice and was promptly replaced by the comfortable familiarity of a longtime acquaintance. “He's here. Busy as usual and doesn't want to be disturbed. Do you need to talk to him?”

“Please. Tell him it's important.”

“Just a second. I'll see what I can do.” Grace put the phone on hold.

A moment later her father's graveled voice came on the line. He sounded typically impatient at the interruption.

“Jessie? I'm right in the middle of a new contract. What's up?”

“Hi, Dad.” She resisted the automatic impulse to apologize for bothering him at work. Vincent Benedict was always
at work
, so any phone call was, by definition, an unwelcome interruption.

Jessie had concluded at an early age that unless she took pains to avoid it, she would end up apologizing every time she talked to her father.

“Just wanted to let you know something's come up here at the office,” she said, “and I won't be able to go to dinner with Hatch and the Galloways this evening. Got a real management crisis here, Dad.”

“
The hell you do
.” Benedict's voice thundered over the phone. “You gave me your word you'd help Hatch entertain the Galloways tonight. You know damn well it's crucial for you to be there. I explained that earlier this week. Galloway needs to see a united front. This is business, goddammit.”

“Then you go to dinner with them.” Jessie held the phone away from her ear. Nothing, literally nothing, came before business in her father's world. She had learned that the hard way as a child.

“It won't look right,” Vincent roared. “Two men entertaining Ethel and George will make the whole thing look too much like a goddamned business meeting.”

“For all intents and purposes, that's what it is. Be honest, Dad. If it weren't a disguised meeting of some kind, you and Hatch wouldn't be so concerned about it, would you?”

“That's not the point, Jessie. This is supposed to be casual. A social thing. You know damn well what I'm talking about. We're concluding a major deal here. Hatch needs a dinner companion and Galloway needs to see that I'm backing Hatch one hundred percent.”

“But, Dad, listen…” Jessie was afraid she was starting to whine and stopped speaking abruptly.

It was impossible to explain to her father how much she resented being ordered out on a business date with Sam Hatchard. Vincent would not understand the objection, and neither would Hatch. Two birds were obviously being killed with one efficient stone here, after all. Hatch could pursue company business and the courtship of the president's daughter at the same time.

“Sending you along is the perfect solution.” Vincent continued brusquely. “The Galloways have known you for ages. When they see my daughter with the new CEO of Benedict Fasteners, they'll be reassured that the shift in management has my full support and that nothing is going to change within the firm. This is important, Jessie. Galloway is from the old school. He likes a sense of continuity in his business relationships.”

“Dad, I can't go. Mrs. Valentine was injured today. She's in the hospital.”

“The hospital? What the hell happened?”

“She fell down a flight of stairs. I'm not sure yet just what happened. She's got a concussion and some broken ribs. She'll be out of the office for a few weeks. I'm in charge.”

“Who's going to notice? You told me yourself she doesn't have a lot of clients.”

“As her new assistant, I'm aiming to fix that. I'm going to develop a marketing plan to improve business.”

“Jesus. I can't believe my daughter is working on a marketing plan for a fortune-teller.”

“Dad, I don't want to hear any more nasty comments about my new job. I mean it.”

“All right, all right. Look, Jessie, I'm sorry about Mrs. Valentine, but I don't see how that changes anything concerning tonight.”

“But I'm in charge here now, Dad. Mrs. Valentine is depending on me to hold things together, and there's a ton of stuff that has to be done around here.”

“Tonight?” Vincent demanded skeptically.

Jessie glanced desperately around the empty office, her eye finally falling on the blank pages of the appointment book. She tried to sound firm. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I'm going to be very busy getting the files in order and working up my new plan. You should understand. You've never worked anything less than a twelve-hour day in your life. Usually fourteen.”

“Give me a break, Jessie. Running Benedict Fasteners is hardly the same thing as running a fortune-teller's operation.”

“Don't call her a fortune-teller. She's a psychic. A genuine one. Look, Dad. This is a business I'm running here. Just like any other business.” Jessie lowered her voice to an urgent, coaxing level. “So, would you do me a favor and tell Hatch I'm sort of tied up and won't be able to go with him tonight?”

“Hell, no. Tell him yourself.”

“Dad, please, the guy makes me nervous. I've told you that.”

“You make yourself nervous, Jessie. And for no good reason, far as I can tell. You want to stand him up tonight when he's counting on you, go ahead and stand him up. But don't expect me to do your dirty work.”

“Come on, Dad. As a favor to me? I'm really swamped, and I don't have time to track him down.”

“No problem tracking him down. He just walked into my office. Standing right in front of me, in fact. You can explain exactly why you want to leave him stranded without a dinner date two hours before he's set to finalize a major contract.”

Jessie cringed. “Dad, no, wait, please…”

It was too late. Jessie closed her eyes in dismay as she heard her father put his palm over the receiver and speak to someone else in his office.

“It's Jessie,” Vincent snorted. “Trying to wriggle out of dinner with the Galloways tonight. You handle it. You're the CEO around here now.”

Jessie groaned as she sensed the phone being handed into other hands. She summoned up an image of those hands. They were elegant, beautifully masculine. The hands of an artist or a swordsman.

Another voice came on the line, this one as dark and quiet and infinitely deep as the still waters of a midnight sea. It sent a faint sensual chill down Jessie's spine.

“What seems to be the problem, Jessie?” Sam Hatchard asked with a frightening calmness.

Everything Hatch did or said was done calmly, coldly, and with what Jesse thought was a ruthless efficiency. On the surface it appeared the man had ice in his veins, that he was incapable of real emotion. But from the first moment she had met him, Jessie's intuition had warned her otherwise.

“Hello, Hatch.” Jessie took her feet down off the desk and unconsciously began twisting the telephone cord between her fingers. She swallowed and fought to keep her tone crisp and unhurried. “Sorry to spring this on you, but something unforeseen has come up here at the office.”

“How could something unforeseen come up at a psychic's office?”

Jessie blinked. If it had been anyone else besides Hatch, she would have suspected a joke. But she had decided weeks ago that the man had no sense of humor. She glowered at the wall. “I won't be able to help you entertain the Galloways tonight. My boss is in the hospital and I'm in charge around here. I've got an awful lot to do and I've really got to get going. I'll probably have to work most of the evening.”

“It's a little late for me to make other plans, Jessie.”

Jessie coughed to clear her throat. Her fingers clenched around the phone cord. “I apologize for that, but Mrs. Valentine is depending on me.”

“There's a lot of money riding on the Galloway deal.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“George and Ethel Galloway are looking forward to seeing you again. George made a point of it. I'm not certain how they'll interpret the situation if you fail to show up tonight. They might think there's a buyout in the works or dissension between your father and me if I turn up alone.”

Each word was an invisible blow, nailing shut the escape route she had hoped to use. “Look, Hatch…”

“If Galloway gets the idea that Benedict Fasteners is about to change hands or is in trouble, he might not want to go through with the deal. I would be extremely disappointed to lose this contract.”

Jessie began to feel cornered. This was something Hatch did very, very well. She gazed around the office with a hunted sensation. “Maybe Dad could go with you?”

“That would be a little awkward, don't you think?”

The cold reasonableness of the words heightened Jessie's nervousness. Nobody on earth could make her as nervous as Sam Hatchard did. She twitched the phone cord and began swinging the swivel chair from side to side in a restless movement. “Hatch, I realize this is awfully short notice.”

“And not entirely necessary, I think.” Hatch's voice was very quiet now. “I'm sure Mrs. Valentine doesn't expect you to work nights.”

“Well, not usually, but this is kind of an emergency.”

“Is there really anything there that can't wait until tomorrow?”

Jessie stared helplessly at the pristine work surface of her desk. She had a problem with honesty. When pushed into a corner, she tended to tell the truth. “This isn't the kind of business where you can schedule things, you know.”

“Jessie?”

She swallowed again. She hated it when Hatch gave her the full force of his attention. She was far too vulnerable. “Yes?”

“I was looking forward to seeing you this evening.”

“
What
?” Jessie straightened as if she had just touched a live electrical wire. The abrupt motion snapped the phone cord taut. The instrument toppled off the desk and landed on the floor with a resounding crash. “Oh, hell.”

“Sounded like you dropped the phone, Jessie,” Hatch observed as he waited patiently for her to come back on the line. “Everything all right?”

“Yes. Yes, everything's fine,” she gasped as she straightened the twisted cord and replaced the telephone on the desk with trembling fingers. She was furious with herself. “Look, Hatch…”

“I'll pick you up at seven,” Hatch told her, sounding preoccupied again, which he probably was.

He frequently did two things at once, both of which were usually business-related. The present situation was a perfect example. Jessie knew that courting her definitely came under the heading of business.

“Hatch, I really can't—”

“Seven o'clock, Jessie. Now, I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. I've got to go over some final figures on the Galloway deal with your father. Good-bye.” He hung up the phone with a gentle click.

Jessie perched on the edge of the chair and stared numbly at the receiver in her hand as she listened to the whine of the dial tone. Defeated, she dumped the instrument back into its cradle and lowered her forehead onto her folded arms. She should have known there would be no easy way out of the Galloway dinner. The invitation had not been a casual one. Hatch was pursuing her. Nothing had been said yet, but it was no secret that Hatch had marriage in mind.

She was fascinated by Hatch. She might as well admit it. But she knew she dared not give in to his plans to marry her. For Hatch, the wedding would be no more than the consummation of yet another business deal. This particular contract would guarantee him a lifetime chunk of Benedict Fasteners, which was something he wanted very badly.

At the moment, courting Jessie was near the top of Hatch's list of priorities. She knew she was at least temporarily as important to him as any business maneuver in which he was presently involved. That meant she was in a very treacherous position. There was no denying her own interest in him, and on those occasions when he made her the sole focus of his attention, she was in serious danger of succumbing entirely.

A moth dancing around a flame
.

Jessie closed her eyes and conjured up a picture of the man who had become her nemesis during the past two months. His personality was strongly reflected in his physical characteristics. He was built along lean, powerful, curiously graceful lines. His long-figured swordsman's hands went well with his austere, ascetic features.