? ? ?
I sat at the Codex Café across from Rama; Codex was the kind of place that had once been miles beyond my budget, but still seemed like a fast-food joint next to Rama. Kate and I had long since seen Portia and her cronies leave through the view from Codex’s front window, and half an hour ago Kate had left too, with her apologies.
But still I stayed, sipping another twenty dollar cappuccino served in a cup so tiny that it looked like it had been made for an American Girl doll. I had a lot to think over.
I stirred my cappuccino with a minuscule spoon, too twisted up inside to really taste and enjoy it. What should I do?
Hell, what could I do?
Grant clearly wanted me gone. He’d made that obvious. I’d tried to air my concerns about Portia with him, but he hadn’t been interested in my opinion. Were he and the company really worth the time, effort, and heartbreak it would take to communicate to him that there was real danger? Would I even be able to communicate that to him at all? Or at the end of all my attempts, would he still sneer and coolly dismiss me?
Maybe I should just seek out another job and get myself out of his sight. If Portia was attempting a hostile takeover, was it really my concern? After all, at the end of the day, what did I really owe Grant Devlin?
My eyes were drawn to a moment in the street—the jerky motion of a homeless man as he made his way down the road carrying a cardboard sign that said in black marker: WAR VET—OUT OF WORK—PLEASE HELP.
Living in the warm, temperate climate of the West Coast, you see a lot of homeless people, to the point where after awhile, you start to harden your heart just to keep from getting it broken every day. But something about the opulence of our surroundings made his dirty, ragged clothes and sad shuffle seem even more poignant than usual.
Then I saw the group of teenagers headed straight towards him, and my heart seized up. Were they going to beat him up? Call the cops on him? Should I call the cops on them—
I was frozen in indecision, my hand halfway to my cell phone in my purse, and then I saw something amazing.
Two of the teenagers reached into their pockets and pulled out money.
Over the man’s evident protests that they not give him so much, they stuffed it into his pockets. Another reached out to shake his hand, and the fourth offered him a military salute.
I tossed back the rest of my cappuccino in one gulp and blinked away the tears in my eyes.
There was still good in the world. And the bad that was in the world with it—that could be fought. A good company could fight it, by creating jobs, by fostering a supportive atmosphere, by using its profits to create or support political and social initiatives.
And as I thought about those teenagers and that homeless man, I knew what I had to do.
I hadn’t put in all this time and effort to watch Devlin Media Corp go down. A takeover meant jobs shipped overseas, mass unemployment. The company would be broken into parts and sucked dry for the enrichment of the people at the top, like a carcass ripped into pieces and feasted on by vultures. I couldn’t let that happen to all our employees, to all those people who were still counting on me.
I stood to pay, and was momentarily distracted by the couple at the opposite end of the restaurant. Not that they were doing anything flashy—just the opposite. She was leaning back against his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and his arm curved around her without a second thought. I felt a pang of loss in my heart, though it was a loss of something I’d never had. Not really.
Okay, I admit it. It wasn’t just the employees I was worried about. I couldn’t let this disaster of a takeover happen to Grant either. However much he had tried to hide it, I knew how much Devlin Media Corp meant to him. He had honored me by telling me so when we were together, and it was time to repay that trust.
I shoved a handful of bills into the grip of the surprised waitress—I was over-paying her by about 100%, but I didn’t have time to calculate exact tips—and filled with resolve, grabbed my keys and marched to the spot I had parked my car this morning. I had things to do, places to be.
Before I knew it, I was hammering my fist on Grant Devlin’s door.
SEVEN
And before I knew it, the door was swinging open—revealing Grant Devlin in nothing but a pair of black boxers.
Damn. My eyes involuntarily traveled the length of his body, ripped and tanned and glistening with sweat as if he had just been working out, or maybe tossing and turning in bed, alone or with company. Those boxers clung to his hips with just a tantalizing bit of give, the light dusting of hair thinning to just a shadow above the elastic band. He was close enough that I could have just reached out and—