Buch lesen: «Against All Odds»

Chapter 1

Melissa Grant hung up the phone. Anxious. Her graceful brown fingers strummed her desk. She’d had to expand her business in order to stay ahead of her competition, but months would pass before she got the results that she anticipated. Until then her financial status would be precarious at best. Her banker knew that and—because her first loan hadn’t been fully paid—had denied her request for a second one. Now she stood a good chance of losing her business. She knew when she came to New York that she could expect tough competition, but she had worked hard and established one of the top executive search firms, and she’d done it in less than five years. She had taken stock of her resources and decided that she had three alternatives, all of them unattractive. She could put her personal funds into her MTG Executive Search firm—something she’d been taught in business school never to do; she could borrow the money from her father; or she could take the lucrative Hayes/Roundtree account. Bankruptcy was preferable to discussing a loan with her father, Rafer Grant, and only trouble could come from any kind of involvement with a Roundtree. Adam Roundtree’s executive assistant, Jason Court, had called her with a request that she find a manager for “Leather and Hides,” the division of Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, Inc., that tanned leather and made leather goods. She noticed the light on her phone.

“MTG.” She leaned back in her desk chair, twirling a slingshot that she won in a charity raffle. “Hello, Mr. Court. I’m not sure I’m the person you want for this job. I don’t know a thing about leather.”

“In other words, you don’t want the contract,” he said as though surprised. “Adam wants MTG. He thinks your firm is the best, and Adam is used to having the best. Think it over. I can raise the fee by twenty percent, but no more.”

* * *

Melissa hung up and buzzed her secretary for the Roundtree file.

“Here you are.” Kelly put the folder on Melissa’s desk. “I thought you said you wouldn’t take that job for all the bullion in Fort Knox.”

“That was yesterday. The bank just refused my request for a loan.” She scanned the few pages. “This must be a mistake.” She checked the figure on the last page. “He’s offering more money than I ever dreamed of asking for a search. I can find a manager who’ll suit him—I don’t doubt that, but the consequences could be...explosive. Probably hell to pay.”

Kelly frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“Someday when we have a few hours to throw away, I’ll tell you about it.” Melissa weighed the pros and cons. If she took the contract, she would no longer have a financial problem and, when she listed a firm on the New York Stock Exchange as one of her clients, her ability to attract fat accounts would be guaranteed. She looked over the papers, corrected the fee, initialed it, and signed the contract without giving herself a chance to change her mind. Her signature was unreadable, and she didn’t doubt that Adam Roundtree would inscribe his name beneath hers. But when he found out...when they all found out! Talk about dancing with the devil!

She walked over to her bookcase, scanned a shelf of business and reference books, and selected a volume of an encyclopedia with the intention of learning about leather tanning. The afternoon sun glared in her face, and she lowered the blinds, wondering absently why Adam Roundtree worked for Jenkins and Tillman, a New York real estate firm, rather than with his family’s Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises. Had he left northern Maryland and come to New York to escape his parents as she had? From what she’d heard of him, she doubted it. Men of his reputation didn’t run from anything or anybody. She put the book in her briefcase, sat down, and lifted the receiver.

“Would you please send this signed contract to Jason Court at Jenkins and Tillman?” she asked her secretary. “Get a messenger, and mark the envelope confidential. I’ll be leaving in a minute.” She pushed her tight curls away from her olive-toned face and completed her final task of the day.

Melissa walked out of her office, two blocks from Wall Street, and into the sweltering early July heat, her discomfort intensified by the high humidity for which New York City was famous. She didn’t wait long for a taxi, sat back and took a deep breath, grateful that she’d escaped the rush hour madness. Ten minutes later, getting a taxi within a mile of Wall Street would be impossible.

* * *

Adam Roundtree sat in his New York office reviewing reports from Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, Inc. The Maryland-based company belonged to his family, handed down to them by his maternal grandfather. Jacob Hayes hadn’t believed that his gas field would produce indefinitely, and it hadn’t, but he’d lived modestly and ploughed his money into a hosiery and a fabric mill, the leather business, and the newspaper. His foresight had enabled him to pass considerable wealth to his children and grandchildren. Adam appreciated his social station and the wealth that he’d inherited, but he wanted his own kingdom, wanted to build his own legacy for his children—that is, if he ever had any. His father’s recent death meant that he had to take an active interest in the family business, including management of the leather factory, which his father had skillfully nurtured. His mother possessed a sharp mind, but his grandfather had thought it improper for a young woman to work, and she’d never used her university education. His younger brother, Wayne, a journalist, had his hands full running the newspaper. No help there. So the onus was on him. It would mean working two demanding jobs, but he’d do it.

He summoned Jason Court for a progress report on the search for a manager of the Leather and Hides division. Adam had just gained full partnership in what was now Jenkins, Roundtree, and Tillman, and he had worked hard for it. He didn’t see how he could manage a leather tanning and manufacturing business located in Frederick, Maryland, from his office opposite the World Trade Center in New York.

“Come in, Jason, and have a seat. What have you got for me?”

“I have a contract with MTG for your signature.” Adam slapped his right knuckle into the open palm of his left hand.

“Nothing else?” If Jason felt pressured, he didn’t show it.

“I got the contract by messenger twenty minutes ago.” He handed it to Adam, who didn’t even glance at the papers but fixed his concentration on the man opposite him.

“How much time did you allow? A week ought to be more than enough for a firm that knows its business. I need that position filled yesterday. Make that clear.” He signed the contract and handed it back. “Thanks, Jason.” Adam watched his executive assistant as he left the room. The man was his perfect complement; he liked working with him. A sharp mind and a cool head. But he didn’t like doing business by mail with an anonymous nonhuman entity, because he wanted to know with whom he was dealing, see him, size him up, and know what to expect. He called his secretary.

“Olivia, would you arrange a meeting here with the president of MTG tomorrow morning, if possible? I don’t like dealing with a faceless company.” He walked around to Jason’s office, next door to his own.

“Tell me something about this fellow who heads up MTG. I’ve asked Olivia to have him come over here tomorrow morning, and I need a line on him.”

He watched Jason lean back in his chair with a half smile playing around his mouth.

“Adam, the president of MTG is a woman.”

“A woman?” He quickly veiled his astonishment; no one was going to accuse him of bias against women or any other group.

“Yeah. And she’s a no-nonsense person and a good-looking sister, to boot. She’s feminine, but she’s the epitome of efficiency, a thorough pro. I figured the fact that she wears a skirt wouldn’t bother you.”

“It doesn’t. I take it from your reference to the sisterhood that she’s African-American.” Jason nodded. “Well, all I want is for her to bring me a first-class manager.”

“She will.”

“She’d better.”

* * *

When Olivia opened his office door, Adam stood. The tall, light-skinned woman approached him slowly and confidently, the epitome of self-possession. Cool, laid-back, and elegant, she didn’t smile as she made her way, seeming to saunter, across his vast office to where he stood. Stunned. Poleaxed. She stopped a few feet from him and, flabbergasted as he was, he could nonetheless detect a complete change in her—could see the catch in her breath, the slight droop of her bottom lip, the acceleration of her breathing, and the widening of her incredible eyes just before she lowered them in what was most certainly embarrassment. Woman. She was certainly that. He managed to erase the appreciative expression from his face just as she looked up, her professional demeanor restored, and offered her hand.

“I’m Melissa Grant. It’s good to meet you.”

His eyebrow quirked, and then a frown stole over his face as he walked to the leather sofa and offered her a seat. She took the chair beside the sofa. Amused, he told her, “The name Grant is anathema to my family.”

“As Roundtree is to mine,” she coolly shot back.

If he had needed a damper for the desire that she’d aroused in him the second she walked through his door, she’d just provided it. Ordinarily he didn’t mind getting a fast fever for a woman, stranger or not; he didn’t have to do anything about it. An unexpected sexual hunger assured him that he had the virility a man his age ought to possess, but he didn’t like this powerful assault on his senses, the jab in his middle that he’d just gotten in response to Melissa Grant. He wouldn’t have liked it if her name hadn’t been Grant. Making sure of his ground, he asked her, with seeming casualness, “You’re not by chance related to the Frederick, Maryland, Grants, are you?”

“I’m Rafer Grant’s daughter, and my mother is Emily Morris-Grant. I assume you’re Jacob Hayes’s grandson.”

He had to admire the proud lift of her head, the way in which she fixed her gaze on him, and he didn’t doubt her message: if her being a Grant was bothersome, it was his problem, not hers. His desire ebbed and, in spite of himself, his mind went back to his fifteenth year and to Rafer Grant’s beautiful and voluptuous sister, Louise, and the way in which she’d flaunted his youthful vulnerability. The memory wasn’t a pleasant one, and he brought himself back to the present and to the business at hand. What he felt right then wasn’t desire but annoyance at himself.

Assuming his usual posture with a business associate, he pinned her with an unwavering gaze. “What have you managed so far?” He knew his tone was curt, brusque; he made it so deliberately. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that she’d gotten to him so easily.

“What do you mean?”

He detected a testiness in her voice. If she had a temper, he’d probably know it soon. “I mean, what have you come up with so far?” He imagined that those were storm clouds forming in her eyes, but he didn’t have to imagine that her excessively deep breath bespoke exasperation. He repeated the remark and leaned back to observe the fireworks.

Her cool response disappointed him. “Mr. Roundtree.” She punctuated his name with a slow turn of her body toward him and paused while she seemed to weight her next words. “Mr. Roundtree, I signed that contract less than twenty-four hours ago. If I were a magician, I’d be in a circus or perhaps in the White House where miracles are expected. You couldn’t be serious, because the contract gives me one month.” He was accustomed to women who smiled at him at least occasionally, but not this one. Just as Jason had said, she was all business, and he had just made a tactical error. He’d practically demanded what he hadn’t put in the contract, solid evidence that he’d let his emotional response to her interfere with his professionalism, something he’d never done before. He wouldn’t do it again, he promised himself, resenting his slip.

He nearly gasped as she stood abruptly, preparing to leave. Nobody terminated an interview with him. Nobody. And neither would she. He stood and began walking toward his office door, but she stopped before reaching it and held out her business card.

“I’m giving you this in case you feel you need to speak with me in person again. My office is as close to you as yours is to me. Otherwise...” She pointed to the telephone. “This has been most informative. Goodbye.”

His gaze lingered on her departing back Was this more evidence of Grant contemptuousness for a Roundtree? Or was she telling him that he’d been out of order in requesting that she come to his office for a business meeting rather than suggesting lunch at a neutral place? If the lady disliked his having called rank on her, she had good cause. He should have invited her to lunch.

* * *

Adam answered his intercom. “Yes, Olivia. Well, get DiCampino to translate those papers. She claims to know Italian.”

“She’s out today.”

“Really? This is the third time this week. Get a replacement.”

He heard Olivia’s deep sigh. “Adam, I think Maria is pregnant, and the love of her life is unprepared to honor that fact.”

“Well, hell, Olivia.” He knew his secretary was waiting for him to pounce on the subject of males who mistreat females, and he didn’t keep her waiting. “A man shouldn’t impregnate a woman if he’s unprepared to make a commitment to her and to their child. He’s obligated to marry her. Deliver me from these modern-day Johnny Appleseeds. It’s one thing to leave a legacy of apple trees, but it’s something else to produce a bunch of fatherless kids. Find out what she needs and let me know.” He knew without seeing her that his secretary’s face bore a smile.

“Yes, sir. But I can tell you now that she’s going to need shelter pretty soon, because her father has threatened to kill her. He says it’s an affront to the Blessed Virgin for a good Catholic girl to get pregnant out of wedlock.”

He threaded his fingers. “Well, get her a place, and whatever else she needs. And tell her that if the guy doesn’t marry her before she begins to show, she should stay away from him.”

“Yes, sir. I figured you’d help her.”

“Did you, now?” He switched off the intercom and turned on his closed-circuit television. He needed a quote on cowhide futures. He’d thought his life was in order and his career in advance of where he hoped to be at this stage of his life. When his father passed away unexpectedly six weeks earlier, all of that changed. He was the elder son, and he had a responsibility to his family but, in truth, he didn’t want to leave his firm. Leather and Hides had always been the most profitable unit of Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, and it was in trouble and didn’t have a manager. He didn’t believe in promoting the person who had been on the job longest—he went after the best man, even if he was an outsider, and he wanted the best product. His thoughts went to Melissa Grant. She had impressed him with her professional manner. He smiled. Professional after she recovered from the surprise they both received when they met. He wondered what his family would think of Ms. Grant.

* * *

What had she done? Melissa sat back in her desk chair and tried to imagine the possible fallout from her signature on that contract when Adam’s family found out about it, not to speak of her father’s behavior when he learned of her reaction to Adam Roundtree’s blatant, blistering masculinity. He haunted her thoughts, as he had done since she first looked at him. A big man. Self-possessed. And he was very tall, very dark, and very handsome. Thinking of him unsettled her, and she recalled that her entire molecular system had danced a jig when she laid eyes on him. But he was like the fruit in the Garden of Eden—one taste guaranteed a fall from Grace. Until today, as far as she knew, the Grants and Roundtrees and the Morrises and Hayeses before them hadn’t communicated by mouth or letter in her lifetime or her parents’ lifetime. Yet three generations of them had lived continuously within twenty miles of each other. And if today was an indication, their contact now wasn’t likely to be pleasant. They had been the bitterest of enemies since Moses Morris, her maternal grandfather, accused Jacob Hayes, Adam’s maternal grandfather, of cheating him out of a fortune nearly seventy years earlier. Whether she did it to assuage a sense of guilt, she didn’t know, because she didn’t examine her motive as she lifted the receiver and dialed her mother.

* * *

“Why are you calling in the middle of the day, dear?” Emily Grant asked her daughter. “Is anything wrong?”

“No,” Melissa said, groping for a plausible explanation. “I haven’t answered your letter, and I thought I’d better make up for that before I forgot it. How’s Daddy?” Her mother’s heavy sigh did not surprise her.

“Same as always. I’ll tell him you asked.” The voice suddenly lacked its soft, southern lilt. “I know you’re busy, dear, but come home when you can. And take care of yourself. You hear?”

Melissa hung up, feeling no better than before she’d made the call.

* * *

Melissa arrived at her apartment building that evening just as her friend, Ilona, reached it. She had met Ilona—a blond, vivacious, and engaging Hungarian with a flair for wit, conversation, and romance...and who admitted to fifty years—in the mail room just off the lobby. Until she’d met her, Melissa had never known anyone who kept a salon. You could always meet an assortment of artists, musicians, singers, dancers, and writers in Ilona’s bachelor apartment. Most were Europeans; all of them were interesting.

“Melissa, darling,” Ilona said in her strong accent, “come with me for a coffee for a few minutes.” Ilona drank hot espresso even on the hottest day.

“Okay, but only for a couple of minutes.” They rode the crowded elevator in silence and didn’t speak until they were inside Ilona’s place.

“What’s with you, darling?” Ilona called everybody “darling.” “Who is the man?” Laughter tumbled from Melissa’s throat, the first genuine merriment she’d felt since signing that contract.

“With you, it’s always a man, Ilona. This time, you guessed right.” She recounted her meeting that morning with Adam Roundtree.

“I don’t understand,” Ilona said.

“If I had passed up that contract, I might have had to declare bankruptcy. Now...well...Ilona, Adam Roundtree didn’t know who I was, but when he found out, I could see the light dimming in his eyes. You see, back in the 1920s his grandfather and my grandfather pooled their money to prospect some unproductive Kentucky oil fields for natural gas. For some reason, my grandfather pulled out, and six months later, Jacob Hayes brought in gas. My grandfather claimed that the gas field belonged to both of them, but he lost the court case. The townspeople gossiped, and years later Adam’s mother sued my family for slander and won an apology. It’s a mess. As far as I know, the Hayes-Roundtree clan and my folks hadn’t spoken in seventy years—until today when I met Adam Roundtree. You can’t mention their names in my father’s house.”

“And how do you feel about all this?”

“I don’t carry grudges.” Her weak smile must have reflected her grim mood; for once, Ilona had no clever response. Ilona brought their espresso coffee and some frozen homemade chocolates, explaining that she hadn’t made them and that she never cooked.

“If I had been wearing my glasses this morning, I’d have been better prepared for what I saw when I got close to Adam.” She thought that glasses didn’t become her and wore them only when absolutely necessary. Her laughter floated through the apartment. “The truth is that if I could have seen him, I wouldn’t have been foolish enough to get that close to him.” She rose to leave, but Ilona detained her.

“Darling, what are you going to do about this man?”

Melissa shrugged. “Avoid him as much as possible.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, “but I’d never give up on that man.”

“I’d like to see more of him but, knowing what I know, that wouldn’t be smart. I’d better go.”

Melissa left Ilona and went home to get her dinner and review some contracts. Her face heated as she remembered what she’d felt when she got a good look at Adam. He’d made her feel... Recalling it embarrassed her. His smooth sepia skin invited her touch, and when she’d looked into his warm brown eyes, eyes that had a natural twinkle, she sensed herself being lulled into a receptive mood, receptive to anything he might suggest or do. Although twenty-eight, she had never experienced such a reaction to a man. His big frame had towered over her five feet eight inches, but she hadn’t been intimidated. Power. Flagrant maleness. He exuded both. Adam Roundtree was handsome...

and dangerous. His eyes continued to twinkle, she recalled, even when his tone became cool.

* * *

Melissa arrived early at her office, drank a cup of tasteless machine coffee, and settled into her work. At about eight thirty, she answered her secretary’s buzz.

“Yes, Kelly.”

“Mr. Roundtree insists that he won’t speak with anyone but you, and that if you refuse to talk to him, he’ll void the contract. He says he knows other executive search firms. He’s serious.”

Melissa remembered Jason Court’s deference to his boss. Void their contract? “Just let him try it,” she told Kelly. “Put him on.” She let him wait a second, but not so long as to seem rude. “How may I help you, Mr. Roundtree?”

“My name is Adam, Melissa, and you may help me by assuring me that you don’t palm off your clients on your assistants. I’m paying enough to be able to speak with you directly. You left my office before I had an opportunity to tell you what you can trade off. I know what the contract says, but we may have to give a little, because I can’t wait for a manager until you’ve checked every guy who’s been close to a cow. Could we meet somewhere for lunch tomorrow, say around one thirty?”

“Does that mean I can check every gal who’s been near a pig or an alligator?” she asked, alluding to other sources of leather. She heard him snort, but before he could answer, she agreed to meet him. “One o’clock would be better for me, and I like a light lunch. How about Thompson’s?” He had to compromise, she figured. And why couldn’t he discuss it right then? Adam’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Alright. Thompson’s at one. And Melissa, leave your armor in your office.”

“Will do. And you leave your tough guy personality in yours.”

“See you tomorrow.” He hung up, and she thought she heard him make a noise. It couldn’t have been a laugh. Maybe he had a hidden soft side, but if he did, she didn’t want to be exposed to it—what she’d seen of him was more beguiling than she cared to deal with.

Melissa walked into her co-op apartment in Lincoln Towers, three blocks from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, closed the door, and thanked God for the cool, refreshing air. She got a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator, took it into the living room and drank it while she watched the six o’clock news. After a few minutes her mind wandered to Adam Roundtree, and she switched off the television. She disliked driven, overachieving, corporate males. Gilbert Lewis had been one, a man with a timetable for everything. After “X” number of dinners, movies, and taxi rides, you either went to bed with him, or you were off of his list. She had told him to get lost when he gave her his stock ultimatum. She had stupidly fallen for him, and his attitude had hurt, but she’d kept her integrity. And now there was Adam Roundtree, a man whose impact on her when she met him was far more profound than any emotion Gilbert Lewis or any other man had ever induced.

* * *

Melissa wouldn’t have admitted that she dressed with special care that morning, had the red linen dress that she wore only when she wanted to make an impression not been proof. If her parents knew she planned to have lunch with Adam Roundtree, they’d have conniptions. She’d never been able to please her father, and her mother only said and did that which pleased her husband. She stared at herself in the mirror and saw her mother’s grayish brown eyes and her father’s mulatto coloring—the result of generations of mulatto inbreeding—and prayed that that was as much like them as she’d ever be. One thing was certain—if her business went under, she would consider it to have been due to her own shortcomings, not the fault of some imagined enemy that could be conveniently blamed the way her father always blamed the Hayeses and Roundtrees for his succession of failures. She let her curly hair hang down around her shoulders in spite of the summer heat, picked up her briefcase, and went to work.

* * *

She arrived at Thompson’s promptly at one to find Adam leaning casually against the cashier’s counter at the entrance to the restaurant. Punctuality fitted what she’d seen of his personality, and it was a trait she admired. His piercing gaze and that twinkle in his eyes fascinated her, and she realized she’d better get used to him—and quick—or he’d be laughing at her. She shook his hand and greeted him with seeming casualness, but the feel of his big hand splayed in the middle of her back as he steered her to their table was a test she could have happily forgone.

Melissa’s heavy lashes shot upward, and she gasped in surprise at the dozen yellow roses on their table. She glanced quickly at Adam, opened the attached note, and read: “My apologies for not having done this Tuesday rather than ask you to come to my office. Forgiven? Adam.”

Unable to associate the man with the soft gesture, she merely stared at him.