Archer had closed the deal, dazzling a reluctant client with a strategy for developing a high-end shopping mall.
That evening, alone together in the restaurant of the cheap hotel where they were staying, he and Gwen had toasted the future of Glazebrook, Inc. One toast led to another and before he realized it, he ended up telling Gwen that he was pretty sure his marriage was falling apart. Gwen commiserated with him. They wound up in bed together.
In the morning Gwen realized the enormity of the mistake even before he did.
“You called out her name,” Gwen said, looking at him in the cracked mirror over the dressing table as she put on an earring. She smiled wistfully. “You love her. You will always love her. Go back to her.”
“What about you?” he said, feeling helpless.
“I’m handing in my resignation, effective immediately.” She put on the other earring. “I can’t stay with Glazebrook now. We both know that.”
She rented a car and drove back to Phoenix rather than fly back on the same plane with him. He never saw her again, although he knew she had returned to her office long enough to clean out her desk. He heard through the rumor mill that she went to San Francisco to stay with an aunt while she hunted for a new job. He’d had no concerns about her finding a good position. Her talent for accounting was, after all, preternatural.
Myra had known the moment he returned what had happened, of course. She was a member of the Arcane Society, too, although she preferred to ignore that fact as much as possible. Her father, the senator, had been strict on that subject. He had taught his family that their connection to a group of people who actually believed in the paranormal had to be kept a deep, dark secret. Voters tended to be wary of politicians who claimed to possess psychic powers.
Myra had immediately made his worst nightmare come true. She filed for divorce. He spent the next several months crawling on his knees while simultaneously trying to kill the pain with work on the shopping mall project.
In the end Myra relented and came back to him. After the divorce was final, of course. She wanted to make her point.
They remarried, and nine months later Elizabeth was born. At about the same time the shopping mall project was completed on time and on budget. Glazebrook, Inc., was off and running, a fierce competitor in the high-stakes world of Southwest commercial real estate development.
He never looked back.
Until eight months ago that policy had served him well. But sometimes the past returns to slap you upside the head with a two-by-four.
Chapter Ten
Clare heard the unmistakable warble of her personal phone just as she went through the Stone Canyon security gate. She pulled over to the side, reached into her purse and retrieved her phone.
“Where are you?” Jake asked.
“Just leaving Stone Canyon in my shiny new rental car. Why?”
“Thought we agreed that I’d take you out there to make the swap.”
She smiled. “That’s funny, I don’t recall agreeing to anything of the kind. What I recall is getting a message telling me that you would pick me up and take me out to Stone Canyon. As it happens, I had breakfast with Elizabeth. She very kindly drove me out here.”
Silence hummed while he processed that. She couldn’t tell if he was irritated, amused or merely surprised to discover that she had paid no attention to his instructions.
“You don’t take direction well, do you?” he said eventually, sounding thoughtful.
“I’m usually okay with directions. It’s orders that I don’t take well.”
“How about invitations? Do you accept those?”
A light, fluttery sensation sparkled through her. She stomped on it immediately. She must not forget that Jake worked for Archer. She was dealing with not one but two strong-willed men, each with his own agenda. This was cowboy country and she was the tenderfoot from San Francisco.
“Depends on the invitation,” she said carefully.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
Her mouth went dry.
“Still there?” he asked after a while.
“Yes.”
“Do I get an answer?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Jake said. “I’ll have a car service pick you up at that flophouse where you’re staying at five-thirty. It will take you close to an hour to get back out here.”
“Wait,” she said quickly. “I meant, yes, you get an answer. I didn’t say yes was the answer.”
“What is the answer?”
“Before I give it to you, will you swear on your honor as a consultant that this invitation is coming from you and you only and that you are not doing this because Archer asked you to do it?”
“My honor as a consultant?” He sounded amused. “I give you my word that I am inviting you to dinner because I want to have dinner with you. Not because your father asked me to entertain you.”
He sounded sincere, she thought. But when it came to her type of paranormal sensitivity, nature had not allowed for the complications of modern technology. She had learned the hard way over the years that phones, e-mail and the other varieties of electronic communication rendered her talent unreliable.
Nevertheless, anticipation welled up deep inside. Some risks were definitely worth taking.
“All right,” she said. “Yes. Thank you. I’ll look forward to it.”
“So will I.”
She cut the connection. When she glanced in the rearview mirror before pulling back onto the road she was startled to see that she was smiling.
Then the horrifying truth struck her full force. She had not come to Arizona prepared for a date with a fascinating man. The only clothes she had with her were the severe black business suit that had been ruined by the dunk in the pool, two pairs of black trousers and two T-shirts.
She needed to go shopping.
Her phone rang again two hours later, just as she emerged from the stairwell into the deep gloom of the mall parking garage. It took some major scrambling to locate the device in her purse because she was clutching two shopping bags.
She finally got the phone open.
“Hello?” she said.
“It’s me, Elizabeth. Where are you?”
“At a mall.”
“You went shopping without me? How could you?”
“It was an emergency,” Clare said. “I got invited out to dinner tonight.”
“Who do you know down here except for me?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Turns out I know Jake Salter.”
“Oh. My. God.”