had challenged her, pushing every one of her buttons at the end of a very long day, and found himself pressed up against the wall, pinned by Dar’s weight while she yelled at the top of her lungs.
It was the reason she spent most evenings at the Island’s well-stocked gym, working with the resident martial artist, Teddy, and perfecting several different flavors of black belts. Anger management, the VP of Personnel had called it. Dar sighed. “Hello?”
“Um…” Kerry’s voice came on, hesitantly. “Thank you.”
Dar took a breath. “Some places, when we come in, you have a lot of people trying to either destroy or make off with proprietary information,” she explained quietly. “I know it’s hard to think of your co-workers that way, but we do this from experience, not because we just decided to be hardasses.”
“I-I understand that,” Kerry replied. “It’s…it’s just so humiliating.”
Dar paused, disconcerted. She’d never thought of it that way. “I guess it is. I’m…sorry.” She remembered Kerry’s eyes, at first willing to trust, then so quickly disillusioned. “But it’s…”
“Nothing personal, I know,” Kerry replied flatly.
They were both silent for a moment. “Fifteen people gave notice today,”
Kerry finally said, not really sure why. “The rest said they were going to stick around and see what happens.”
Dar stared out her window, hardly seeing the clouds drifting by. “That’s pretty good,” she murmured. “You’ve got a loyal staff, there.”
“They’re depending on me,” Kerry said, “to keep you from screwing us all over.”
Aw, kid… The tall, dark-haired woman slowly shook her head at the sky.
Don’t put that on your shoulders. “All right,” she murmured. “Well…”
“I’m not going to let them down.” The voice was very steady. “No matter what you do or say.”
Dar sighed. “Ms. Stuart, I’m not your enemy.”
“You’re not my friend,” came the flat reply.
“No.” She paused. “I guess I’m not.”
Now it was Kerry’s turn to be silent. “Well, thank you for telling him to stop, I really appreciate that a lot.” She exhaled. “And, um…I’ll send any more questions.”
“All right.” Dar hesitated. “Listen, write this number down.” She waited until she got a soft “Go on” from the phone. “305-975-6647.”
“I have it,” Kerry said.
“If you have any problems with him, just call that number.”
“All right.” Kerry paused. “Have a…um, have a safe trip.” Wishing the corporate VP crashed would be politically incorrect, she supposed, and besides, she had just done Kerry a big favor. No sense in alienating a woman who 30 Melissa Good could make a six-and-a-half-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound man turn white as Casper’s Ghost and practically piddle on the carpet, right? Right.
Dar’s voice dropped a pitch as she replied, “Thanks.”
It was a warmer tone, that forced an unexpected smile to the younger woman’s face. “You’re welcome.” Kerry answered softly. “Goodbye.” She hung up the phone and remained there for a long moment, staring at the instrument and wondering what on earth was going on with her. Then she sighed and seated herself behind her desk again, rubbing her face wearily. She looked up as a knock on the doorframe alerted her to a new presence. “Come in, Ray.”
The support manager glided across the carpet and slipped into her visitor’s chair. “What happened?”
“What happened?” Kerry stared at him. “We got taken over by the Merry Mongols Megolithic marching band, remember?”
“Ay, chica, no. With the gorillas.” Ray looked around, then back at her.
“Who put on their leashes? They are being so nice now, it’s alarming.”
“Oh.” Kerry folded her hands. “Well, I kind of complained to, um…”
“To the Cruella?” Ray inquired.
“Yeah.” Kerry nodded. “So she talked to that head goon, and he told them to take it easy. I think it will be better now.”
“Our hero.” He grinned. “You go, girl.”
She looked down at her hands and smiled. “Yeah, that was pretty good. I don’t know what she said to him, but he looked like a puppy that had just been spanked.”
“Tch…he would probably like that.” Ray laughed. “Maybe she’s his…how you call them…his mistress. You know, with the whips and chains thing. She probably puts on him a collar, with a bell.”
Kerry covered her face with one hand and stifled a giggle. She was so tired from her late-night tasks, the picture of the burly, gruff Brady in a belled collar was almost too much for her. “God, Ray, don’t do that to me. What a picture.”
He stood up. “Teresita is going to Laurenzo’s. You want her to bring you back a colada?”
The woman blinked. She tended to view Cuban coffee with a wary eye, a cross between black goo and rocket fuel, but the way she felt today, maybe it was worth a try. “Okay, sure. That might be a good idea; I’m pretty tired.” She picked up the piece of paper with the phone number, and looked at it curiously, then folded it and tucked it away in her shirt pocket.
She turned back to her computer, rereading the dozen or so questions and clarifications she’d come up with for Cr…for Dar Roberts. “All right, you asked for them.” She sat back, reflecting on what had just happened, tapping her pencil on her lower lip. Dar had called, apparently to let her know she could keep sending things, and she’d ended up going off all over the executive. No way around it, that was exactly what she had done. And instead of telling her off, or firing her, which Dar certainly was capable of doing, the corporate VP had fixed her problem.
Weird. Very weird. She certainly hadn’t given Dar any reason to be nice to her; in fact, she’d been rude to the point of insubordinate twice now, and the Tropical Storm 31
older woman had simply ignored her comments as though she hadn’t made them.
No, that wasn’t true. That last time she’d said Dar wasn’t a friend of hers, she had answered, agreeing with that. It has almost been… Kerry drew her denim-covered knee up and circled it with one arm, and sighed. She didn’t know what it had almost been, but now she was feeling a little bad about being so rude. She wasn’t usually like that, and she had no idea what about Dar Roberts brought it out in her.
She turned to her screen, where a dozen or so more questions and clarifications were typed, and reviewed them. She’d left out the snide comments this time, since she’d gotten such reasonable answers the last time.
Now she hesitantly typed a final line on the bottom, then hit the Send key, doing so quickly before she could change her mind.
There. Not much of an apology, but… After all, she was the one being screwed over here, her and the rest of her staff. Dar Roberts could just like it or not, she really didn’t care one way or the other. Right?
Chapter Three
“RIGHT THIS WAY, Ms. Roberts.” The concierge gave her a sketchy half bow and indicated that she follow him. They entered the elevator, and he pressed the button for the top floor, where the hotel maintained business suites for traveling executives. “Have you come far?” he inquired politely.
Dar tore her attention from the steadily creeping floor numbers. “Miami.”
She shifted her shoulders inside her brown leather jacket. “It’s a little cooler here.”
The man chuckled and held the door open as they reached the correct floor. “That it is.”