After the Party. Jackie Braun

fill out any official forms.”

      “I’m sure.” He realized he was staring, and asked, “Did you lose something just now?”

      “Actually, I found something.” She smiled again and held out her hand. A single copper coin decorated its palm.

      “That’s a penny.”

      “A lucky penny,” she corrected. “It’s an omen.” When he frowned, she said, “You know, a sign. A good one in this case. I’m here about a job.”

      The first layer of fantasy peeled away. Chase was too practical to put stock in omens. As for luck, he was of the firm belief that people made their own. His uncle was a case in point. Elliot Trumbull was the founder and creative genius behind a multibillion-dollar business that he’d launched four decades earlier with toys that remained beloved and collected the world over. Vision, passion, hard work—those were the ingredients for success. Not luck, even if Chase could admit that Elliot had run into a spate of the bad variety lately.

      “And you think finding a penny on the floor in this lobby is going to help you with that?”

      The woman shrugged. “It can’t hurt. Right?”

      Well, she had him there.

      Together, they started for the bank of elevators, where nearly a dozen people outfitted in conservative business attire waited. They greeted Chase with nods and murmured “Good afternoon,” before parting like the Red Sea. When the doors of the first elevator slid open, not one of them boarded it.

      Chase was used to this. When Elliot had brought Chase back to New York from the company’s California office eighteen months earlier, he’d come with the express purpose of turning around Trumbull Toys’ flagging bottom line. Unlike his uncle, who was officially at the helm and remained the creative force, or Owen, Elliot’s son, who was known to flirt outrageously with female workers, Chase believed in running a tight ship. As a result, employees feared him. When possible, they went out of their way to avoid him. The young woman, however, stepped inside the elevator without a moment’s hesitation. Then she caught the doors before they could close.

      “Isn’t anyone else coming?”

      She directed the question to the crowd at large. Several of them flushed. A few of them stammered incoherently. An intern from the marketing department looked as if he might faint.

      “They’ll catch the next car,” Chase replied on their behalf.

      “Oh. Okay.” She released the doors and they shut.

      Chase punched the buttons for floors two and seventeen. Human Resources was located on two. Top management offices, including his, were on seventeen. When the bell dinged and the doors opened one floor up, however, the woman made no attempt to leave.

      “This is two,” he prompted. “Aren’t you getting off here?”

      She blinked at him, one brown eye and one blue clouded with confusion. “No. I thought you were.”

      “Why would I be getting off here?”

      “Well, you’re the one who pressed the button,” she reminded him.

      “The human resources department is on this floor.” He pointed down the corridor. “It’s the third office on the left. That’s where all job applicants check in to fill out paperwork before being sent on to department heads for their interviews.”

      “There must be some mistake.”

      “It’s all right.” He held the doors to keep them from closing. “You probably just misunderstood.”

      “No, what I mean is, I’m not here for an interview. I’ve already got the job. I’m meeting with my client on the seventeenth floor.”

      That was when it hit him. No...no...no.

      Chase realized he’d muttered his objection aloud when she said, “Excuse me?”

      He released the doors and they closed, sealing him inside the elevator with a woman who was every man’s fantasy and, now that he knew her identity, Chase’s worst nightmare.

      Tone grim, he said, “You’re the party planner.”

      “Guilty as charged. I’m Ella Sanborn.” She sobered slightly. “Don’t tell me you’re Mr. Trumbull. Er, I mean you sounded...different on the phone.”

      He could only imagine.

      “One of three. I’m Chase. You’re here to see Elliot. He’s my uncle.”

      “I am so sorry to hear he’s dying.”

      Jaw clenched, he replied, “My uncle is not dying.”

      Her brow wrinkled. “But when he called, he said he wanted me to plan a wake. An Irish one. For him.”

      Chase rubbed the back of his neck just above his shoulders where a tight knot was already starting to form. “My uncle isn’t Irish, either.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “A common occurrence,” Chase remarked.

      His uncle’s quirkiness left a lot of people scratching their heads. Lately, he also had become unpredictable and absentminded to the point that some members of the board of directors were questioning his mental fitness and ability to continue as the head of the publicly traded company. Rumor had it that they were close to having the votes to do it. Chase didn’t want to think what the board members who were still on the fence were going to think if his uncle went through with this wake.

      Too late Chase realized that Ella thought his comment was directed at her.

      “I can be a little naive at times, but I’m not an idiot.”

      “I didn’t mean to—”

      “Oh, my God. It’s all a joke, isn’t it?”

      Chase frowned. In the span of a few seconds he’d gone from being contrite to being confused. “What?”

      “The job, the supposed interview. Somehow Bernadette found out about my new business venture, and she put you up to this.”

      The elevator stopped on the fifteenth floor. Three men from the product development department were waiting to board. With one glance from Chase they scuttled away like crabs at low tide.

      When the elevator was under way again, he asked, “Who is Bernadette?”

      “She’s my stepsister. Ex-stepsister, actually. Her mom and my dad are divorced now.” Ella paused to add a dramatic, “Thank God!” Then, “But that hasn’t stopped her from trying to make my life miserable.”

      “Well, this is no joke. My uncle is serious about wanting an Irish wake.”

      “Even though he’s not Irish and he’s not dying.”

      “He has his reasons.” Ones Chase didn’t quite understand and couldn’t agree with. “My uncle can be... He’s often...” At a loss for how to describe the man who had raised him from the age of ten on, Chase finished awkwardly, “He’s just like that.”

      Especially lately.

      “Like what?” Ella asked.

      Chase clamped his lips closed. He didn’t want to believe the rumors circulating about his uncle’s deteriorating mental capacity. He certainly wouldn’t help spread them.

      Greeted with his silence, Ella said, “That’s okay. I’d rather meet him and make up my own mind anyway.”

      Unfortunately, Chase had a pretty good idea of the opinion Ella Sanborn would form once she did.

      * * *

      The elevator dinged, heralding their arrival on the much vaunted seventeenth floor of the Trumbull Toys empire. Several years ago, Ella had seen a television special on Elliot Trumbull and his place of business. It had made