Beyond Business. Elizabeth Harbison

office. Something about the still of the night and some long-dormant knot of emotions called her there. As if she could go and breathe him in … and breathe him out. And maybe get rid of the memories that haunted her still, once and for all.

      But there was no time for that. She’d done what she needed to do and now she needed to get the heck out of the building before anyone figured her out.

      She opened the main door and, after a surreptitious glance out into the hallway, she stepped away, letting the door to Hanson Media Group close harder than she’d intended.

      It was a careless mistake, but it didn’t matter. She’d proven to herself time and again that there was no one there.

      No one but the ghosts of a man who once meant the world to her and whose name now meant only a biweekly paycheck, excellent health and dental insurance and a dull ache in her heart that she almost couldn’t bear.

      Chapter Seven

      Evan Hanson woke to a bang.

      He sat bolt upright in the converted sofa bed before he had even a moment to think, his body tensed and ready for fight or flight. For one crazy, disconcerting moment he couldn’t remember where he was, then it came back to him. He was sleeping in his office. Unable to commit to staying in Chicago—or even admit to himself that he’d come back—he’d been camping out in the office, using the executive washroom for bathing and either eating out or ordering food in.

      What point would there be in getting an apartment to keep a job that he knew wasn’t going to last long? He was no ace executive but he could see the writing on the wall—Hanson Media Group was going down. If he could do anything to help stop it, he was willing to give it a hundred percent, but at the same time he wasn’t going to bet his life that it would work out. Not that he wanted to come out and say that to anyone still working there.

      Either way, there was no way he was going to be in Chicago for the rest of his life.

      He missed the sun of Majorca. The fresh regional produce he’d come to enjoy picking up at sunny outdoor markets across Europe. Already he felt like one more quickie takeout meal would kill him.

      Helen’s hopes for the company were admirable. Noble, even. But impossible. Anyone could see that. Offices that used to be filled with enthusiastic employees, reflecting the prosperity of what was once one of the most powerful media groups in the United States, were now half empty. There was little laughter, less water cooler talk, and almost no optimism on the faces of the employees he saw every day.

      Most of Hanson’s best employees had left a while back, knowing their résumés would look better if they reflected tenure at a successful company than if they showed a tenacious grip on a ship that was going down faster than the Titanic. It might not stay down—he was fairly sure some other company would snatch it up at a bargain price—but it was going to go down long enough for those onboard to suffer. Unless they were brave enough to hold on to their stock options until the price went up.

      But from what he was hearing around the office, most people weren’t. The general consensus was “get out while you can.”

      So what the heck was Meredith Waters doing here?

      The Meredith he’d known was far too savvy to align herself with a losing cause.

      And honestly, it would have suited him a whole lot better not to have her around. She was a distraction.

      A major distraction.

      Hell, Meredith’s ghost had haunted him for years, her memory floating around the outskirts of his consciousness more frequently than he liked to admit. He didn’t always see it, but often, late at night, when it was just him and his thoughts alone in a room, it was Meredith’s voice that spoke to him.

      Which was nuts, because he knew she had to hate him by then. He knew that she wasn’t lying in another bed across the ocean, thinking the same thoughts. And he was fairly certain that she had moved on to a much better and more reliable prospect.

      Someone he could never live up to.

      He’d spent a lifetime feeling as though he couldn’t live up to his loved ones’ expectations. For a long time it was his failure in his father’s eyes that had disturbed him the most. One would have thought after the snub in the reading of the will that his feeling of failure toward his father would have grown even deeper, but something in him had snapped. Somehow—by some miracle—he had stopped caring what his father thought.

      And for a brief but glorious time he’d enjoyed the feeling of not caring what anyone thought.

      Then Meredith had appeared. And suddenly who he was as a man, and what she thought of him, mattered more than ever.

      And that was what was distracting him the most. It was going to be hard to get her out of his mind: he knew that the moment he first saw her.

      He had spent his life since Meredith dating a series of women who were ill-suited for him. He preferred it that way. A fling was one thing, but he’d felt love before and he didn’t ever want to feel it again. And he’d definitely avoided anyone who reminded him at all of Meredith. It was too painful.

      At first it was a conscious effort, but soon it had become a habit. He dated blondes. He dated redheads. Deep black hair was fine.

      But he never dated girls with that rich, chestnut-colored hair, or pale Irish skin, or laughing green eyes.

      He thought of her, and how she had always applied herself completely to every task, whether it was studying for a history exam or helping a friend fill out a college application, or simply making that amazing sour-cream bread she used to make.

      He doubted any of the women he had dated in the past decade could make their own breakfast, much less their own bread.

      But he couldn’t afford to make those comparisons now, or think of the things he had once loved about Meredith. Particularly now, when they were laboring through this frigid situation they had found themselves in.

      Yet even while part of him resisted their new business relationship, he knew she would do the job well. He knew if anyone could help him succeed, it would be Meredith.

      And they’d agreed that that was what they were going to do. They were going to work together and make the business succeed. Regardless of what had happened or not happened between them in the past.

      The past was dead.

      The future was short, at least here at Hanson Media.

      All he needed to do was whatever he could to bring about the success of the radio division, then he could get the hell out of Chicago.

      His thoughts returned to Lenny Doss. Sure, the guy was a bit of a renegade. He was definitely notorious. But Evan had faith that Lenny could keep his nose clean as far as the FCC regulations went. Lenny was brash, Lenny was bold, Lenny was crude, but Lenny was not stupid.

      And he was popular.

      Unable to sleep, Evan went to his desk and booted up his computer to check his e-mail. That seemed to be Lenny’s preferred method of communication, so Evan decided he’d write to the guy and ask if he’d made a decision about the contract Evan had offered him.

      Amidst what looked like a hundred spam messages offering everything from investment opportunities to physical enhancement, Evan found an e-mail from Lenny himself.

      To: [email protected]

      From: [email protected]

      Subject: You’ve got competition, Bud!

      Yo man! DigiDog Satellite Radio has given me a pretty sweet offer. You willing to up yours by 10% with a three-year guarantee? That’s the only way you’ll get the Doss Man. LD

      Evan muttered an oath.

      He quickly typed DigiDog into a search engine. It turned out they were an up-and-coming satellite company and they were paying big bucks to acquire high-profile talent—which