Beyond Business. Elizabeth Harbison

for her to read through the e-mails.

      One by one, date by date, she clicked through, stopping every once in a while to make a note on the small pad on his desk.

      He noticed that her handwriting was still the same messy scrawl it had been in high school. Something about that small fact made him feel a little warmer inside.

      A little more at home.

      But that was all she gave in terms of comforting vibes. The rest of her was completely cool and impersonal. He tried to read the expression on her face, but though the face itself was undeniably familiar, some of the expressions she wore now were completely new to him. He had only his experience with people to go by, and he got the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that, for Meredith, this was all just standard business.

      Finally she finished scrolling through the notes and turned the chair around to face Evan. Her green eyes were bright, probably from the sudden light change of looking from the computer monitor to Evan, and she said, “Okay, I will admit I kind of see your point.”

      He couldn’t believe his ears. “You agree with me?”

      “Wait a minute.” She held up a slender hand. The left one, actually.

      The one he’d once thought would wear his wedding and engagement rings.

      “I didn’t say I agree with you,” she went on, blissfully ignorant of his disconcerting thoughts about their past. “There’s still plenty we disagree about.”

      That hadn’t always been the case.

      “But I am saying,” she continued, “that I see your point about his ratings and I understand why his contrition has given you confidence in potentially hiring him.”

      This was good. She was agreeing with him. Wasn’t she? “So you’ll come with me and meet him?”

      She frowned, hesitating. Her delicate brow lowered toward those bright green eyes in a way that he hadn’t seen in so long it made him ache to think about it.

      “I’m not sure there’s anything I could do to help you attain your goal.”

      “Come on, Mer,” he said, catching the familiarity only afterward, when it was too late to stop himself. “You can charm the pants off him, that’s what you can do. You’re damn good at that.”

      She glanced at him sharply and said, “I don’t think any of us wants that.”

      He had to be careful of this thinking about her personally, because obviously some part of his subconscious was having trouble distinguishing between the way he used to feel about her, back when they were just kids, versus what he felt for her now that they were nothing more than casual work associates.

      What he needed to concentrate on was the success of his plan. Securing Lenny Doss and saving the company. The idea had taken hold and was mattering more and more to him. He couldn’t say for sure if his desire was more a compulsion to help future generations who were innocent of his father’s poison, or if he just wanted to “show up” the old man by saving the company that George had nearly destroyed.

      He wanted both, but the balance tended to swing a little more toward the latter than the former.

      Not that it mattered. Everyone involved had a common goal, and it didn’t matter how they got there, did it?

      “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “But you know what I mean. There’s a lot you can do to help persuade him, because you are a smart, beautiful wo—person. And you can present the case in a truthful and persuasive manner.”

      She faced him, looking surprised for a moment, then gave one conciliatory nod. “Your faith in me might be a little unfounded. But, fine, I’ll do it.”

      “You’ll go?” He couldn’t believe it.

      It was almost a date.

      At least, the prospect of it made him feel as nervous as he would have if it was a first date. And he was seventeen.

      “I’ll go.” She nodded again, that rich brown hair gleaming in the light. “But only to meet the guy and feel the situation out. I’m not promising I’m going to be buying a ticket for the Lenny Doss love train.”

      “Honey, that train doesn’t even stop at this station,” Evan said with a smile. He could have pulled her into his arms and kissed her at that moment, but he didn’t.

      This was business, he reminded himself. And everything that happened would remain just business, even if the look in her eyes or the curve of her mouth made him think of things that were distinctly unbusinesslike.

      So he would take on the manner of the gregarious boss, enthusiastic about his work. “All we need to be concerned with is the Lenny Doss ratings train. And that—” he opened his arms “—is about to call Hanson Broadcasting its home station.”

      Chapter Eight

      This was, of course, not a date. And they both knew it. So Meredith hated the impulse she had to make herself up for the evening.

      More than that, she hated that she wasn’t able to stop feeling the impulse.

      Her mother had moved back to Tampa almost a year ago now, and Meredith was back in the suburban Chicago home she’d grown up in. It had made sense for her to move in, since her mother wasn’t emotionally ready to let go of the house, yet wasn’t physically able to maintain it any longer.

      Meredith was back in Chicago for her work and, since she needed a place to live, the old house had fit the bill perfectly, though it was sometimes disconcerting to find herself having her Cheerios in the same old kitchen.

      That was changing. Meredith wasn’t the sort of person who could actually live in that kind of time warp. But renovation was going slowly, thanks in part to slow contractors and in part to Meredith’s limited funds, so the house still looked very much as it had ten or twenty years ago.

      This hadn’t bothered her at all until now, when she was looking into a bathroom mirror that had reflected her image when it was that of a fresh-faced high-school girl getting ready for a date with the somewhat wild, but deep-down sweet, bad boy Evan Hanson himself.

      “You shouldn’t be going out with that kid,” her father had told her one night as she was getting ready to go see the new Hal Burkett movie with Evan. “He comes from a bad family.”

      “Oh, Daddy, he doesn’t come from a bad family. His father’s just a bully, that’s all.”

      Her father had snorted and it was only now that she understood the pain that had tightened his expression for a moment. “If the boy is anything like his father, you would do best to stay as far away from him as possible.”

      “He’s really great, Daddy. Honest. You trust my judgment, don’t you?”

      “I don’t trust anything where George Hanson’s family is concerned.”

      She’d gone to him and hugged him tight, her arms closing too easily around a frame that used to have a lot more bulk to it. He wasn’t healthy. He worked all the time. She worried about that.

      “Evan must have had a wonderful mother, because he’s one of the best guys I ever met. Besides you, of course. I know she’s gone now, but he had her up until last year. That’s a lot of time for him to learn to be something other than his father.”

      “You always see the best in people,” her father had said with something like amazement. “But you have to believe me when I tell you that sometimes people are not what they seem. Trust, but always be at least a little cautious. Take care of yourself when I’m not there to do it for you.”

      She’d kissed his cheek. “I’ll be fine, Daddy, I promise you.”

      Her own words had echoed tauntingly in her memory for some time after that.

      Now look at her.