Beyond Business. Elizabeth Harbison

      “Yes,” she said at last. “I am. You can depend on me.”

      Evan was starting to have a hard time getting his thoughts straight.

      Being at Meredith’s parents’ house the other night was just too strange. How many hours had he spent there in his lifetime, enjoying the company of the girl he had once been absolutely sure he’d marry?

      It was weird to come back, now that she was a grown woman—a woman who had spent more than a decade growing away from him—and see her in that same environment.

      It gave him a strange feeling, a combination of unease and melancholy.

      Not to mention the all-new desire he felt for Meredith as she fit right into his life and his mind now. The way she’d handled Lenny Doss was amazing. More to the point, the way she handled everything at work was amazing. She was a perfect professional, always conservative but always right.

      It was ironic that the very quality that had driven him crazy when they were dating—her unwillingness to take a risk—was the very thing he appreciated in her now.

      After he’d spent the night in her guest room, he’d gotten up early, written a note of thanks and called a cab to take him back to his car at Navy Pier. It was better that way, he figured: no awkward morning talk, no uncomfortable silences.

      He’d been at work for three and a half hours, with no sign of Meredith, when he finally decided to take a casual look around for her.

      But she wasn’t in the PR offices, and David said he hadn’t seen her all day. So when Evan found her at a lone computer at the far end of the accounting department, he was puzzled.

      He watched her for a few minutes from a distance, clicking on the computer keyboard, squinting and looking closer, then jotting notes down on a pad in front of her.

      Now what was that all about?

      He moved closer, hoping to catch a better glimpse of her work without making his presence so obvious that, if caught, he couldn’t say he’d just wandered in.

      So very carefully he walked up behind her and tried to see what was on the computer screen.

      Revenues. Debt. Balances.

      Meredith was studying the entire financial profile of the company.

       Why?

      He backed off again, unnoticed, to contemplate his next move in the hallway.

      Was Meredith a corporate spy of some sort?

      No, that was too absurd. What had made him even think such a thing? Meredith was far too principled to be dishonest in any capacity, much less lie to someone’s face, as she would have to with Evan, David, Helen and everyone else she came into contact with at the office.

      Come on.

      It was far more likely that ever-responsible-and-forward-thinking Meredith was checking out the company’s vital statistics because she was interested in some personal investing, rather than reporting back to some supersecret source.

      If anyone was bold enough to take a chance on investing in a company at rock bottom, it was Meredith. She’d see, as he did, that Hanson Media would rebound one way or another.

      That was definitely more in keeping with Meredith’s personality, yet … Evan wasn’t quite sure. Something about this didn’t sit right with him. An investor would have plenty of ways to monitor the debt-to-income ratio and the viability of the company as a potential investment. There were books, Web sites, portfolios and, hell, people who dedicated their entire existence to providing that kind of information.

      Still, the idea of Meredith checking the company information for some sort of nefarious intention was unlikely in the extreme.

      He’d have to keep an eye on the situation. He’d keep Meredith close and see if he could figure out what she was up to without his ever having to ask.

      * * *

      Several days passed since Evan had stayed at Meredith’s house, and they never really talked about it again. His cut healed fairly quickly, she was glad to see. He’d probably been right: she was too paranoid in suggesting he needed to go to the hospital right away for stitches.

      The strange thing was, he was barely talking to her.

      Despite the great strides he’d made in the company—after getting Lenny Doss, he’d managed to secure contracts with three other famous names, including the Alleyway Guys, who had a popular, irreverent car talk show—his conversations with Meredith were brief and to the point.

      She couldn’t argue with his professional decisions, so it wasn’t as if he had that to worry about. The Alleyway Guys, at least, wouldn’t be as great a liability as Lenny Doss could be, and the radio psychologist he’d hired had a reputation for being aggressively conservative, but that always ended up making for good listening, both because of the callers who disagreed with her and the callers who agreed.

      So the radio division was shaping up. Despite the risks involved—and they were many—the acquisition of Lenny Doss would probably be a profitable one. Evan was smart to create an interesting but reliable mix of talent. All of them were proven talents with good, solid numbers behind them.

      That would undoubtedly help with her employers’ plans for a merger.

      “So how’s everything going over at the Web site?” she asked David, late in the afternoon. It was almost time to go, and she hoped it would sound like a casual question that he could answer and then leave without thinking too much.

      “Actually, things are great,” David said. “All squared away. Hanson Media Group is on its way back.”

      “Really? What do you attribute that to?”

      David hesitated. “I guess it’s everything combined. The family has come in and worked really hard to save the company, and I think it’s showing in every department. We’re not in the clear yet, of course, but things are really looking up.”

      Meredith smiled. “So you think the company can survive on its own?”

      David looked at her sharply. “As opposed to what?”

      She’d spoken too fast. “I mean you won’t need to file for chapter eleven or get a loan?”

      David narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “Are you worried about keeping your job?”

      She was relieved that that was his only question. She opened her arms into a wide shrug and said, “I’m a single woman working to pay for a house and make my way in this world.” She smiled. “It ain’t easy. Any reassurance you could give me about job security would be greatly appreciated.” She hated to lie to him that way—job security was the least of her worries—but she needed his input on how the company was doing. David Hanson’s word was gold within the industry, and she needed a little of that rich, shiny news to take back to her employer.

      “I can’t assure you of anything,” David said, to her disappointment. “This is a wildly uncertain business struggling in wildly uncertain times. However, I can tell you that the public interest in Evan’s programming is high. The kid has good instincts, just like Helen figured he would.”

      “He’s a little reckless,” Meredith interjected, with a ping of conscience at saying something potentially negative about Evan.

      “Ambitious might be a better way of putting that,” David said gently. “He’s been working against the odds, and against the opposition of many within the company, but he’s still arranged for a lineup he feels good about, and the industry buzz is on his side.” David shrugged broadly. “How do we argue with that?”

      “Hopefully, we don’t,” Meredith agreed. It was a good recommendation of Evan and his work, and she knew David Hanson was far too meticulous a professional to say anything he didn’t mean, just to flatter his nephew.

      “So