A Special Relationship (21 page)

THIRTEEN

Two hours later and Carrie was walking slowly across the polished floors of the lobby inside of the Dyson corporate building.
 
She was wearing jeans,
a cotton
, frill-line blouse, and her loafers amongst the business suits and dress shoes that swirled even faster around her.
 
But she wasn’t intimidated at all.
 
She had phoned Dyson five times asking to speak with Robert Kincaid and she was denied access to him each and every time.
 
Now she was determined.
 
That cheap pocketbook that still sat in his truck may not have meant a thing to them, but it meant everything to her.

 
She took the elevator to the top floor where she knew Robert’s office was located.
 
She looked
around,
hoping to remember the maze that led to his office, but a security guard standing at the massive reception desk began looking at her as if he just knew she didn’t belong there.
 
He’d been laughing and talking with the receptionist that sat behind the big desk when Carrie first stepped off of the elevator, but now they both were looking at her.

 
“May I help you?” the receptionist finally asked as Carrie walked up to the desk.
 

 
“Yes, ma’am,” Carrie said.
 
“I’m here to see Robert Kincaid.”

 
“Oh,” the receptionist said, picking up her desk phone immediately and looking at Carrie with more respect.
 
“I’ll tell his secretary that you’ve arrived, ma’am.
 
May I ask your name, please?”

 
“Carrie Banks, but she wouldn’t. . . I mean, I don’t have an appointment.”

 
The security guard smiled and then laughed.
 
The receptionist sat the phone back down.
 
“If you don’t have an appointment,” she said, “what sort of business would you have with Mr. Kincaid?”

 
Carrie looked from the receptionist to the smiling guard and then back to the receptionist.
 
They wouldn’t understand if she told them.
 
“It’s private,” she said.

 
“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” the receptionist replied.
 
“And that’s why I can’t help you.
 
Mr. Kincaid doesn’t take walk-ins.”

 
The guard let out a big laugh then.
 
Carrie glanced at him angrily.
 
“I need to see him,” she said to the receptionist.
 
“If somebody would just tell him I’m here he’ll see me.”

 
“Girl, do you know who Robert Kincaid even is?” the guard asked her, amazed at Carrie’s boldness.
 

 
“Yes, I know who he is.”

 
“He’s the man around here.
 
You know you can’t just go running in there to see him, you know better than that!”

 
Carrie sighed in exasperation.
 
She could just see her sister now, tossing her clothes out onto those filthy streets when twelve o’clock arrived and she didn’t have that rent money in her hands.
 
What in the world was she going to do then?
 
Where was she going to live?
 
At a homeless shelter?
 
On the streets?
 
Would she be forced to go back to Georgia where she didn’t really have a home there either?
 
And how was she going to get to Georgia with no money?
 

 
She looked at the receptionist and guard again.
 
They didn’t understand.
 
“Look,” she said, trying desperately to impress upon them the urgency of her plight, “if you’ll just tell his secretary to tell him it’s me—”

 
“I can’t help you, Miss.
 
Marva Cox doesn’t play that and if you knew anything about Dyson you’d know that.”

 
“Marva Cox?
 
Who’s Marva Cox?”

 
The guard laughed again.

 
“Marva Cox is Mr. Kincaid’s secretary.
 
She’ll have me written up if I even thought about disturbing her boss because somebody walks in from the street demanding to see him.”

 
“He’s here,” the guard said and both Carrie and the receptionist looked toward the elevators.
 
Only it wasn’t Robert Kincaid coming toward them, as she’d hoped, but The FedEx man with a dolly filled with packages.
 
The receptionist and guard both walked from behind the desk and immediately began sorting them, totally forgetting that Carrie was even there.
 
Carrie looked around.
 
The place was crawling with
bodies,
everybody so certain of where they had to go and how they needed to get there that it was almost impressive. A kind of controlled chaos, she thought.
 
Then, miraculously, she saw him.

 
He was walking, along with an assistant, across the far back side of the huge reception area.
 
His hands were in the pants pocket of his beautiful black suit and he appeared to be barking out orders to the young lady trailing him as if he expected her to record every word.
 
And she seemed to be doing just that.
 
He was talking nonstop and she was writing feverishly.
 
Carrie reacted as soon as she saw him, forgetting the receptionist, the location, the decorum of the room, as she called out his name.

 
Robert’s heart slammed against his chest when he heard that voice.
 
That soft, gravelly, sultry voice.
 
He stopped immediately, causing his aide to stumble into him, and he looked toward the direction of the sound.
 
But he was not hearing things.
 
The lady that had haunted his dreams all night long last night was now standing in his building.
 
It was Carrie.

 
The receptionist was mortified, as she stopped sorting packages and began apologizing profusely for allowing Carrie to disturb him so rudely, but Robert pretty ignored her.
 
He was too busy staring at Carrie.

 
Carrie was nervous as she moved toward him, her determination now mixed with fear.
 
He looked almost resentful, she thought, as if he wasn’t at all thrilled to see her.
 
And the way he just stood there, in his double-breasted suit, his eyes fixed on her as if he could see straight through her and didn’t think too highly of what he saw, made her feel dejected.
 
Beaten down.
 
Even he wasn’t on her side anymore.

 
“I know you’re working, Mr. Kincaid,” she said as she approached him, “but I left my purse in your truck last night.”

 
Robert continued to stare at her.
 
Those odd feelings
this young woman was able to evoke in him was beginning to unnerve him.
 
He had tried all night to get her out of his mind, to stop thinking about her and worrying about her, but he couldn’t do it.
 
Not even for a second.
 
She haunted him like a melody all night long, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why.
 

 
The security guard began heading over as if he was more than ready to escort Carrie from the premises, which made Carrie even more ill at ease, but Robert waved him off.
 

 
“I tried to phone you,” Carrie said quickly, before she realized the guard had stopped advancing, “but they wouldn’t put any of my calls through to you.”

 
Robert’s assistant, a beautiful young woman, moved up beside him.
 
“Want me to handle it, sir?” she asked him.

 
Robert glanced at his watch.
 
And then he looked at Carrie.
 
He exhaled.
 
“No,” he said.
 
“You go on to the meeting.
 
I’ll be there.”
 

 
Robert then motioned for Carrie to follow him and they began walking toward the elevator.
 
Carrie wanted to apologize profusely for disturbing him at work, but his demeanor kept her quiet.
 
He seemed to be treating her with contempt, as if this was all some sort of ruse, and she didn’t like it.
 
One thing she was learning if she hadn’t learned anything else: you can’t depend on people, and especially when you needed them most.

 
On the ride down to the building’s garage, Robert was also mute.
 
He leaned his large body against the side of the elevator and stared unceasingly at Carrie, which didn’t exactly help her uneasiness.
 
She wanted to apologize again for disturbing him.
 
She also wanted to make it clear that this little visit wasn’t planned and she wasn’t trying to play some
I left my purse in your truck just to see you again
game
with him, but people kept getting on and off and creating an atmosphere not at all conducive to that kind of conversation.
 
It wasn’t until they stepped off of the elevator on the ground floor and Robert was opening the door that led to the building’s garage, did their conversation
began
.

 
“Robert,” he said.

 
She looked at him puzzled.

 
“You called me Mr. Kincaid upstairs.
 
I told you to call me Robert.”

 
“Oh,” she said, although she didn’t see where that would matter now. “Okay.”

 
“Did it work out for you?” he asked as he motioned for her to walk ahead of him.

 
“Did?”

 
“Your job situation.”

 
“Oh.
 
Yes.
 
Yes, it did.
 
Thanks for asking.
 
I start tonight.”

 
“Tonight?
 
That quick?”

 
“Yep.”

 
“You’ll be working with your sister, then?” he asked this as they neared his SUV.

 
“That’s the plan, and hopefully we’ll have the same hours.
 
That’ll make it easier for me.”

 
“You start tonight but you haven’t found out your hours yet?”

 
“I haven’t found out anything yet.
 
I don’t even know how to get there on my own yet, to tell you the truth.”

 
“Maybe I can help you out.
 
What’s the name of the restaurant?”
 
Robert asked this to find out all he could about this new employment of hers, rather than to simply give her directions.
 
Something about this easy-to-get job and that night-shift working sister of hers that just didn’t ring right with him.
 
She seemed so flustered again today, just as she’d seemed the two previous times he’d had contact with her, and he began to wonder just what was going on in her private life.
 
Surely, he thought, it couldn’t possibly be this helter-skelter all of the time.
 

 
“It’s not exactly Jetson’s,” Carrie said, still stung by the fact that she had lost that decent job, “but Popena said the tips are really good.”

 
“What’s the name?”

 
“Simms,” she said as if it was no big deal at all.