Double-Cross My Heart (30 page)

He slept with her—even without sex—he slept when he was with her, his insomnia held at bay. As crazy as she knew it sounded, she felt a pang of tenderness in her chest that Alex could let his guard down and sink into sleep when he was with her.

It was stupid. Her reaction made no sense. He was the man who threatened everything she’d worked for. He presented the largest threat to the future she’d worked so hard and long to achieve. Yet, here he was sleeping on her bed and that fact left her with a crazy warm feeling inside.

She couldn’t make sense of it. If all he felt for her was the desire to manipulate, would he come fall asleep next to her while she worked? There were people who found a sense of power to be an aphrodisiac, but would power lead a man seeking comfort from a woman he was just using.

She’d learned early in life that the heart wasn’t always to be trusted. Her mother’s example held a piercing power. Emotion wasn’t always to be trusted and what looked like love could easily be massive dysfunction in masquerade.

Michele and her elderly fiancé immediately jumped to mind.

Dragging her gaze away from the man slumbering next to her, Eden glared at the papers on her lap, the squiggly letters wavering through a veil of tears. She was crying again. It made her so damned mad. She’d prided herself on her fortitude and her strength from the time she’d been old enough to see the importance of those characteristics.

But now this one conniving man and his unexpected sensitivity had her heart as twisted as the barbed wire in her gut.

***

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Eden said immediately, hearing the brusque tone in her own voice. She was strung so tight these days, she found herself getting irritable for no real reason.

With the phone gripped tightly to her ear, she stared sightlessly at her computer monitor. “I don’t mean to snap at you. I know you’re really busy.”

“That’s okay,” Joe said, obviously in a good mood. “But you can understand my confusion with your request.”

“Yes,” she shifted the phone to her other ear, determinedly infusing a calm, pleasant note into her words. “Yes, of course. Michele told you she was going to pull the plug on the anti-aging cream. I realize that.”

“So it makes no sense,” Joe said, “for us to put any energy into an ad campaign for a product we’re not going to manufacture.”

Eden struggled to come up with something quickly to satisfy him. She needed the ad campaign up and ready to go as soon as possible after the board meeting. Stressing the first word, she said, “
If
Michele sticks with her decision about ditching Bergere, of course, there won’t be any need for us to work on an ad campaign.”

“You think,” Joe responded slowly, “she’ll change her mind?”

“I don’t know,” Eden allowed her genuine exasperation to surface. “Between you and me, she’s been a little…unpredictable in her business decisions lately.”

“True. Particularly her staff decisions.” There was a wealth of meaning in the one word. Wendi had apparently annoyed people in every department in the company.

Eden clung to all that Joe hadn’t said. The reports she was hearing of wide-spread company discontent with Michele and Wendi helped ease Eden’s own guilty struggle.

She said, “If Michele hops back on board with the anti-aging cream she’ll expect—“

“—us to have an ad campaign ready. Very true.” Joe paused.

Eden could hear him talking to someone else in his office.

“Yes.” He said, his voice fainter. “Those layouts—no, over there. They’re ready for print. Good.”

Dropping her head forward and rubbing her aching forehead, Eden waited for him to return to their conversation. She felt more and more each day like a juggler, desperate to keep her lies up in the air.

“Sorry,” Joe said, returning to their conversation.

“No problem.” Outside her open office door, Eden saw Cheryl at her desk, busily preparing reports for the board meeting.

“So you think we ought to put together some ideas for this new Swiss product?” he asked. “Just to be safe?”

“Yes,” she told him. “It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”

“True. Let me see,” Joe murmured. “I’ll have an hour this afternoon to go over your suggestions and notes. Did you---? Yes, I see you’ve sent me back the preliminary sketches with your notes. That’s good. Well, give me some time and we’ll get something together, to be on the safe side.”

“Great,” Eden’s face felt strained as she forced a smile, hoping it would infuse her voice.

Joe said, “I appreciate your calling me on this. You’re right. Michele—or her evil step-daughter—would have gotten all over my case in the event of a sudden reversal of their decision to cancel the project. I’ll call you tomorrow or the next day and let you know what I think.”

“Wonderful.”

Eden lowered the phone into its cradle.

On an open Payday bar wrapper lying on her desk, a stray peanut remained. Picking it up, she popped the salty treat into her mouth, downing the last of her morning carton of chocolate milk. The dregs tasted chalky on her tongue and she tossed the carton into the trash under her desk.

War might be hell, but this was damned close. At least when you were at war you didn’t have to pretend to work with the enemy. It wasn’t just the stress of the work load that was keeping her wound tight enough to break. It was the lying and more lying.

She’d have thought she’d gotten more accustomed to it by now.

Eden swallowed, her gaze straying to the large sealed envelope that sat in the middle of her desk, front and center. She’d been avoiding even looking at the thing.

The final report from Roberte Bergere. The results of his work on the anti-aging cream.

Gazing at the envelope without opening it, she knew what the report would say. Bergere had delivered his results to her by phone, only sending the report by Fed Ex to confirm his findings.

Lifting the envelope as gingerly as if it held a bomb, Eden drew another breath, deeply inhaling before breaking down and slitting it open. Pulling the papers out, she scanned the words swimming in front of her gaze, a clutch of excitement and culpability holding her breath. She knew it was stupid to feel guilty, but all her efforts hadn’t lifted the emotion that sat on her heart like a boulder.

Making herself read the report, she saw the confirmation. The product was good. Better than they’d hoped. For a scientist of Bergere’s standing, the words used to describe his test results were surprisingly giddy.

“…better than anticipated…revolutionary impact…minimal residual side effects…”

Reading through the letter several times, she sank back against her chair, letting her breath out with a whoosh that didn’t loosen the sensation of tightness in her chest.

This was it. This product had the potential to turn the company’s diminishing revenues around. Bergere’s final report also had the potential—more of a certainty—to swing the board to support her as CEO. They wouldn’t overlook the fact that Michele had been prepared to pull the funding for the miracle product.

Eden pulled out her briefcase and stuffed the thick report inside. Knowing she was alone, she still felt furtive as she shoved the case far back under her desk.

Putting up a hand to again rub the tight spot between her brows, Eden refused to continue arguing with herself about her actions in the past few months.

Everything she’d done had been done for the good of the company and the employees that depended on Michele Cosmetics to pay their credit card bills and put braces on their kids’ teeth. If she hadn’t taken this action, all her years of effort on the company’s behalf would have gone down the drain and hundreds of people would have had to scramble for work.

But wasn’t it really about her own job? Getting what she was due?

Shoving the disturbing thought aside, Eden spared only a minute to assure herself that she deserved the CEO job. Ambition was nothing to be ashamed of in a capitalistic society.

It made no damned difference if her primary motive was selfish. She’d had few choices, none of them good.

The phone on her desk rang.

“Yes,” she said, grabbing another Payday bar from the box under her desk.

“Ms. Merritt.”

It took her a minute to identify the voice. “Yes. Mr. Applegate. I appreciate you returning my call.”

“Well,” the older man said with humor in his voice, “when an executive vice-president of the company that employs me calls me up on the phone….”

“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your day too much,” Eden said. “How are things on the Michigan side of the lake?”

“Very good,” he responded quickly, “except for the problems we union folk are having getting a decent contract offer from the company.”

“Yes,” she said, “that’s what I’m calling about.”

“You are?” he said, sounding surprised.

Eden knew he’d was wondering what could be motivating her to step outside the usual channels of labor-management negotiations. “Yes, I am. I realize the slumping economy has hit the rank-and-file pretty badly and I’m concerned that we find a way to keep the bottom line good for the company while taking care of our people.”

Stressing the last two words a little, Eden hoped Tom Applegate would pick up the delicate message she was trying to convey.

“That’s our desire as well,” he said promptly. “We know Michele Cosmetics has to make money if we’re going to keep our jobs.”

Smiling with a genuine flash of amusement at Applegate’s skillful return, she replied as she knew he intended her to. “And I’m very aware that we need you at the plant there if the company has a prayer of continuing to make money.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he replied. His satisfaction at her affirmation was conveyed in his tone.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer from your work,” Eden said. “I just wanted to call and let you know how much your efforts are appreciated.”

“Very kind of you,” he said. “Your concern is also greatly appreciated.”

Eden hung up the phone gently after a few more exchanged pleasantries. The few interactions she’d had with Tom Applegate had given her a good opinion of the union representative. No matter what happened at the board meeting, she needed a clear, open communication with the workers.

Sorting through the pile of papers at her elbow, she located the latest sales figures on the Passions products and became engrossed in the report.

It wasn’t until she’d been hearing their voices for several minutes that she looked up from her work to see Michele standing next to Cheryl’s desk.

“…you just look so pretty today!” Michele trilled. “I was walking by on my way out to a doctor’s appointment when I caught a glance at the new way your doing your hair. Charming!”

Cheryl laughed, a self-conscious note in her voice. “Thank you. I’ve had it permed for so long this is a kind of extreme difference….”

“Nonsense. You were made for a page boy hair style!”

“I was afraid it’s kind of ‘young’ on me,” Cheryl confided.

“Now don’t be silly! You’re still a child!”

“I have a daughter in college,” Cheryl protested.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Michele said, waving her hand dismissively. “The only age that matters is the age of our minds. Why I’m feeling so young these days, I’m thinking about wearing my hair in a ponytail!”

The immediate look of consternation in Cheryl’s eyes was quickly banished.

“I feel so young and alive—much younger than I used to feel—that its silly to even go see the doctor,” Michele pronounced, laughing, “but Carl insisted. I told him it was nothing but heartburn after a spicy dinner of Indian food, but he worries so.”

“You’ve been having chest pain?” Eden asked. She’d come to stand in the doorway looking at her former mentor with concern. The woman might have lost her mind, but Eden couldn’t forget her earlier kindness.

“Oh! Hello, Eden. It’s
nothing!
Really. Nothing,” Michele’s smile betrayed no worry. “Carl’s just so sweet to me. He’s taking me to his own cardiologist. He says that having found me at last, he’s not about to lose me! The darling!”

Eden could have found several other descriptive terms for Michele’s boyfriend, but she said only, “I’m glad you’re getting checked out. The incidence of heart problems among women is now almost as common as in men. You can’t be too careful.”

“I’m fine,” Michele said again, turning to leave. “But I must run. Carl will be waiting! Goodbye my worker bees!”

With this, she disappeared around the corner and down the hall.

“Okay,” Cheryl said, “I like that woman, despite her recent behavior, and I’m voting for her
not
having heart problems, but I’m no one’s ‘worker bee’!”

Eden laughed. “No disagreement here.”

Cheryl sat back down at her desk. “Maybe I should see a cardiologist. A small heart attack might at least get me out of having to compile these board reports.”

“There have to be simpler ways to avoid an unpleasant job. Quitting, for instance, or running off to Jamaica. Or both,” Eden told her, heading back to her own office.

She sat down again at her desk, the open sales report in front of her.