Against All Odds (Arabesque) (2 page)

* * *

What had she done?
Melissa sat back in her desk chair and tried to imagine the possible fallout from her signature on that contract when Adam’s family found out about it, not to speak of her father’s behavior when he learned of her reaction to Adam Roundtree’s blatant, blistering masculinity. He haunted her thoughts, as he had done since she first looked at him. A big man. Self-possessed. And he was very tall, very dark, and very handsome. Thinking of him unsettled her, and she recalled that her entire molecular system had danced a jig when she laid eyes on him. But he was like the fruit in the Garden of Eden—one taste guaranteed a fall from Grace. Until today, as far as she knew, the Grants and Roundtrees and the Morrises and Hayeses before them hadn’t communicated by mouth or letter in her lifetime or her parents’ lifetime. Yet three generations of them had lived continuously within twenty miles of each other. And if today was an indication, their contact now wasn’t likely to be pleasant. They had been the bitterest of enemies since Moses Morris, her maternal grandfather, accused Jacob Hayes, Adam’s maternal grandfather, of cheating him out of a fortune nearly seventy years earlier. Whether she did it to assuage a sense of guilt, she didn’t know, because she didn’t examine her motive as she lifted the receiver and dialed her mother.

* * *

“Why are you calling in the middle of the day, dear?” Emily Grant asked her daughter. “Is anything wrong?”

“No,” Melissa said, groping for a plausible explanation. “I haven’t answered your letter, and I thought I’d better make up for that before I forgot it. How’s Daddy?” Her mother’s heavy sigh did not surprise her.

“Same as always. I’ll tell him you asked.” The voice suddenly lacked its soft, southern lilt. “I know you’re busy, dear, but come home when you can. And take care of yourself. You hear?”

Melissa hung up, feeling no better than before she’d made the call.

* * *

Melissa arrived at her apartment building that evening just as her friend, Ilona, reached it. She had met Ilona—a blond, vivacious, and engaging Hungarian with a flair for wit, conversation, and romance...and who admitted to fifty years—in the mail room just off the lobby. Until she’d met her, Melissa had never known anyone who kept a salon. You could always meet an assortment of artists, musicians, singers, dancers, and writers in Ilona’s bachelor apartment. Most were Europeans; all of them were interesting.

“Melissa, darling,” Ilona said in her strong accent, “come with me for a coffee for a few minutes.” Ilona drank hot espresso even on the hottest day.

“Okay, but only for a couple of minutes.” They rode the crowded elevator in silence and didn’t speak until they were inside Ilona’s place.

“What’s with you, darling?” Ilona called everybody “darling.” “Who is the man?” Laughter tumbled from Melissa’s throat, the first genuine merriment she’d felt since signing that contract.

“With you, it’s always a man, Ilona. This time, you guessed right.” She recounted her meeting that morning with Adam Roundtree.

“I don’t understand,” Ilona said.

“If I had passed up that contract, I might have had to declare bankruptcy. Now...well...Ilona, Adam Roundtree didn’t know who I was, but when he found out, I could see the light dimming in his eyes. You see, back in the 1920s his grandfather and my grandfather pooled their money to prospect some unproductive Kentucky oil fields for natural gas. For some reason, my grandfather pulled out, and six months later, Jacob Hayes brought in gas. My grandfather claimed that the gas field belonged to both of them, but he lost the court case. The townspeople gossiped, and years later Adam’s mother sued my family for slander and won an apology. It’s a mess. As far as I know, the Hayes-Roundtree clan and my folks hadn’t spoken in seventy years—until today when I met Adam Roundtree. You can’t mention their names in my father’s house.”

“And how do you feel about all this?”

“I don’t carry grudges.” Her weak smile must have reflected her grim mood; for once, Ilona had no clever response. Ilona brought their espresso coffee and some frozen homemade chocolates, explaining that she hadn’t made them and that she never cooked.

“If I had been wearing my glasses this morning, I’d have been better prepared for what I saw when I got close to Adam.” She thought that glasses didn’t become her and wore them only when absolutely necessary. Her laughter floated through the apartment. “The truth is that if I could have seen him, I wouldn’t have been foolish enough to get that close to him.” She rose to leave, but Ilona detained her.

“Darling, what are you going to do about this man?”

Melissa shrugged. “Avoid him as much as possible.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, “but I’d never give up on that man.”

“I’d like to see more of him but, knowing what I know, that wouldn’t be smart. I’d better go.”

Melissa left Ilona and went home to get her dinner and review some contracts. Her face heated as she remembered what she’d felt when she got a good look at Adam. He’d made her feel... Recalling it embarrassed her. His smooth sepia skin invited her touch, and when she’d looked into his warm brown eyes, eyes that had a natural twinkle, she sensed herself being lulled into a receptive mood, receptive to anything he might suggest or do. Although twenty-eight, she had never experienced such a reaction to a man. His big frame had towered over her five feet eight inches, but she hadn’t been intimidated. Power. Flagrant maleness. He exuded both. Adam Roundtree was handsome...
and dangerous. His eyes continued to twinkle, she recalled, even when his tone became cool.

* * *

Melissa arrived early at her office, drank a cup of tasteless machine coffee, and settled into her work. At about eight thirty, she answered her secretary’s buzz.

“Yes, Kelly.”

“Mr. Roundtree insists that he won’t speak with anyone but you, and that if you refuse to talk to him, he’ll void the contract. He says he knows other executive search firms. He’s serious.”

Melissa remembered Jason Court’s deference to his boss. Void their contract? “Just let him try it,” she told Kelly. “Put him on.” She let him wait a second, but not so long as to seem rude. “How may I help you, Mr. Roundtree?”

“My name is Adam, Melissa, and you may help me by assuring me that you don’t palm off your clients on your assistants. I’m paying enough to be able to speak with you directly. You left my office before I had an opportunity to tell you what you can trade off. I know what the contract says, but we may have to give a little, because I can’t wait for a manager until you’ve checked every guy who’s been close to a cow. Could we meet somewhere for lunch tomorrow, say around one thirty?”

“Does that mean I can check every gal who’s been near a pig or an alligator?” she asked, alluding to other sources of leather. She heard him snort, but before he could answer, she agreed to meet him. “One o’clock would be better for me, and I like a light lunch. How about Thompson’s?” He had to compromise, she figured. And why couldn’t he discuss it right then? Adam’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Alright. Thompson’s at one. And Melissa, leave your armor in your office.”

“Will do. And you leave your tough guy personality in yours.”

“See you tomorrow.” He hung up, and she thought she heard him make a noise. It couldn’t have been a laugh. Maybe he had a hidden soft side, but if he did, she didn’t want to be exposed to it—what she’d seen of him was more beguiling than she cared to deal with.

Melissa walked into her co-op apartment in Lincoln Towers, three blocks from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, closed the door, and thanked God for the cool, refreshing air. She got a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator, took it into the living room and drank it while she watched the six o’clock news. After a few minutes her mind wandered to Adam Roundtree, and she switched off the television. She disliked driven, overachieving, corporate males. Gilbert Lewis had been one, a man with a timetable for everything. After “X” number of dinners, movies, and taxi rides, you either went to bed with him, or you were off of his list. She had told him to get lost when he gave her his stock ultimatum. She had stupidly fallen for him, and his attitude had hurt, but she’d kept her integrity. And now there was Adam Roundtree, a man whose impact on her when she met him was far more profound than any emotion Gilbert Lewis or any other man had ever induced.

* * *

Melissa wouldn’t have admitted that she dressed with special care that morning, had the red linen dress that she wore only when she wanted to make an impression not been proof. If her parents knew she planned to have lunch with Adam Roundtree, they’d have conniptions. She’d never been able to please her father, and her mother only said and did that which pleased her husband. She stared at herself in the mirror and saw her mother’s grayish brown eyes and her father’s mulatto coloring—the result of generations of mulatto inbreeding—and prayed that that was as much like them as she’d ever be. One thing was certain—if her business went under, she would consider it to have been due to her own shortcomings, not the fault of some imagined enemy that could be conveniently blamed the way her father always blamed the Hayeses and Roundtrees for his succession of failures. She let her curly hair hang down around her shoulders in spite of the summer heat, picked up her briefcase, and went to work.

* * *

She arrived at Thompson’s promptly at one to find Adam leaning casually against the cashier’s counter at the entrance to the restaurant. Punctuality fitted what she’d seen of his personality, and it was a trait she admired. His piercing gaze and that twinkle in his eyes fascinated her, and she realized she’d better get used to him—and quick—or he’d be laughing at her. She shook his hand and greeted him with seeming casualness, but the feel of his big hand splayed in the middle of her back as he steered her to their table was a test she could have happily forgone.

Melissa’s heavy lashes shot upward, and she gasped in surprise at the dozen yellow roses on their table. She glanced quickly at Adam, opened the attached note, and read: “My apologies for not having done this Tuesday rather than ask you to come to my office. Forgiven? Adam.”

Unable to associate the man with the soft gesture, she merely stared at him.

“Well?”

Melissa glanced downward to avoid his piercing gaze with its suggestive twinkle, certain that he discerned the flutter in her chest.

“Thanks. It’s a lovely gesture.”

Immediately he replaced his diffidence with his usual businesslike mien.

“Well, did you bring it?”

“Did I bring what?” she asked. His tone was jocular, but she wasn’t certain that it depicted his mood. She suspected that, with him, what you saw and even what you thought you heard might mislead you.

“Did you bring your armor?” She wanted to glare at him but didn’t trust herself to look straight into his eyes long enough to make it effective.

“It’s always close by,” she told him with studied sweetness, “but I’m not wearing it out of deference to your sensitive, gentle self.” He laughed. The dancing glints in his eyes matched both his softened face and the smile that framed his even white teeth, and hot sparks shot through her, his transformation very nearly electrifying her. He broke it off at once, and she had the feeling that laughing wasn’t something that he did often.

“When did you last laugh?” She watched him quirk an eyebrow and then frown.

“Not recently. What made you ask?”

She narrowed her eyes, squinting to get a good look, and shrugged her shoulder. “You didn’t seem comfortable doing it.” He laughed again, and she realized that he surprised himself when he did it.

Melissa controlled the urge to laugh along with him, reminding herself that she couldn’t afford to be captivated by his mercurial personality—they were there to discuss business.
Her
business. He sat erect suddenly, all semblance of good humor banished. She needn’t have been concerned, she told herself, because he had his own techniques for keeping people at a distance. And right then, his method was to serve his charm in small doses.

“Why did you need to see me in person?” she asked him. Did the twinkle in his eyes become brighter, or was she mistaken? She wished she could look somewhere else.

“My father managed Leather and Hides in his own way, ignoring the latest techniques and machinery. He made a good product, the best, but he’s gone now, and he didn’t leave a manual. I need a manager who can deal with that, who can make the business a state-of-the-art operation without sacrificing the quality that my father achieved. And I want an increase in productivity. We need to work together if I’m going to get what I’m looking for.”

“What are you willing to give up?”

He listed several traits that she considered minor.

“Okay. Now I’d like to eat my salad.” She looked down at her food and began to eat, but she knew he was glaring at her.

“Melissa, do I automatically ring your bell, or are you planning to carry on this ridiculous family feud?”

“I could ask you that.”

“You ring something, alright, but I’d hardly call it a bell. As for the rest, I chart my own course. I alone decide what I think and how I act, and my criteria for judging people don’t include reference to their forebears.”

“I can buy that. But with all their weaknesses, parents and siblings are very important, and it isn’t easy or comfortable to turn one’s back on them.” She could have kicked herself for that statement—after all, her thoughts about her family were not his business. “Why are you staring at me?” she asked him.

He seemed momentarily perplexed. “I didn’t realize I was. My common sense tells me I’d never forget a woman like you, but there’s something... Do you get the impression that we’ve met before...under unusual circumstances?”

“No. To my knowledge, I saw you yesterday for the first time. Why do you think we met somewhere else?”

“Just a feeling I have. When you were speaking softly about your family, your voice reminded me of someone and something special. Forget it. It’s probably just my imagination. Well, I’ve enjoyed our lunch, Melissa. Are you going to take my calls, or will I have to use blackmail again?”