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  Hatch had shown him the way, and in the process concluded that Benedict Fasteners was precisely the ripe, cash-rich little business he had been looking for to use as a springboard to an empire. Vincent had refused to sell outright, but had hinted there was a possibility of a deal.

  Benedict had given Hatch a one-year contract as chief executive officer, during which time both men agreed to size up the situation and each other as well as the future.

  The ink had hardly dried on the CEO agreement before Benedict had started playing matchmaker.

  It had quickly become clear that the price tag on a share of Benedict Fasteners was ensuring the firm stayed in the family. There was only one way to do that, but by then Hatch had met Jessie Benedict and had decided the price was not too high. In fact, the whole deal appeared very neat and satisfactory all the way around.

  The Galloway contract was in the bag, of course. The dinner tonight was just a social touch. It would cement the relationship and emphasize to Galloway that from now on he would be dealing with Sam Hatchard, the new CEO of Benedict Fasteners. Jessie's presence would attest to the fact that the transfer of power had Vincent's blessing.

  “She says you make her nervous,” Vincent growled suddenly.

  Hatch looked up, his mind still on the numbers in front of him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Jessie says you make her nervous.”

  “Yes.” Hatch returned his attention to the printout.

  “Dammit, man, doesn't that bother you?”

  “She'll get over it.”

  “Why do you make her nervous, anyway?” Vincent demanded.

  Hatch glanced up again, amused. “What is this? You're not worrying about your daughter at this late date, are you? She's twenty-seven years old. She can take care of herself.”

  “I'm not so sure about that,” Vincent muttered. “Twenty-seven years old and she still hasn't found a steady job.”

  Hatch smiled briefly. “She's found plenty of jobs, from what I've heard. She just hasn't stuck with any of them very long.”

  “She's so damn smart.” Vincent's scowl deepened. “She was always smart. But she's changed jobs so often since she got out of college that I've lost count. No direction. No goals. I can't believe she's gone to work for a goddamned fortune-teller now. It's the last straw, I tell you.”

  Hatch shrugged again. “Take it easy. In a month or two she'll probably quit to go to work at the zoo.”

  “I should be so lucky. She seems real serious about this new job with the psychic. She's been there a month already and she sounds more enthusiastic than ever. She hasn't gotten herself fired yet, and that's a bad sign. People usually start thinking about firing Jessie within a couple weeks of hiring her. Hell, she didn't even last two weeks at that damned singing-telegram job. Guess it took'em that long to figure out she couldn't sing.”

  “Give her time.”

  Vincent eyed him suspiciously. “It doesn't bother you that she's always bouncing around? Doesn't it make her seem kind of flighty or something?”

  “She'll settle down after she's married.”

  “How do you know?” Vincent shot back. “What do you know about women and marriage, for crying out loud?”

  “I was married once.”

  Vincent's mouth fell open. “You were? What happened? Divorced?”

  “My wife died.”

  Vincent was obviously stunned that Hatch, whom he'd come to think of as a friend, if not the son he'd never had, had never mentioned his previous marriage before. “Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, Hatch.”

  Sam met Vincent's eyes and said, “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, well, like I said, I'm sorry.”

  “Thank you.” Hatch went back to studying the printout. “Stop worrying about your daughter. I'll take care of her.”

  “That's what I'm trying to tell you. She doesn't seem to want you to take care of her, Hatch. She's not exactly encouraging you, is she?”

  “You're wrong,” Hatch said gently. “She's been very encouraging in her own way.”

  Vincent gave him a dumbfounded look. “She has?”

  “Yes.” Hatch turned a page of the printout.

  “Dammit, how can you say that? What has she done to encourage you?”

  “She gets very nervous around me,” Hatch explained patiently.

  “I know, dammit, that's what I've been telling you. What in God's name…?” Vincent broke off, incredulous. “You're saying that's a good sign?”

  “A very good sign.”

  “Are you sure about that? I've got two ex-wives and neither Connie nor Lilian was ever nervous around me,” Vincent said. “Nerves of steel, those two.”

  “Jessie's different.”

  “You can say that again. Never did understand that girl.”

  “That's an interesting comment, given the fact that you intend to leave Benedict Fasteners to her.”

  “Yeah, well, she's the only one in the family I can trust enough to leave it to.” Vincent snorted again. “Whatever else happens, Jessie will do what's best for the firm and the family. That's the important thing.”

  “But she obviously has no interest in or talent for running Benedict Fasteners,” Hatch pointed out.

  “Hell, that's why I brought you on board. You're the perfect solution to the problem.” Vincent pinned him with a sharp look. “Aren't you?”

  “Yes.”

  At five minutes to seven Hatch carefully eased the new silver-gray Mercedes into a space on the street in front of Jessie's Capitol Hill apartment building.

  He got out of the car and automatically looked down to check the polish on his wing-tip shoes. Then he centered the knot on his discreetly striped tie and straightened his gray jacket. Satisfied, he started toward the lobby door.

  Hatch was very conscious of the sober, restrained elegance of his attire. He was careful about such details as the width and color of the stripes on his ties and the roll of the collars on his custom-made shirts. He did not pay attention to these things because of any natural interest in fashion, but because he did not want to accidentally screw up on something so basic. In the business world a lot of judgments were made based on a man's clothes.

  Hatch had grown up in boots and jeans and work shirts. Even though he had been functioning successfully in the corporate environment for some time now, he still did not fully trust his own instincts when it came to appropriate dress, so he erred on the side of caution.

  His wife, Olivia, had taught Hatch most of what he knew about the conservative look favored by American corporate powermongers. For that advice some part of him would always be grateful to her. That was about all he could find to thank her for after all these years.

  Hatch glanced at his steel-and-gold wristwatch as he rang the buzzer at the entrance of the aging brick building.

  When he had first bought the watch he had worried that it was a bit too flashy. He'd had the same qualms about the Mercedes. But both had appealed to him, not only because they were beautifully made and superbly functional but also because they represented in a very tangible way the success Hatch had made of his life. It was a success his father, a bitter, whining failure of a man, had always predicted would elude his son.

  When Hatch was in a philosophical mood, which was an extremely rare event, he sometimes wondered if he had fought his way to his present level of success primarily to prove his father's predictions wrong.

  The gold hands on the watch face told Hatch he was right on time. Not that it would do him much good. Jessie was inclined to be late whenever Hatch was due to pick her up. He knew from previous experience that she would be rushing frantically around the apartment collecting her keys, checking to be certain the stove was turned off, and switching on her answering machine. Anything to delay the inevitable, Hatch thought wryly.

  He took his finger off the intercom button as Jessie's breathless voice finally answered.

  “Who is it?”

  “Hatch.”

  “Oh.”
<
br />   “Were you expecting someone else?” he asked politely.

  “No, of course not. Come on in.”

  The door made a hissing sound as it unlatched itself, and Hatch went into the interior lobby. He took the stairs to the second floor and walked down the hall to Jessie's apartment. He knocked softly and she opened the door, peering out with a vaguely accusing frown.

  “You're right on time,” she muttered.

  Hatch ignored the reproach in her voice. He smiled with satisfaction at the sight of her, his gaze moving appreciatively over the close-fitting little black dinner dress that skimmed her waist and stopped just below her knees. “Hello, Jessie. You look very good tonight. As usual.”

  And she did. But then, Jessie always looked good to him. There was a vibrant, feminine, mysterious quality about her. She made him think of witches and cats and ancient Egyptian queens.

  For all its exotic quality, Jessie's face mirrored both intelligence and a deep, womanly vulnerability. Both appealed to Hatch. His response to her intellect he understood immediately. He was a man who had always preferred intelligent women. The other kind irritated him.

  But his reaction to Jessie's vulnerability still surprised him. It had been a long time since he had felt protective toward a woman, and he did not remember the compulsion being nearly as intense the last time, not even back in those early days with his first wife, Olivia. He could not explain to his own satisfaction just why he reacted this way to Jessie. She was, after all, an entirely different kind of woman than Olivia had been, his dead wife's opposite in many ways.

  Jessie was lively and volatile, whereas Olivia had always been serene and charming. Benedict's elder daughter was proving feisty and difficult. Olivia had always been well-mannered and refined. Jessie was the sort of female who put up roadblocks for a man, even though she wanted him. Olivia had known instinctively how to cater to the male ego.

  Hatch knew Jessie was going to make him wait tonight because she was annoyed at being maneuvered into the date in the first place and even more annoyed with herself for being unable to escape the net.

  Olivia might have made him wait, but only for a couple of minutes, and even then just so that she could make a proper entrance. Above all, she would have understood the importance of tonight's engagement and given Hatch her full support. She had always supported him in his career.

  Jessie could not have cared less about Hatch's career.

  Hatch sighed inwardly as he crossed the threshold. Jessie stepped back, holding the door open. She promptly stumbled over the large iron horse that served as a doorstop. Hatch reached out and caught her arm to steady her. Her skin felt like silk and he could smell the faint spicy fragrance she was wearing.

  “Damn,” she said, glancing down. “Now look what's happened. I've got a run in my hose. I'll have to change.”

  “No problem.” Hatch pretended not to hear the irritation in her voice as he closed the door softly behind himself. “I've built a few extra minutes into our schedule. We're not due at the restaurant until seven-forty-five.”

  She glared at him over her shoulder as she headed toward the bedroom. “You told me seven-thirty.”

  “I lied.”

  The bedroom door slammed shut behind her, but not before Hatch had had a chance to notice the deep V cut into the back of the little black dinner dress. A great deal of smooth, cream-colored skin was showing in the cut-out portion.

  Hatch smiled again and glanced around the small, cozy room. He had not had occasion to spend a great deal of time in Jessie's apartment, much to his regret, but whenever he found himself in it, he was oddly intrigued by the eclectic, colorful decor.

  The place reflected Jessie's constantly shifting, often whimsical interests. The furniture was basically modern and consisted of a lot of glass, black metal, and high-tech designs. There were framed posters on the walls because Jessie changed her mind too often to risk investing in expensive paintings. One could always throw a poster away when one got tired of it, she had explained when Hatch had inquired about them. Near the front window there was a low glass table with a collection of miniature cacti arranged on it. The spiny plants looked vaguely bewildered here in the damp environs of the Pacific Northwest. The last time Hatch had been in the apartment there had been ferns on the table.

  There was a wall of books behind the sofa. The titles ranged from works on magic and myth to self-help volumes on how to find a creative, fulfilling career. There were none of the trendy books one often saw in a woman's apartment about how to find and keep a man, Hatch noticed. The collection of fiction covered nearly every genre from romance and suspense to horror and science fiction.

  The only thing that appeared to stay constant in Jessie's world was her unswerving loyalty to her family. Hatch had observed during the past two months that she was in many ways the heart and soul of the Benedict clan.

  Loyalty was something that Hatch prized highly in a woman, probably because he'd experienced so little of it from them in the past. It had become clear to him that if he embedded himself deeply enough into the Benedict family, he would enjoy the same degree of loyalty the others got from Jessie. His entire courtship strategy was based on that observation.

  The phone on the glass end table warbled just as Hatch started to leaf through a book entitled Toward a New Philosophy of Ecology. He noticed it was a birthday gift to Jessie from her cousin David.

  “Get that for me, will you, Hatch?” Jessie called from the bedroom.

  Hatch picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Hi,” said a bright, bubbling voice. “This is Alison from Caine, Carter, and Peat calling for Jessie Benedict.”

  “Just a minute.” Hatch put down the phone and went down the hall to knock on the closed door of the bedroom.

  “Who is it, Hatch?”

  “Sounds like a broker.”

  “Oh, God. Alison. At this hour? I've been ducking her calls all day.” Jessie opened the door and stared at Hatch with dismayed eyes. “I thought I could avoid her until tomorrow morning. She's trying to sell me stock in some company that's making fat-free cooking oil. Do you know anything about fat-free cooking oil?”

  “Only that it's probably too good to be true.”

  “I was afraid of that. What am I going to tell her?”

  “Why don't you just say no?” Hatch inhaled the subtle scent that was emanating from her bedroom. Through the crack in the doorway he could just make out the corner of a white-quilted bed. A pair of discarded panty hose lay in seductive disarray on the white carpet.

  “You don't understand,” Jessie hissed in exasperation. “I can't say no to Alison. She's a friend and she's new in the business and she's working very hard to build up a list of clients. I feel I should help her.”

  Hatch raised his brows, went back out into the living room, and picked up the phone.

  “Jessie is not interested in any shares in fat-free cooking oil,” he said. He paid no attention to the burst of chirpy, chattering protest on the other end of the line as he calmly hung up the phone.

  Then he turned to see Jessie staring at him from the hallway. She had a shocked, annoyed expression on her face. He smiled blandly back at her.

  “It's really very easy to say no, Jessie.”

  “So I see. I'll be sure to remember your technique,” she snapped.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Of course it was no problem at all for people like Sam Hatchard to say no, Jessie thought, still seething as she opened her menu in the crowded downtown restaurant. The Sam Hatchards of this world did not worry about other people's feelings or fret overmuch about what might happen when one casually said no.

  Hatch was not one to concern himself with the fact that poor Alison was new in the business of selling stocks and bonds, a woman struggling to make it in a ruthless, cold-blooded, male-dominated world. He would not care that Alison desperately needed to build up her commissions if she was to hold on to her job at Caine, Carter, and Peat. He would not be bothered by the
fact that Alison was a personal friend of Jessie's.

  Jessie looked up, feeling Hatch's cool, emotionless topaz eyes on her. He was sitting at the opposite side of the small table, politely responding to a question from a beaming George Galloway. But even as he said something very intelligent and shrewd to George about long-term interest rates, Jessie knew part of Hatch's mind was on the problem of how to handle Jessie Benedict. She was, after all, a top priority at the moment. Almost as important as interest rates.

  Jessie shivered and knew that only part of the atavistic thrill that flashed down her spine was dread. The other part was pure feminine anticipation. She scowled, feeling like an idiot, and concentrated on her menu. George Galloway was an old-fashioned kind of man. Hatch had, therefore, selected one of the few restaurants downtown that still featured a wide variety of beef on the menu. Jessie preferred seafood.

  “Tell me, Jessie, dear,” Ethel Galloway said brightly, “how is your mother? I haven't seen Lilian in ages.”

  Jessie, searching through the short list of fish dishes at the end of the menu, looked up and smiled. Ethel was in her late fifties, a plump, pleasant-faced, grandmotherly woman. She was an excellent complement to her bluff, down-to-earth husband. Jessie had known them both for years.

  “Mom's fine,” Jessie said. “She and Connie are really excited about expanding their interior-design firm. Business is booming.”

  Ethel chuckled. “Oh, yes. The design business. What do they call their firm? ExCellent Designs or something like that, isn't it? In honor of the fact that they're both ex-wives of Vincent's?”

  Jessie grinned ruefully. “That's right. They always claim they found a lot more in common with each other than they ever found with my father. Dad agrees.”

  “And your half-sister?” Ethel continued. “Little Elizabeth. She's still doing well in school?”

  Jessie's smile widened enthusiastically. She felt a rush of pride, the way she always did when she talked about Elizabeth. “Definitely. She's determined to go into scientific research of some kind. She's just finished a fascinating project dealing with the chemical analysis of a toxic-waste dump for her school's science fair. Can you imagine? Toxic-waste chemistry and she's only twelve years old.”