Unexpected Outcome

“Noah Haine,” he told her as the woman picked up. “Robert’s nephew. I’ll take you to him.”

“Thanks.”

“Most of our office space is on this floor,” he said as she fell into step beside him. “Back there,” he added, gesturing toward the wall behind the staircase.

She nodded, just able to hear the muffled sounds of people at work.

“But Robert and Larry hide out upstairs. They like to keep clear of the line of fire.”

When he gave her a quick grin to say he was joking, she couldn’t help thinking it was positively criminal that she’d have to ignore the pull she felt toward him.

New York was not a primo city for meeting eligible men. Not eligible men who rang her chimes, at any rate.

At thirty-one years of age, she’d been in precisely three serious relationships, none of which had been serious enough to lead to marriage.

And these days, all the single men she came in contact with seemed to be either gay, work obsessed, or in critical need of therapy.

Given that, and adding in the fact she was…

She settled on selective, rejecting picky—a word her mother had been known to use. But semantics aside, the point was that Noah Haine was off-limits.

She firmly believed in never mixing pleasure with business. And even if that wasn’t true she’d be careful around Noah. At least until she felt sure she could rule him out as a suspect.

After all, he was the director of finance. And one of the “incidents” had involved a batch of invoices that never reached the customers.

Blood might be thicker than water, but that didn’t mean Noah-of-the-thousand-watt-smile couldn’t be playing games.

That thought front and center in her mind, she managed to keep her eyes off him until they reached the second floor.

At the top of the stairs was a small waiting area. Beyond it stood an empty conference room, its door open, and to their left was a short corridor.

“The corner offices,” Noah told her as they started toward them, “are my uncle’s and Larry’s.

“And this one in between belongs to Helen Rupert,” he added, stopping outside its door.

He introduced Dana to the woman sitting behind the desk, then said, “Officially, Helen is Robert and Larry’s executive assistant. In reality, she runs the company.”

Helen, a plump woman in her fifties, laughed.

“That’s only because I’ve been here forever,” she said. “And I know where all the skeletons are buried.”

Noah shot her a grin, then led Dana the rest of the way to Robert’s office—where both the partners were waiting for her.

In contrast to Robert’s refined appearance, Larry Benzer was a large man whom she’d have guessed would deal in sports equipment, or something of that sort, rather than collectibles.

He’d been a boxer in college, she recalled, thinking that even a brief check into someone’s personal life usually turned up interesting bits of trivia. And he’d obviously kept in shape.

As he shook her hand, almost making her wince in the process, Robert said to Noah, “There’s no reason you need to sit in on this. Larry and I are just going to give Dana an overview of the company.”

The look that flickered across Noah’s face said he suspected the older men were keeping something from him. And since his obvious guess would be that it was something to do with her, once he’d left she asked if he had thought it was strange that they’d hired a consultant.

“He was certainly surprised,” Robert admitted. “But we came up with a pretty good story—said that while he was out of town Larry’s wife began pushing the idea. Told him that she’d read an article about organizational designers and decided a good one could probably help pinpoint why we’ve been having problems.”

“Noah’s aware I haven’t filled her in on our saboteur theory,” Larry added. “If I did, she’d only be more concerned. So it would make sense to him that she’s just thinking in terms of problems.”

“I see,” Dana said. “And when you talked to Noah? Did you get the impression that he really believed all it took was her suggesting—”

“You’d have to know Martha to understand,” Larry interrupted. “Until a couple of years ago she worked with us. Actually, we hired her way back when, to help me with market development, and then I ended up marrying her.

“But that’s beside the point. Which is that she still feels she’s part of the company and…she’s kind of headstrong.”

Dana glanced at Robert in time to catch the hint of a weary smile. From that, she concluded Larry should have omitted the “kind of.”

“When my wife sets her mind to something and doesn’t get her way,” he added, “she can drive people crazy.”

“In other words,” Robert said, “Noah won’t be thinking it’s too unrealistic that we’d go along with her.”

Turning her gaze back to Larry, Dana said, “If she still feels she’s part of the company, does she ever stop by, or…”

“Oh, sure. We have a condo in SoHo, so it’s no distance. And every now and then she has a marketing idea that she just can’t wait to discuss.”

“I see,” Dana said again, suspecting Martha Benzer was probably bored—and possibly regretted having left the company.

“Or she might want to go out for lunch on a day her friends are all busy,” Larry was continuing. “And I’m better than staying home.”

“I’m sure you’re much better,” she said with a smile. “But I didn’t make the reason for my question clear. I was wondering what would happen if she was here and ran into Noah. If he said something about her suggesting you hire me.”

“Oh, that’s covered,” Larry said. “I told her we were blaming you on her—as far as Noah and Helen and anyone else who might ask is concerned and…

“But I didn’t mean blaming you. What I should have…well, the bottom line is, you don’t have to worry about Martha.”

Dana didn’t exactly understand what Martha knew and didn’t know, but before she had a chance to ask anything more Larry was saying, “So, getting back to Noah, we said that we weren’t hiring you only to make Martha happy. That we’d started thinking we might be too close to see clearly. And were hoping something might leap out at an outsider like you.”

“And what did Noah say?”

Robert shot Larry a look, then shrugged. “That it would have made more sense to hire a private eye.”

CHAPTER TWO

BACK IN HIS OWN OFFICE, Noah connected to the Internet and brought up his favorite search engine.

Seconds after he typed in Dana Mayfield a list of hits appeared. The third one took him by surprise. And sent him to Dana’s Web site—where he sat staring at her biography.

A degree in business with a major in organizational design, plus more than five years’ experience in the field. Quotes from satisfied clients followed the bio. And the photograph above the text was definitely a shot of the woman he’d left sitting in his uncle’s office.

She was for real, then. Academically qualified and all.

That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. In fact, he’d only decided to try her name on the off chance he’d learn who she actually was.