Against All Odds

He summoned Jason Court for a progress report on the search for a manager of the Leather and Hides division. Adam had just gained full partnership in what was now Jenkins, Roundtree, and Tillman, and he had worked hard for it. He didn’t see how he could manage a leather tanning and manufacturing business located in Frederick, Maryland, from his office opposite the World Trade Center in New York.

“Come in, Jason, and have a seat. What have you got for me?”

“I have a contract with MTG for your signature.” Adam slapped his right knuckle into the open palm of his left hand.

“Nothing else?” If Jason felt pressured, he didn’t show it.

“I got the contract by messenger twenty minutes ago.” He handed it to Adam, who didn’t even glance at the papers but fixed his concentration on the man opposite him.

“How much time did you allow? A week ought to be more than enough for a firm that knows its business. I need that position filled yesterday. Make that clear.” He signed the contract and handed it back. “Thanks, Jason.” Adam watched his executive assistant as he left the room. The man was his perfect complement; he liked working with him. A sharp mind and a cool head. But he didn’t like doing business by mail with an anonymous nonhuman entity, because he wanted to know with whom he was dealing, see him, size him up, and know what to expect. He called his secretary.

“Olivia, would you arrange a meeting here with the president of MTG tomorrow morning, if possible? I don’t like dealing with a faceless company.” He walked around to Jason’s office, next door to his own.

“Tell me something about this fellow who heads up MTG. I’ve asked Olivia to have him come over here tomorrow morning, and I need a line on him.”

He watched Jason lean back in his chair with a half smile playing around his mouth.

“Adam, the president of MTG is a woman.”

“A woman?” He quickly veiled his astonishment; no one was going to accuse him of bias against women or any other group.

“Yeah. And she’s a no-nonsense person and a good-looking sister, to boot. She’s feminine, but she’s the epitome of efficiency, a thorough pro. I figured the fact that she wears a skirt wouldn’t bother you.”

“It doesn’t. I take it from your reference to the sisterhood that she’s African-American.” Jason nodded. “Well, all I want is for her to bring me a first-class manager.”

“She will.”

“She’d better.”

* * *

When Olivia opened his office door, Adam stood. The tall, light-skinned woman approached him slowly and confidently, the epitome of self-possession. Cool, laid-back, and elegant, she didn’t smile as she made her way, seeming to saunter, across his vast office to where he stood. Stunned. Poleaxed. She stopped a few feet from him and, flabbergasted as he was, he could nonetheless detect a complete change in her—could see the catch in her breath, the slight droop of her bottom lip, the acceleration of her breathing, and the widening of her incredible eyes just before she lowered them in what was most certainly embarrassment. Woman. She was certainly that. He managed to erase the appreciative expression from his face just as she looked up, her professional demeanor restored, and offered her hand.

“I’m Melissa Grant. It’s good to meet you.”

His eyebrow quirked, and then a frown stole over his face as he walked to the leather sofa and offered her a seat. She took the chair beside the sofa. Amused, he told her, “The name Grant is anathema to my family.”

“As Roundtree is to mine,” she coolly shot back.

If he had needed a damper for the desire that she’d aroused in him the second she walked through his door, she’d just provided it. Ordinarily he didn’t mind getting a fast fever for a woman, stranger or not; he didn’t have to do anything about it. An unexpected sexual hunger assured him that he had the virility a man his age ought to possess, but he didn’t like this powerful assault on his senses, the jab in his middle that he’d just gotten in response to Melissa Grant. He wouldn’t have liked it if her name hadn’t been Grant. Making sure of his ground, he asked her, with seeming casualness, “You’re not by chance related to the Frederick, Maryland, Grants, are you?”

“I’m Rafer Grant’s daughter, and my mother is Emily Morris-Grant. I assume you’re Jacob Hayes’s grandson.”

He had to admire the proud lift of her head, the way in which she fixed her gaze on him, and he didn’t doubt her message: if her being a Grant was bothersome, it was his problem, not hers. His desire ebbed and, in spite of himself, his mind went back to his fifteenth year and to Rafer Grant’s beautiful and voluptuous sister, Louise, and the way in which she’d flaunted his youthful vulnerability. The memory wasn’t a pleasant one, and he brought himself back to the present and to the business at hand. What he felt right then wasn’t desire but annoyance at himself.

Assuming his usual posture with a business associate, he pinned her with an unwavering gaze. “What have you managed so far?” He knew his tone was curt, brusque; he made it so deliberately. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that she’d gotten to him so easily.

“What do you mean?”

He detected a testiness in her voice. If she had a temper, he’d probably know it soon. “I mean, what have you come up with so far?” He imagined that those were storm clouds forming in her eyes, but he didn’t have to imagine that her excessively deep breath bespoke exasperation. He repeated the remark and leaned back to observe the fireworks.

Her cool response disappointed him. “Mr. Roundtree.” She punctuated his name with a slow turn of her body toward him and paused while she seemed to weight her next words. “Mr. Roundtree, I signed that contract less than twenty-four hours ago. If I were a magician, I’d be in a circus or perhaps in the White House where miracles are expected. You couldn’t be serious, because the contract gives me one month.” He was accustomed to women who smiled at him at least occasionally, but not this one. Just as Jason had said, she was all business, and he had just made a tactical error. He’d practically demanded what he hadn’t put in the contract, solid evidence that he’d let his emotional response to her interfere with his professionalism, something he’d never done before. He wouldn’t do it again, he promised himself, resenting his slip.

He nearly gasped as she stood abruptly, preparing to leave. Nobody terminated an interview with him. Nobody. And neither would she. He stood and began walking toward his office door, but she stopped before reaching it and held out her business card.

“I’m giving you this in case you feel you need to speak with me in person again. My office is as close to you as yours is to me. Otherwise...” She pointed to the telephone. “This has been most informative. Goodbye.”

His gaze lingered on her departing back Was this more evidence of Grant contemptuousness for a Roundtree? Or was she telling him that he’d been out of order in requesting that she come to his office for a business meeting rather than suggesting lunch at a neutral place? If the lady disliked his having called rank on her, she had good cause. He should have invited her to lunch.

* * *

Adam answered his intercom. “Yes, Olivia. Well, get DiCampino to translate those papers. She claims to know Italian.”

“She’s out today.”

“Really? This is the third time this week. Get a replacement.”

He heard Olivia’s deep sigh. “Adam, I think Maria is pregnant, and the love of her life is unprepared to honor that fact.”

“Well, hell, Olivia.” He knew his secretary was waiting for him to pounce on the subject of males who mistreat females, and he didn’t keep her waiting. “A man shouldn’t impregnate a woman if he’s unprepared to make a commitment to her and to their child. He’s obligated to marry her. Deliver me from these modern-day Johnny Appleseeds. It’s one thing to leave a legacy of apple trees, but it’s something else to produce a bunch of fatherless kids. Find out what she needs and let me know.” He knew without seeing her that his secretary’s face bore a smile.

“Yes, sir. But I can tell you now that she’s going to need shelter pretty soon, because her father has threatened to kill her. He says it’s an affront to the Blessed Virgin for a good Catholic girl to get pregnant out of wedlock.”

He threaded his fingers. “Well, get her a place, and whatever else she needs. And tell her that if the guy doesn’t marry her before she begins to show, she should stay away from him.”

“Yes, sir. I figured you’d help her.”

“Did you, now?” He switched off the intercom and turned on his closed-circuit television. He needed a quote on cowhide futures. He’d thought his life was in order and his career in advance of where he hoped to be at this stage of his life. When his father passed away unexpectedly six weeks earlier, all of that changed. He was the elder son, and he had a responsibility to his family but, in truth, he didn’t want to leave his firm. Leather and Hides had always been the most profitable unit of Hayes/Roundtree Enterprises, and it was in trouble and didn’t have a manager. He didn’t believe in promoting the person who had been on the job longest—he went after the best man, even if he was an outsider, and he wanted the best product. His thoughts went to Melissa Grant. She had impressed him with her professional manner. He smiled. Professional after she recovered from the surprise they both received when they met. He wondered what his family would think of Ms. Grant.

* * *

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.