Predicting Rain?

He exhaled as he frowned at the gray-haired woman. “Mrs. Ferris, can we get one thing straight?”

Her lips tightened slightly. “Of course, sir.”

“I don’t know much about children, and I don’t have the time to learn right now. That’s what I’m paying you for, to leave me out of the loop, unless there is a major problem. I trust your professional instincts to do the right thing, so you don’t have to run everything past me. Do you understand?”

Her face flushed slightly. “Yes, sir,” she said.

“Good. Now, tell Victoria goodbye for me, and I’ll contact you when I get to Houston.”

“Yes, sir. Safe trip,” she said and left quickly.

He headed out of the room, and down the narrow wood-lined hall toward the side entrance. A soft sound stopped him, and he looked up the back stairs. It was shadowy, but he saw Victoria on the top step, sitting with her doll, rocking.

“Victoria?” he said, and started up, but Mrs. Ferris was there.

“Don’t trouble yourself, sir, she’s okay, just a mite restless.” The nanny reached down and took Victoria’s hand, urging her to her feet.

“Mrs. Ferris?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, the lady standing by the little girl in the semishadows.

“Stay with her until she falls asleep, and—” he exhaled “—do that every night.”

“As you wish, sir,” she said, and the two of them went silently out of sight into the upper hallway. Jack took a deep breath. He had to leave. He couldn’t change that. When he got back, he’d worry about the wedding plans and about a silent four-year-old girl. Right now he had to focus on Houston and what was waiting for him there.

Chapter One

Jack had barely landed in Houston when the phone rang in the company car. As the driver drove out of the airport, Jack answered the phone. “Jack? Zane. Glad you made it in.”

Zane Holden, one of the two men who took over LynTech from the founder, Robert Lewis, sounded rushed and anxious. “What’s going on?” Jack asked, settling back in the soft gray leather.

“We’re just waiting for you before we make a move toward Sommers.”

“He’s in Houston?”

“Not yet. He’s in New York at the moment. If we get lucky, he’ll agree to handle the negotiations himself, instead of using a middleman.”

E. J. Sommers, the founder and head of the EJS Corporation, wasn’t an easy man to pin down. He didn’t do things the way other corporate heads did. He was more freewheeling, more unstructured, and that bothered Jack. But the branch of EJS Corporation that LynTech wanted was a gem. A real find. “Any word on how our interest in EJS got out?”

“We’ll talk about that when you get here. I called Robert Lewis in on it as a consultant. We need his take on things.”

“That’s a smart move. No one knows the business around here like Robert.”

Robert Lewis had been Jack’s father’s friend from college days, just the way Ian had been his. Ten years ago, when Jack’s father had died, Robert had been there. Robert had known the full story about Jack’s father, and he’d been the one to trust Jack to make things right. He owed Robert a lot and, despite the fact that the company wasn’t Robert’s any longer, it meant a lot to the man, and Jack wasn’t going to let him down.

“Did you find a nanny?” Zane asked.

Jack grimaced as he remembered his last glimpse of Victoria alone at the top of the stairs. He was surprised that the co-CEO of LynTech was worried about a nanny. He’d dealt with Zane for over a year, and knew that his son, Walker, was the center of his existence along with his wife Lindsey, but he didn’t expect him to take much of an interest in his child care situation.

“It’s all settled,” he said and realized that he’d just uttered a lie of staggering magnitude.

“Good. The child, the little girl, is she okay with the nanny?”

That was when he realized why Zane was asking. It wasn’t the child he was asking about, he was asking if Jack was in any condition to give one hundred percent to the problem at hand. That annoyed him slightly, that Zane would even think that he wouldn’t be effective in a crisis. “She’s fine with the nanny, and she understands I had to leave.”

“I never found a good nanny when I needed one.”

He knew enough about Zane to know what he was referring to, when his son had been dropped into his life. When Lindsey, now his wife, had stepped in to be a mother to the boy, and they’d become a family. There was a vague similarity between his and Jack’s predicaments with child care, except Victoria wasn’t his, and…well, Eve was Eve. She’d stepped right in, too. She’d found Mrs. Ferris and promptly bought Victoria a whole new wardrobe. She smiled at the child, pouted about her private time with Jack being limited, then blissfully went on with her plans.

“My fiancée found the nanny through a friend,” he said, thinking that maybe Eve didn’t have overwhelming maternal instincts, but then again, he’d never had any great paternal instincts, either.

“Lindsey thought that you could have brought the child with you and she could have been cared for at the day-care center at LynTech while you worked.”

Zane had even recruited his wife to make sure Jack was focused on the crisis. Maybe his father’s reputation had preceded him with Zane. He hoped not. The car slowed and Jack looked out at the downtown street where the headquarters for LynTech were located. “Thank her for me, but Victoria’s just fine in London. We’re outside. I’ll be up in a few minutes, then go to the hotel later on.”

“That’s another thing. The hotel’s not going to work out for this. It’s overrun with people involved in the charity ball that’s being planned by LynTech. You wouldn’t have any privacy.”

“Then where am I staying?” he asked, caring only that he could work uninterrupted.

“No hotel rooms are available on short notice, so we decided on a loft we’ve got set up not far from the offices. Lots of privacy, and it’s wired directly to here.”

“Fine, whatever,” Jack murmured. “See you in a few,” he said and hung up as the luxury car approached the entrance for the parking garage.

SEX AND SILK. It had to be a dream, because Jack was never poetic, and he knew that he’d never met the owner of the voice that was filtering around him in the blackness.

After getting only a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, Jack had counted on sleeping for six hours before getting back to work. He’d been at the offices since arriving from London, took a nap in a side room off of Zane Holden’s office, and this was the first time he’d made it to the loft. He’d planned to sleep hard, then get to work on his own without interruption.

He just hadn’t expected to dream, because he never dreamed. At least, he never remembered any dreams. He’d set his internal clock for a few hours and slept…his usual pattern. Get hard sleep, then work hard. But now there was a dream that consisted of a single voice, low murmurs, floating around him. Soft. Seductively feminine.

“Oh, come on,” the voice whispered. “Come to me.”

Sexy, inviting, seducing him, even though it barely existed.

“That’s it, love. Come on. Please? Come to me. Now.”

No pictures, no images, just him listening, drifting, waiting, the sound tingling through his body, giving him pleasure.

“Good, good.” The whisper floated softly. “That’s it. Come on, baby, that’s it. Closer, closer.”

The voice was seeping into his being, making him ache for more, then it was gone. He woke suddenly, not sure what had just happened. But his heart was pounding in his chest and his body ached, a painful remnant of his reaction to the voice in his dreams. He took shallow, rapid breaths while he stared up into the shadows overhead, trying to make his body let go of the dream.

Damn dream! He shifted onto his side, wide-awake now, but froze when he saw a dull glow coming over the partial wall that divided the sleeping area from the kitchen. When he’d come in, he had turned on the overhead lights to get oriented, showered, then turned off all the lights and climbed into the king-size bed. The only things he’d left on were the fax machine and computer, waiting for incoming messages. Now a light was on in the kitchen. He heard a shuffling sound, then a faint clink.

Someone was there.

Zane? Matthew Terrell, the other CEO? Rita something-or-other who worked for both men? He looked at the clock and the glowing LED panel read 2:13 a.m. No, Zane wouldn’t be here at this time. Zane wouldn’t be anywhere, but with his family. Neither would Matt or anyone else from LynTech.

He listened, heard another sound, a low humming and he moved. He stood, grabbed his pants and put them on quickly, forgoing his shirt and shoes, then debated his options. Call someone, stay quiet and hope whoever was there would leave, or go out and confront the trespasser.