Beyond Business
Meredith was running on high when she got to Helen’s office. She stopped at the desk of Sonia Townsley, Helen’s assistant. Sonia was tall, thin, midforties, with striking gray hair cut in a fashionable style that stopped just short of being geometric. But the thing that struck Meredith most about Sonia was that she was always—always—calm and cool as a cucumber.
“Is Helen available?” Meredith asked.
“Yes, she is,” Sonia said, lowering her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Are you okay, Meredith?”
Meredith nodded. “I’m fine, really. I just need to talk to Helen for a moment.”
“What’s going on?” Helen asked from the doorway to her office. She walked out and exchanged concerned looks with Sonia.
“It’s just. I.” Meredith stumbled. This was not the professional image she sought to project.
“I’ll go get some ice water for you,” Sonia said, tactfully removing herself from what was clearly an awkward moment.
“I’m sorry,” Meredith said to Helen when Sonia had gone. “I didn’t mean to drive her away.”
“Not at all. Come on in. Tell me what’s on your mind.” Helen gestured for Meredith to follow her. She sat behind her desk. “Is everything okay?”
Meredith perched uncomfortably on the chair opposite Helen’s. “I’m not sure. There’s something I think you should know about me. I should have told you before, but I just didn’t want to be the sort of person who couldn’t separate their personal life from business.”
Helen frowned. “But now you find you are?”
“Sort of.” Meredith nodded. “I find I could be.”
Helen leaned forward. “What is it, Meredith? Tell me what’s concerning you and we’ll work it out.”
“Evan and I have … a past together,” Meredith began. She could feel her palms growing clammy and cold.
Helen raised her eyebrows. “Evan?”
“Yes, we knew each other in high school.” Understatement. “We knew each other pretty well in high school.”
Helen looked over at Meredith with a curious eye. “You’re saying you dated?”
Meredith swallowed a lump in her throat. Dated. That sounded so impersonal. So milk-shakes-and-a-movie. So innocent. “It was actually a pretty serious relationship. At least it was to me.”
“Ah.” Helen nodded slowly and leaned back in her chair. “And this is the first time you’ve seen him since that time?”
“The last time I saw him it was the afternoon of our senior prom. He said he’d see me in a few hours.” She gave a dry laugh. “It’s been quite a few hours.”
“I’m sorry, Meredith. It must have been a shock to learn you’d be working with him.”
“It was a surprise,” Meredith agreed. But, mindful that she didn’t want to sound like a whiner who couldn’t get over her past, she said, “I’m not saying I can’t do what you need me to here—far from it. But my experience with Evan today made me think that, in the interest of full disclosure, I ought to let you know. If you’re uncomfortable with me continuing under the circumstances, I’ll understand.”
Helen smiled. “The circumstances sound like they might lend themselves quite well to your success here. If you already know Evan, already have something of a rapport with him, that might make things easier, don’t you think?”
There wasn’t going to be anything easy about working with Evan, but Meredith nodded. “It could. But it could also make him uncomfortable. If he’s reluctant to work with me, I’m not going to be of much use to you.”
Helen glanced out the window for a moment with a faraway look in her eyes. Then she turned her attention back to Meredith. “Is he reluctant to work with you?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Meredith gave a self-effacing smile. It would have been too weak for her to admit that she didn’t want to work with him. That she was afraid to even be around him. “He didn’t seem as rattled by our interaction as I was.”
“Are you able to work with him, despite feeling rattled by it?”
This was a moment of truth. Meredith prided herself on her reliability, and this was a turning point in which she could either give in to her weakness and do something she’d probably be ashamed of for the rest of her life or stand tall and work through her discomfort, knowing eventually she’d come out on the other side of it.
Intellectually, it was an easy choice.
“Yes,” she said, more comfortable following her intellect than her heart.
“Then let’s leave things as they are,” Helen said, locking eyes with Meredith. “You came highly recommended, and with everything the company has been through recently we need the best people we can get so that Hanson Media Group recovers its once stellar reputation.”
“I’ll do my best.” Meredith stood to go. She was feeling a little bit better now and was embarrassed about the alarmist manner in which she’d come to Helen at first. “I’m just glad you know the truth now.”
“I am, too,” Helen said. “Thank you.”
Meredith left the office, then stopped outside the closed door and took a deep breath. She couldn’t tell Helen everything, of course, but she’d at least told her what she needed to know about Meredith’s past. Hopefully now that wouldn’t come back to bite her.
Meredith set off down the hall, looking for David, when she ran straight into Evan.
He looked at her, then looked behind her at Helen’s office door.
“Meeting with the boss?”
She swallowed. “One of them.”
“Anything I should know about?”
She took a short breath. “No. Nothing important.”
He looked at her for one long, hard moment. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
Chapter Six
Helen arrived at Shabu Hachi two minutes early for her 8:00 p.m. meeting with Ichiro Kobayashi, of the media conglomerate TAKA Corporation.
The restaurant hostess led Helen to the table where Ichiro Kobayashi and another man waited for her.
She smiled and bowed slightly, holding out a business card bearing her information in both English and Japanese to Kobayashi. He handed her one in return, likewise in English and Japanese, and though his manner was nothing short of courteous, she had the distinct sense that he was unhappy at having to deal with a woman instead of a man.
She repeated the process with the other man and felt the same sense of disconcertion from him.
His card said he was Chion Kinjo and he worked in acquisitions for TAKA, along with Kobayashi. His card listed offices in Tokyo, Kyoto and Shizuoka.
TAKA was a huge corporation.
It was distinctly possible that Helen was in over her head. She just needed to make sure she didn’t let on that she felt that way.
She put the cards in her pocket, then took out a small ornament she’d purchased from a Chicago artisan and gave it to Kobayashi as a souvenir of Chicago. It was customary, but she also hoped he would keep it and be reminded that this was a town he liked and wanted to return to.
“This is for you,” she said. “It’s a token of thanks and, I hope, a happy reminder of our beautiful city.”
He turned it in his hand and gave a nod of approval. “Very lovely. The detail is magnificent.”
Helen breathed one small sigh of relief. So far, so good, given the fact that they would rather have been dealing with her late husband than with her.
Kobayashi indicated she should sit next to him, which she took as a good sign. The moment they were seated, a waitress brought water to the table and, after a brief exchange with Kinjo in Japanese, filled their glasses, bowed and left the table.
“I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting a variety of foods from the eastern region of our country,” Kobayashi said to Helen. “I hope that’s agreeable to you?”
“Indeed.” Helen nodded. “It’s not often one gets to take a culinary tour like this with a native. I look forward to trying your selections.”
This seemed to please Kobayashi. He gave a polite smile then leaped right into business. “I’m sorry to hear of your husband’s death,” he said. “I would have liked to have met him.”
Had George been alive, there was no way he would have considered talking to these men about a merger. He would sooner have driven the company into bankruptcy.
In fact, he all but had.
“He was a good man,” she said, swallowing the lie as smoothly as a tall glass of lemonade.
“As far as his company is concerned, my associate and I have grave concerns about the recent performance of Hanson Media.”
Helen nodded. “I understand. However, a comparative study would show that American media companies are all undergoing growing pains right now.”
“Growing pains?” he repeated.
Shoot, she’d meant to avoid idioms. “Difficulty in a changing market,” she explained. “Culturally speaking, things are changing rapidly in the United States, and a lot of news outfits have been hit hard trying to strike a balance between news, information and entertainment.”
“Does that not make this a risky investment?”
“No, that makes this a savvy investment.” Helen steeled her nerve. It was going to take a lot of confidence for her to pull this one off. “The reason for the growing pains in the media industry is that the growth is so rapid. Any investment made today will be multiplied tenfold within just a few years.”
“Then why are you selling interest in the company?” Kinjo asked shrewdly.
She leveled her gaze on him. “Because I want Hanson Media Group to be heard around the world—” she cocked her head “—and I believe you want the same for TAKA. Together, Hanson and TAKA would be a very, very powerful force in world media.”
The two men maintained masks of impassive consideration. Not one readable emotion so much as flickered across either one of their faces.
“You wish to maintain some control over Hanson Media Group?” Kobayashi asked.
Helen turned her gaze to him and leveled it. “I’m looking for a merger, Mr. Kobayashi, not a takeover.”
The men exchanged glances.
“We are not in need of saving,” Helen added, although it was as preposterous as a drowning victim trying to negotiate with a lifeguard before accepting help. “We are in want of power. We believe that with TAKA we can achieve that. For both our companies.”
“TAKA is already powerful,” Kobayashi said in a clipped voice. “It is my impression that that is why you approached us with this offer.”
She wanted to point out that it was a proposal more than an offer. Characterizing it as an offer made it sound as if she were willing to sacrifice Hanson Media Group completely, and she wasn’t.
But Helen knew it didn’t make sense to argue with the man, particularly since Kobayashi wasn’t the person ultimately making the decision. Better to play nice and try and work up their interest. “TAKA could be more powerful,” she said, smiling confidently.
Kobayashi didn’t answer that directly, but the short breath he took before speaking again gave him away. He wasn’t willing to walk away.
He was at least interested.
“There is one concern we have, which you have not addressed,” he said to her.
“What’s that?” Apprehension nibbled at Helen’s nerves. Were they going to throw a curve ball her way?
“Hanson Media Group appears to have a growing liability in the radio division. We believe this is endangering any investment advantages.”
The radio division was turning out to be more trouble than Helen had anticipated. But after all the time she had spent longing for more contact with George’s children, she wasn’t about to offer one of them the opportunity to help the company then snatch it away.
Besides, she had faith in Evan. He didn’t have a lot of nine-to-five business experience, but he was smart as a whip. And he had a good sense of what people in their company’s most desirable demographic wanted.
“I’ve just hired new staff to head the radio division, including my late husband’s son, Evan.” She smiled, hoping her confidence in Evan shone through, rather than the occasional uncertainty she felt as George Hanson’s widow.
“It is our understanding that he is intending to change your programming to what you call ‘shock jock’ programs, specifically that of a Len Doss, who has already cost other broadcasting companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in Federal Communications Commission fines.”
Helen was surprised that Kobayashi had this information, which should’ve been classified. But she trusted Evan and Meredith to do what was best for the company.
“Hanson Broadcasting hasn’t made any commitments to Mr. Doss. It is Evan’s full intention to investigate the possibility thoroughly and make an educated decision based on the balance of risks and gains.” She gave her brightest smile. “And if Evan Hanson decides that hiring Mr. Doss is in the company’s best interest, I have absolute faith in him.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded, and she meant it. Evan knew what appealed to young men his age more than she or Kobayashi did, that she was certain of. “Believe me, the division is in excellent hands.”
Kobayashi looked dubious. “Are you able to prove that?”
“Our numbers for the next quarter should bear it out.” She took a steadying breath. “Believe me, Mr. Kobayashi, nothing is standing in the way of Hanson Media and nationwide success.”
Spying was such an ugly word.
Meredith preferred to think of herself as brokering information that would benefit all parties involved.
She was an investigator, not a corporate spy.
Still, as she crept around the offices of Hanson Media Group by the fluorescent semilight of 2:30 a.m., jumping at every tiny noise, she felt like a spy. A sneak.
A liar.
Yes, she was doing what her employer had hired her to do. This was, in reality, her job. And she’d do it well; she always did. But this time it was personal, and that made all the difference. Instead of gathering sensitive corporate information from one company and handing it over to another, she was gathering sensitive information about Hanson Media—a name that had invoked various strong and conflicted feelings in her for over a decade—and providing it to a company that potentially wanted to take over and push the Hansons out entirely.
Meredith didn’t know what her employer’s ultimate goal for the company was: it wasn’t her job to know.
It was her job to collect pertinent information and pass it along to her boss.
The ignorance of what would then happen because of it should have been bliss.
She wouldn’t let her trepidation stop her, though. It was just raw emotion, and this job had no room for emotion. Emotion was a liar. It made a person believe things that might not be true. Whatever she felt, she needed to soldier on and get the job done.
Just as she’d always done.
So she proceeded. Her heart pounded with the fear that someone—some weary soul who wanted to get his work done before taking his family to Disney World, or some ambitious soul who wanted to impress his boss with work done early—would show up around one of the quiet corners.
But the only sound was the hum of the building air conditioner, whooshing cold air through miles of air ducts.
Meredith went to David Hanson’s office first. With any luck she’d find everything she needed there and she wouldn’t have to dig around in anyone else’s files.
With a quick glance to make sure no one was standing in the shadows watching her, she turned on his computer to look for the files he’d told her about earlier in the week.
“You can see our recent performance history broken down by day, week, month and year,” he’d said, proud of a former administrative assistant’s elaborate spreadsheets. “It’s like forensic science. I can tell you how many newspapers were sold in lower Manhattan by 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 13. I can tell you how many people listened to Garrett Pinchon’s Gospel Hour every Sunday morning from 1998 to last November.”
This was just the kind of information her boss wanted to look at.
When the operating system on David’s computer came up, she typed in the password she’d watched him enter earlier.
Bubby.
Whatever that meant.
The system beeped and rattled through the rest of its processes and produced a desktop background photo of David’s wife, Nina, and his kids—Zach and Izzy, he’d told her proudly—smiling at the camera and giving Meredith a twinge of guilt.
Pushing the negative thoughts away, Meredith quickly maneuvered her way through the system, finding the files David had alluded to earlier. She zipped them into a single file, then saved them to a thumb drive she’d put into a USB port. Once upon a time this had been the stuff of CIA espionage. Nowadays, every college student in North America could carry the equivalent of every paper they’d written since elementary school on a device no bigger than a child’s thumb.
It worked for Meredith, who was currently saving spreadsheets that would have sucked up all the memory and then some on an older computer. Even now it wasn’t an instantaneous process. She tapped her fingers impatiently on the desktop while the large files took their time being converted and transferred.
At one point Meredith thought she heard a sound like a cough in the distance. Immediately her hand flew to the monitor button, and she turned it off, waiting breathlessly in the dark to see if a security guard or, worse, another employee would come to investigate the quiet hum of David’s hard drive as it did her bidding.
She waited a good five minutes in the dark, holding her breath nearly the entire time. Finally, thinking it must have been her imagination, she crept to the door and peered around the corner, down the hall. She braced herself for a shock.
Nothing.
With a sigh of profound relief, she went back to David’s office. The computer had finished saving. She pocketed the thumb drive, erased her virtual footsteps on the system and shut the computer down.
Still cautious, she listened with the paranoid awareness of a lone wolf at night as she made her way through the maze of halls.
She saw no one. Heard no one. But she had the most disquieting feeling that someone else was there. Maybe it was surveillance cameras. Or building security out in the main hall. Or the constant hum of countless computers hibernating or showing Star Wars screensavers to no one.
For one crazy instant Meredith thought about going to Evan’s office. Something about the still of the night and some long-dormant knot of emotions called her there. As if she could go and breathe him in … and breathe him out. And maybe get rid of the memories that haunted her still, once and for all.
But there was no time for that. She’d done what she needed to do and now she needed to get the heck out of the building before anyone figured her out.
She opened the main door and, after a surreptitious glance out into the hallway, she stepped away, letting the door to Hanson Media Group close harder than she’d intended.
It was a careless mistake, but it didn’t matter. She’d proven to herself time and again that there was no one there.
No one but the ghosts of a man who once meant the world to her and whose name now meant only a biweekly paycheck, excellent health and dental insurance and a dull ache in her heart that she almost couldn’t bear.
Chapter Seven
Evan Hanson woke to a bang.
He sat bolt upright in the converted sofa bed before he had even a moment to think, his body tensed and ready for fight or flight. For one crazy, disconcerting moment he couldn’t remember where he was, then it came back to him. He was sleeping in his office. Unable to commit to staying in Chicago—or even admit to himself that he’d come back—he’d been camping out in the office, using the executive washroom for bathing and either eating out or ordering food in.
What point would there be in getting an apartment to keep a job that he knew wasn’t going to last long? He was no ace executive but he could see the writing on the wall—Hanson Media Group was going down. If he could do anything to help stop it, he was willing to give it a hundred percent, but at the same time he wasn’t going to bet his life that it would work out. Not that he wanted to come out and say that to anyone still working there.
Either way, there was no way he was going to be in Chicago for the rest of his life.
He missed the sun of Majorca. The fresh regional produce he’d come to enjoy picking up at sunny outdoor markets across Europe. Already he felt like one more quickie takeout meal would kill him.
Helen’s hopes for the company were admirable. Noble, even. But impossible. Anyone could see that. Offices that used to be filled with enthusiastic employees, reflecting the prosperity of what was once one of the most powerful media groups in the United States, were now half empty. There was little laughter, less water cooler talk, and almost no optimism on the faces of the employees he saw every day.
Most of Hanson’s best employees had left a while back, knowing their résumés would look better if they reflected tenure at a successful company than if they showed a tenacious grip on a ship that was going down faster than the Titanic. It might not stay down—he was fairly sure some other company would snatch it up at a bargain price—but it was going to go down long enough for those onboard to suffer. Unless they were brave enough to hold on to their stock options until the price went up.
But from what he was hearing around the office, most people weren’t. The general consensus was “get out while you can.”
So what the heck was Meredith Waters doing here?
The Meredith he’d known was far too savvy to align herself with a losing cause.
And honestly, it would have suited him a whole lot better not to have her around. She was a distraction.
A major distraction.
Hell, Meredith’s ghost had haunted him for years, her memory floating around the outskirts of his consciousness more frequently than he liked to admit. He didn’t always see it, but often, late at night, when it was just him and his thoughts alone in a room, it was Meredith’s voice that spoke to him.
Which was nuts, because he knew she had to hate him by then. He knew that she wasn’t lying in another bed across the ocean, thinking the same thoughts. And he was fairly certain that she had moved on to a much better and more reliable prospect.
Someone he could never live up to.
He’d spent a lifetime feeling as though he couldn’t live up to his loved ones’ expectations. For a long time it was his failure in his father’s eyes that had disturbed him the most. One would have thought after the snub in the reading of the will that his feeling of failure toward his father would have grown even deeper, but something in him had snapped. Somehow—by some miracle—he had stopped caring what his father thought.
And for a brief but glorious time he’d enjoyed the feeling of not caring what anyone thought.
Then Meredith had appeared. And suddenly who he was as a man, and what she thought of him, mattered more than ever.
And that was what was distracting him the most. It was going to be hard to get her out of his mind: he knew that the moment he first saw her.
He had spent his life since Meredith dating a series of women who were ill-suited for him. He preferred it that way. A fling was one thing, but he’d felt love before and he didn’t ever want to feel it again. And he’d definitely avoided anyone who reminded him at all of Meredith. It was too painful.
At first it was a conscious effort, but soon it had become a habit. He dated blondes. He dated redheads. Deep black hair was fine.
But he never dated girls with that rich, chestnut-colored hair, or pale Irish skin, or laughing green eyes.
He thought of her, and how she had always applied herself completely to every task, whether it was studying for a history exam or helping a friend fill out a college application, or simply making that amazing sour-cream bread she used to make.