An Act of Love (20 page)

He leaned forward, picked up a pencil and began to tap it
on his desk. "I'm waiting, Miranda."

"I—I don't know," Randy stuttered, suddenly
close to tears. "I can't think when you… sit there and glare
at me that way."

"I wasn't glaring." Luke threw down the pencil in disgust.
"Is that what you plan to do when you're a vice president of this
corporation and the board puts you on the hot seat with an hour's worth
of tough questions? Sit there and cry?"

As an actress Randy had often been forced to listen to
painful criticism and try to learn from it. She was no crybaby; on the
contrary, in two years of acting classes and repertory she'd broken
down exactly once, around the time that Sean had left her.

"You weren't only questioning me," she said in a low,
intense voice, "you were attacking me. It was personal, so that's the
way I took it."

Luke stared at her a moment longer and then ran a hand
through his hair. "The land," he said. "What should we do with it?"

Obviously he didn't intend to deal with her accusation,
but Randy read regret in his eyes and it was all she really needed to
see. She tried to concentrate on the question, more or less thinking
out loud. "I suppose we could sell everything if we change
locations—a bigger lot would be worth much more to a
developer," she said. "Or we could stay where we are and sell off the
portion that we don't need for the store. Or we could develop it
ourselves."

Luke leaned back in his chair again. "And which are you
recommending, Miranda?"

There was a warmth to his tone that hadn't been there all
day. Startled, Randy asked him, "What happened to your rotten mood?"

"I think you shamed me out of it," he admitted with a
half-smile. "Go over to the couch and think about how we should use the
land, and I'll get us a couple of cups of coffee."

"Cream, no sugar," Randy said, getting up.
"And… thanks." She'd seldom felt such relief.

When Luke returned a minute later Randy was already
settled on the couch. She held out her hand for the mug of coffee he
carried, smiling at him. "Why did you do that?" she asked.

He sat down a healthy distance away from her, saying, "Why
did I do what?"

"You know perfectly well what. It made me feel as though
you hated me. Did the stuff about Katrina really make you that angry
with me?"

"Only because I was three-quarters of the way there." Luke
took a few sips of coffee and put the mug down on the glass table.
"Should I tell you about my weekend, Miranda? I worked, all day
Saturday and most of Sunday. Then last night I went out to dinner with
a woman I'd just met who turned out to be a royal pain in the neck. The
restaurant was supposed to be first-rate, but I wound up with a case of
food poisoning, probably from the fish I ate. When I got into the
office this morning Rita told me she has to have four half-days' worth
of dental work done in the next few weeks. My office goes to pieces
when Rita is away."

When he paused for another sip of coffee Randy risked a
teasing suggestion. "You could tell her to have all of them pulled and
get herself dentures. That would only take
one
day."

Luke laughed and shook his head. "As a matter of fact,
that's exactly what I did say, but not in quite that tone. I can't
believe I actually yelled at Rita over her teeth. I hope she doesn't
send Elroy after me. But there's more."

"More?" Randy repeated.

"Katrina. She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever
met, but she makes the lady I went out with last night seem like a
sweetheart. I spent twenty-five minutes convincing her to do the Dallas
promotion for us, soothing her supposed fears that it was more
complicated than anything she'd done before. And then she puts on that
little-girl act of hers and starts negotiating. I don't know why she
bothers with an agent. Do you know what it's like to try to talk to a
woman who keeps putting her hands all over your body? When at the same
time she's holding you up for every dime you have?"

"I can't say that I do." Randy smiled to herself, very
happy to know that Katrina Sorensen drove Luke right up the wall.

"Then you're lucky. If she weren't perfect for the job I
wouldn't put up with her. And then
you
come in,
Miss Dunne, and start handing out your usual quota of snide comments at
a time when I wasn't about to put up with them."

"But I was only…"

"Joking, I know. But like I said, you picked the wrong
time. I started to wonder whether you're more interested in cracking
jokes than you are in learning something about this company."

The accusation stung. "Of course I'm not," Randy said a
little stiffly. "I'm sorry I gave you that impression." The temptation
to tell him how hard she'd worked was strong, but she knew that words
wouldn't impress him at all. He was looking for the right analysis of
the problem and she had to give it to him. The land, she repeated to
herself. Hadn't Dunne Industries recently sold off a health-food store
chain?

"We—Dunne Industries that is—we have
quite a bit of cash to invest, don't we?" she asked.

"I see you're finally thinking in the right direction,"
Luke drawled.

"So we could take the cash and develop the area ourselves.
We could put in a shopping mall connected to C & D on one side,
with a tiered parking structure to hold the cars."

"We could do that," Luke agreed, smiling. "In fact, it's a
very good idea. So good that your father first thought of it five years
ago."

"Five years ago?" Randy repeated. "You mean to tell me
that all of this was decided five years ago and you made me read
through all those reports and traipse around White Hills—"

"Did you learn anything?" Luke interrupted.

"Well, yes. Of course I did," Randy admitted. "But
still…"

"But nothing. I could have sat you down and explained our
plans and you wouldn't have picked up one-tenth as much as you did this
way. The store manager in White Hills is active in the community. Five
years ago he started to pick up rumors about the new county building.
He told Bill and your grandfather and the result was that Dunne
Industries quietly began to acquire the land surrounding the store.
It's taken us this long to buy everything we wanted. Yes, the profits
have gone down in the short term, but when we reviewed the situation
last month to make a final decision our calculations indicated that we
should be able to make an acceptable profit out of that location over
the next several decades, both on the store itself and as the developer
of an adjacent shopping area. So tell me, did I waste your time?"

Randy knew exactly what he wanted to hear. "No, Mr.
Griffin. You didn't waste my time. You're a wonderful teacher."

"Do I detect a sarcastic note in your voice?"

"From
me
?" Randy looked astonished.
"Of course not."

Luke gave her a skeptical look and started to explain the
proposed development, saying that preliminary discussions had already
been held with city officials and with a number of prospective tenants.
Her next assignment, he promised, would be far less taxing than the
first had been. Handing her financial information on the corporation
and marketing and site location studies for the Dallas store, he told
her to familiarize herself with the project by Thursday morning. That
afternoon she'd be attending the quarterly store managers' meeting with
him.

Even if Luke Griffin never set another trap for her, Randy
was determined to know those reports backward and forward. They
accompanied her everywhere, even to bed at night. She even astonished
her father by declining his invitation to accompany him to a play. He'd
stopped by her office late Wednesday afternoon, saying that Emily was
tied up with a client and couldn't use her ticket.

He immediately assumed that his daughter must be suffering
from some life-threatening ailment to refuse a chance to attend the
theater and announced that he would take her home in a taxi and take
care of her.

"I'm perfectly healthy," Randy assured him. "It's just
that I need to work tonight. I didn't do as well as I would have liked
with the White Hills project and I want to be well-prepared."

"Anxious to impress Luke, hmm?" Bill teased.

"Anxious not to be trapped again," Randy corrected. "Luke
can be terrifying when he puts his mind to it."

"In that case, put down the reports. Luke doesn't expect
you to eat, breathe and sleep them, honey." Bill took the papers out of
her hands and walked around to Randy's side of the desk. "Dinner first,
then the play," he said, pulling her up.

Later she thanked him for being so insistent. The play
dealt with the familiar subject of family conflict, yet the characters
were so sensitively drawn and the dialogue so true-to-life that she
found herself deeply involved in what was happening. Most of all she
envied the young actress who played the daughter of the family, but
when she said as much to her father he merely laughed and told her that
next time he took her to a play he'd check to make sure that all the
female roles called for actresses over forty.

The next morning Randy reviewed her notes on the Dallas
project until she was sure that nothing Luke could ask her would faze
her in the slightest. Then she marched down the hall to his office. His
door was closed and Rita was on the phone; when she noticed Randy she
mouthed, "He's busy."

A few seconds later, just as Rita hung up, a small, portly
man came scurrying out of the office, a large black briefcase clutched
in his hand. "
He
was sure in a hurry," Randy
observed as he rushed out the door. "Who is he?"

"Katrina's agent. She's signing a contract to do the
promotional work for the Dallas store. I guess you can go in now,
Randy. Your dad sat in on the meeting, by the way."

Randy gave a knock and opened the door to find Luke and
her father sitting together on the couch, laughing at something.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"It's unrepeatable," her father answered, getting up to
leave. "I assume you're here to speak to Luke." He glanced at Luke,
adding, "She's memorized all that stuff on the Dallas store. I don't
want to be the one to tell her that we've decided against the project."
He chortled to himself and walked out the door.

Randy was totally bewildered. "But Katrina's
agent… ? Rita said…"

"He was kidding, Miranda. Pat spent a good part of Monday
tracking down your grandfather in Italy. He's solidly in
favor—your father and I have been the cautious ones. Our
capital isn't unlimited and we don't want to overexpend it, especially
given the current economy. But you must know our financial situation
from the reports I gave you."

"Yes, and last year's annual report showed that—"

"You must need something else to do," Luke interrupted.

"But aren't you going to ask… ?"

"No."

"Not
anything?" After all the work I put in
?
she added silently.

"Not right now. I'm sure you've done your homework, and
I've got some material to review for the meeting this afternoon." A
number of papers were scattered on his desk and he gathered them
together and shoved them into a file folder. "Skim as much of this as
you can before lunch. I'll stop by your office at about twelve-thirty
and take you out to eat. It will give us some time to talk. We can come
back to the meeting together afterward."

Randy took the folder and walked halfway to the door
before she stopped and turned around. "Just as a point of information,"
she drawled, "was that an invitation or an order, Mr. Griffin?"

"It's an invitation if your answer is yes and an order if
it's no," Luke shot back.

Randy put a hand on her hip and smiled. "One of these days
I'm going to have the last word, you know. I hope you realize that."

"Naturally. I have to let you win a round or two just to
keep up your spirits," Luke agreed.

But obviously not
this
round, Randy
thought as she walked back to her office. The folder Luke had given her
contained the minutes of previous quarterly meetings and numerous
reports explaining how various problems had been handled. There were
also examples of materials from successful promotional campaigns and
summaries of recent market research. Randy quickly saw that the
meetings conducted under Oscar Levitan, Luke's predecessor, had been
less than productive and poorly attended. Luke had taken over as vice
president in September, and while the October meeting had been
primarily a forum for listening to the managers' problems and
complaints, the minutes for January and April reflected solid
accomplishments in a number of important areas.

Luke poked his head into Randy's office a few minutes
early, before she'd had time to finish her reading. "I still have a
couple of things left to do," she said. "I'd better skip lunch."

"All you have to do this afternoon is meet our managers
and listen to what they have to say. No one's going to cross-examine
you—not this time."

Thus reassured, Randy allowed Luke to take her to a German
restaurant down the street, where she ordered half of what she would
have loved to eat and declined a glass of wine, explaining that alcohol
was fattening and that dieting was a way of life for her.

"I've seen your diaper commercial," Luke teased. "You must
be at least twenty pounds lighter now."

"Only ten pounds," Randy corrected with a smile. "The
camera really does add weight."

"Your father mentioned that you'd been starving yourself
for a movie role. Were you disappointed not to get it?"

Randy decided to take a calculated risk. Linda's advice to
the contrary, she and Luke were never going to get any closer to each
other if she didn't permit him a glimpse of her personal thoughts and
feelings at times.