Triplets Found, page 34
“You’re a romantic,” Adam said with a slight smile.
She’d never thought of herself in that way, but maybe she was.
As Adam drove up Cedar Run’s lane to the house, they both spotted the silver sedan parked in the driveway.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Leigh asked.
“No. I don’t think it would be Lissa and Sullivan. They’d call before they drove up here.”
“Unless they wanted to surprise you.”
However, when Adam pulled up beside the car, they could see a man, a stranger, sitting inside.
Adam motioned to the man that he was going to pull into the garage and go around to the door. Then he pressed the remote.
A few minutes later Adam opened his front door. “Can I help you?” he asked the stranger.
Waiting near the sofa in the living room, Leigh wondered if this visitor could possibly be here for her. Not that she was expecting anyone, either.
The man was dressed in a button-down shirt and casual slacks. He was about five-eight, looked to be in his mid-thirties and kept pushing his glasses up higher on his nose. “Adam Bartlett?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“My name’s Randy Seneft. I’m with Breaking News on the PQF network. Could we talk?”
After only a moment’s hesitation, Adam stepped back and let the man inside.
Seneft glanced over at Leigh and then smiled at Adam. “One of our producers saw the article in the paper yesterday…about you and Jared Cambry and the bone marrow transplant. We think it’s a wonderful story and want to do a live interview as soon as possible. What do you say? Will you do the show live with us for millions of people to see?”
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m not doing a live interview. I’m not doing any kind of interview.”
Leigh watched Adam’s face harden as he realized exactly what the associate producer wanted.
On one hand, she knew Adam hated the idea of his life being opened for all to see. On the other, she knew the donor registry always needed publicity. The more people who signed up, the more lives could be saved. “You know, maybe you should hear him out,” she suggested softly.
The bond that had been established between them last night seemed fragile now as his gaze met hers and she knew he wondered why she was even suggesting it.
“Yes, Mr. Bartlett, maybe you should hear me out. Or at least hear what I’m proposing.” The producer hurried on so Adam didn’t have a chance to stop him. “We’d like to do the interview at the hospital. I’ve already gotten Dr. Chambers’s okay. We’ll show a videotape of Mark—or run a local station’s coverage of his soccer games, explaining his condition and what he’s gone through. But the other aspect of this we’d like to explore is how Mr. Cambry found you, and of course your part in all this. I understand there was also a reunion with a twin sister, Lissa Cartright Grayson.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want,” Adam snapped. “Being put on display for the public to see. Forget it, Mr. Seneft, I’m not interested.” Adam opened the door wide so the man would leave.
As if he was playing his trump card, the producer stated, “Mr. Cambry has already agreed to this interview and so has his family. They want to tell other parents that there’s hope.”
“We don’t even know if the transplant took yet,” Adam said, clearly angry now.
“I understand that. But that’s what makes this a good story. The public will follow it—follow Mark’s progress.”
“And you don’t give a hoot if everything turns out all right or not. You don’t care if Mark lives or dies, as long as you get ratings.”
The producer shook his head. “Ah, Mr. Bartlett. You want to think the media is made up of heartless souls who are only interested in the story and the public’s response to it. That’s simply not true. Of course we care. We want Mark to make it. And think of all the people he’ll have praying for him.”
“That’s low,” Adam growled. “If you and the Cambrys want to do the story, that’s fine. But I won’t have any part of it.”
Quickly, before Adam could push him out the door, Mr. Seneft took a card from his pocket and shoved it into Adam’s hand. “I realize the idea of an interview has all come as a surprise to you, but I want you to think this over. We’re planning the taping for Tuesday night. All you have to do is give me a call to tell me if you want to join us.”
Adam remained stonily silent.
“Mr. Bartlett, I really think this would just make a heartwarming story. You trying to save a little boy’s life. A family reunited. Please think about it.”
After a last look at Adam’s set expression, the producer turned and left.
As Leigh sat down on the sofa, she could hear the producer drive away. There was so much she wanted to say, yet this was Adam’s decision. He had his reasons for wanting to keep his life private. Still…
He was studying her now. After a last look to make sure Seneft was gone, he crossed the room. “Say what you have to say, Leigh. I know there’s something on your mind.”
Ever since they first met, Adam could read her. Sometimes that was unsettling. When she searched for the right words to use, he shook his head. “Just say it, Leigh. You’re talking to me, not one of your patients.”
Tact was a part of her profession, and she realized now he didn’t want that. He wanted honesty. “All right. I think this is your chance to foster the donor transplant registry. To get the word out. To bring people in. You’re giving up the opportunity before you even look at what it could do.”
As he shook his head, he lowered himself to the sofa on the cushion beside her. “I don’t want my life laid out for everybody to see. I don’t want to have to relive it. I know exactly what will happen if I agree to this. It won’t be the cut-and-dried human interest story that producer says it will be. They’ll sensationalize everything. They’ll cut and paste and edit until it looks exactly like they want it to look.”
“Do you watch Breaking News?”
“No. I’ve never seen it. I don’t have much time or taste for network TV, for the reasons I just told you.”
“Breaking News isn’t like some of the other news segment programs. It’s in very good taste. I read an article in the Sunday paper on how they put the show together. They look for good, human-interest stories that don’t make national news, but yet carry a load of impact for the viewing public. They focus on the lives of whomever’s involved, and how the event or the situation has impacted them. It’s about people more than about the story. I’m sure both you and Jared would have a say in where you want the focus.”
Adam stared at the dark screen of the television, as if he was imagining all of it on there, and he didn’t like any of what he saw. “Publicity can so easily get out of hand. It’s the last thing I want. Even when Novel Programs, Unlimited’s, stock went public, I stayed in the background and let Dylan lead the parade. I did it for a very good reason. I didn’t want reporters poking into my life. They’ll bother Mom and John. They might even dig up something on Owen. No one wants to be exposed. I just don’t like the whole idea of it. You’re the one who wants to save lives. Sometimes I just want to go back to the way my life was before all of this started.”
There was an underlying message in Adam’s tone. The past month had caused nothing but upheaval in his life, and he didn’t like it. Although he might be grateful Shawna and Mark were in his life now, and Lissa too, he didn’t know where any of it was going to lead. Jared hadn’t welcomed him as a son into his family with open arms, and since the transplant was over and done, Adam might feel as if he were no longer necessary.
Resurrecting the relationship she and Adam once had and getting involved again hadn’t been wise on either of their parts, and yet she didn’t regret it. Maybe he did.
“Are you sorry I became your liaison? Are you sorry last night happened?”
“Last night happened because we decided to give in to the chemistry between us, and later be damned. But later’s going to come, Leigh. I know it, and you know it. If you thought writing me that note was tough, imagine how you’re going to feel when you take off for Cleveland.”
Pushing himself up from the sofa, he added, “Or maybe it won’t be any more difficult than the last time. Maybe you let last night happen because you knew that.”
Her heart ached because he was implying she didn’t care as much as he did. He was implying that an affair was easy for her, that it wasn’t going to tear her apart when they had to say goodbye. She couldn’t even find the words to respond. She found all of her feelings were clogging her throat, and she couldn’t get even one of them out.
When he rose to his feet, he avoided her gaze. “I’m going to change and then take Thunder for a ride. Rain is rolling in again tonight and I want to take him for a good workout.”
She just nodded, overwhelmed with the enormity of leaving Adam again…overwhelmed with the enormity of chasing a dream that she wasn’t sure was hers anymore.
The guard in the lobby of the building where Novel Programs, Unlimited, was located nodded to Adam as he let the glass doors shut behind him on the following afternoon. The overcast, gray sky outside fit Adam’s mood. Ever since that producer had turned up on his doorstep last night…
Tony Pasqual, sitting behind his desk in his security uniform, gave Adam a wide-toothed grin. “This is a busy place for a Sunday.”
That wasn’t what Adam wanted to hear. The tension between him and Leigh since their discussion last night hadn’t abated. She’d slept in the guest room. That wasn’t what he’d wanted. But after their conversation last evening, his pride had kept him silent when she’d told him that’s what she was going to do. Their night in bed together had been a denial of reality. Grabbing the moment in the dark of night had seemed like a good philosophy…until they’d looked at it in the light of day.
Do you really want to go back to life as you knew it before Jared’s visit? he asked himself.
He’d meant every word he’d said to her last night. Looking at Leigh, the twist of the knife in his gut when he thought about her leaving, had pushed him to answer her as he had. This morning after a ride on Thunder that hadn’t helped at all, after Leigh had made brunch and they’d forced conversation, after thinking about Mark isolated in that sterile hospital atmosphere, Adam had decided work would be his salvation today.
But he’d wanted to work alone, and he hoped anybody else Tony had signed in was working on another floor.
The guard turned the log book to face Adam.
Picking up the pen, Adam scrawled his name, the date and the time, seeing that Dylan and Darlene were signed in before him. Terrific.
“So you’ve had traffic already today?” he asked.
“You could say that. On your floor, anyway. Mr. Montgomery and Miss Allen said that they had correspondence to catch up on that had backed up last week.”
Dylan had flown to Chicago earlier in the week and had been tied up in meetings at the end of it. Apparently, he’d enlisted Darlene’s help in catching up.
As Adam took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, he realized he hadn’t helped Dylan with his problem with Darlene. On the other hand, Adam didn’t know what he could do. He wasn’t having a problem with his secretary, Dylan was. It had been more than three weeks since his partner had voiced his concerns. Maybe the whole thing had blown over, or Dylan had brought it out into the open.
Bringing everything out into the open wasn’t always the best idea, either. Look at what happened when he and Leigh had finally admitted and acted on what was going on between them. Last night Adam’s bed had never felt more empty. Last night he’d wished the past had stayed in the past—along with his desire for Leigh.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, shedding their white glow into the hall as Adam stepped from the elevator. The sky looked even grayer out of the windows up here. He wished he’d put Thunder into his stall instead of leaving him in the corral.
Adam stopped for a moment before the glass doors stenciled with Novel Programs, Unlimited’s, bold lettering and logo. He had made his work his life until the past few weeks. Hadn’t his course been a lot less bumpy that way?
When he stepped into the wine, cream and black reception area, he wasn’t surprised not to find Darlene at her desk. If she and Dylan were going over the minutes of last week’s meetings and connected paperwork, they’d be in Dylan’s office. Better to stop in and make conversation now, rather than to get interrupted later. Once he closed his office door, he didn’t want to be disturbed.
The wine-and-black tweed carpeting muffled his footsteps as he made his way to Dylan’s office. He heard the sound of Darlene’s light laughter, the baritone of Dylan’s voice. But as he came to Dylan’s office and pushed open the ajar door, he felt like an intruder into a Sunday-afternoon matinee. Dylan was in his office, but he wasn’t working. He was sitting in his oversized leather chair with Darlene on his lap! Darlene’s hair was mussed, her lipstick smeared, and the buttons of her blouse were open. They both started like guilty teenagers when they saw him.
Adam could have backed out. He could have mumbled an excuse and left. He could have pretended he didn’t see what he saw. But he liked Darlene. She was a good secretary, and he didn’t want to lose her. If Dylan was just fooling around…
“Have I interrupted something?” he asked, with the nonchalance that widened both pairs of eyes that were on him.
As Darlene tried to scramble away from Dylan’s lap, the CFO kept her still. “Don’t go anywhere,” he mumbled to her as he pulled her blouse together and held the material in his fist. “Adam, if you could give us a minute,” Dylan said in a patient tone.
“I think you need more than a minute for what you were into. At least I hope so.”
A dark flush crept up Dylan’s neck. “This isn’t what you think.”
Now Darlene managed to hike herself off Dylan’s lap, quickly buttoned the buttons of her yellow cotton shirt, then shakily ran a hand through her brown hair. Her face had paled.
Squaring her shoulders, she said to Adam, “Mr. Bartlett, I…I’m sorry you found me in this unprofessional…position. I like working for you, and I promise if you keep me on, it won’t happen again.”
Dylan was out of his chair in a shot. “What do you mean it won’t happen again? We’re dating. Of course it’s going to happen again.”
Adam had never seen his friend quite so rattled. “Darlene, this is Sunday. Your time’s your own. I’m not going to fire you. But maybe you could give me a few minutes with Dylan?”
Avoiding Adam’s gaze, as well as Dylan’s, she skittered to the door. “I’ll be out at my desk.”
“Darlene,” Dylan commanded, as if he didn’t want her to leave.
She said again, “I’ll be at my desk.”
The silence that enveloped the office had never been quite so tense between the two friends. Finally Adam broke it. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“Don’t act like a big brother,” Dylan muttered. “And don’t talk to me about wise, when you have your high school sweetheart living at the ranch and you know she’ll be history again in a couple of months.”
Uh-oh. Dylan was on the offensive. For a guy who was usually placid, he seemed undeniably unnerved. Adam didn’t take the bait. “Darlene’s a nice woman, Dylan. I’d hate to see her get hurt. She’s the one who might be too uncomfortable staying here if you decide Natalie fits your lifestyle better.”
“Natalie’s gone. She and I were never…compatible.”
“And you and Darlene are?”
“It might not look like it, but yes, we are. We both went to parochial school.”
Adam raised a brow.
Dylan’s hand slashed through the air defensively. “It impacted her more than it impacted me, but the point is we have similar backgrounds. She has as much energy as I do. She’s a night owl who can get up at 5:00 a.m. if she has to. She’s terrific fun. When I talked to her about the letters, she offered to resign. You were right. She was having a problem with them because she was trying to make them perfect. She admitted she liked me.”
Adam smiled at the surprise in Dylan’s voice. “You’re a likeable guy.”
Dylan shook his head. “I mean it, Adam. She likes me for me, not because I’m CFO of this company, not because I drive a Jaguar, and not because I can fly her to Hawaii for the weekend and the cost won’t dent my bank account. We’ve seen each other almost every night for the past week, and all she wants to do is cuddle in front of the TV and eat popcorn with me.”
Adam gave Dylan a skeptical look.
“As opposed to having dinner in a five-star restaurant,” Dylan explained. “That’s what I like about her. No pretense. No edge. And I find that I like staying in with her.”
That statement, above all others, impacted Adam. He knew Darlene was a sincere, honest, hardworking young woman. It seemed as if she’d gotten to his partner in a big way.
“Are you telling me this is serious?”
“More serious than I’ve ever been.”
“Maybe she should just work as my secretary and you should hire another one. Then, if things don’t work out, it might not be so awkward.”
“I’d rather keep her as our secretary and think that things will work out. Where’s your optimism, Adam?”
Adam looked away from his friend and out into the gray sky. “My optimism is in a nosedive right now.”
“Things not working out with trying to be ‘just friends’ with the former lover?”
Dylan was entirely too perceptive. Adam wasn’t about to spill his guts, or admit how unsettled he was about Leigh and everything else that had happened. “This is where I leave.” He moved toward the door.
“You can poke into my life, but I can’t poke into yours?”
“That sounds like a good policy,” Adam joked.
Dylan shook his head. “One of these days, you’re going to realize that all of those safety fences you’ve built around yourself don’t do one bit of good. They might keep people out, but they don’t prevent you from feeling what goes on inside.”
