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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.
He doubted any of the women he had dated in the past decade could make their own breakfast, much less their own bread.
But he couldn’t afford to make those comparisons now, or think of the things he had once loved about Meredith. Particularly now, when they were laboring through this frigid situation they had found themselves in.
Yet even while part of him resisted their new business relationship, he knew she would do the job well. He knew if anyone could help him succeed, it would be Meredith.
And they’d agreed that that was what they were going to do. They were going to work together and make the business succeed. Regardless of what had happened or not happened between them in the past.
The past was dead.
The future was short, at least here at Hanson Media.
All he needed to do was whatever he could to bring about the success of the radio division, then he could get the hell out of Chicago.
His thoughts returned to Lenny Doss. Sure, the guy was a bit of a renegade. He was definitely notorious. But Evan had faith that Lenny could keep his nose clean as far as the FCC regulations went. Lenny was brash, Lenny was bold, Lenny was crude, but Lenny was not stupid.
And he was popular.
Unable to sleep, Evan went to his desk and booted up his computer to check his e-mail. That seemed to be Lenny’s preferred method of communication, so Evan decided he’d write to the guy and ask if he’d made a decision about the contract Evan had offered him.
Amidst what looked like a hundred spam messages offering everything from investment opportunities to physical enhancement, Evan found an e-mail from Lenny himself.
To: ehanson@hansonmediagroup.com
From: ossmanhimself@lennydoss.com
Subject: You’ve got competition, Bud!
Yo man! DigiDog Satellite Radio has given me a pretty sweet offer. You willing to up yours by 10% with a three-year guarantee? That’s the only way you’ll get the Doss Man. LD
Evan muttered an oath.
He quickly typed DigiDog into a search engine. It turned out they were an up-and-coming satellite company and they were paying big bucks to acquire high-profile talent—which could certainly define Lenny Doss—as well as high-end music catalogs. A quick scan of the projected programming showed that DigiDog had expended a lot of money already on what was really an uncertain venture.
Lenny Doss’s name, however, did not come up in a search of DigiDog. Not even in tangen-tially related articles in which programming directors talked about their dream lineups. So the question of whether anyone had actually approached Lenny Doss with a deal wasn’t necessarily answered. They might have, but then again, it could have been a ploy on Lenny’s part to work up Hanson Media’s enthusiasm for him.
The problem was that Evan couldn’t be sure which it was. And Evan was convinced that Lenny Doss was the first and most important step toward success for Hanson Broadcasting. He was sure of it.
After just several minutes’ consideration, he came up with a plan.
“I’m taking Lenny Doss out for drinks tonight and you need to come with us and convince him to sign on with Hanson,” Evan said to Meredith later that morning.
What he didn’t say was please, though the word repeated itself in his mind.
“What? You’re joking, right?”
“Nope. Dominick’s on Navy Pier. Seven-thirty or so.” He could already picture her there, in the soft light of Dominick’s, wearing some-thing—anything—other than her conservative work clothes.
“And you want me to come with you,” she said incredulously, watching his brown eyes for signs that he was just pulling her leg. Especially given the heated conversation they’d already had about the wisdom of hiring Lenny Doss.
“Yes, I do,” Evan said, straight-faced. She could always tell when he was joking, because even though he could keep his mouth still he always got a hint of a dimple on the left side. She used to think it was adorable.
There was no dimple now.
He wasn’t kidding.
“Why would I do that, Evan?” she asked. “Why would I go out and actively try to hire a guy like that?”
“Because you know I want to bring him on board.”
“And you know I’m adamantly against it.”
“And you know you’re wrong about that.”
“I do not!”
“Well, I do.” He took her by the arm and led her to his office, saying, “Technically, I’m your boss and you need to do what I ask you to.”
She wrenched free of his grasp and said, “Yeah, well, technically, I’m not working for your department, so you have to clear this kind of thing with your stepmother, and I think if she reviewed both sides of this issue, she’d be inclined to agree with me.”
“Not if she looked at the facts.”
“What facts could possibly condone what he’s done?” Meredith wanted to know.
Evan stopped walking and looked at her. “Nothing can condone what he’s done, but his statistics are impressive and that makes him worth considering, even if you don’t like his past.”
“It’s his future I’m concerned with.”
They rounded the corner into Evan’s office and he said, “That’s why you need to consider all the facts, not just the Internet gossip you’ve looked up.”
She shot him a look of disagreement, but he was right. She’d known as soon as he’d mentioned Lenny Doss’s name that the guy was a ticking time bomb, so she’d gone online looking for evidence that proved her right, not evidence that proved her wrong.
Apparently Evan had done the opposite.
As usual.
“You’ve got to look at the statistics here.” He sat her down in his chair and leaned across her to type an Internet address into his computer. “Check out the numbers on WRFK,” he said, pointing at a chart on the computer screen. “This is about the time they moved from a regular news format to talk radio with Lenny Doss.”
Meredith leaned forward and looked, taking the mouse in hand and moving around the chart a bit to get a more detailed picture. “What month did they hire him?” she asked, concentrating on the demographics and the charted increase in listeners.
“February.” He pointed. “Right there.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She clicked on the date and checked for the entire programming schedule, to see if there was another reason that could account for all or some of the increase. “They also had religious programming on Sundays at that time,” she pointed out half-heartedly. Religious programming virtually never pulled in big ratings.
“Check the ratings,” Evan said, his voice ringing with smug confidence at what she’d find.
She checked. The religious programming had abysmal ratings. Worse than most. “Oh.”
“Exactly.”
Meredith frowned, looking for any evidence there might be that Evan was assigning too much credit to this one man. “When did they fire him?”
“They didn’t.”
“No?” Darn it, she should have armed herself with more specific information before meeting with Evan about this.
“He left for Gemini Broadcasting here.” He pointed at the computer screen again, leaning so close across Meredith that she could smell not only his cologne but the achingly familiar scent of his skin. “In November of the following year.”
“And the ratings went down,” Meredith observed, so distracted by the close proximity of Evan that she almost couldn’t concentrate on the matter at hand.
Evan, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be having any such problem being close to Meredith. He gave a chipper nod, his face devoid of anything other than triumph that Meredith appeared to be seeing the light, now that he was shining it directly in her eyes. “The ratings went way down.”
She went back to the search engine and typed in Gemini Broadcasting, just as Evan had a week earlier, and typed in the pertinent dates.
He waited a moment while she studied the higher ratings before saying, “See what I mean?”
She clicked off and rolled back in the chair to face him. “Yes, I do.”
“But you’re conflicted because, while you like what he could potentially do for the company, you don’t like what he stands for,” Evan said, trying to read the unaccustomed sternness in her eyes and her posture. Every time he got anywhere near her she tensed up and resisted whatever he was saying.
If she’d shown any form of emotion at all—which she hadn’t—he’d have thought her reaction to him was personal.
As it was, he could only conclude that she hated Lenny Doss, or what he stood for, so much that she felt angry at Evan for even wanting to hire him and for pointing out that there were good things to be considered in the process.
“Right,” she admitted, taking a short breath and moving slightly away from where Evan stood. The chair she was sitting in knocked against the desk behind her. “But as I’ve said before, I’m also hesitant about his potential as a liability. That’s really important,” she added.
“Fine. Check the e-mails he’s written to me about that,” Evan said, switching to another program and pulling up a folder in which he’d stored his correspondence with Lenny Doss. He kept a little more distance this time, not so much because he was afraid to get near her because of her reaction, but because he didn’t want to see her react by recoiling again.
If she did, he’d know it was on purpose and not just some small coincidence, and he didn’t want to know that. “Read them all, if it will make you feel better,” he said, stepping back and going to the small refrigerator under the picture window to take out a bottle of spring water and give himself something to do other than just stand there gazing at Meredith and trying to figure out how the years had only made her prettier instead of older.
“Okay.” She looked back at the screen. “Just give me a couple of minutes.”
He hadn’t thought she’d really do that, but it was nice to be away from her scrutiny for a moment, even though it seemed like forever that he stood there waiting for her to read through the e-mails.
One by one, date by date, she clicked through, stopping every once in a while to make a note on the small pad on his desk.
He noticed that her handwriting was still the same messy scrawl it had been in high school. Something about that small fact made him feel a little warmer inside.
A little more at home.
But that was all she gave in terms of comforting vibes. The rest of her was completely cool and impersonal. He tried to read the expression on her face, but though the face itself was undeniably familiar, some of the expressions she wore now were completely new to him. He had only his experience with people to go by, and he got the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that, for Meredith, this was all just standard business.
Finally she finished scrolling through the notes and turned the chair around to face Evan. Her green eyes were bright, probably from the sudden light change of looking from the computer monitor to Evan, and she said, “Okay, I will admit I kind of see your point.”
He couldn’t believe his ears. “You agree with me?”
“Wait a minute.” She held up a slender hand. The left one, actually.
The one he’d once thought would wear his wedding and engagement rings.
“I didn’t say I agree with you,” she went on, blissfully ignorant of his disconcerting thoughts about their past. “There’s still plenty we disagree about.”
That hadn’t always been the case.
“But I am saying,” she continued, “that I see your point about his ratings and I understand why his contrition has given you confidence in potentially hiring him.”
This was good. She was agreeing with him. Wasn’t she? “So you’ll come with me and meet him?”
She frowned, hesitating. Her delicate brow lowered toward those bright green eyes in a way that he hadn’t seen in so long it made him ache to think about it.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I could do to help you attain your goal.”
