“Yeah?” Kerry perked up visibly. “And here I thought I was really bombing out. Thanks, Dar.” She felt happier about the bouts and pretty satisfied with herself in general after sitting through a surprisingly candid and objective review administered by her boss just that afternoon.

Criticism, she’d found, was much easier to take from someone you knew liked you, than from someone you knew didn’t. Dar’s variety was calm and impersonal and very direct—addressing specific, fixable items and staying away from the broad generalities that were intimidating to hear and almost impossible to change. Your attitude is an issue, for instance. She’d heard one of the girls in the breakroom repeating that bit of feedback from a superior. What exactly were you supposed to do about it?


276 Melissa Good Besides, she’d found that Dar had a delightful habit of doing all the bad stuff first. To sort of get it out of the way. Then she’d list off all the good stuff, so by the time the review was finished, she felt pretty good even if the start was kind of painful. Her’s hadn’t been that painful either, since she knew her own faults, and was able to discuss them with her supervisor in fairly frank honesty. “Did I thank you for my review?”

“Three times now,” Dar remarked dryly, sipping her tea. “No one’s ever done that before.” She stretched her legs out in the swirling water and sighed, tipping her head back and regarding the stars.

Kerry felt the mood change and slid a little closer, where she could feel Dar’s warmth. “Are you worried about tomorrow?”

Dar nodded.

“Me too.”

Dar studied the sky, then turned her head. “Listen. I’ve been thinking about this.” Her face was very serious. “Whatever happens tomorrow—don’t feel like you have to do anything about it, okay?”

Kerry looked puzzled. “Huh?”

“You’re really good at what you do, Ker. I think you should keep doing it, no matter what happens with me.”

“Oh.” Kerry exhaled, ruffling the surface of the water. “I don’t want to stay there without you, Dar. I’d feel really bad about that, and besides, who’d say they’d let me?”

“They need you.” It was the truth.

“They need you too,” the blonde woman shot back. “It’s so unfair.

Look at the job you do for them, Dar. How could they even think about removing you just for something as…” She shook her head. “It’s just not fair.”

Dar shrugged. “Can’t say it’s their fault. I made the decision, Kerry. I knew what I was doing.”

Kerry stared at her. “You said you hired me for my skills. Are you saying now that’s not true?”

“No.”

“That is what you just said.”

“No, it’s not,” Dar replied fiercely. “I knew I was hiring the best candidate for the job, then or now, and that, Kerrison, was never an issue.”

“Then what did you mean by that?”

Dar slid down in the water. “I meant that…I knew, when I brought you on that I was attracted to you.” She paused. “And I knew that wasn’t going to stop after you were hired.”

The turmoil subsided next to her. “Oh.” Kerry’s face eased into a sheepish smile. “Well, I’m guilty of that too, so there.” She reflected a bit, then looked up. “Dar, I want you to know how lousy I feel about the fact that it’s us that’s causing this.”

“It’s not. It’s just the excuse.”

“It’s a lousy excuse.” Kerry scowled. “I mean, Jesus, Dar, I understand why they have the rule, okay? Because it would be easy for someone to use their position to take advantage of someone, or to insinuate Eye of the Storm 277

that promotions or pay raises were contingent on you making that person happy in some way.” She shook her head. “But that isn’t the case here, and we both know it.”

“I know.”

“I should go talk to them.” Determination squared the slightly rounded jaw line.

Dar pictured Kerry storming the boardroom, facing off against the rest of her peers, and smiled in frank reflex. “Tell you what. Let’s trade.

You come talk to the board and I’ll go testify against your father. Deal?”

“In a frigging heartbeat,” Kerry blurted. “I am so there.” Then her shoulders slumped and she went very quiet. “I don’t want to go there tomorrow, Dar.”

“Maybe they won’t ask too many questions.”

“It’s not the questions. It’s not the panel.”

Dar looked at her. “Your family?”

Kerry nodded.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, I promise.” Tell the board to shove their job, and fly back out on the next flight. Yeah. To hell with it. Maybe I could just call Alastair and tell him to... Dar sighed. No, she really did have to be there and speak for herself, that much had been made clear regardless of what the outcome was. “I don’t think it’ll take long.”

“Are they going to fire you?”

“I think so, yes.” Strange, after all the nonsense, how much that hurt.

“Actually, what they’ll do is ask me to resign. At this level, you don’t usually get outright fired. It looks bad and does strange things to the stock. They’ll make it seem like it was a voluntary thing.”

“Dar…”

“I know, it sucks. I agree, but what they’re looking at is perception.

Perception has nothing to do with reality, Kerry. And if Ankow goes public with his trial, then they have all that perception out there that I’ve gotten involved with a subordinate and maybe made decisions that were influenced by doing so.”

Kerry sighed.

“It’s the perception they’re worried about. I know not one of them, on a personal level, gives two craps about my love life, understand?”

“No.”

Now it was Dar’s turn to sigh. “It’s a matter of trust, Kerry. When you’re in a position like I am, solely in charge of billions of stockholder dollars, and making decisions for the company on a daily basis, the inference that I might not make the right decisions scares the hell out of them and also out of the stockholders.”

“That’s stupid, Dar. You’ve been making decisions for them for years.”

“Yes.” Dar gave a tiny smile. “But they never suspected I had a personal side that might possibly interfere with that before.” She paused.

“And they’d be right. In all the years I’ve worked for them, I’ve never had something in my life I’d put before my job.”


278 Melissa Good

“Until now.”

“Until now,” Dar replied in wry agreement. “But it’s not your fault, Kerry.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Dar, it most certainly is my fault.” Pale brows knitted. “Saying it isn’t is like pretending I’m this witless child who just toddled along after you when you called me.” Kerry put her glass down. “An equal case could be made that I manipulated you strictly to achieve my position and that I’m milking you along, hoping I’ll get your job when you leave.” She folded her arms. “Maybe you’re an innocent victim.”

Dar simply stared at her.

“It’s all just so—” Kerry turned and saw the look in her lover’s eyes and reached out and cupped her cheek. “That was a facetious statement,”

she stated. “Or I would have taken that VP position you dangled out a couple of months back, remember?”

“I remember.” The skin shifted as Dar smiled. “And even if you had, I trust you, Kerry.”

It was like holding a piece of precious crystal. “Thank you.” It came out in a whisper. “That means everything to me.” She smiled back. “I still think you should let me go talk to them.”

The phone rang and Dar forced herself to look away from Kerry’s intense gaze to answer it. She lifted the portable receiver up. “Hello?”

“Hello, Dar.”

Her eyebrow quirked. “Hi, Dr. Steve. What’s up?”

The physician cleared his throat. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, Dar, but I made the lab run all the tests three or four times, because I didn’t want to give you the wrong information.”

A chill went down Dar’s spine that even the warm water of the Jacuzzi couldn’t dispel. “Information about what?” Her alarm must have shown, because Kerry sat up and put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on?” She felt her heart speed up.

“Remember that blood I took from you, when you were sick?”

“Yes.”

“We found some toxins in there, Dar. I sent them out to a bigger lab to have them check what they were.” Steve hesitated. “The results came back positive for some seriously poisonous chemicals that I won’t bore you with the names of.”

Dar’s brows creased as she considered the information. “Steve, are you saying I was poisoned?” She paused. “Accidentally?”

There was a long silence. “Dar, the type of stuff this is, you absorbed through your skin. You didn’t swallow it, or nothing like that.” An awkward pause. “Had to be touching you.”

“Touching me,” Dar murmured, then cocked her head at Kerry. “Dr.

Steve says it was some kind of poison that got me sick the other day.”

Kerry’s eyes widened in shock. “Something I got by touching the stuff.

God, it could have been anything.” The phone shifted. “Steve, other than Eye of the Storm 279

the office and the house, I was in a couple of odd places that day. What are the odds it was on something there? Like the airport, for instance?”

“Dar, this stuff,” Steve hesitated, “it’s not very common.” He seemed uncomfortable. “I’d like you to come in tomorrow, let me take more blood and make sure you got rid of it all. You haven’t been sick since then, have you?”

“No. Not at all. In fact, I feel great. We just got back from the gym and Kerry was giving me grief about running her ragged,” she replied. “I was a little queasy the day after that, but even the morning after you came I was able to get some breakfast down fine.”