Girl Three
Authors: Tracy March
Tags: #Romance, #romance series, #Girl Three, #tracy march
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Tracy March. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.
Edited by Stacy Abrams
Cover design by Libby Murphy
Ebook ISBN 978-1-62061-290-3
Print ISBN 978-1-62061-289-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition April 2013
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Acura MDX, Advil,
Architectural Digest,
Band-Aid, Barbie, Beanie Baby, BlackBerry, Bluetooth, BMW, Cadillac, Clomid, Cover Girl, Crown Royal, C-SPAN, Excedrin, Glamour Shot,
Good Morning America,
Google, Harney & Sons,
House Beautiful,
iPhone, Lexus, Lifetime Movie Network, Lincoln,
Meet the Press,
Mercedes, Muzak, Naugahyde, Neosporin, Oscar, Post-it, Rite Aid, Rohypnol, Scooby-Doo, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret,
Washington Post,
Wikipedia, Wild Turkey, Windex, YouTube, Ziploc.
For Mike, my superhero.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Three words and three numbers. Enough to make Dr. Jessica Croft’s heart hitch. She reread the note the CEO had left on her desk:
My office—8:45. Franz.
It was already eight thirty.
What did I do?
Jessie had never been summoned to the executive suite of The Oliver Institute. Not when she’d kindled a media firestorm with her provocative articles on designer babies. Not when the series had sparked enough controversy to incite a congressional hearing. Not even when she’d been briefed before she went to Washington to testify.
She unbuttoned her coat and sank into her chair.
Lois, her early-bird, motherly secretary, came in carrying a mug of hot tea for Jessie and set it on the desk. “Chinese Flower.”
During the last couple of years, they’d tasted their way through the entire Harney & Sons tea catalog and settled on their favorites. Chinese Flower was Jessie’s.
“Thank you.” Jessie glanced at her, then looked away quickly, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. “You must have seen the note.”
“I did.” Lois kept her tone positive. But everyone knew about the curse of the CEO’s office, and they nervously joked about it at the Institute. Franz’s office was the last place you go before the last time you leave.
Jessie had once seen a dismissed coworker escorted out of the Institute by a security guard. The poor woman had carried a cardboard box full of empty hopes, her dignity left on the desk. Jessie shrugged. “Somehow, I’ve earned the walk of shame.”
“Or a Pulitzer Prize.” Lois gave her an encouraging smile and set a copy of Jessie’s schedule for the day on the desk. Despite new technology, Lois relied on the tangibility of paper and ink. Jessie understood. Words printed on a page implied a commitment that words typed on a screen could not. Evidently Franz felt the same, since he’d left his message on a Post-it note.
Jessie swallowed hard, conflicted over the possibilities. “I guess it could go either way.”
But not as far as a Pulitzer Prize. And hopefully not as far as getting fired from the Institute.
She’d carved a niche for herself here and, thanks in large part to Lois, finally felt like she belonged somewhere.
“Good thing Franz wants to see you first thing,” Lois said. “I’m not sure much else will get done today.” She gestured toward the window, the creases in her pleasant face deepened by her frown. Outside, the sky hung low and gray. Pine branches glistened, frozen from the dreary beginning of an ice storm. “I’ll reschedule things for you, if need be.”
Jessie couldn’t help but hear a double entendre. Lois was referring to the worsening weather and not the question of Jessie getting fired.
Wasn’t she?
…
By 8:43, Jessie sat before the esteemed Dr. Franz Oliver, her insides all ripply and tense. She pulled her cardigan tightly around herself and took a deep breath of the chilly air in the fabled executive suite.
Burl wood furniture, museum-quality art.
Career-altering meetings.
This one included a starchy White House envoy who had introduced himself as Mr. Bishop.
“Miss Croft,” he said, “the president has questions about your work.”
Jessie’s gaze darted to Franz—
the president, as in president of the United States?
—then back to Bishop, whose words wore a could-be-good, could-be-bad disguise. She sat straighter in her seat and wondered why Bishop had called her
Miss
instead of
Doctor
. Not that the title really mattered to her. Usually when someone referred to “Dr. Croft,” she thought of her grandfather, who had been an MD, not a PhD like Jessie.
Bishop had settled in the chair next to hers. He riffled through a stack of papers in his lap, C
ONFIDENTIAL
slashed across the pages in red. His balding head shifted as he scanned each sheet.
Seated at his desk, Franz loomed in front of them, built like the Tower of London minus the turrets. He dragged his hand over his gray mustache and clutched a fistful of goatee. His gaze settled on Bishop, flickering with the foresight of damage control.
In the corner of the room, an antique floor clock ticked. Jessie counted the seconds—backward from twenty.
Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen.
Franz cleared his throat. “What specific area of Dr. Croft’s work concerns the president?”
Bishop cocked his head, appraising Franz. “It’s her body of work more than her position on a particular issue.” He licked his index finger and leafed through his papers. “But the president has commented on her recent articles about assisted reproductive technologies and…” He stopped on a page, skimmed his fingers over it, and halted mid-paragraph. “Genetic screening of embryos.”
Jessie might as well have been a cardboard cutout, since the two men talked about her as if she wasn’t in the room. Since the president objected to her work, was her next stop the recycling bin? She practiced her science like a religion, reconciling issues as current as human cloning with principles as rock-solid as Stonehenge. But bioethics was hardly an exact science. No matter how well she justified her reasoning, someone disagreed. Now, that someone just happened to be the leader of the free world.
Franz leaned forward, planted his elbows on the desk, and steepled his thick fingers. “Her contributions to
The Oliver Report
may not parallel the president’s views, but they foster critical debate.”
Bishop turned his attention to Jessie, and she willed herself not to react.
“Furthermore,” Franz said in his intellectual voice, “Dr. Croft is the most thought-provoking bioethicist at my Institute.”
Jessie’s jaw went slack, but she reined in her surprise. For five years, she had finessed her way up the ranks at the think tank without praise from Franz. He had an unspoken philosophy: If you work at my Institute, you’re the best. You don’t need a reminder.
“The president agrees with your assessment,” Bishop said.
Franz leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “He does?”
Wide-eyed, Jessie looked from Franz to Bishop.
“Yes,” Bishop said. “He’s selected Miss Croft to fill the vacancy on his Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. We’ve already started the vetting process. He wants to know if she’ll accept his appointment.”
Franz flashed her a victorious smile, but Jessie’s defenses flared despite her excitement and relief.
Nothing came out of Washington without premeditation, and this appointment was no different. She’d bring a fresh frame of reference to the Commission, but other candidates offered name recognition, distinguished achievements, and longtime careers. Something more had prompted the president to choose her. Something more politically charged, complex, and knotty.
Jessie pinched her pencil between her fingers and wrote on her notepad,
Arranged by my father?
She stabbed the dot beneath the question mark.
“As a courtesy,” Bishop said to Franz, “I’m alerting you that my team is contacting Miss Croft’s coworkers and superiors, former professors, friends. We’ve started with her family.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Nerves sharpened Jessie’s words, the first ones she’d said since hello.
Franz’s smile flattened.
“You’re not interested?” The first hint of emotion tinged Bishop’s voice.
Of course I’m interested.
The weight of Franz’s expectations smothered Jessie, and her doubts piled on. At only thirty, the fulfillment of a lifelong goal was dangling in front of her. Because of her hard work, because of her sacrifice, or because she had her father’s DNA?
Bishop’s BlackBerry buzzed. He snatched it from his belt and scanned the screen. “Sorry.” He set the phone atop the papers in his lap and gave Jessie a questioning look.
“Is this selection a strategy to favor my father?” She hesitated to suggest such impropriety, yet she needed to know upfront.