Romantic Acquisition (27 page)

She made an appointment with her gynecologist for the following week and bought another book on pregnancy even though she hadn’t finished the first one. 

Kate made a huge effort to stay awake that night, hoping that Carlo would call and she could get some clue as to why they needed to talk so urgently when he came back.  But in her mind, he had already told her.  S
h
e had created a scenario where he explained that he needed more variety in his women and that he wanted to start dating others. 

Kate resigned herself to that the night before he came home.  She cried herself to sleep, then woke up in the middle of the night and cried again, wishing he were here to comfort her even though he was the source of her anguish. 

She worked all through the day on Friday and didn’t bother to answer her phone.  She didn’t want to talk to Carlo.  
Kate had
decided that she was finished with him. She wasn’t going to let him break up with her.  S
h
e’d just ignore him and finish this relationship out herself
without his awful discussion
.

She got home that night and ignored the five messages on her answering machine and fell into bed, letting sleep take over where busyness during the day had not. She wanted to block Carlo out of her mind and her heart. 

She didn’t hear the doorbell ring later that night or the knocking on her door. 

She spent the weekend curled up on her couch, fighting nausea and the sadness over her assumed loss of Carlo.  She ignored the phone and muted her answering machine while she read all the things she was supposed to do for her unborn child. 

By Monday morning, she was a mess.  There were over twenty messages on her office phone and she’d already deleted fifteen from her home answering machine without listening to them. 

She felt awful and sat down carefully at her desk. 

“Kate, where the hell have you been all weekend?” David demanded as soon as he walked into her office.

“Home,” she said.
  Even the one word answer was difficult to say as the nausea started to rise up in her throat.  She couldn’t look at David since the movement of her head would throw her over the edge and have her running to the bathroom.

He made a disgusted sound.  Kate missed the rolling of his eyes as well since she couldn’t look at him. 
“Carlo Attracelli has been trying to get in touch with you for three days.  He’s finally resorted to calling me as if I were your personal secretary.  Call him now!” he
ordered
and left her office.

She reached for her phone thinking that she’d have to talk to him sooner or later.  But the movement of her hand upset her stomach so she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, willing the bile to back down. 
Kate
decided to ignore
his command
and
searched through the piles on her desk.  She finally found where she’d left off the night before and
continued looking at fabric samples.  By
noon
that day, she remembered the coffee shop conversation.  She knew that the sale was about to be finalized and she wanted to let
Carlo
know that something was going on that didn’t seem right. 

She walked by David’s office, intending to put some files back in the accounting storage area that was across the hall from his office.  She heard him yelling and his words stopped her feet. 
“Sell all the damn shares now!”
and he slammed down his phone. 

Kate didn’t bother to knock.  She just stood in the open doorway as David turned to a man sitting in one of the chairs.  “We’re going to make this happen,” he said gleefully
, rubbing his hands together
.  “By the end of the day, we’ll pull out of the
ATI
deal, they’ll owe us millions in the settlement agreement, then we buy up all the tanked stock and wait until it goes back up in a few months with the announcement of the new chairman.”

Kate couldn’t hold her silence any longer.  “What are you talking about, David?”

David swung around and glared at her.  “Never mind.  Don’t you have some dresses or something to buy?” he snapped.

Kate could only stare at him.  He was evil, she realized.  “You’re going to make Carlo look like an idiot for recommending the buy out.  You can’t do that,” she said, her voice soft and quivering.

David sneered at her. 
“Don’t give me that. 
The whole staff’s stock
is going to soar in the next few months so you’ll be making a pretty penny on that as well.”

Did he really think she was that mercenary? 
“No, that
isn’t the point,” she said, shaking her head.

“What’s the point?  Your lover
boy looking like an idiot?”  he sneered.  “That’s not my problem.  If he doesn’t know how to play with the big boys, he has no business being out here.”

Kate was shocked.  “You did leak information to someone in a bar a few days ago, didn’t you? 
That woman
is going to spend all her savings on stocks in Jamison’s. 
T
hen the stock is going to tank
because you’re going to illegally pull out of the deal.  Is that it
?
”
she demanded, getting angry now. 

David rolled his eyes at her
naiveté
. 
“Don’t worry about
that silly blond woman
.  If it’s who I think it was, we had a good time. She got what she wanted out of the deal plus, if she sells in time and doesn’t wait for ano
t
her stock tip
from a stranger
, she’ll make a good bit of money on the sale as well.
”  He laughed at his plan.  “
But she probably won’t.  If it’s the blond bimbo
I think you’re talking about
, she won’t pay enough attention to her stocks to know what is going on.  It’s
tough
when you rely on bad information, isn’t it?”
he snickered. 

Kate stepped out of his office and
stood in the hallway in shock
. 
As she leaned against the wall, s
he heard him laughing
“Don’t worry about Kate,” he said to the stranger sitting in David’s office.  “She won’t
blab
t
o the
SEC
.  She has
too much loyalty to
my old man.  Besides, she’ll think about it and will realize that she’s going
to benefit from what
I’m doing
as well
if this plan works out
.  If she says
anything to anyone
, she’ll
be caught in the situation even though she didn’t know anything about it
.
”

Those words horrified her so much that it got her moving.  She ran back to her office to grab
her keys
before she
left the building, not even bothering to take her coat.  She headed to the elevators and reached her car in a daze. 

“Where in the world am I supposed to go?
” she asked herself once the door was closed and she was staring out into the bright sunshine.
  He’s going to ruin so many people’s lives but
how am I supposed to stop him?
  She looked around the parking lot as if the answers were written somewhere.

“Carlo!” she immediately thought.  But then she realized that she had ignored so many of his calls. 
He wouldn’t want to talk to her now.  She’d just have to figure out a way to get him to listen to her.  He might be ready to leave her for someone else, but he was fair and reasonable.  Somehow she’d get her point across. 

Her hand automatically went to cover her stomach where her unborn child rested.  She couldn’
t let him hurt their child.  She wouldn’t let him say the words that would hurt either, she promised herself.

Kate drove her car over to the
ATI
headquarters and prayed that he would be there.  S
h
e parked in a visitor
’
s space and rushed into the lobby.  There, security stopped her immediately.  “Ma’am, you need a badge to go any further,” a
n authoritative
voice said, when she tried to get onto an elevator.

She turned around to face a security guard who was watching the lobby area. 

“Oh!  I’m sorry,” she replied and walked with him to the security table.  “I don’t have a badge.”

“Do you work for
ATI
and just misplaced your security badge?”

“No,” Kate answered.  “I need to speak to Carlo Attracelli.  It’s urgent.”

The guard raised his eyebrows.  “The vice president?”

Kate hesitated, not sure what his official role in
ATI
was. 
“I’m not sure of his title.  I’ve been working on a project with him,” she said, knowing she would be breaking the law if she said anything about
ATI
acquiring Jamison’s. 

“Can I see some identification?” the man asked, picking up a
clipboard.

Kate grimaced.  “I didn’t grab my purse.  But I really need to see Carlo.  It’s urgent.
  Please, I can’t explain but this is something only he can help to fix,
”
she said, her eyes pleading with the guard to understand. 

The man put down the clipboard and looked at her for a long moment.  “What’s your name?” he asked, reaching for the phone. 

“Kate Avril,” she said, worried that Carlo would ignore her calls, just as she’d ignored his all weekend. 

He dialed a number quickly.  “Bet
s
y, I have a person down at the security desk who wants to talk to your boss.  She says her name is Kate Avril but doesn’t have any ID.”

There was silence while he listened.  Then, “Long brown hair, blue eyes, about five feet, three inches tall, thin,” he said, describing Kate’s appearance.

“Five, four,” she corrected, standing up to her full height.  She wondered how he had guessed her height so accurately when she was wearing three inch heels, taking her up to the average woman’s height.  She supposed he was used to eliminating shoe height when guessing. 

He nodded and hung up the phone. 
He picked up what looked to be a temporary badge, he slid it through a card reading machine and typed in some information.  Handing it to her, he said, “This will get you up to Mr. Attracelli’s floor but no where else in the building.” 

Kate smiled brightly, immensely relieved that
she wasn’t going to be stopped. 
“Thank you,” she said, grateful that he wasn’t just a bully security guard who found his worth by belittling others. 

S
h
e rode up the elevator on trembling knees hoping her stomach wouldn’t start acting up again as it had this morning. 

As soon as she stepped off the elevator, a smiling elderly woman with a sensible blue suit and low-heeled blue shoes greeted her.  “Hello, I’m Betsy Meyers, Carlo’s secretary,” she said and held out her hand for Kate to shake. 

Kate was relieved.  “I didn’t think Carlo would see me,” she said.
 
“
There’s been some tension between the two of us.  He’s probably not very happy with me.”

Betsy’s smile widened and her eyes twinkled. “He might not.  I didn’t tell him you were coming,” she said. 

Kate’s eyes dimmed. 
This was going to be more difficult than she’d thought. 

Betsy wasn’t having any of that.  She
wave
d Kate down the hallway.  “Carlo is furious with you for not returning
his
calls.  In fact, he mentioned to me this morning that if you were to finally call, that he wouldn’t take your call.”