Free Corporate Affair by Unknown Page B

Then, too, I kept thinking about his poor wife. In the end, I just thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t in her shoes as I so easily could have been."
    "How did he take it when you phoned him this morning?"
    Kalinda lifted one bare shoulder dismissingly. "He wasn’t very pleased. I gave him all the logical reasons why we shouldn’t meet. His wife, our reputations. I tried to make it sound as if two reasonable people should agree to call the whole thing off before it got started."
    "Did he buy it?" There was a wary look in the hazel eyes as they narrowed slightly.
    "He kept trying to talk me into staying here until he could arrive and talk me around," she confessed. "I finally got fed up and told him the truth, that I had agreed to the weekend in the first place because I wanted a little revenge for the way he’d treated me two years ago. Then I told him not to call me again and hung up the phone."
    "Hmmm."
    "What’s that supposed to mean?" she demanded, mouth curving at his skeptical tone.
    "Forget it, honey. We’ll talk about it later." He yawned extravagantly. "Hell, I’m exhausted! You wore me out," he chuckled affectionately.
    "You wore yourself out pacing a floor for no reason at all!"
    "Oh, I had my reasons," he retorted sleepily. "But my reasons are all tucked safely into my bed for the moment. Will you think I’m a callous brute if I grab a nap, honey?" He slanted her a pleading glance.
    He looked so sleepy that Kalinda found herself smiling with a tenderness she’d never felt toward a man. Almost lovingly she stroked the angled plane of his cheek.
    "No."
    "We’ve got a lot to discuss," he murmured, already half-asleep.
    Kalinda felt the moisture behind her lashes and blinked it away determinedly. She waited until she felt his hold on her loosen and knew for certain he was making up for the sleep he’d missed the previous night.
    Then, aware there could be only one ending for this kind of passionate interlude, she slowly rose from the caramel bedspread and began to dress.
    5
    Kalinda stood at the window of her office in downtown Denver and looked out across the Mile-High City with remote eyes. Situated on the plains with the mountains nearby to the west, Denver had become the lively, thriving headquarters of the business empire of the Rocky Mountain states.
    The swirl of new money from the energy boom which had so affected the city had, in turn, stimulated other businesses. Gleaming highrise buildings in the downtown area gave evidence of the investment capital pouring into the area.
    Oil, coal and uranium had beckoned the modern prospectors and speculators. In the last century it had been the lure of gold. But Denver’s residents, while they may have been lured to the gateway city by the promise of new opportunities, soon became a fiercely loyal lot for other reasons.
    Not the least of those reasons was the city’s proximity to the fabulous vacation areas of the Rockies.
    During the winter the mountains offered some of the finest powder snow for skiing that could be found in the world. Many claimed the Colorado mountains were the United States’ equivalent of Europe’s Alps. During the summer those same mountains were a breathtaking wonderland of craggy peaks and green valleys.
    And that, Kalinda thought with disgust as she turned away from the window, was all she seemed to be able to think about for the past two days. The mountains. Was she doomed to remember the man she had met there everytime she looked out her window?
    How long did it take to recover from a weekend fling? she asked herself for the thousandth time as she poured a cup of tea and moodily surveyed her office. It was an attractive office with gold carpet and a heavy mahogany desk she had inherited when she took over her father’s role. The colors weren’t hers, but there had been more important uses for the company’s funds during the past two years than
    redecorating the president’s quarters!
    She sipped her tea, staring at the report