Sweet Fortune

  “You know there's more to it than that,” Hatch said again as he got into bed beside her. He was already fully aroused.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He pulled her into his arms, his mouth rough and heavy on hers. “Yes, dammit. There's a hell of a lot more to it than that.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. There had to be a lot more to it than that. She was banking her entire future on the possibility that he could one day tell her he loved her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was nothing quite like the sense of pride, satisfaction, and accomplishment one got from a job well done, Jessie decided. She gazed down at the neatly typed five-page report that lay on top of the desk. It was truly a thing of beauty. Mrs. Valentine was going to be extremely impressed.

  Alex had let Jessie use the word-processing program on his computer to assure a crisp, polished finish to the report. Both right and left margins were justified, the spelling was letter-perfect, and the prose was in a businesslike style.

  Jessie had stopped at an office-supply store on the way to work to buy a handsome report binder in order to add a further touch of professionalism.

  No doubt about it, Valentine Consultations was never going to be the same. A new era had arrived for the psychic-consulting business. The morning papers had broken the news of the DEL case and Jessie knew the phone was going to start ringing off the hook at any minute.

  She looked up expectantly when she heard a familiar tread on the stairs. A moment later the office door opened and Mrs. Valentine walked in wearing her professional attire. She had on a dark green turban, a wide-sleeved green paisley blouse, and a long green skirt that fell to her ankles. The usual assortment of beads and chains covered her bosom, tinkling merrily as she came through the door. She had a newspaper tucked under one arm.

  “Mrs. V, you look great. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine, dear. Just fine. I can see again, if you know what I mean. Such a relief.”

  Jessie smiled happily. “I'm so glad, Mrs. V. Go on into your office. The tea is almost ready. I'll bring it right in.”

  “Thank you, dear. I could use a cup of tea.” Mrs. Valentine unfolded the newspaper as she headed for the inner office.

  Jessie hurried over to the tea tray and spooned tea into the pot. She hummed cheerfully as she reached for the kettle of boiling water. When all was ready, she arranged the pot and two delicate cups on the tray, added a tiny bowl of sugar cubes and a spoon, and picked up the tray.

  On the way past the rolltop desk she paused long enough to place the neatly bound Attwood report on the tray. Then she entered Mrs. Valentine's private office.

  Mrs. Valentine had the newspaper spread out on top of her consulting table. Her reading glasses were perched on her nose and she was deep into the front-page story.

  Jessie glanced at the headlines as she set down the tea tray. She grinned with satisfaction. “Local Psychic Exposes Multimillion Scam.”

  “Oh, my.” Mrs. Valentine read carefully to the end of the last paragraph and then turned to the next page to continue. “Oh, my goodness.”

  Jessie could hardly contain her excitement. She hovered on the other side of the desk with eager impatience until Mrs. Valentine had finally finished the article. When her employer eventually closed the newspaper and sat back in her chair, looking somewhat stunned, Jessie could not wait any longer.

  “Well, Mrs. V? What do you think? Valentine Consultations is going to be famous. People will be beating down our door. We'll be scheduling appointments weeks in advance. This is going to be the most important psychic-consultation agency in the city, maybe in the whole state.”

  “Jessie, dear…”

  “I've been doing some planning. We'll probably have to take on additional staff to deal with the paperwork, but that's okay. I've had some experience in personnel work. I'll handle that end of it.”

  “Jessie…”

  “But I'm wondering if we shouldn't get another psychic to work with you.” Jessie frowned in thought and began to pace the office. “We're going to be awfully busy and I don't think we can depend too much on my abilities. The truth is, much as I hate to admit it, I don't think I have any real psychic talent. I'm much more suited for management.”

  “Jessie, there is something we must discuss, dear.”

  “I'm going to speak to Mom and Connie about coming up with some sketches for a redo of the interior design of the office too.”

  “Something important, Jessie, dear…”

  “We want the place to look businesslike, yet charming and a bit otherworldly. Successful, yet unconcerned with success, if you know what I mean.”

  “Jessie…”

  “We may eventually have to look for larger office space. But we can wait for that, don't you think?”

  “Jessie, I'm afraid I'm going to have to let you go, dear.”

  “Also, I was thinking it might be a good idea to…What did you say?” Jessie came to an abrupt halt and stood staring down at Mrs. Valentine. “Mrs. V, you can't mean that.”

  Mrs. Valentine heaved a massive sigh. “I am so sorry, dear. You know I'm extremely fond of you. You're a delight to have around the place. But I'm afraid Valentine Consultations is, uh, too small an operation to warrant an assistant.”

  Jessie gripped the edge of the desk with both hands. “But that's just it, Mrs. V. It won't be a small operation once these headlines hit the streets. The phone will be ringing off the hook. We're going to go big.”

  “That's precisely what I'm afraid of, dear. I never meant Valentine Consultations to go big. I liked it the way it was. Just a small, pleasant little business I could run by myself. I had doubts the day I hired you, but I liked you so much, I overcame my premonitions of trouble. You'd think I, of all people, should have known better. Now look what's happened. You've ruined everything. I may have to close entirely until the excitement dies down.”

  “Mrs. V, are you firing me?”

  Mrs. Valentine sighed again. “I'm afraid so, dear. Don't worry, I shall be happy to give you a good reference.”

  The telephone on the rolltop desk started to ring.

  Hatch paused briefly at Grace's desk before going on into Vincent Benedict's office. “Hold all his calls until I come out, will you, Grace? No interruptions.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hatchard.” Grace smiled. “By the way, I saw the full story of your adventure with Jessie in the morning papers. It sounds as if it was all terribly exciting.”

  “That's one way of describing it.” Hatch went on past the desk and into the inner sanctum.

  Benedict looked up, frowning in disapproval at the unannounced visit. “I'm in the middle of something, Hatch. Is this important?”

  “Very.” Hatch put down the file he had brought with him and went over to the coffeepot to pour himself a cup. He carried the coffee back across the room and leaned against the edge of Vincent's massive desk. “Seen the morning papers?”

  “Goddamn right, I saw the morning papers.” Vincent tossed down his pen and leaned back in his chair. “When you told me what had happened up there in the San Juans, you left out a few minor details, didn't you?”

  Hatch shrugged. “A few.”

  “I'm damn glad that nonsense is over.”

  “So am I.”

  Vincent paused and slanted Hatch a speculative glance. “David really clobber that guy?”

  “Knocked him cold with a karate punch. Saved the day. We probably wouldn't have gotten out of that mess alive without him.”

  “I'll be damned.” Vincent nodded, quietly pleased. “Maybe he'll be okay. Maybe he's going to turn out different than Lloyd, after all.”

  “Maybe it's time you gave him credit for being his own man.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Vincent picked up his pen. “Like I said, I'm glad the whole thing is finished. But I'm holding you personally responsible to see to it that Jessie doesn't get herself into any more scrapes like that one.”

  “I'll do my best.”

  V
incent eyed him. “Speaking of Jessie, you two set a date yet?”

  “No. But we're going to make the formal announcement of our engagement on Friday evening. Jessie said she was going to book a table at her favorite restaurant, the one down in the Market. Everyone in the family is invited. Even you.”

  Vincent grinned. “Reckon I can make that.” He pulled his calendar across the desk and jotted a note on Friday's date. Then he leaned back in his chair again. “You in here to talk business or just pass the time of day?”

  “Business.” Hatch sipped coffee meditatively. “There are a few things that need to be cleared up before Friday.”

  “You're talking about buying into Benedict Fasteners, aren't you? Don't blame you for wanting to get the deal done. You've waited long enough.”

  “It's a little more complicated than my share of the deal, Vincent. There are a few other people involved.”

  Vincent scowled. “What the hell are you talking about now?”

  “I'll lay it out in plain, simple terms. We can go over the details later. I want you to agree to divide the company into four equal parts, Benedict. One-fourth goes to David, one-fourth to Elizabeth, and one-fourth to Jessie. I'll buy the last quarter and I'll run the business.”

  Vincent's mouth dropped open. For an instant he was obviously speechless. When his voice returned, it came out in a full-throated roar. “Are you out of your head? Break up Benedict Fasteners? After all the sweat I've put into this company?”

  “I'm not talking about breaking it up. I'm talking about keeping it in the family, just like you've always intended. But this way all the involved parties own a piece of it. That gives them a vested interest.”

  Vincent slammed his fist down on a stack of papers. “None of them knows a goddamn thing about running a company like Benedict Fasteners.”

  “That's what you've got me on board for, remember?”

  “Jesus, man, you don't know what you're saying. Give David a chunk of this company and there's no telling what kind of trouble he'll start. He's always blamed me for Lloyd running off. And the boy has no common sense. He's going to study philosophy, for crying out loud. The kid's a flaming liberal with radical notions about the environment and things like that. He'd make all kinds of trouble for me if he owned a quarter of the business.”

  “I can handle David.” Hatch took another swallow of coffee. He was fully prepared to weather the storm. He had expected nothing less when he had walked into Vincent's office. When it was all over, Benedict would calm down and agree to his plans.

  “You think you can handle David, huh? Well, what about his mother? Glenna's an iron maiden, pal. She's bitter and she's weird. There's no telling what she would do if she got her hands on David's shares.”

  “David's not a kid any longer. The very fact that he's opted for grad school is proof that he's willing to take a stand against his mother. She wanted him to stay here at Benedict.”

  “You're wrong. Giving a piece of Benedict to that side of the family would be inviting disaster. And what about Elizabeth? She's just a kid. Twelve years old, for Christ's sake. You can't go turning over a quarter of this company to a twelve-year-old kid. What if Connie remarries? The new guy might try to get involved in the company and he could use Elizabeth's shares to do it.”

  “You're her father, remember? You can retain control of her quarter until she comes of age. Or you can make Jessie the trustee until then.”

  “And then what? That's less than ten years away,” Benedict raged. “With the plans you've got, the firm will be three times the size it is now. Maybe bigger. Elizabeth will be dissecting rats' brains or something for a living. You want some ivory-tower research scientist trying to make business decisions for one-fourth of this outfit? She won't know what the hell she's doing.”

  “I have a hunch Elizabeth will be content to let Jessie guide her when it comes to making decisions for Benedict.”

  “Jessie? That's a joke. Jessie doesn't know beans about running this show either.”

  Hatch smiled faintly. “But Jessie will be married to me, remember? She'll let me make all the decisions for Benedict Fasteners. I'll be running the show, just like you planned all along.”

  “Except that half of the ownership will be in other hands. No, I won't have this company torn into little pieces, dammit.”

  “Not little pieces. Big pieces. Pieces which I will control either directly or indirectly.”

  “You can't be certain of retaining control of things if you've got three other owners involved. They could outvote you if they got together and decided to go in a different direction.”

  “There's a risk, I'll admit it. But I know your family, Vincent. The risk is a small one. I can deal with it.”

  “You don't know that, goddammit.” Benedict pounded the table once more and shot to his feet. “There's no way to be certain you can stay in command if you've got the company divided up into quarters.”

  “I'm willing to chance it.”

  “Well, I'm not,” Vincent shouted. “I've seen plenty of family-owned companies torn to shreds this way. It won't happen here.”

  Hatch looked down into his coffee. “You don't have a choice, Benedict.”

  “What the frigging hell does that mean? Of course I've got a choice. I say we don't split things up and that's final.”

  “Not if you want me to marry Jessie and run your company, it isn't.”

  Suddenly the office was silent. For a minute Vincent stared at Hatch, mouth agape. Then he sat down, clearly stunned.

  “Are you telling me you won't marry Jessie unless I agree to cut up Benedict Fasteners?” Vincent asked, as if trying to make certain he had understood.

  “I didn't say that. I'll marry her, all right. But I won't buy into Benedict and I won't stick around here to run it for you. I'll take Jessie and leave the state. We'll start over somewhere else. Oregon, maybe.”

  “Bullshit. I'll cut Jessie off without one red cent.”

  Hatch nodded. “Just as well. Because if you did go ahead and leave the company to her, I'd make sure she divided it up when she took possession.”

  “The hell you would,” Benedict said softly, too softly, his eyes shrewd and angry. “You're bluffing.”

  “Have I ever lied to you, Benedict? Either agree to portion the company out among David, Elizabeth, Jessie, and me or forget the whole deal. I'll take Jessie and leave town.”

  “She won't go with you, you sonofabitch.”

  This was the tricky part, Hatch knew. Now he was bluffing for all he was worth. Everything was riding on his poker-playing skills. His fingers tightened on the coffee cup. “She will, you know. She loves me.”

  “You make her nervous. She told me so herself.”

  “She'll still come with me, Benedict.”

  “Bullshit. Not if she knows you're walking away from Benedict Fasteners,” Vincent snarled. “That woman may be featherbrained about some things, but she knows her duty to her family. She won't walk away from her own people. Everyone depends on her, and she knows it.”

  “Everyone had better stop depending on her, then, because things are going to be different around here.”

  “They sure as hell are.” Vincent's eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I'm canceling your contract, Hatchard. Effective right now. You're fired, you sonofabitch. Get out of here. You've got one hour to clean out your desk.”

  For an instant Hatch thought he had not heard correctly. This was not the result he had calculated. Dazed, he covered his shock by getting to his feet and slowly putting the empty coffee cup down on the desk. Without a word he headed toward the door.

  “Goddammit, Hatchard, you ever change your mind and get your common sense back, you know where to find me,” Vincent yelled after him.

  “I won't change my mind. By the way, that file I left on your desk is the final breakdown on the Spokane job. You can undercut Yorland and Young with that bid and Benedict can still make a small profit. But my professional advice is to forget it. It's n
ot worth it.”

  “Goddammit, Hatch…”

  Hatch went out the door and closed it quietly. He stood still for a minute, adjusting to the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn his life had just taken.

  “Mr. Hatchard?” Grace's voice was laced with concern. “Are you all right?”

  Hatch forced himself to focus on her. “Call my secretary, will you, Grace?”

  “Certainly, sir. What should I tell her?”

  “Tell her to pack up my desk. Have everything sent to my apartment. I won't be coming back to the office.”

  Grace stared at him in astonishment. “You're leaving us, Mr. Hatchard?”

  “It looks that way.” He gave her a rueful smile as he walked to the elevators. “I've just been fired.”

  “Mr. Hatchard…” The telephone in Grace's hand dropped onto the desk with a loud crash.

  Hatch stood at the window of his high-rise apartment and stared out at Elliott Bay. It was a terrific view and he wondered why he had not spent more time in the front room admiring it.

  The answer to that was simple. Jessie's place had always seemed so much cozier and more inviting, more like home.

  He tore his gaze away from the view and glanced around the place he had rented shortly after moving to Seattle. It was in pristine order, of course. Everything was in its proper place. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. The cleaning service he'd hired saw to that. Damned place looked as though no one actually lived in it.

  He had not even unpacked a lot of his things, he reflected. There had not been time. From the moment he'd arrived he had been immersed in work and in the roller-coaster business of courting Jessie. His apartment looked more like a hotel room than a private residence.

  Fired.

  It was hard to believe it was all over. Hard to believe everything he had been working toward had just gone up in smoke. Hard to believe that Vincent Benedict had called his bluff.

  Impossible to believe he was going to lose Jessie.