Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

But apparently there were no visible signs of how she’d spent her lunch hour. Kay had treated her as she always did, efficiently reminding her of the meeting as she handed her a stack of phone messages in the order of their priority.

To everyone else, this was any ordinary Monday. To Foster, it was a day of monumental importance. For her, one of substantial ambiguity. Foster was spending the day at home. She didn’t have that luxury. She had to face this assembly of corporate heads while, less than an hour ago, she’d had sex with a stranger.

Yes, it was strictly for the purpose of procreation, and, yes, she’d done it with her husband’s blessing, and, yes, for the sake of their future together she could do it again until they were successful. She would do it.

She sipped from her water glass, then smiled down the length of the conference table. “Who’s up first?”

“Me,” said the man in charge of baggage handling. “Unfortunately, we’ve had an incident in Austin. Foster isn’t going to like it.”

Foster was still very much a presence, but lately she had been his proxy for some of the executive meetings. The daily commute to the office, short as it was and with Manuelo along to facilitate it, had proved to be too much. So Foster had limited his days in the office to two per week. On days when it was mandatory for the department heads to meet, Laura presided, then in the evening she would give him a detailed recounting of what had been discussed.

In only a few short years she’d gone from asking passengers “Coffee or tea?” to serving as the CEO’s understudy. When Foster had hired her as Hazel Cooper’s replacement, her transition into management had gone smoothly. For years, she had been preparing herself for such a position. It was what she had aspired to and, having been given the opportunity, she felt confident she could meet the challenges.

But when her job description suddenly expanded to include dealing with a disabled husband as well as assuming many of his corporate responsibilities, the transition wasn’t quite so seamless. Up until that point in her life, she’d been resistant to delegating any responsibility. Now she had no choice. Minor and routine jobs that she had formerly insisted on doing herself, she began assigning to subordinates.

Even so, the largest share of the workload remained hers. Nor could the tasks she did for Foster be turned over to someone else. Only she could do them because Foster demanded they be done in a particular order and in a particular way, his particular way, which was a way far more meticulous than anyone else’s. His insistence on perfection put a strain on her time.

But no matter how difficult and demanding her schedule became, she refused to buckle under. Quitting, or even slacking off, wasn’t an option. She was doing what must be done, and she would continue to.

However, she had begun to fear the impact motherhood would have on the careful balance she was maintaining. How could she possibly be a full-time mother, which she wanted to be, without detracting from her duties as wife, department head, and stand-in CEO? The prospect of juggling that additional responsibility was daunting. But if-when-she was forced to confront it, she would.

At present there were other matters demanding her attention, such as this one involving baggage handling. “What kind of incident?” she asked that department head.

“The worst. Stolen bags.”

“You’re right. Foster isn’t going to like it. Details?”

The explanation was lengthy and involved, and generated discussion around the table. Laura tried to concentrate on what was being said, but her mind wandered. Her ability to focus simply wasn’t there. She’d left it behind in that small, tidy house on Windsor Street, along with her dignity.

Why, I asked myself, would you agree to making a baby this way?

“Laura?”

She yanked her mind back to the business at hand. Everyone was looking at her, and she wondered how many times she’d been addressed before she realized it. “I’m sorry. My mind drifted for a moment.”

The question was repeated. Laura answered. The meeting continued. While she wasn’t wholly attuned, she wasn’t caught again being inattentive. But as soon as there was a convenient point to adjourn, she did so. “We’ll pick up the rest at the next meeting, okay? I’ve got a killer schedule this afternoon.”

As the others filed out, no one seemed especially curious about her absentmindedness or abrupt adjournment. Joe McDonald did stop on his way to the door. “Hard day?”

“Harder than most.”

“Maybe this will cheer you up.” From behind his back, he produced a large white envelope and, with a flourish, laid it on the table in front of her. “Ta-da!”

“What’s this?”

“Your baby.”

“My what?”

“Uh…” Obviously taken aback by her stunned reaction, he said, “What I mean is, you’ve been waiting a long time for it. Check it out.”

Having recovered from his choice of words, she opened the envelope and slid the contents onto the table. It was an eleven-by-fourteen artist’s rendering of a SunSouth jet with a new and distinctive logo on the fuselage.

“Oh, my God!” Laura exclaimed. “This looks great, Joe! Truly great!”

He hooked his thumbs into his suspenders. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Like it?” she said, unable to contain her excitement. “I love it.” She ran her finger over the artwork as she read the words printed on the airplane. “SunSouth Select.”

Joe beamed. “As I said, your baby.”

JOE LEFT HER, AND LAURA DECIDED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE solitude in the conference room. She remained seated in the tall leather chair at the head of the table-the one in which Foster had sat the first time she saw him-and looked again at the four-color rendering of the sleek jet.

SunSouth Select was a concept that she’d been working on for more than a year. It was a service-oriented innovation for the business traveler that she hoped to implement before SunSouth’s competitors did something similar. She wanted SunSouth to be the initiator, not an imitator.

Joe seemed surprised that Foster hadn’t yet seen the syllabus. Laura had worked on it for months, and once it was done, Joe had assumed she would take it straight to Foster. “No,” she told him. “I want SunSouth Select to be a surprise. I want to present it to him as a complete package.”

“You want to have all your ducks in a row.”

“Exactly. And I’m still waiting on some market analyses and cost projections. When they’re ready and I’ve had a chance to study them, I’ll lay out the entire plan for him.”

This was uncustomary. Always before, she and Foster had worked in tandem. One rarely made a move without the other knowing about it. While it was true that she wanted to surprise him with a kit-and-caboodle proposal, it was also true that, when she did, she wanted his undivided attention. She hadn’t had that in months. He’d been preoccupied with finding the right man to sire their child.

He thought of little else, talked of little else. Every conversation included at least one reference to a child and its conception. That was the prevailing issue of their lives now. If she became pregnant, she knew that Foster would become an expert on prenatal care, diet, exercise. He would spend hours researching and committing to memory every aspect of pregnancy. No doubt he would chart their child’s development on a daily basis.

He had once been quoted in Business Week as saying that his airline’s success was in large part due to his OCD-obsessive-compulsive disorder. The interviewer thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

He had been diagnosed as an adolescent, although he had exhibited the symptoms in early childhood. His parents had thought his compulsions went hand in glove with his brilliant mind and were nothing to worry about. But when those compulsions began to interfere with normal function and everyday life, his parents had sought psychiatric help.