Judith McNaught - Remember When

"You son of a bitch!" Hayward exploded as he whirled and swung with his right arm, his fist connecting with Cole's jaw with stunning force. "You fucking bastard!"

Momentarily free of imminent discovery, Jessica fled to the house and up the stairs to her room, but when she peeked out the window, she saw her husband moving at an infuriated half-run from the stable toward the house. "Oh, my God," she breathed, quaking in terror as her comfortable life began to shatter around her. "What'll I do—?" she whispered, looking wildly around the dark room for some way to avoid disaster.

Down the hall, Barbara turned her stereo up another notch, and inspiration struck.

"Barbara!" Jessica cried, racing into her startled daughter's room and slamming and locking the door behind her.

Barbara looked up from the magazine she was reading, her expression first startled and then alarmed. "Mom— what's wrong?"

"You have to help me, darling. Just do what I tell you, and don't ask questions. I'll make it worth your while—

Dallas, 1996

"Good afternoon, Mr. Harrison. And, congratulations," the guard called as Cole's limousine passed through the main entrance of Unified Industries' ultramodern fifty-acre campus not far from Ross Perot's E-Systems. A smooth four-lane drive meandered through a gently rolling landscape dotted with trees, past a massive fountain and man-made lake. In fine weather, employees who worked in the seven sprawling, mirrored-glass buildings that were linked together by enclosed crosswalks frequently gathered there to eat their lunch.

The limo glided past Unified's administration building and continued past the research laboratories, where three men in white lab coats were engaged in a lively debate as they approached the front door. The limo finally rolled to a stop in front of a discreet sign at the curb that said "Executive Offices."

"Congratulations, Mr. Harrison," the receptionist said as Cole stepped out of the elevator on the sixth floor.

Cole replied with a brief, preoccupied nod and continued through the executive reception area, which was separated from the offices by a tall teak-paneled wall bearing the corporation's insignia. There, visitors with appointments waited in luxurious comfort on pale green leather sofas, surrounded by a sea of thick oriental carpeting dotted with graceful mahogany tables and accent pieces inlaid with mother-of-pearl or trimmed with brass.

Oblivious to the restrained splendor of the reception area, Cole turned to the right behind the teak-paneled wall and continued down the carpeted hallway toward his office, only vaguely aware that the place was unnaturally silent.

As Cole passed by the main conference room, Dick Rowse, the head of advertising and public relations, stopped him. "Cole, could you come in here a moment?"

As soon as Cole stepped into the crowded room, champagne corks began popping, and forty employees burst into applause in honor of the corporation's latest coup—the acquisition of a profitable electronics firm with fat government contracts to sweeten their balance sheet and a new computer chip that was in the testing phase. Cushman Electronics, owned by two brothers, Kendall and Prentice Cushman, had been the object of hostile takeover attempts launched by several major corporations, and the widely publicized battle had been bloody and fierce. Today, Unified Industries had emerged victorious, and the media was going crazy.

"Congratulations, Cole," Corbin Driscoll, the company's controller, said as he pressed a glass of champagne into Cole's hand.

"Speech!" Dick Rowse called out. "We want a speech," he persisted determinedly in the jocular tone of a man who feels compelled to make everyone feel relaxed and everything look rosy, and who has also had too much to drink. In this case his efforts struck a particularly false note, because jovial camaraderie between the executive staff and the corporation's hard-driving CEO simply did not exist.

Cole glanced impatiently at him, then relented and gave his "speech."

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said with a brief, perfunctory smile, "we've just spent one hundred and fifty million dollars to acquire a company that won't be worth half that if we can't market that computer chip. I suggest we all get busy thinking up ways to cut our losses if that happens."

"I was hoping for a quote I could use for the media," Rowse said. "My phone's been ringing off the hook since the announcement was made two hours ago."

"I'll leave that to you. Thinking up quotable quotes for the media is your job, Dick, not mine," he replied; then he turned and headed toward his office, leaving Dick Rowse feeling reprimanded and everyone else feeling a little deflated.

Within minutes the group had disbanded, leaving only Rowse, his new assistant director, Gloria Quigley, and Corbin Driscoll in the conference room.

Gloria Quigley was the first to speak. Tall, blond, and glamorous, the thirty-year-old was the youngest, and newest, member of the senior staff. "What a letdown," she said with an exasperated sigh. "Wall Street is in an uproar because Unified Industries wrested Cushman away from Matt Farrell's Intercorp and two other major players. We're all euphoric, the clerical staff is proud, and the janitorial people are probably dancing a jig," she finished, "but the man who masterminded the whole buyout doesn't seem to care."

"Oh, he cares," Dick Rowse told her. "When you've been here for six months, you'll realize that you've just seen Cole Harrison exhibiting extreme pleasure. In fact, he was happier just now than I've ever seen him."

Gloria looked at the two executives in disbelief. "What's he like when he's un happy?"

Corbin Driscoll shook his head. "You don't want to see that."

"He can't be that bad," Gloria argued.

"Oh, yeah?" Corbin joked. He pointed to his thick, immaculately groomed gray hair. "I didn't have a strand of gray hair two years ago, when I went to work for Cole." The other two laughed, and he added, "That nice, fat salary and benefit package you got when you came to work here comes with a few strings attached."

"Like what?" Gloria asked.

"Like phone calls at midnight because Cole has some new idea and wants you to act on it," Dick Rowse said.

"And you'd better learn how to pack a suitcase and catch a plane with an hour's notice on a weekend," Corbin added, "because our CEO doesn't live by clocks or calendars."

"Weekends?" Gloria exclaimed in mock horror. "I'll have to start turning off my answering machine at home on Friday nights!"

"I'm glad you mentioned that," Rowse said with a wry chuckle as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, black object. "This is a present for you—something to replace your answering machine and a token proof that you have a position of some importance here."

Gloria automatically opened her hand, and Rowse slapped a pager into her palm. "Welcome to Unified Industries," he said dryly. "If you're wise, you'll sleep with that pager."

Everyone laughed, but Gloria had known when she applied for this job that a great many demands were going to be made of her. The challenge had been much of its appeal.

Before giving up her own Dallas PR firm to come to work for Unified Industries, she'd read every article she could find about the aggressive, enigmatic entrepreneur who had made history by putting together a very large, very profitable conglomerate before he was thirty years old.

From personal experience, she'd already learned that he was an exacting and demanding employer, with an aloof, impatient attitude that discouraged familiarity, even among his senior executives, who all treated him with caution and deference.

He seemed to be as unconcerned about making enemies as he was about his public image, and yet, he was ferociously protective of the corporation's reputation.