Penny Jordan - Too Wise To Wed?

He remained on friendly terms with both his ex-lovers and was godfather to both their eldest children.

It had been the death of Grace, his ‘surrogate’ mother, that had prompted the heart-searching which had led to the ending of his New York relationship, bringing about as it had the admission that the emotion which he felt for Andrea had become that of a close friend rather than a lover. She had begun to feel the same way, she had confessed when he had finally brought himself to broach the subject with her.

He had promised himself when he’d left New York that the next time, the next love, would be his last, his for all time and beyond time, and, perhaps because of that, or perhaps simply because he was older and wiser and maybe tired too, he had found himself reluctant to embark on any new relationship, sensing that ultimately it would not fulfil his need to form a lifetime bond with that one special woman who would accept him and love him as he was and for what he was, as he would her.

He knew that many of his friends considered him to be something of an idealist. Well, why not? He wasn’t ashamed of his feelings, his needs. Why should he be?

And it was only very, very rarely now that his body reminded him that sometimes physical desire and emotional need did not run comfortably in harness with one another—so rarely, in fact, that he couldn’t actually remember the last time. So rarely...that it had been tricky getting himself to admit that his determined restoration of Abbie and her two little girls to her roving husband’s side had had less to do with supporting her than with satisfying his own need to see if the luscious, long-legged redhead whom Clay was making such determined eye contact with looked as good from the front as she did from the back.

She had...unfortunately for him.

He glanced at his watch. It was time he left. He had some paperwork he wanted to get through. He had just about made his way to his car when Brad suddenly materialised at his side.

‘Kyle!’ he exclaimed, smiling at him. ‘Did you get to meet Star? I meant to introduce you to one another since you’ll be working closely together once you take over from Tim Burbridge in Britain... I still haven’t formalised the details of her contract with her yet, but from what I’ve seen of her work there’s no doubt in my mind that she’ll do a good job for us.

‘Tim Burbridge is taking a month’s leave from the end of next week, as you know, and I’d like the two of you to meet beforehand so that he can hand over things to you; of course, you’ll be staying on to work alongside him once he’s back at work... I think you’ll find him very co-operative and open. He understands how important it is for us to bring our British distribution network up to the same high standards we have over here in the States...

‘It won’t be easy, though,’ Brad warned him. ‘One of our biggest problems is recruiting the right calibre of technician. Not so much on the technical side—they all have the necessary skills for the job; no, the problem is more on the motivation side of things, from what I can see...’

‘Mmm...I’ve been thinking about that,’ Kyle responded. ‘I think some kind of in-house training scheme coupled with incentive awards might be one way around the problem... But, of course, first I’ll have to discuss things with Tim,’ he added diplomatically.

‘Well, that’s something you and Tim and Star can work on together,’ Brad told him. ‘Did you get to meet her?’

‘Not exactly... Not officially.’ Kyle was deliberately vague.

‘Well, I’ll make sure that the two of you do get a chance to get together before you fly out to Britain,’ Brad promised him.

‘You know how much I appreciate what you’re doing for us, don’t you, Kyle?’ Brad asked his friend. ‘So far as I am concerned, the distribution network you’ve set up for us is one of the prime forces underpinning our success. It doesn’t matter how good a product is; if you can’t get it to the customer when and where he wants it and install it and keep it in good working order, it doesn’t matter a damn how good it is.’

Kyle gave a small shrug. ‘It works both ways,’ he reminded Brad. ‘No matter how good a distribution and servicing network is, it can’t operate efficiently without a reliable product.’

‘We make a good team,’ Brad told him, ‘and I can’t pretend that I’m not hoping you’ll be able to help us turn the British side of our business around and bring it into line with our home market success.

‘Will you be joining us for dinner this evening?’ Brad asked him as Kyle started to unlock his car.

Here was his chance to get out of his dinner date with Star, Kyle acknowledged, and he would be all kinds of a fool...asking for all kinds of trouble if he passed up on it.

Ten minutes later, driving towards his own lake-shore home, contemplating the brief, negative shake of his head and polite words of excuse with which he had responded to Brad’s question, he grimaced to himself.

OK, so he was all kinds of a fool!

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