Cathie Linz - A Wife In Time

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“And I’m supposed to just take your word for it, is that it?”

Susannah nodded emphatically.

“The word of a woman I’ve just met over the word of a brother I’ve helped raise, the brother who has never told a lie in his life.”

“Well, when he decided to start, he sure started with a big one,” she countered. “Because the claim that the two of us are somehow romantically involved is ludicrous.”

“I see. So you’re merely sexually—not romantically— involved with him, is that it?”

“No, that’s not it! My relationship with your younger brother has been strictly professional.”

“ Strictly professional?” he questioned. “Meaning you never met with him privately. You treated him as you did all your other co-workers?”

Susannah couldn’t stop the flash of guilt that shadowed her face.

“I knew it,” Kane said, looking at her as if she were something the cat had dragged in.

Susannah’s patience was rapidly running out. “No, you don’t know anything! Okay,” she acknowledged, “so I may have taken him more under my wing than I have with some of the other interns. But that doesn’t mean that I’m having an affair with him. Not by any stretch of the imagination!”

“And why do you suppose my brother would lie about something like this?” Kane asked coldly.

“I have no idea. You’d have to ask him that question. Maybe you misunderstood what he told his wife,” Susannah suggested.

“I didn’t misunderstand what he told me ,” Kane retorted.

“I can’t believe he made up such a ridiculous story,” Susannah said with perplexed frown. “Surely he realized he’d be caught in a lie of this proportion?”

“My point exactly,” Kane agreed with a pleasant smile that conveyed mockery rather than humor. “It would be pretty foolish of him to lie about something like this.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth, however,” Susannah quickly maintained. “When I get back to New York, I’ll clearly have to talk with him.”

“Another little talk at your place?”

“He’s never been to my place.” She paused, remembering the time she’d stayed home to read manuscripts and he’d brought over a contract she’d needed to authorize. “Okay, so maybe he was at my place. Once. For five minutes. Maybe fifteen. I offered him a cup of coffee.”

“I’m sure you did. Along with a little sympathy about his unsupportive wife.”

“I didn’t even know he had a wife!”

“Well, now that you do, you can break it off.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, there’s nothing to break off,” she said through gritted teeth.

“You can tell me until you’re blue in the face. That doesn’t mean I believe a word you say. But believe me when I tell you that I’m not about to stand by and watch my brother get hurt by a—”

“Mata Hari like me,” Susannah sarcastically completed. “I get the picture, Mr. Wilder. And I’ll be expecting an apology from you in writing when this misunderstanding is cleared up.”

He stared at her in astonishment. “You’ve got some nerve, lady.”

“Oh, so now you think I’m a lady,” she said mockingly. “Funny, you didn’t act like it a moment ago when you accused me of seducing your brother. If it weren’t so absurd, I’d be highly insulted. As it is, I’ll chalk your incredibly rude behavior up to male hysteria.”

“Those two words are mutually exclusive.”

“Not in your case,” Susannah noted sweetly before turning on her heel and marching into the sanctuary of the women’s bathroom.

“I’m not done talking to you!” Kane bellowed from outside the door.

“Do you know if there’s another way out of here?” Susannah asked a woman in the bathroom.

“That door over there leads to the hallway outside the exhibition area.”

“Great. Thanks.” She made a beeline for that exit. Her little run-in with Kane Wilder had just taken up fifteen of the thirty minutes she had for lunch. Standing in the long line at the convention center’s cafeteria ate up another ten. Meanwhile, Susannah still hadn’t eaten a thing.

She grabbed an apple and an anemic-looking green salad, all the while lecturing herself on how she should have handled Kane. She wasn’t happy with the way he’d put her on the defensive. She should have stopped him in his verbal tracks the second he started making his ridiculous accusations.

Stashing her purchases in her oversize purse, Susannah hurried back to her employer’s display booth. She never did get around to eating, as a rush of people stopped by the booth. As one of the representatives of McPhearson Publishing, it was her job to answer any questions booksellers might have about the line of books McPhearson published.

Smiling at conventioneers as they passed by the booth, Susannah couldn’t help wondering if Charles the Intern had told his ridiculous story to anyone else, aside from his wife and his brother. Specifically, had he told any of her co-workers? And if he did, surely they hadn’t believed him, had they? Not that she was about to come out and ask. But perhaps she could make a few discreet inquiries....

She started with Roy, the head of Marketing. “So what’s your impression of our batch of interns this year?” she asked him during a lull in the action.

“They seem okay,” Roy replied. “Is it just me or do they seem to get wetter behind the ears each year?”

Susannah was tempted to ask about Charles specifically but then reconsidered, realizing her inquiry might only raise further speculation. The best thing to do would be to confront Charles when she returned to the office Monday morning—to go directly to the source...and kill him!

She grinned, making a passing sales rep pause and look at her twice. Of course, Susannah had no intention of doing Kane’s precious baby brother any bodily harm, but she’d certainly make him wish he’d thought twice about dragging her reputation through the mud.

She pumped Roy from Marketing again. “Ever heard of Wilder Enterprises?”

“Aren’t they that hotshot company on the forefront of the new CD-ROM technology?”

“CD-what technology? Speak English here, Roy.”

“I forgot I was speaking to a technophobic editor afraid to turn on the computer on her own desk.”

“I’m not afraid to turn it on,” Susannah calmly denied. “We have an understanding. I don’t bother it, and it doesn’t bother me.”

“It could make your workload a lot easier.”

“I know I’ll have to learn how to use it eventually,” she admitted. “But I’m not in any rush since the rest of the office isn’t hooked up yet.”

“It will be by the end of the year,” he told her.

“Let’s get back to Wilder Enterprises and the CD-ROM stuff.”

“It involves storing information onto compact disks and then reading them on your computer. How about your own library with 450 of the world’s greatest books on one disk?”

“Who would want to stare at a screen instead of reading a book in the comfort of their own easy chair?” she asked, mystified by the very idea.

“They have computers small enough to hold in the palm of your hand,” Roy reminded her. “The twenty-first century is right around the corner, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” she muttered.

“So why the interest in Wilder Enterprises?”

“I just ran into Kane Wilder....”

“No kidding? He’s considered to be a visionary in the computer technology of the future. A regular whiz kid.”

“He’s no kid,” Susannah retorted, “although he does have a kid brother. Our own Charles the Intern.”