AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I trailed off in astonishment as a black car pulled out of nowhere, and a tall man stepped swiftly onto the cement. It took only a split second for him to get his bearings, and he then walked briskly forward and came to a stop right in front of James.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he spoke with clipped, professional efficiency, one that didn’t entirely hide his personal concern over his employer’s unusual behavior. “Traffic is terrible this time of day, so it took me a moment to find you. I tried calling your cell—”
“No use. It took a swim,” James interrupted shortly. “Frank, I need a tie, please. Like right now.”
“Certainly, sir. One moment.” With that, Frank dutifully bowed his head and swept back to the car. He returned the promised moment later, with a selection of no less than a dozen silk business ties. It was the sort of collection most men would kill for, but I was quite sure James would literally knot them together to for
m a rope to escape out a conference room window rather than sitting through a meeting, if he didn’t form a noose to hang his brother first.
James perused the pile briefly before selecting a blue one in the center.
Frank nodded at once and looped it around his neck, then tied it to perfection.
“So Frank is your...” I ventured.
“My driver,” James answered in that same fast-paced clip, his eyes never leaving the sixty-fifth floor, “amongst other things.”
“Chef, bodyguard, messenger, therapist...” Frank flashed a quick smile as he finished securing the tie. “I also play many roles for which I have yet to be paid.”
“Yet to be paid? Frank, you make more money than Della,” James snapped.
My eyebrows shot into my hair with genuine interest. “Is that true?”
Hmm. I could always take up driving. Pity they do it on the wrong side of the road.
“Couldn’t matter less,” Frank said swiftly. “It’s best not to dwell on the material. Will that be all for now, sir?” he asked as he followed James’s gaze to his father’s skyscraper. “Will you be requiring a catapult as well? Are we laying siege?”
A flicker of humor flashed through James’s eyes before his lips twitched up in a wry smile. “We’re not seizing anything, old friend. We’re storming the castle...with our guns blazing.”
Without another word, he set off once more, leaving Frank and me standing in a daze behind him, staring after him in concern.
After a second, Frank glanced down at me uncertainly, wondering how far the lines of professionalism could be stretched. Whatever he saw must have been encouraging, because he gave me a sideways glance before daring, “Do you know what happened? Is he all right?”
I glanced up in surprise before turning back to James, locking my eyes on his dark head of hair as he weaved through the crowd, nearing the base of the building. “His father... Mr. Cross just, uh...died.”
Frank’s mouth fell open in shock before he, too, stared after James, a look of profound sympathy softening the lines in his face. “And Robert called the meeting, yes?”
“Yeah.” I found myself curious yet oddly comforted that James’s entourage seemed to have seen it coming. “James is going there now. I guess that was why he needed the tie.”
Frank absorbed that for a moment before nodding briskly and putting on his cap. “It could be worse,” he thought, then flashed me a sad smile and headed slowly back to the car. “The last time something like this happened, I had to drag him back from Switzerland. He’s a big fan of that cider, you know.”
I blinked once, then lifted my hand in a belated farewell, vowing mentally that I had to discover the hidden significance of Switzerland, other than cold cider. With that etched into my mind, I hurried down the street after James and reached him just as he got to the outer steps.
Jerry, the faithful doorman, pulled open the door with a silent gasp, one spawned by either the look on James’s face or the fact that he was actually deigning to visit his late father’s multibillion-dollar company. Jerry did manage to mumble a quiet but sincere note of sympathy as James swept by.
As it turned out, that was, quite possibly, the only thing in the world that could have stopped him. In the last hour, James had heard news of his father’s death screamed at him from a sea of heartless reporters he’d never meet. He’d seen it dismissed by the board, forgotten by a secretary, and leveraged by his evil twin. Even his driver and faithful servant Frank didn’t know and couldn’t, therefore, be very sympathetic. In fact, he had yet to hear a single condolence from anyone but me.
His feet skidded to a sudden stop on the checkered tile, sending his dark hair flying out in front of him as he turned slowly around. For a second, I thought Jerry was going to faint dead away; after all, it was a rare day when anyone other than Madison or I bothered to talk to him, because most were far too busy rushing into or out of the building to consider him anything more than part of the furniture. It was a monumental show of bravery for Jerry to dare a word to James, and his face paled and his knees trembled as the son of the former CEO paused his blitz attack and turned around to look him square in the eyes.
“Thanks, Jerry.”
In that moment, I fell for James Cross all over again. He valued the little things, and while he was the prince of the castle, he also took the time to know the lowly doorman’s name.
Jerry’s face warmed with a flush as he lowered his eyes to the floor and gestured us toward the elevators. It was a brief exchange, to be sure, but I had never seen him look so pleased, at least not since Madison offered him a swig of whiskey from her work flask when we returned to the office late after sushi one day.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the touching moment, though, because James was already streaking toward the elevators. A microsecond later, he was smashing his fist impatiently against the button for the top floor.
I made it inside just as the doors slid shut, and I had to throw my hands out for balance as I skidded to a precarious stop. “James, I really don’t think—”
