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"Both."
She hadn't expected him to be so frank. Nevertheless, she appreciated it. The less he tried disguising his agenda, the less additional work he'd create for her. She had no energy to cut through pretense to get at truth. As for his question, she was fine with it. The reasons for her career path weren't a secret.
"I left for a number of reasons," she replied. "I wanted to run my own organization. I was arrogant enough to believe I could do things better, and without a lot of corporate politics. I'm not very good at games, especially when playing them means compromising on what's best for my client. I also believed I could combine work and play into an ideal learning experience. So I guess you could say my striking out on my own was a combination of ideals, ethics, and ego. Plus, I had to get out of Boston. The city air was having an adverse effect on me."
Dylan's brows rose. "Allergies?"
"No. I just have a hypersensitive nose. Cities are always a bit much for me to handle. I'm a mess in L.A., with all the car emissions. Same with Denver. New York's not a picnic, but it's not as hard on me as Boston is. Maybe it's because there are so many bodies of water around Boston. One of the guys in my CCTL team took some meteorology courses. He subscribes to the theory that conflicting land breezes keep the stagnant air hanging around the city longer. Or maybe it's because Boston's older than New York, with lots of historic buildings. They're beautiful, but the mustiness drives me crazy." She shrugged. "There's no particular rhyme or reason to what affects me. Some smells do. Others don't."
"Not a surprise," Dylan startled her by saying. "You have a heightened olfactory sense. That makes every smell more acute." He went on, speaking as if he were reciting information he'd stored in his memory. "The fact is, even the average person can distinguish thousands of odors. Our noses contain sensory neurons. Different neurons respond to different odors and—in some way that's beyond my nonscientific mind's ability to comprehend— they end up stimulating specific patterns of behavior. With you, the effects are even more extreme. A heightened olfactory sense is a gift and a curse. As for why certain things trigger it adversely, who knows? It's just one of life's mysteries."
Sabrina put down her cup in amazement. "You sound like a textbook. How do you know so much about this?"
"Carson taught me. Of course, he explains it with all the right chemical phrases and molecular drawings. I just nod a lot. As for why he's so well versed on the subject, it's because he has the same trait. I guess it's hereditary."
Whatever Sabrina had been expecting, it hadn't been that. She'd always thought of her acute sense of smell as an idiosyncrasy. But an inherited trait... "Wow," she murmured aloud. "That possibility never occurred to me."
"Me, either. But listening to what you just said, it's obviously true. In Carson's case, it's one of the reasons why he's so amazing at creating the fragrances he creates. C'est Moi, for instance, was his baby all the way— from test tube to stores."
"Right." Sabrina responded on autopilot. "I skimmed some articles that mentioned it was Carson Brooks, and not his R&D team, that came up with the formula."
Actually, she'd done a lot more than skim those articles. She'd been fascinated by Carson Brooks's hands-on involvement in his company's success, the way he'd combined business savvy with chemical genius and come up with a unique fragrance formula that had knocked the industry on its butt. He was the most versatile, brilliant CEO she'd ever come across. As for C'est Moi, under normal circumstances, she'd be asking a million questions about Carson Brooks's unique integration of human pheromones in the fragrance production, probing his market research, his assimilation of facts. But right now, it didn't seem to matter. In fact, for the life of her, she couldn't think of a thing to say.
So, she'd inherited h
er heightened olfactory sense from him. How weird, learning she had such strong commonalities and hereditary ties to a father who'd been a nonentity in her life until yesterday. And learning about them from a third party who saw this man every day, worked by his side, well that made the whole scenario seem even more bizarre. She felt both involved and detached, and she wasn't sure which she preferred.
"How did you meet Carson Brooks?" she heard herself ask.
Dylan had been watching her intently. He didn't seem surprised by her question. "Through a work program he initiated," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Over nineteen years ago. Carson was barely past thirty, and Ruisseau was less than a decade old. But the company was growing like gangbusters. Carson needed help—kind of a guy Friday and errand boy rolled into one. Rather than advertise in the newspaper, he went to a high school in a crappy section of New York City. He was hoping to give some underprivileged kid a break."
"And you were that kid." Sabrina eyed him thoughtfully. "You must have jumped at the chance."
A hollow laugh. "Hardly. I fought it tooth and nail. I already had more than enough structure in my life. School. Community service. Chores. I barely had enough time for a life."
Puzzled, Sabrina studied the hard line of his jaw. "What kind of life did you want?"
"One that was a crash course in self-destruction. One that made me feel powerful—and sent me home drunk and bleeding more nights than not. The rest of the time I spent cutting classes I didn't want to attend and breaking rules I didn't want to follow. That's where the community service came in. Social Services thought it would reorient my thinking. It didn't. I felt patronized and pissed off."
"I see."
"No you don't. And don't bother trying. Suffice it to say, my life was a far cry from Beacon Hill."
"I get the message loud and clear." Sabrina looked away. "I'm prying. Fine. Consider the subject dropped."
"That's not what I meant." Dylan drained the rest of his coffee. "Sorry—I didn't mean to come off as abrupt. The truth is, I was stating a fact, not cutting you off. Ask whatever you want to about my past. It doesn't bother me to talk about it. It's like another life."
"It's really none of my business."
"Actually, it is. You should know the kind of man Carson is. If this doesn't tell you, nothing will."
"All right. Go on."
"Like I said, Carson needed some part-time help. He showed up at my school during one of my countless detention periods. He'd reviewed my records, both academic and personal, then set up a meeting with my principal and, ultimately, with me. He pulled up a chair, told me I reminded him of himself at my age—except that he was already in the gutter by age sixteen, while I had two more years to go before I got tossed there. He advised me to lose the anger, because no matter how pissed off I got, life would still be unfair, and it would still be up to me to even the odds. He said I was smart and tough, and that I could choose to rot in the streets or make something of myself. He added that unless he'd sized me up wrong, I was too shrewd not to take his job offer. Said he'd pay me a decent hourly wage, and increase it monthly as I proved myself. Along with the added pay would come added responsibilities, including a chance to work on some projects with him, once we had a better idea where my talents and interests lay.
"In return, I had to clean up my act, show some respect to my foster parents, go to school, cut out the drinking and brawling, and work my ass off." Dylan gave a reminiscent chuckle. "Talk about shrewd. He never patronized me, never showed me a shred of disrespect or censure. It was hard to abuse myself with someone like that believing in me. From that point on, everything changed. My grades skyrocketed. I finished high school with straight A's and a corporate internship at Ruisseau. I got into Columbia on scholarship. They gave me a huge financial aid package. The remainder of my expenses were subsidized by Ruisseau. I graduated with honors, and went on to Columbia Law, where I did the same. The day I got my LLD, Carson had a brass plate engraved, 'Dylan Newport, Corporate Counsel.' I helped him hang it on my office door. It's been there ever since. As have I. So you see, I owe Carson Brooks everything."
Sabrina had been totally absorbed in Dylan's story. Now, she blinked, an odd lump forming in her throat. Surprisingly, the lump wasn't pity. It wasn't even admiration, although she felt tremendous respect for what Dylan had accomplished. It was envy. There was an incredible bond that existed between him and Carson Brooks—a bond that had formed over nineteen years. They were tight. Really tight. And here she was, a total stranger, about to meet her "father" for the first time.
