Balancing Act Read online

  The controlled anger that bubbled up now and then was another matter, but not her problem. If Seth Barlow-Barrett was unhappy in what he did, that was too bad. There must be a lot that more than made up for it. Financial gain, for one thing. Right now, in her book, that was a pretty fair trade-off. With a couple more keystrokes, she turned to him.

  “You leave National at five-fifteen a.m. and arrive at Raleigh-Durham at six AM Saturday morning,” she said at last. “A rental car will be waiting for you. When would you like to return?”

  “Sunday.”

  She punched a few more keys. “I can get you on a noon flight back.”

  “Book it. Use my travel account. The number’s there next to the keyboard.”

  A couple more minutes and Tessa was pulling his ticket voucher off the computer printer.

  “Done.”

  She crossed the room and handed him the voucher, and then Barrett did do something that caught her off-guard. He smiled. It transformed the lean features of his face and made him look years younger.

  “Thank you, Tessa.”

  Now he’d rattled her. A smile and her correct name. She knew she was staring at him, probably with her mouth gaping, but she couldn’t help it and could only nod in response.

  “Go home. Enjoy your weekend.”

  She smiled back. “Thank you.”

  * * * *

  Seth watched the door close behind her. Tessa Edwards. She’d made it through the first week, and that was an accomplishment in and of itself. It had taken him a few days to notice, but she was stunning in her own way. Hers was not a stand up and smack you in the face kind of pretty, but a harmonious blend of classic bone structure and subtle curves with the staying power pretty women seldom had. Not until she smiled at someone else had he seen the vivid personality to go with the flamboyant coloring. Fiery red hair, thick and straight, and the most unusual ice-blue eyes. Yes, he’d noticed Tessa Edwards, not just for her looks, but for the grit and unflappable serenity she’d demonstrated all week long.

  He needed that right now, especially after the little nuclear bomb she’d unknowingly dropped in his lap with that package. Seth tapped his fingers on his desk.

  He was not an easy man. He knew that. In fact, many of the people who had faced him across a negotiating table described him as a Class-A bastard who made his father look like a blessed saint. Seth knew what people thought, what some even voiced behind his back, but didn’t care. He was what his father had molded him to be. He had taken over daily operations of Barrett Newspapers four years after college. When all was said and done, he was a Barlow-Barrett and couldn’t drop that responsibility from his shoulders to pursue his own desires.

  One soft spot remained in the armor he’d built around himself over the years. That was his sister Anna. He and Brandon were the only ones who called her that, yet that was the name she now chose to use in her professional life. Little Anna, the veterinarian. So different from the rest of them, yet she was the embodiment of what he longed to be. She was his heart, and he would do anything to protect her. He knew she viewed herself as the ugly duckling, but he saw her as the one Barlow-Barrett who had dared to be different, inside and out. When the rest of them had followed like sheep in the family footsteps, Anna had walked away. Phillip, his youngest brother, had taken a slight detour into law, but he was still right in the family fold. Anna was the rebel, and he admired her to no end.

  His eyes lifted to the DVD player and the disc he still hadn’t removed. Watching even a portion of it had made him almost sick. Then the anger had exploded, costing him a piece of artwork he’d paid through the nose for. He wanted not only the blackmailers who’d sent the video, but the fucker on the disc with her.

  Chapter 2

  Tessa pushed thoughts of Seth from her mind as soon as she arrived at her neighbor’s apartment to pick up Zach. His freckled face split into a huge grin when he saw her and he leaped up from the video game he played. She laughed and hugged him. He was the joy in her life and had been ever since his birth. Their parents’ deaths had served to draw them even closer.

  “Tessa! I got to the third level of Space Zombies.”

  “That’s great, Zach.” Tessa grinned back at him.

  Reading might be a problem, but he was a real whiz when it came to math or anything resembling computers. They had bought this latest video game just yesterday. If she allowed it, he would play all the time, but Tessa tried to make sure they spent time doing other things when they were together.

  She read to him and took him out in the country as much as possible.

  “Why are you home so early? Was your boss as bad as everyone told you and you quit?”

  “No. He told me I could leave. You know what that means?”

  Zach’s eyes widened. “We’re going to the beach today?” At her nod, he tossed down his game remote and danced around the room. “Yes! It’s almost like getting a whole ‘nother day.”

  Zach talked almost non-stop as they packed their camping gear, fishing poles and plenty of snacks. Tessa knew he got bored over the summer. As much as he disliked school, it still offered a change of scenery from the neighbor’s apartment.

  “Do you think we can catch any sharks?”

  “Sharks!” Tessa laughed. “Who’s going to take them off the hooks?”

  “I can,” Zach reassured her with an air of importance. “Remember, I did last year.”

  Tessa smiled. They had caught some baby sharks that Zach insisted on taking off the hooks. Tessa had let him. It made him feel like the man of the family to have his hands on a shark, even one a foot and a half long. They’d marveled at the sandpapery feel of the little sharks’ skins. Tessa much preferred it to handling a slippery fish. She wasn’t keen on fishing, but Zach enjoyed it, so she indulged him as much as she could.

  As they neared the campground at the shore late in the afternoon, Zach drifted off to sleep. Tessa glanced at him and smiled. His hair was as red as hers, but his eyes were dark blue, and he’d gotten the freckles that somehow missed her creamy skin. She knew he took ribbing about his looks. What redhead hadn’t? Add in the freckles and it just made it worse. He’d also inherited a double dose of intelligence, and a severe reading disability that made life at school miserable. Her mother and stepfather had worked with him and had him tested. Things had been getting better until last year when the call came about their parents.

  Tessa had broken the news to Zach. He had been quiet to start, but then the problems began at school. Tessa worked with the counselors and a psychologist. She took the first job she could find in her field to be near him. The job was part-time and kept her away many evenings. That was when the trouble with Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Edwin had first started. They claimed she shuffled Zach from one sitter to another and was too young and irresponsible to have custody. Tessa feared their grumbling would soon evolve into more than idle threats.

  It wasn’t her brother they wanted, just the trust fund that came with him, so she couldn’t afford to give them any fuel. They would crush Zach. He didn’t need more humiliation. He needed to have the talents he possessed nurtured. They would never understand the way his mind worked. Tessa could because hers worked much the same way, so she understood how important it was to get him away from everything now and then.

  Zach fished all evening from the pier. Tessa helped bait hooks in between watching other people and, she had to admit, thinking about her new boss.

  She had seen many of Seth’s moods during this first week, most of them unpleasant, but today something had rattled him. Whatever was in that envelope she had given him wasn’t good. She checked off what she knew. One of his sisters lived in North Carolina–she’d seen the address in the computer file. Preston. No. Anna was what it had said. Dr. Anna Barlow, without the Barrett attached. Something in that envelope must have involved her. It had shaken Seth. While he often growled orders and paced around like a caged animal, she’d never seen that look of angry frustration.

  Tessa
didn’t like unsolved puzzles. Her mind went back to the package. The size, the weight. A plain manila envelope with Seth’s name typed on the outside. A CD or DVD? And if so, of what? Something involving Anna. What else did she know from the computer contact information? There was a child, she remembered. A baby.

  “Tessa!” Zach interrupted her thoughts. “I’ve caught something. Come help.”

  She jumped up and coached him through landing the fish he had on the line–a bluefish that put up a good fight. Not huge as fish went, but he worked the line enough it turned Zach into one happy ten-year-old. That was enough for Tessa.

  By the time they headed home Sunday afternoon, they were both tired. Zach pulled out his Gameboy and played it, more out of habit than actual interest.

  They were about halfway home when he looked up, game forgotten for the moment.

  “Will I have to go live with Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Edwin?”

  Tessa was used to the questions that often seemed to come out of nowhere. She glanced over at him, then turned back to the road. What on earth had started him worrying about that? Sometimes she wondered at the depths at which his brain was always working. It bothered her that a ten-year-old should even have to consider where he might be forced to live.

  “No,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “You’ll stay with me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Aunt Kathleen smells like that porta-potty perfume, and Uncle Edwin smokes cigars. Yuck.”

  Tessa laughed. Zach had a way of making her look at things on the most basic level. She reached over and ruffled his hair, and he grinned back at her. They were covered in salt spray, flushed from the sun, and Tessa was happier than she’d been in a long time.

  Those feelings of peace and contentment lingered as she ran up the stairs Monday morning. She slipped her heels back on before she left the stairwell and smoothed the skirt and jacket of her business suit. In a matter of minutes, she carried a steaming mug of coffee to Seth.

  He sat at his desk, an ever-growing pile of snapped-in-half pencils lying in front of him. When she set the cup down, he grunted. As she started to remove the pile of broken pencils, he snapped, “Leave them. Leave me. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Tessa, unruffled, turned on her heel to go.

  “Will there be anything else this morning, sir?” From the relative safety of the doorway, she figured he wouldn’t dare throw anything at her–not that he had, but she’d heard rumors of such things happening to some of her predecessors.

  Seth glanced at her from under thick blond brows drawn together in a forbidding frown. “No. As I said, I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Whatever had so upset him Friday afternoon must still be an issue, even after the visit to North Carolina. Tessa went to work on several reports in the works. There was another trip to arrange for Seth later that week. Since his brother, Brandon, wasn’t expected back until the end of the week, she would have to book a commercial flight. She scribbled the number for his travel account down on the back of an envelope as she began to work on the trip, but was prevented from doing anything else when the elevator doors opened and an athletically built man with wheaten hair and gray eyes stepped off. He was dressed in a navy sport coat and tie, not in the formal, conservative suits Seth preferred.

  “I’d like to see Barrett,” the man said. “Please tell him it’s Chris Stevenson. He’ll want to see me. It’s about his sister Anna.”

  Tessa invited him to take a seat as she stalled for time. Then she punched the intercom button.

  “Mr. Barrett?”

  “What?” he snapped back. “I thought I told you I was not to be disturbed this morning.”

  Tessa grimaced. A gut-feeling told her this visit was tied to that package. She pushed open the door and stepped into Seth’s office.

  “What the hell is it, Teresa?”

  “Tessa,” she corrected him, knowing he was provoking her on purpose. “It’s Tessa, sir.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I think you will wish to see this visitor,” she added.

  “Someone gave you permission to think?” Seth goaded her. She knew it, but she wasn’t rising to the bait. One temperamental person on this floor was enough. Instead, she glared right back at him.

  “His name is Chris Stevenson. He said he wished to see you about Anna.”

  Seth stood up. He towered over her, but she didn’t give ground.

  “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”

  “Because you didn’t give me a chance?” she suggested.

  Seth frowned. She frowned back.

  “Show him in.”

  She smiled as sweetly as she could. “Right away, Mr. Barrett. Shall I bring you both coffee?”

  “No, but you might want the first aid kit handy.”

  Tessa did pause then, casting a questioning look at him. He was serious. Okay, maybe his temper was as bad as rumor had it.

  She glanced back at Chris Stevenson and said, “Mr. Barrett will see you now.”

  With a silent blessing on the man’s continued good health, she held the door for him and then shut it as he walked into the office. Even from outside, she heard Seth. His words left her in no doubt both what it was about and that finding the first aid kit was a necessity. She also located an ice pack to be on the safe side. God knew, she had gained experience dealing with fights while she worked with juveniles. And this seemed to be a very similar occasion.

  She had gathered all the supplies when Seth’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Tessa?” He added emphasis on her name. “Please bring two cups of coffee and a bag of ice. Oh, you better bring the first aid kit too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tessa refused to show any surprise at all upon seeing the bloody handkerchief Stevenson held to his nose. She handed him an ice pack, keeping her expression the same as if she had been giving him a letter to sign.

  Seth almost smiled. “Thanks, Tessa. That will be all.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Barrett.”

  Tessa returned to her desk and shoved her personal mail back into her oversize purse before she returned to what she was working on. Arrangements for the trip for Seth. She looked up the account number again and soon had everything booked. He would take the corporate jet later that week instead of a commercial flight, so all she needed to manage were rental cars and the hotel suite.

  Chris Stevenson left a short while later, the ice pack still on his nose. Tessa watched him with curiosity until he disappeared in the elevator.

  “Tessa!” Seth barked over the intercom. She started. “Get in here. Bring the laptop.”

  Seth worked like a demon until lunch. Whatever had distracted him was now forgotten.

  “Check my calendar.”

  Tessa replied without needing to think. “You have a one o’clock appointment with Barrett senior and a supplier is coming in to make a pitch at three.”

  He stared at her, narrow-eyed, but Tessa just returned his look with a bland expression.

  “I don’t even want to know how you do that. It’s a little scary.” He stared out the window for a moment. “Cancel the supplier. Damn. I don’t suppose there’s any way you can make that one o’clock with my father disappear.”

  She tilted her head and gave him a steady look. “I can, if you’re serious.” At his nod, she asked, “May I use your computer, sir?”

  Seth stood up and moved from behind the desk. “Help yourself.”

  Tessa sat down and logged into the company system. She moved through several different screens, alternating between typing and clicking the mouse until his father’s calendar popped up. A minute later Tessa sat back.

  “There. The one o’clock is rescheduled for Wednesday and it will look like his secretary entered it that way last week. Is that okay?”

  Seth arched an eyebrow at her. “Something you learned at Smith?”

  “High school.”

  “Hmm. I suppose you were a straight-A stude
nt.”

  Tessa slanted a sideways glance at him as she stood up and started to move past him. “Yes. Legitimate A’s.”

  Seth locked up his desk and closed his briefcase. “I’ll be gone the rest of the afternoon. If you’d like to take the day off, you may.”

  Tessa smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Barrett, but I believe I’ll get those reports finished for you before your trip.”

  “Yes, right.”

  Seth was in a better frame of mind the rest of the week. He left Thursday morning for Chicago and Minneapolis and wasn’t scheduled to be back in the office until Monday morning. So Tessa at last had a chance to become acquainted with her workspace. She learned her way around the filing system and reorganized it. The revolving door of secretaries had left things in a shambles.

  She was tidying up her desk before going out to lunch when Brandon came out of his office down the hall. Instead of heading straight for the elevators, he strode toward her. Tessa glanced at him, finding him a less vibrant version of his brother. Though they were almost the same size, his eyes were hazel rather than the gold of Seth’s, and his hair was darker, as if his blond was attributable to the sun rather than heredity.

  “I was going out to grab some lunch. Want to come with me?” His voice was pleasant, not the bark of his elder brother.

  Tessa smiled. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Mr. Barrett.”

  His brows lifted. “Afraid of what others will think? Or afraid Mr. Cantankerous will bite your head off?”

  Tessa arched a brow in return. “Neither. I just see no need to wave the red cape in front of any of the bulls in this building.”

  Brandon grinned, then broke into a full-fledged laugh. “You are so exactly what my brother needs. Please don’t leave. Now, all kidding aside, I’m running down to the deli on the corner. Can I get you anything?”

  “A chef salad would be great.” She started to reach for her purse.