Balancing Act Page 5

  She shrugged. “It was okay.”

  He smiled and stood aside for her to precede him. “This will be better. I promise.”

  Tessa wasn’t as confident, but she stepped inside the jet and was struck right away by how open it felt in comparison to a commercial airliner. This wasn’t designed to pack people in like sardines. It had been designed for the comfort of five or six people at most. She wasn’t sure if the windows were larger, but they seemed to be.

  Seth put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “Well?”

  Tessa turned and smiled gratefully at him. It surprised her to see the warmth of concern in his gaze.

  “This is fine, Mr. Barrett,” she sighed.

  Seth chuckled at her obvious relief. “You will need to strap yourself in for takeoff, but after we’re up you can move around.”

  Tessa nodded. This was so much better than the couple of times she had flown to and from school. Most often, she took the train because it didn’t feel as confining as an airplane. The whine of the engines increased as they sped down the runway. Tessa watched their ascent make everything on the ground shrink. When they reached cruising altitude, Seth came over and sat in the chair across from her, the Starbucks cup still in his hand.

  “I thought we could talk a little bit about what I need you to do during our meetings today.”

  Seth outlined his plans. He was presenting the final proposal to the Midwest Papers board and hoped to get their vote. She would need to take detailed notes of the meeting and be ready to go with an altered proposal the following morning if the board wasn’t satisfied with his initial plan. He wanted this deal clinched before they returned home.

  “If we can reach an agreement with Midwest,” Seth added, “we’ll be a presence in more than a third of the major newspaper markets in the US. As things stand right now, that could be crucial for the future of Barrett Newspapers.” He turned his face toward the window and gazed out. Watching his reflection, she saw him close his eyes and heard him sigh.

  Tessa startled him a moment later, she could see from his reaction. “You don’t really like any of this, do you, Mr. Barrett?”

  Seth opened his eyes, staring at her with an intensity that might have unnerved a lot of people, but not her. Not today. She had discovered the thorn that might be making this lion snarl all the time. Although she would never let anyone take Zach from her, she did understand being confined by duty. In her case, it was a duty she loved. But was it for Seth?

  “I never wanted this,” Seth admitted. “I’m tired of pretending. It’s an obligation to me. My love has always been journalism–the research, reporting, writing. The best times of my life were the four years fresh out of college. As plain Seth Barlow, I reported and wrote from all over the world.”

  “Then why do you do it?” Tessa wondered if she was hoping for some validation for what she herself was going through.

  Seth’s mouth quirked. “Probably for the same reason you took the job as my secretary. Out of a sense of duty. Yours is to your brother. Mine is to my father. As the eldest son, everyone assumed I would take over. I was earmarked to be the next Barlow-Barrett paper tycoon, whether I wanted it or not. Other than those four years freelancing, my entire existence has been spent trying to please Alexander Barlow-Barrett.” He paused and his generous lips stretched into a quick smile. “Perhaps we do have some things in common, hmm?”

  Tessa laughed at his odd sense of humor. “An overdeveloped sense of duty is not the basis for a match made in heaven.”

  Seth’s expression turned serious once again. “Maybe more than you think.”

  She chose to ignore him. She had to focus on Zach. Exploring the possibility of a personal relationship with any man, let alone the scion of another blue-blooded Virginia family, was impossible.

  The pilot interrupted their conversation to inform them over the intercom that they were beginning their descent. Per Seth’s request, a limousine met them at the airport. The driver took them to Midwest’s headquarters in downtown Chicago. Tessa told him she would contact him a half hour before they needed to be picked up.

  She turned to follow Seth into the building, and hit the first glitch in her otherwise perfect planning. The conference room they were going to was on the twentieth floor. Tessa began to panic. She couldn’t climb that many stairs. Seth took her by the elbow and led her to the back of the elevator. She sighed in relief as she saw it was designed to give her a view of the street as they ascended.

  “You all right?” he asked under his breath.

  She nodded and even managed to look at him with a small smile. He stared hard at her for a moment and inclined his head. Nevertheless, she found that brief acknowledgement of her fears reassuring.

  They entered the conference room exactly on time. It was another quirk of Seth’s she had at first found very amusing, as if it had been drummed into him since birth: a Barlow-Barrett was never early or late, but always right on time. As his executive assistant, Tessa found she was all but invisible to the executives of Midwest. That suited her fine. She settled into her seat behind Seth, who was given a seat of honor at one end of the conference table, and set up her laptop.

  Tessa knew Barrett was putting an excellent offer on the table. Like papers all across the country, Midwest had undergone a drop in circulation that translated into declining ad revenues, and a drop in the stock value of the company. Seth’s proposal would not just buy Midwest, it would pump more money into the firm.

  Barrett had done an excellent job with its other holdings in developing alternative revenue sources, like websites and joint ventures with other media, and was prepared to put the investment into Midwest to do the same thing. Tessa could tell from the financial sheets that Midwest couldn’t launch a similar undertaking without Barrett’s backing.

  Tessa observed the players at the table even as she took notes, and the only reluctance she detected was on the part of Midwest’s chairman, but that could be enough to nix the deal. He was an older man, older than Alexander Barrett. Unlike the younger executives with their designer suits and slick hair, he was dressed as if his mind were on more important things than the business at hand. In fact, he reminded Tessa of her English Lit professor at Smith.

  There was a break in negotiations about mid-morning. Seth excused himself and asked Tessa to join him. He took her arm and led her out to a small terrace at one end of the building.

  “What do you think?” He asked once the door shut. This high above the city, the breeze ruffled her tightly confined hair.

  “I think you’re not selling the chairman.”

  “Damn!” Seth turned to stare out of the skyline of the city, his jaw clenching in frustration.

  “Mr. Barrett… Seth,” Tessa said, “I didn’t say you can’t sell him on your plan. I said you’re not.”

  He turned and studied her without smiling. “And what do you think I need to do?”

  Tessa looked him straight in the eye. She might not have his years of experience, but she had learned a lot about human nature, good and bad, through her own childhood and her work with juveniles and their families.

  “Play to your strength. You’ve enumerated all of the sound business reasons for the acquisition, but you haven’t mentioned the thing you love, and more to the point, the thing I believe Mr. Golding loves…the journalism.”

  “What makes you believe he cares more about the papers’ journalistic stature?”

  Tessa smiled. “Present company excepted, he has the stereotypical look of the reporter or editor who is so focused on other things, they forget their appearance. If you look, I bet the man still has printer’s ink under his fingernails.”

  When she paused, Seth waved his hand for her to keep going.

  “Now we’re into your area of expertise,” she told him. “So think of it from that position. How would this acquisition make Golding’s newspapers stronger journalistically? Will a stronger internet presence bring more national and international attention to qualit
y columnists?”

  Seth scratched the back of his thick blond hair before grinning at her.

  “You are a genius, Tessa!” He grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. Heat flooded her cheeks and other areas she didn’t even want to think about. Before she could feel any awkwardness, he took her elbow to lead her back inside. “Let’s go close this deal.”

  And Seth proceeded to do just that. By lunchtime, Jacob Golding was smiling and slapping him on the back like they’d known each other for years.

  “Let me buy you lunch, Barrett. We’ll work out a few more things and get the contracts out.”

  Seth cast one look over his shoulder at Tessa, who smiled at him and went back to packing her things. She knew the invitation didn’t include her and didn’t care. It would be easy enough to pick something up at the deli she’d seen down the street, maybe even give her a chance to look around. She’d never been to Chicago before. She was the last one out of the conference room, juggling her laptop case and her oversize bag.

  With a heavy sigh, she looked at the stairwell, but there was no way she could carry all of her belongings down twenty flights, and she was reluctant to leave anything behind in the conference room where someone could get access to it. She marched toward the elevator and pressed the down button. She could do this by herself. She was sure of it. After all, she’d ridden up in it, even if it was with Seth, and didn’t she ride in Alexander Barrett’s elevator every day now? She’d come a long way. It would be a breeze.

  The doors opened and Tessa stepped on. After punching the button for the lobby, she retreated to the back of the car and stared out the window. The doors snicked shut and the elevator moved. Tessa didn’t even look at the floor numbers; she kept her eyes focused outside. The elevator lurched to a stop, so she expected to hear the sound of the doors and more people getting on. When all that followed was silence, she pivoted to look at the floor indicator. Both nine and ten glowed, and the gold-toned metal doors remained sealed.

  Tessa’s heart hammered, and she took a slow, deep breath. Stay calm. She pressed the button asking the elevator doors to open, but nothing happened. She then tried pressing the button once more for the lobby, but again nothing happened. Finally, she noticed the phone and picked that up.

  “Security.”

  “I’m in the elevator at the rear of the building. It seems to be stuck between the ninth and tenth floors.”

  “Sorry, Miss,” the guard on the other end said. “There’s a problem with it.”

  “I’m more than aware of that.” Tessa breathed in exasperation. “I’m stuck in here.”

  “There’s no need to take that tone, Miss,” the guard responded. “We’ve called the repair company and they should be here within the hour. Is there anybody else in there with you?”

  An hour. Her mind barely registered what he’d asked as she closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down.

  “Miss? Is there anyone else in there with you?”

  “No,” Tessa answered him in a voice that had begun to shake.

  “Are you okay?” The security guard’s tone still held that impersonal politeness saved for strangers. The roaring started in her ears and the guard’s voice sounded as if it came from a long way away. It was like when she was a child and she and her cousins would play telephone with empty towel paper rolls.

  “I’m claustrophobic,” she whispered at long last. “Please, can’t you get me out of here?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss, not until the repairmen get here.” The guard sounded more sympathetic, even apologetic, but not as though he was going to make any additional effort to free her from the shrinking box in which she was trapped. Didn’t the man understand what she was going through? Didn’t he realize how awful it was to be locked into such a small space with no way out?

  Tessa hung up the phone and retreated to the corner of the elevator, where she could keep her eyes on the Chicago skyline. Her bag and the laptop case slipped from her hands. She worked very hard to control her breathing, but the fear closed in on her and she clutched at her chest. She kept remembering that day so many years ago. Everyone had thought it was a big joke. It hadn’t been then, and it was not now.

  They had gone to Mont Clair. Tessa had been nine that summer, and her mother had left her for the day to play with her cousins. Tessa still remembered how she and the rest of the younger children had always giggled and laughed. The big old house and grounds had been one gigantic playground, filled with all sorts of fascinating things.

  They had played hide and seek around the house and barn. Until then, it had been one of her favorite games. As small as Tessa had been at nine, she could squeeze into some pretty tight spots. This time she had managed to wiggle her way into an old trunk out in the barn. Someone had moved it from the tack room to the loft. She had closed the lid, meaning to leave it open a crack, but that wasn’t what happened. It had jammed, or felt like it had. Tessa had always suspected someone had a helping hand in that. While it had been open enough she could get air, she couldn’t escape. By the time anyone heard her and found her, Tessa had been only half-conscious.

  She fought back the suffocating panic and forced herself back to the present. Call Seth. She could call Seth. She grabbed for her oversized purse and rummaged through it. Her hands were sweating so much it took her a while to find the phone. She found his name in her contacts and punched Send.

  The phone rang.

  “This is Seth Barrett…”

  “Seth!” Tessa felt a wave of relief.

  “…I’m not available at the moment.”

  Tessa hit End and sank down the wall of the elevator until she sat on the floor. She tried texting him, but her hands shook too much. Disappointment swirled through her along with the ever-growing gnawing feeling that she was trapped. Her teeth chattered and she trembled to such a degree, she dropped the phone to the floor beside her.

  Hang on, one small part of her rational mind urged. Just keep looking outside and hang on. She turned her head away from the solidly shut metal doors to stare at the bright summer day. Cars and people moved about, made smaller by the distance of nine floors. She hated herself for it, but she could not stop the slow tears oozing from the corners of her eyes. She picked up the phone again and hit Redial. She had to leave a message.

  “Seth,” she said in a shaky whisper, all pretense of formality gone. “It’s Tessa. Please call. I…I’m stuck in the elevator. Please, please call.” She disconnected and stared once again out the window. It wasn’t like all the other times. She could see. It wasn’t dark, and it would be an hour, maybe less. They were working to fix the problem. That’s what the security guard had told her. She knew she would get out. It would be okay. They wouldn’t leave her here, wouldn’t forget about her.

  It wasn’t working. Her breathing turned shallower and faster. Time inched by. Tessa pressed her palm flat against the glass and leaned her forehead against it. The coolness of the thick pane did nothing to soothe her. A small, frightened sob escaped.

  Stop it! She hated the feeling of being confined, but she hated even more how the panic made her lose control. Tessa forced herself to take a deep breath, afraid she would hyperventilate. She managed another deep breath. One at a time, she kept reminding herself. One breath at a time. It helped to relax her a little.

  The elevator lurched once and she looked with hope at the floor indicator lights, but then there was nothing. No more movement, and the doors remained as shut as always. She was no longer certain how long she’d been stuck. When her phone rang, Tessa scrambled to find it. Her hands trembled so much she had to hold it with both of them.

  “H-hello.” Her voice was a thin shaky whisper.

  “Tessa.” Seth’s voice was low and calm. “It’s Seth. Which elevator are you in?”

  Tessa tried to choke back a sob, but didn’t quite succeed. “In the elevator with the windows,” she muttered.

  “Are you by yourself?” His voice stroked her frayed nerves,
and she latched onto it like a lifeline.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m getting on another elevator in the lobby. How long have you been in there?”

  Tessa sucked in a deep breath and let it out on a shaky sigh. Time didn’t have any meaning for her at the moment.

  “I–I don’t know,” she said at last. “I can’t remember. Please get me out of here, Seth. Please. I thought I could ride the elevator by myself. I thought it would be okay…” She trailed off as her throat tightened once again with panic.

  “It will be. I’m right outside the door now, here on the ninth floor. Okay? Just a few feet away. Can you hang in there for me?”

  Tessa glanced at the doors. Why wouldn’t they open? “I’ll try.”

  “You can stay on the phone with me. Does that help?”

  “Yes.” Her voice shook again. Tessa darted a look from the door back to the skyline outside. If she could just get out.

  “Where do you like to go best with Zach, sweetheart?”

  “What?” She couldn’t get her mind around what he was asking.

  “Where do you like to take Zach when you want to relax and get away?”

  “The beach.” Tessa latched onto the soothing timbre of his voice as if it were a lifeline tossed into a stormy sea.

  “Okay. I want you to close your eyes and think about walking across the sand. Paint a picture in your imagination. It’s early in the morning and the tide is out. The sand is cool against the soles of your feet because the sun hasn’t yet warmed it. You and Zach are hunting for shells. In the distance you hear the gentle slap of the waves as they drift into shore. There’s no one there besides you two. Just infinite sea, sand, and sky with gulls wheeling overhead.”

  Tessa began to relax as she pictured the scene he described. Her breathing evened out and her heart started to slow its frantic pace. She smoothed a shaky hand over her skirt, plucking at the fabric out of habit.

  “Are you there?” she whispered.

  “Sure I am. You’re watching me windsurf beyond the breakers. Zach is laughing and pointing because he wants to learn too, but you won’t let him yet.”