One Blazing Night
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Jo Leigh
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18
Chapter 1
AS THE MUSIC from her headphones blasted the sound track from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Samantha O’Connel narrowed her eyes in her attempt to read a note left by her newest part-time employee, Tina Albert. Tina was an MIT student, just like the other six people Sam employed at her company, SOC Electronics. Tina was cute, bright, witty, completely dedicated to doing a good job. And she had terrible handwriting.
It wasn’t her fault, really. By the time Tina was born, there were millions of teenagers who hardly ever needed to write. They came of age at the dawn of smartphones. But Tina would have to learn to write more clearly.
Sam rubbed her eyes and took another look. Maybe she could have read the chicken scratches if she hadn’t worked until midnight. She’d skipped dinner and hadn’t looked up until just past midnight. Again.
She was getting old. At twenty, sleep had been optional, but at twenty-nine, there were only so many nights she could get five hours and feel refreshed the next day. She certainly needed to be alert.
Ah. The note was a reminder that the new hard drive had been delivered to the smart apartment. Sam didn’t have time to install it and wouldn’t for at least a week. Neither would Clark, though she wouldn’t have asked him to anyway. The prototype apartment was her baby—she’d bought the building in Boston’s Financial District with her personal money and designed all the electronics herself. Luckily, the new drive wasn’t actually necessary for the apartment to function, but it would help with the intermittent sensor problems she’d noted on her logs.
So far, the apartment was a raging success but needed some refinements. No paying guests had stayed there yet, only her friends and family. Each one had given her a critique and made suggestions—some of them really good—but she was too busy for a hobby that was so complex. Sadly, that was the only kind of hobby she liked. Well, except for gaming. Which was more part of her DNA than a hobby.
Clark, who’d been her assistant since her senior year at MIT, had told her they needed to hire people to help with administrative duties, man the booths at trade shows, and more important, take over some of the testing of new parts and equipment, the writing of instruction manuals and the handling of customer support lines. Which meant whomever they hired had a steep learning curve from day one.
She’d always hated delegating, but when Clark pointed out the new employees would be taking over things both of them hated to do, she’d jumped all over it. With the exception of Tina, the students all worked on the second floor, under Clark’s supervision, so that Sam had minimal contact with them.
It wasn’t that she was a snob; she just wasn’t the most social person. She’d started working on her own in high school, and with one notable exception, her solo work habits had solidified at MIT. By the time she’d graduated, she’d decided, against her parents’ firm objections, not to accept the invitations to join Google or Apple or Microsoft and to just do what she liked. So she’d started SOC Electronics—not only her initials, but also the acronym of a computer miracle device called the System On Chip, which integrated all the components of a computer into a single chip.
She’d become a corporation before she’d turned twenty. It had been difficult to work with Clark in the beginning, but now he was like another pair of her own hands. In the end, Sam was in charge of the tech creation and problem solving. Clark was in charge of the rest. Tina was a one-off. She was really smart, but dammit, she was still afraid to jump in during brainstorming sessions.
Sam sighed. She was probably being too harsh on the girl. Tina had a lot of potential, and in time, Sam believed she’d turn out to be a real asset. If Sam had got enough sleep last night, she probably wouldn’t be feeling so cranky.
Lesson? For God’s sake, go to sleep at a sane hour even if it meant not completing a drawing or leaving a task for the next day.
She grabbed her phone and set the alarm. At eight o’clock she’d stop working, no matter what. Then she’d make sure she was asleep by eleven.
Her cell phone flashed with a new call, making her jerk as if she’d been slapped. It was only Clark getting her attention. After pulling out her right earbud, she turned to find him coming from the clean room at the back of the building.
By the time he’d passed the computers and large schematics workstations occupying the middle of the workshop, he’d pulled off his clean-room whites, leaving him in his regular jeans and T-shirt. “I’m doing a run to the stationery store after lunch. If you want anything—”
“Yes.” She swiveled her chair so she could look straight at him. Her gaze caught on the nifty new 3-D resin printer that she couldn’t even play with until this job was done. Tina was going to learn everything there was to know about the machine so she could show Sam how to use it. “I need more mechanical pencils.”
“Already? You do know that most people don’t use a pencil a day, right? What am I saying. You want more pencils, I’ll get them for you. Anything else?”
She winced but said it anyway, as quickly as she could. “A combo falafel-and-shawarma plate with a side of baba ghanoush?”
Clark gave her a very judgey look. “Sam. It’s almost lunchtime. Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take me to find a parking spot?”
“We could send Tina.”
“Tina isn’t here this morning. Remember? Dentist. She has a thing about Novocain... Never mind.”
Sam almost suggested sending someone from upstairs, but she was sidelined by Clark’s comment. He knew Tina had a thing about Novocain? Huh. Clark often talked about the troops, but this was a new level of detail. “Admit it,” she said as she smiled. “You want a falafel, too, don’t you?”
He looked very put-upon even though it was more out of habit than any real issue. He really was the safest human she knew. It helped that he had no interest whatsoever in her social life.
“Yes,” he said. “Dammit. You’re evil. And you have to call in the orders. But you’re still evil. A pox upon thee.”
“Oh, my...you had the D&D tournament last night, didn’t you? It must have gone well or you’d have already bitched to me about it.”
“I’m still in.”
“Cool. Watch out for that guy, the blond with the—” She wiggled her fingers near her ear. She hated those big black plugs in the middle of the lobe. They made her skin crawl.
“Oh, he’s out. He’s out so far he has to wear an oxygen tank.”
“Well played, Dark Mage of Harrow Glen.”
He bowed, then took off his bootees, but that didn’t make his courtly gesture any less goofy. Hell, she was just as bad. Her love of computer games and the cosplay that came with it had been the genesis of her whole career, one that was more successful than she could have ever predicted.
In the past four years, she’d revolutionized spyware with her new sensor technology and signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the US Department of Defense. But it was her coding skills and the development of two different antihacking programs that had brought in the big money. She rarely thought about that, though. She was happy with her little house and her huge lab. They were on adjoining plots of land in Bay Village, and being so close to the heart of downtown Boston made everything so simple. That she was a wealthy entrepreneur felt so discordant with the image she held of herself. Truth was, she was happiest playing “Ms. Pac-Man” on the vintage arcade machine she kept in her living room.
As Clark raided the petty cash for lunch money, she called in their orders. The Falafel King was number seven on the speed dial. What did that say about her life? Nothing she wanted to think about now. After ordering, she went to her drafting table and took another look at the schematics for the nano drive she’d been working on. The temperature issue was fixed—sort of. It would mean the buyers would have to build special cold rooms that had to be so safe they’d stand up to the end of the world. But that wasn’t the problem she was working on today.
After putting her earbud in once more, letting her classical music light up her brain, she put her cell phone close enough that she’d notice if Clark called again. Then Sam began her review of the design in her usual way, starting wherever her eyes fell, usually somewhere in the middle. God, how her technique had driven her professors insane.
Something occurred to her—a bright shiny idea that might just solve an issue she’d shoved to the back of her mind, and then she was in the zone.
At the worst possible time, she caught her cell phone flashing. “Clark,” she muttered as she ripped out her right earbud and answered. “What?”
“Huh. That’s one way to answer the phone.”
It wasn’t—
But it couldn’t be—
Matthew Wilkinson. Matt? Matt!
Sam hadn’t heard his voice in a very long time.
Her eyes shut tight as the world stopped turning. As the memories piled one on top of another. He was her first. Her very, very first love. And her first heartbreak.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been dancing on the head of a pin, but surely he must have thought she’d fainted or something. Well, something had definitely happened—most of her major organs were spinning around like tops.
Matt had been one of her best friends back in her MIT days. She’d been fourteen as a freshman, so all her friends had been four or five years older—and they’d all happened to be guys. They’d bonded over gaming, Marvel comics and bad horror movies. And none of them had been bothered by her age. The guys had protected her. Teased her. And they hadn’t cared that she had the social skills of a paper clip.
“Hello? Still there?”
“Hu...hi, Matt?”
“You okay?”
“Just dropped my pencil,” she said, gripping the phone so tightly she thought it might break. “Sorry.”
“I know it’s been forever. How are you, Sammy?” he asked, his voice dipping lower in a way that made her melt.
No one called her Sammy. She hadn’t heard that name in so long she’d figured she’d never hear it again. It made her blush, and she was grateful there was nobody there to see her. She needed to get off the phone. She couldn’t think. There was too much going on in her head and she’d already started doodling, which wasn’t helping. All she needed to do was tell him she’d call him back. “I’m...I’m...fine. I’m good. Better.”
“Better? Was something wrong?”
“No. Not as such. No. Just— That would be no. Nothing was wrong. I meant to say ‘richer.’”
He laughed. “I’d kind of figured that after reading about your work. So you weren’t quite as dim as we all led you to believe, huh?”
“Not quite.” Her face was so hot she was reasonably sure she was going to burst into flames any second. She was a jumble of emotions. It wasn’t fair, him calling her out of the blue. It had taken her so long to get over him, after all. “How are you?” she asked, trying to keep her voice cheerful.
That should buy her a couple of minutes. But she needed to listen. What if he said he was dying or something and she missed it?
“I’m good. Jet-lagged. Just got in from Tokyo.”
“Godzilla stirring up trouble again?”
“I wish,” he said, his voice the same. Exactly the same. She wanted to curl up under the covers and dream about him for a week. “Nothing but boring contracts to negotiate.”
“But you still like being a lawyer, right?”
“Some days are better than others. But yeah.”
“And you’re living in New York?” Was she supposed to know that was where he lived? Oh, God. Why was she still talking?
“I am,” he said, the words delivering both disappointment and relief. If he’d moved back to Boston, she would’ve died. “Hey, I heard from Logan last night.”
Logan was part of the gang that had always had her back in college. “I saw him in June,” she said, thankful for the safe shift in conversation.
“Yeah, I know. He said that crazy apartment of yours is not to be missed. I’m a little hurt that I wasn’t invited for a test run.”
Hi there, worst nightmare! She held back the groan that had come with the thought. “We haven’t talked since you... For a long time. I wasn’t sure...”
“That’s true,” he said, rescuing her as he’d done so often when her words got stuck. Then he sighed. “I want to blame it on traveling the way I do. And my marriage. Or my divorce. Pick one, and it’ll be true. Bottom line? I’ve thought about you. Especially when I’ve happened to catch yet another article about some new, brilliant thing you’ve invented. To be honest, I figured you’d probably only answer the phone for Stephen Hawking, not guys like me.”
“Not a guy like you? I talk to Logan and Rick. They’re not Hawking. I don’t even know Stephen Hawking. He never calls.”
“Never writes? Bastard.”
She smiled and some of her parts relaxed. Not her heart, though. That was still doing cartwheels even as she tried to put on the brakes. “I’m still me,” she said, as a reminder to herself more than him. “Still can’t talk on the phone worth a damn. Still watching my old copies of Robot Chicken and playing ‘World of Warcraft.’”
“Thank God,” he said. “I’d hate it if you weren’t you. No, that’s wrong. We all change, and I’m sure you have, too. You’re certainly doing a great job in the career department.”
“I have people. Lawyers. A financial planner and a business manager. They talk business. I talk to tech people, so that’s like school.”
“I’m glad. I really am. Look, I’m coming to Boston for a week or so, and I’d love to stay in that smart apartment, at least for a few days. But mostly, I want to see you.”
See her? Why? “Okay,” she said, because she was an idiot and she couldn’t think straight and this was Matt. “When are you coming?”
“In three days.”
“Oh. Wow. I’m not exactly sure of the schedule, so when Clark gets back, I’ll have him check, okay? He usually makes things, um, happen, so, you know, he’s at lunch but he’ll give you a call.”
After a tense pause, Matt said, “I will get to see you, right?”
No. The word she was looking for was no. She couldn’t see him. Not in a million years. It would be a disaster of epic proportions. “Yeah. Of course. I’ve got some deadline things, but, you know.”
He laughed. Quietly. Fondly. And that was the stuff that made him so dangerous. He was rich, gorgeous, smart as a whip and could have any woman on the planet. And he was her friend. The problem was that she’d fallen in love with him two minutes after midnight on her sixteenth birthday and now it was all too clear she hadn’t let go of that silly pipe dream. Great. This couldn’t suck more.
“I’m glad Clark is still there with you.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t do it without him. But he also does some cool stuff on his own.”
After a brief silence that proved to Sam it was impossible to swallow with a dry mouth, Matt said, “I’m excited to see you, Sammy.”
“I’m wearing a Black Widow sweatshirt and black tights I bought at a flea market in Cambridge.”
“Okay. Wait. Didn’t you used to wear something like that back at MIT?”
“Yep. Same sweatshirt.”
“That’s my girl.” This time Matt’s laugh put her on edge. She felt like that socially inept teenager he’d befriended a lifetime ago. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to work,” he said. “Let me know about the apartment.”
“Will do.”
After they disconnected, she put her cell phone back where it belonged, picked up her iPod and changed the music to Led Zeppelin.
The pounding drumbeat synced to her thudding heart. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t. God. But what if...?
* * *
MATT DRANK IN the sight of the New York City skyline, and as always, he lingered on the Chrysler Building, his favorite. It was a clear fall night, and from his twenty-fourth-floor penthouse, everything looked the way it did in the movies. His trip to Asia had lasted two long months but was well worth it. He’d negotiated a nice purchase price for an international hotel chain, Voyager Hotels. It was a big win for Wilkinson Holdings and for him personally. He needed all the points he could get with the board meeting coming up. It was time for him to take the next step up the ladder, which meant taking charge of the London office. Since WH was a family business—his family’s—there were people on the board who believed every victory of his was somehow manipulated by his father and two uncles.
Even with all the politics that came with being in-house counsel for a top-100 company, he wouldn’t change anything. Well, except for that London gig. He wanted that. Enough to play the game the way his father had taught him.
But right now it felt great to be home. It also felt great to be alone. He needed to relax for the next couple of days, get over the jet lag before he went to Boston and made nice at the corporate office. The company’s annual gala for the Boston Children’s Hospital was coming up—a great cause but always a chore. Two days after the fund-raiser was the annual board meeting.
He’d much rather think about his upcoming mini vacation. Although Boston was really home. He’d been born and raised in Beacon Hill. Gone to two universities in Cambridge, had a lot of friends who lived in the city.
The only one he cared to see this time was Sam. She’d been on his mind since he’d heard from his buddy Logan McCabe. He and Logan both lived in New York but rarely saw each other, with Matt’s crazy travel schedule. But as soon as Logan had told him about the smart apartment and Sam, that was it. Matt had picked up the phone and she’d answered, and it was like going back in time.
She was terrible on the phone. Always had been. But it had been great to hear her voice. Logan had said she’d stepped up her game when it came to the business and was still a workaholic. Matt had known from their first few conversations at MIT that she was going to play in the big leagues one day.
He’d seen a couple of pictures of her online, neither of which had been very good. It seemed she was still camera shy, mainly because of her freckles, he imagined. She’d always hated them. There was just a spray of them across her nose, but she thought they made her look hideous. That and her copper penny–red hair.
She’d tried dyeing it black once. What a nightmare that had been. Goth and Sam did not go together. She was far too earnest and far too sensible to fall in with a crowd that demanded such conformity. Eventually, her hair had grown out and the nose ring had disappeared. He wondered if she still had that row of piercings climbing up the outer shell of her left ear.
Damn, he was anxious to see her. After he’d graduated and moved out of the house the gang had shared off campus, he hadn’t spoken to Sam but for a couple of times. Then he’d started law school and she was working on her second master’s, and with their hectic schedules the communication had dwindled to a few texts here and there, mostly around the holidays and special occasions. Once he’d married Vanessa, he and Sam had stopped texting.
He wasn’t sure why, but for his part it had felt like the right thing to do, even though Sam wasn’t a romantic interest. Hell, she was five years younger than he was and so much smarter that there was no chart for it. Not that he was a lightweight, because goddamn Harvard Law Review his second year. But she was made of different stuff.
Back at MIT they’d bonded over computer games and insomnia, right along with Logan and Rick, who’d also lived at Randall Hall, and the four of them had become thick as thieves. They had all felt somewhat protective of Sam. She might have been smart enough to take on Hawking, but she hadn’t been quite old enough to navigate university life on her own. So the guys had kept their eye on her in the dorm and had even run interference a few times on campus. One particular incident still made him wince and smile at the same time. It had ended with him getting a hell of a shiner.
Sometimes he’d wondered if Sam felt that talking to him, to the three of them, was like talking to a pet. She’d never implied that she felt she was intellectually above them, but none of the rest of them had been able to understand the complexity of her studies. They hadn’t had to. They hadn’t cared about her grades, her habits, any of that. The four of them had laughed a lot. Watched a lot of weird movies. Played a lot of computer games. She always said they made her feel normal. Well, normal-ish.
He couldn’t wait to see her.
He’d had a beer with dinner, but now it was time for a little Johnnie Walker Black. Nightcap of champions.
Matt’s bones ached and he had that plane smell on him. He’d let the scotch settle him down, have a long hot shower, then hit the sheets.
But as he sipped his drink, another memory, not a great one, stirred. Like so many college kids, he’d done his share of foolish things, made a few reckless choices, engaged in some risky behavior that would’ve stunned anyone who knew him now. He wasn’t proud of any of it, but that night long ago when he’d messed up with Sam was the worst. The truth was, things had changed after that. He’d learned a lot about the wisdom of sobriety that night. That was all in the past, though, and now he’d have a chance to get to know her again. At least, he hoped so. She’d sounded a little reluctant. But then, with Sam it was hard to tell for sure. He’d forgotten just how much she disliked talking on the phone.
Picturing her with the stupid nose ring, he smiled. Seeing her again and catching up was going to be pure, uncomplicated fun.
