“Raven.”
“Yes. Raven. I don’t see her here tonight. What ever happened to her?”
“I married her.”
“Oh.” Jewel stood still, unsure of why that bit of information affected her. He’d mentioned his ex-wife inside, but hadn’t said her name. The picture of the little girl with the mess of curls came to mind and she remembered Raven’s face.
“She was pregnant.”
“What?” Jewel was still trapped in her own thoughts.
“The summer before our senior year of college. We got pregnant. So I married her after graduation. I wanted to do the right thing.”
Jewel simply raised her brows and tilted her head sideways, taking note of the fact that he’d said “we.” He was a gentleman.
“It didn’t last a year, but we have our beautiful Kylee. A few years ago Raven got a job offer in Chicago that offered her the opportunity to return to school and pursue her master’s. Our daughter spends summers and school breaks with me until she’s done with school.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” For once Jewel didn’t have much to say. She was ready to head back inside to the party, but not because she didn’t enjoy being alone with him. It just didn’t make sense to entertain his company any longer when she was sure it wouldn’t go anywhere. “Where did you go to school?” she had to ask.
His response was all the confirmation she needed. Sterling’s undergrad degree nor his MBA were earned at an Ivy League school. Jewel was far from judgmental. She still thought fondly of Sterling. He just couldn’t be the one for her. She was certain that there would be areas in life where they wouldn’t be able to relate. The one thing she listened to her mother about was being mindful of dating people you are compatible with. Jewel’s parents were a shining example of how successful a relationship could be when two were equally yoked.
“We should head back inside. The girls are probably looking for me.”
“Yeah. Noah’s probably looking for me, too.” Instead of moving, Sterling retrieved his wallet and pulled out a card. “I’d love to see you again. Perhaps over dinner.”
Jewel hesitated just a moment, smiled and took the card from him. “Sure.” She tucked it in her evening bag without looking it over.
Sterling had taken her hand again. She let him. Pulling away now would make things awkward. Their road ended there anyway. When she got home, she’d toss the card and forget about how piercing his eyes were and how his touch made her skin tingle because there was no way she could ever be with Sterling Bishop.
Sterling drove to work with Jewel occupying his mind just like he had for the past few mornings. He was glad he listened to Stephan and decided to go the reunion. Seeing Jewel made it worthwhile. Sterling had also had a few inquiries about his technology service offerings since the reunion. Two meetings had already been set up as a result. His only regret was not taking Jewel’s card. He’d left his with her, but she hadn’t called. Sterling knew how women felt about being the first to call, but assumed Jewel was different. From what he remembered, she was a go-getter and Sterling couldn’t imagine her losing that zeal. He wasn’t concerned. Somehow, he’d find a way to get in front of Jewel. He had to.
Sterling couldn’t pinpoint it specifically, but there was something about seeing Jewel that piqued his interest in several ways and he was determined to satisfy his curiosities about her. One night out for dinner would do it. He’d be able to determine if his interest in her was from a lingering childhood crush, or something genuinely fresh and new.
“Mr. Bishop!” The panic in his secretary Ann’s voice snatched him from his thoughts of Jewel. She stood, alarming him with the speed in which she moved. “We have a situation.”
“Good morning, Ann. Please continue,” Sterling urged as he moved past her into his office.
“My apologies, sir. Good morning. I tried to call you and Mr. Stephan, but neither of you answered. There’s a problem at our east end server farm.”
Sterling pulled his phone from his belt and found that he had missed several calls, as well as text and email notifications. He wondered why he hadn’t heard them. “How long ago did this happen?” His jaw clenched when he realized he still had his phone on silent from the board meeting the previous night. It was obvious that he had forgotten to turn the sound back on.
“Only about ten minutes ago. For some reason one of the backup servers seems to be shorting out. It kicks on but won’t stay on.”
Sterling rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you, Ann. Let me get Stephan on the phone.”
The first ring hadn’t completed before his brother picked up the phone. “I know. I just finished speaking to Phil at the server farm. There was some kind of major outage in the area that was caused by a fire. They’re working on getting the backups running smoothly. It keeps kicking off.”
Sterling washed his hands down his face. “Steph—”
“I know.” Stephan’s huff was audible. “I just pulled up. I’ll be inside in a sec.”
Within the next few minutes every employee on deck had hands in the mix trying to get the situation rectified. Stephan kept in touch with their staff managing the server farm. Sterling was in touch with the utility company regarding the fire that caused electrical transformers to blow and affect their equipment, which housed scores of data from the customers they served. They guaranteed that services would be back up within hours.
At the server farm, maintenance staff worked hard to keep the backup servers running to avoid any major catastrophes.
Stephan walked to Sterling’s office and paced. “This is all over the news.”
“I know.” Sterling pointed at his computer where he was watching the latest report and turned up the volume. Not one, but two major transformers had blown, causing electrical fires to light up electric lines in the area. Homes, businesses and schools in the surrounding area were all out of service. The utility company and local public service authorities were investigating to determine the cause of the problem. Stephan stopped pacing long enough to hear a few moments of the report. Sterling looked at his watch.
An hour had passed and every second counted. Their backup server was still shorting out. The team struggled to keep it up and running. Customers had the lines clogged, reporting issues with their IT systems. The entire office was in crisis management mode. Outside of Sterling’s door a frenzy of people moved to and fro with an urgent pace.
“We should cancel our meetings with prospective clients today.” Stephan returned to Sterling’s office with his suggestion.
“No! We need to go. We’ll work through this. I trust that Phil has the farm covered and he’ll keep us posted. We can deal with any concerns that may come up from our prospective clients. Besides, it’s important for them to know that we are able to manage a crisis and still get business done.” Sterling believed in always moving forward.
“If you say so.” Stephan released a heavy sigh.
Just then, Sterling’s phone rang. He hesitated before answering since he didn’t know the number, but picked up anyway. “Sterling Bishop speaking.”
“Ah. Mr. Bishop. Bobby Dale Chandler of Chandler Food Corp here. How are you?”
“Fine, Mr. Chandler, and yourself?” Sterling stretched his eyes at Stephan. “How can I assist you?”
“A good friend of mine, Don Kota, referred me to you. You know Don, right? Kota Enterprises.”
Sterling put a smile in his voice. “I certainly do. Mr. Kota is