Sasha balled the damp tissue in her hand and looked out the window at the passing scenery. The afternoon sunshine felt warm against her skin, but she turned away and closed her eyes. She let the motion of the moving car and butter-soft leather seats against her spine lull her into a calm state. But not even soothing jazz pouring from the invisible back speakers could rid her of the sense of loss and sadness.
She was feeling guilty and angry, and she hated it. Hated that she’d been off on the other side of the world while her godfather had suffered. Hated the fact that she hadn’t called or written in over a month. If only she’d known…
Her nails dug into the armrest and she resisted the urge to rub her eyes as she contemplated the remainder of the day. Uncle Camden’s attorneys had arranged for the three-hundred-dollar-a-night suite with all the perks money could buy, but she’d barely slept a wink. The idea of spending an afternoon of sitting with people she didn’t know and finding out that she might have inherited things that she didn’t want had kept her awake throughout the transcontinental flight. Sasha shivered with the thought.
This was the first time in her memory that someone she loved had died. Both her maternal and paternal grandparents had died when she was a baby. Her mother and father had been only children and keeping with what she called the Clayton tradition, Sasha was on only child. Not for lack of trying for a little brother or sister. Her mother’s second miscarriage had guaranteed that she would be the only offspring. If the day came that she actually took part in the mating cycle and got married, she vowed to have at least three kids. Every child should have a sibling. Instead of having an older brother or younger sister, she’d been alone. Of course, that meant extra attention from her parents and the undivided love of Uncle Camden, but she could have traded it all to not feel the loneliness she felt at that moment.
“Here we are, miss.”
The car stopped and the driver began to unbuckle his seat belt in preparation for opening the door, but Sasha waved him off. “I can get the door.”
“Of course, I shall be returning you to the hotel. Please wait in the lobby for me.”
“Thank you.” Sasha looked the driver again. Short black curly hair with a smattering of silver. She’d been too distracted and upset to pay attention to the man when he’d picked her up at the airport the day before. But now she noticed his British accent. It wasn’t the fashionable accent of the international reporters she often met in her travels, but the familiar lilt of Uncle Camden’s British lilt. Feeling another bout of weeping coming on, she scrambled out of the car.
Sasha stepped out of the taxi into a landscaped lower plaza. A cold breeze hit her cheek as the car door closed behind her. She pulled the winter air deep into her lungs, let it out slowly and released a smidgen of tension. A clear blue sky complete with tiny dots of clouds reflected off the doors. She instinctively tilted her back and she looked upward over the glass-and-steel structure. Her eyes landed on the top of the building and she blinked in pleasant surprise. Unlike most of the skyscrapers she encountered in her travels, she didn’t find the pointed top. Instead, the building hosted two half circles like delicate wings curving toward one another.
Shaking off her thoughts, Sasha gripped her purse and joined in the stream of people entering the building. Men and women were dressed in the latest business wear chic. By the time Sasha made it from the automatic glass doors to the richly appointed elevator lobby, she’d lost count of the number of designer handbags, ties, timepieces, cell phones and wireless headsets.
Sasha felt more out of place than ever, not that she didn’t blend in. She’d had her herringbone black suit custom-made from one of the best tailors in Bangkok. So what if the Brooks Brothers design was two years old. Her ex-high school roommate and Manhattan-dwelling best friend had assured her that a well-made black suit matched with a cream-colored silk camisole never went out of style. She followed a group of briefcase-toting men into the elevator and pressed the button for one of the higher floors. Briefly glancing at the LCD panel, she checked the time and the temperature. A groan welled up in the back of her throat—she was early. She would have to wait an extra twenty minutes. She caught an interested glance from one of the male passengers, and quickly returned her gaze to the door, before curiosity drew her eyes back. Sure enough, he was looking right at her. Sasha dropped her gaze again and barely kept from squirming. He looked to be in his late thirties with straight brown hair and a curious twinkle in his green eyes. Like the rest of the group, he wore a blue dress shirt underneath his dark suit jacket.
The number couldn’t go up fast enough for Sasha. The sooner she got off the elevator, the sooner she’d find out why her godfather had summoned her to Atlanta, and the sooner she could get back to her work. Correction: the sooner she could get the heck away from all those people. She exhaled, remembering the words from one of her previous therapists. No, she wasn’t anti-social; she just hadn’t been properly socialized. The elevator stopped and Mr. Green Eyes stepped off. Sasha let out a breath and then pulled it back in as the elevator stopped on her floor. She stepped off onto a plush Persian rug and inhaled. The slightly heavy scent of vanilla made her sneeze.
“Ms. Clayton?”
“Yes?” Sasha looked up from digging into her purse to grab another Kleenex. She wiped her nose and looked in the direction of the female voice that had called her name.
“Good Afternoon. My name is Gretchen Stevens. I’m Mr. Hawthorne’s executive assistant.”
She held out her hand in greeting. After a moment’s hesitation, Sasha shook her hand. The woman’s fingernails were perfectly manicured while hers hadn’t seen polish in months.
“The attorneys are on their way from the courthouse and should arrive within the hour.”
Sasha nodded and was careful not to examine the slight brown at the woman’s perfectly blond roots. Instantly, she compared the woman’s expertly applied makeup to the female sable’s instinctual urge to groom before coming into season. The human animal had never been the subject of her academic studies, but she couldn’t help but see the similarities with her professional research.
“Please follow me.”
She stopped in a separate room. Three walls were covered in Impressionist art and the third wall was in fact a window looking out over the city.
“Please feel free to use the laptop, watch TV or peruse the magazines while you wait.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get you something to drink, Ms. Clayton? Coffee, tea or soda?” she asked through a toothy smile that shouted cosmetic dentistry. The assistant kept addressing Sasha by her last name, a fact that made her feel older than her thirty-one years. She opened her mouth to tell the woman who had her beat in age by at least half a decade, that her name was Sasha. But she shoved the irritated thought to the back of her mind and she recalled the Southern tradition of calling adults by their last name.
“No, thank you.” She smiled. “With the time change I won’t have any trouble staying awake. It’s the sleeping that will be difficult tonight.”
“How about a mineral water? Transcontinental flights have a nasty tendency to cause dehydration. My skin is always parched even after a short flight to New York.”
Startled, Sasha looked from the sight of the airplane flying in the horizon to Gretchen. “How did you know?”
“I made your travel arrangements. I hope that the flight and your hotel are adequate?”
“Very nice.”
“Good. I’ll go get that Pellegrino. Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“No, thank you,” she responded with a hastily contrived smile. At that moment she was about to take anything to get the secretary away from her. Sasha watched the woman leave the room and sat in the stuffed leather chairs near the window. Needing something to grab a hold of besides her