She frowned. “Good morning, Joe.” She looked around her office again. “Daniel, Connie, Griff,” she said, greeting each of them in turn.
“Morning,” Connie said.
“Good morning, Jill,” Daniel murmured.
“Ditto,” Griff told her.
They were all staring at her.
“Okay,” she said. “What are you all doing in my office?”
“Meeting,” Daniel said.
“I stubbed my toe,” Connie said.
“She stubbed her toe,” Joe repeated. “And screamed.”
“Yeah. She screamed. We all came running,” Griff told her.
They were still staring at her.
“Are you all right now?” she asked Connie.
“Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be all right?” Connie said.
“Your toe,” Jillian reminded her.
“Oh…I…yes. It’s fine now.”
“So what about this meeting?” Jillian said.
“What?” Connie said, frowning.
“Meeting. Didn’t you say you were here for a meeting, Daniel?” Jillian asked.
“Yeah.”
“About what?”
“A quick meeting. Just to say that, uh, we’re definitely going with the Celtic cross.”
“You told me that yesterday.”
“Yeah, but…there’s also an ad campaign we need to discuss.” He looked at his watch. “Can’t now. Have to be in a marketing meeting in two minutes.”
“But—” Jillian began.
“Marketing. That’s me,” Griff said.
“Since when have you actually bothered to attend a meeting?” Jillian asked.
“Today. It’s an important one.” He was walking toward her door.
Backward.
And Connie was going with him.
“I’ll get some coffee,” she said, smiling in response to Jillian’s confused frown.
“And I’ll get rid of the tea,” Joe said cheerfully, rushing out, the tea service rattling.
“Marketing,” Daniel said, sounding ridiculously awkward, not at all like his usual assertive self. He followed Joe, passing by Connie and Griff—old Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum—who nearly crashed into one another in their haste to exit her office.
She watched them go, then walked around to her desk and sat, still staring at the door. She groaned aloud and dropped her head into her hands.
The tarot card reader.
The nightmare. The feeling of burning…
And now her family and friends being entirely bizarre.
Like Alice, she might as well have fallen down a hole.
Her world was going mad.
CHAPTER 4
There was a meeting that morning. At eleven a.m., Jillian found herself in the conference room with her grandfather and all her cousins.
It was a family affair, except that Robert Marston and the artist who’d created the sketch Eileen and Theo had discussed, Brad Casey, had also been invited.
Jillian had heard—via Connie, who had heard it from Daniel’s secretary, Gracie Janner—that Douglas, Theo and Daniel had already met earlier. Now the whole family had been brought together.
She didn’t think her grandfather had been planning on this meeting earlier. She’d seen him briefly at the breakfast table that morning, since he’d been finishing up when she’d come down. He looked good—even at his age, he was tall and straight as an arrow—but there had been concern on his features when he’d poured milk over his cornflakes and said, “I heard you had a bad dream last night.”
“Halloween. I guess I’m still impressionable,” she had tossed back lightly.
He hadn’t pressed the point, which had worried her a bit.
Now, he was staring at her down the length of the beautiful hardwood conference table. “I guess everyone knows what’s going on here,” he said, watching her. “Except for you. And Robert.”
She looked around uneasily, feeling a strange sense that maybe everyone really had gone mad and she had been brought here to be told she was to marry Marston or else be thrown to the wolves—whatever form of wolves still lurked in Manhattan, that is.
She didn’t doubt that there were many.
“Douglas, I—”
“It’s about our next ad campaign.”
“What?” she breathed, feeling instantly at sea. Whatever he was getting at, it was nothing she’d been expecting.
“I have to hand it to Eileen and Theo. They saw the possibilities first.”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Neither do I, Douglas. What’s up?” Marston asked.
He was seated to her left. Cool, smooth, impeccable. A powerful, neatly manicured hand wrapped around his coffee cup.
“Brad, show the sketches, please.”
Brad Casey was a nice guy. Tall, slim, with thinning, long blond hair, he had a gift for taking a spoken concept and translating it onto paper. He flushed uncomfortably as he rose from his position at the far end of the table and lifted the cover from an easel. Jillian gasped.
He had drawn her. In an incredibly flattering way. She was sure she was far more electric in his sketch than she had ever been in life. She was looking at a man, her eyes alive, conveying a warmth that seemed to come from the soul, as he fastened a locket around her throat. The entire image was stunning. It captured something more than the giving of a special gift to a special person. It seemed to evoke the very essence of two people together, living for one another, understanding the gift not so much of a locket, but of love. The very best, and most tender, of human emotions.
“Wow. That’s—that’s outstanding, Brad,” she said softly. “And extremely flattering, by the way. Thank you.”
She made sure to add the last. He was a brilliant artist, but never really convinced of his talent. A capable man, but often very shy.
His flush deepened.
“Well, of course, it is idealized—” Eileen began.
“Jillian glows,” Daniel said.
“Just like Rudolph’s nose,” Griff said cheerfully.
The others stared at him.
“Show the next sketch, Brad,” Douglas advised, breaking the silence.
Brad flipped the page. This time, it was a beach setting. She stood by a palm tree. Branches and fronds dipped over her head; the ocean rolled ahead of her. It was dusk, hues of incredible beauty captured on the page. One hand was on the tree, the other reaching for the man coming toward her.
She almost choked.
It was Robert Marston.
She couldn’t look at him. She felt deeply humiliated, as if he had been paid to come here—for her.
“Grandfather, did you—”
“No.