winced inwardly at the label. If it was meant to flatter him, it missed its mark by a country mile. The limelight had never meant anything to him. Sin-Jin didn’t do what he did for any sort of recognition. He did it because he was good at it, good at trimming fat off selected businesses and getting them to run more efficiently. Once he accomplished what he set out to do and the businesses were running at their maximum peak, he grew bored with them, selling them off to other corporations while he turned his attention to something else.
That this sort of thing attracted a great deal of attention and generated an almost obscene amount of money was without question. But it was never about the money. It never had been, perhaps because there’d always been so much of it when he was growing up. Every movement he’d ever made had been cushioned in it, as if somehow money could take the place of everything else that was deemed important in life. Like parental love and warm memories to draw on when things became difficult.
He’d had the best upbringing that money could buy. All needs taken care of, everything done in a utilitarian fashion. It was the kind of upbringing that could have produced an emotional robot, which was what his enemies had accused him of being.
If no one knew anything about him, it was for a reason. Because he wanted it like that. “And it’s going to remain that way,” he informed her.
As he reached to bring the elevator back to life, she moved to block his access. “Why?”
For just the smallest second, he almost forgot that they were stuck, suspended between the eighth and ninth floor like a yo-yo that had gotten tangled in its own string. The annoying woman who kept insisting on getting into his face had eyes that were probably the deepest shade of blue he’d ever seen. Undoubtedly, she used that to her advantage, just as she used her present condition.
“Does the word privacy mean anything to you?” he demanded. “Or is that particular term missing from the lexicon distributed to the ignoble fourth estate?”
“Ouch, they weren’t kidding when they said you could fillet a person at ten paces with just your tongue.”
“No,” he informed her tersely, “they weren’t.”
But rather than take offense at his words, she smiled, her face lighting up as if he’d just given her a ten-carat diamond instead of an insult.
She probably saw it as a challenge. He supposed he could relate to that. Challenges were what he responded to himself. The harder something was to obtain, the more he wanted to secure possession.
Somewhere in the back of his mind a question crept forward. How difficult would it be to possess the woman crowding him in the elevator?
The next instant Sin-Jin blanketed the thought, smothering it. She was someone else’s wife or at the very least, someone’s significant other. And unlike his father who reveled in it, he didn’t poach on another man’s land or try to win another man’s woman if she captured his attention.
Satisfied that the verbal duel was over, Sin-Jin pressed the release button on the keypad only to have her reach for it again. The high school physics assurance that for every action there was a reaction teased his brain. Mr. Harris would have been happy that he’d come away with something from his class, he thought.
Rather than allow the annoying woman to bring the elevator to yet another teeth-jarring stop, Sin-Jin caught her by the wrist and held on tightly.
“The game is over.”
Sherry raised her chin. The look in her eyes told him that she wasn’t intimidated. He realized with a jolt that he found it arousing.
Man does not live by bread alone. Or, in his case, by corporate takeovers, he thought. Maybe it was time he got out a little instead of burning the midnight oil.
“What are you hiding, Mr. Adair?” Sherry wanted to know. Anyone so secretive had to have something he didn’t want revealed. She felt her curiosity climbing. “What are you afraid of?”
Sin-Jin realized that he was still holding her wrist. Tentatively he released it, ready to grab it again if she tried to stop the elevator’s descent. “Being on trial for justifiable homicide.”
Humor, she liked that. Even if it was a little dark. Sherry smiled in response, aware that it threw him off. She liked that, too.
“Then I’ll just have to make sure you don’t do away with me, at least not until I get my story.”
He edged closer to the doors, blocking any access she might have to the keypad in case she decided to make a lunge for it. “Tempting as the trade might be, I’m not prepared to give you a story in exchange for your fading out of my life.”
The elevator came to a stop. “When will you be prepared?”
The doors opened. He saw the security guard sitting at the desk in the lobby. If this hounding reporter gave him any more trouble, he could turn her over to the man. “There’s an old song, ‘The Twelfth of Never.’ I suggest you take your cue from the title.”
With that, Sin-Jin got off.
Just as she began to follow Adair, the baby kicked. Hard. It momentarily took her breath away. Long enough for Adair to get far enough ahead of her.
“You can run, Adair, but you can’t hide,” she called after him.
Sin-Jin never broke stride and didn’t bother looking over his shoulder. But his words hung in the air as he made his exit through the revolving doors.
“Watch me.”
The glove had clearly been thrown down. Owen had been right. This was a definite challenge. Exhilaration filled her.
“I intend to do more than that, Adair,” she murmured with a grin.
Two hours later, drained, Sherry flirted with the thought of just going home and crawling into her queen-size bed. By her count, she was down some ten hours of sleep in the past five days because her baby insisted on kickboxing for hours on end.
But tonight was her weekly Lamaze class and she hated to miss that. If nothing else, she could definitely use the camaraderie. Not to mention the fact that Rusty, her former cameraman and present coach, would be there. She could pick his brain about Adair. The man had a way of ferreting things out. If Rusty Thomas didn’t know about something, it didn’t bear knowing.
The practical side of attending her class was that she was a little more than a month away from her due date. A minor sense of panic was beginning to set in at the peripheral level. She needed all the preparation for the big event she could get.
Stopping home for a small dinner and a large pillow, Sherry changed her clothes to something even looser and more comfortable. Fifteen minutes later she was on the road again, driving to Blair Memorial where the classes were being held in one of the hospital’s outlying facilities.
The cheerfully painted room was built to accommodate a hundred. Twenty couples had signed up. They were down to thirteen after the instructor, Lori O’Neill, had shown the birthing movie. Apparently there were miracles that were a little too graphic for some people to bear. Sherry liked the extra space. It made the gathering seem more like a club than a class.
Entering the class, her pillow tucked under her arm, Sherry looked around the area. Almost everyone was here. She nodded at couples she recognized by sight, if not by name. They were a cross section of life, she thought, being brought together by their mutual condition. In the group there was an independent film producer, a lawyer, three teachers, a doctor and an FBI agent, not to mention an assortment of other people.
She looked around for her group, two women she’d gotten close to in the last few weeks. Spotting Chris Jones and Joanna Prescott, Sherry made her way over to them. They had all been introduced to one another by Lori. The incredibly perky instructor had felt that the three women would form a strong bond, given that they were all single moms for one reason or another. Lori referred to them as The Mom Squad. Sherry rather liked that label.
“So,