Nicole Hightower was exactly the kind of woman his father wanted him to marry. Ryan had no intentions of marrying anyone, but if his father saw him and Nicole together and believed there might be a long-term relationship in Ryan’s future, then he wasn’t going to correct him. At least not now. There would be ample time for that later—after his father handed over the presidency of Patrick Architectural.
“Her name is Nicole Hightower. She’s a client services manager for Hightower Aviation Management Corporation.” He removed Nicole’s picture from the file, laid it to the side of his blotter and passed the folder to his father. “We should consider fractional ownership or leasing a plane from HAMC.”
“Why? So you can have another damned expensive toy? My God, Ryan, you risk your neck with no thought to who will take over Patrick Architectural if you kill yourself.”
The repetitive lecture that had launched Ryan’s current campaign set his teeth on edge.
“You already have a thirty-thousand-dollar motorcycle and a sixty-thousand-dollar boat. What next? A five-million-dollar plane? And I suppose you want to get your pilot’s license, too.”
Ryan bit back his irritation. “I don’t want or need a pilot’s license. Hightower maintains and staffs the plane. Patrick Architectural flies associates all over the country on a last-minute basis, and we pay a premium for those tickets. Hightower guarantees that if we contract their services we could have our plane and their pilot on the runway within four hours or less.”
“Pretentious waste of money.”
“They’d fly us directly to our destination without connecting flights, layovers, limited flight schedules and other inconveniences. They can even land the jets at smaller airports when there isn’t a large hub near our destination.”
“The costs of owning a plane would be prohibitive.” His father dismissed the idea without even looking at the data. Typical.
“Not necessarily. I’ve talked to a Hightower representative. There are a variety of options. We can buy a plane outright, lease or even buy a specified number of flight hours per month or year in a pay-as-you-go program. The best deal is fractional ownership which means we’d only buy a one-eighth to one-sixteenth share, but a plane would always be available to us. When the size of our team required it, we’d be able to request a smaller or larger aircraft.
“The company makes it work for us. Their motto is Comfort, Convenience and Time Savings. From what I’ve heard, they deliver that promise.”
He rolled to his feet, circled the desk and tapped the folder in his father’s hands. “Turn to the chart on page six. Take a look at the data I asked Cindy to compile.”
God bless his assistant’s fascination with tracking the most ludicrous factoids.
He waited until his father did as asked. “This graph catalogs how much time our employees have lost over the past year on layovers, flight delays, inconvenient connector flights and last-minute cancellations or reroutings. They’re on the clock during that lost travel time. There’s your waste of money. Averaged out, our total travel expense comes close to covering the monthly cost for fractional ownership, but without the added benefit of a tax write-off and convenience. Access to our own plane would allow us to expand globally.”
His father’s gaze sharpened as the idea took root and the automatic rejection to any idea Ryan presented faded. Harlan ran a finger down the sheet as he perused the data a second time.
Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the window overlooking downtown Knoxville. “The packet includes Hightower Aviation’s brochure. Read the documentation and you’ll see that a plane could be an expedient asset for us. If we set up the aircraft as a mobile office complete with wireless Internet and a fax machine, we could work midair and-or meet with clients on the way to a site. A bedroom suite containing a full bath is also available so we can fly overnight and arrive rested and ready to work first thing in the morning—negating the additional expense of a hotel room. An airplane is not a frivolous waste of money.”
“And the girl?”
His father wasn’t stupid. Ryan had known he wouldn’t be so easily distracted. He faced his father, who also happened to be his mentor and sometimes his enemy. “As our client services representative Nicole would be our main contact. When we need to travel we’d call her directly and tell her our requirements—right down to which meals we’d want served on the flight. It’s her job to make it happen.”
“You think she’d be assigned to us?”
“I’m told she’s the best they have. We would make her part of any deal we strike.”
His father tapped the edge of the folder on Ryan’s desk. “I’ll give it a look, but I doubt it’s feasible.”
Another wave of irritation washed over Ryan. “If it weren’t feasible, I wouldn’t have presented the idea to you.”
“We’ll see.”
Ryan smothered his frustration. History had shown his father would do everything he could to prove Ryan’s idea a bad one. Only when he couldn’t, would he come around.
Ryan looked forward to the day his father retired, leaving Ryan as president of Patrick Architectural. But first he had to prove he could handle the job, or his father would sell the firm his great-grandfather had started right out from under him.
Days like today convinced Nicole she was doing the right thing. She sank onto her sofa and pried her pumps off her swollen feet Saturday afternoon with a smile on her face.Seeing Beth’s excitement as they raced around Knoxville shopping the baby goods sales filled Nicole with a sense of purpose and rightness. This would work out. All she had to do was keep the fly out of the ointment. The fly being Ryan Patrick.
Thinking of him made her smile fade. The three days without seeing or hearing from him had been good and relaxing. She’d even forgotten about him several times. For a few minutes.
Exhaustion slammed her suddenly from out of nowhere. During the past month her morning sickness had been minimal and manageable, but she hadn’t been able to eliminate the fatigue. When it hit, it hit hard and fast. Yawning, she stretched out on the cushions and pulled a floral woven throw over her legs.
She was floating in that hazy just-before-sleep stage when her doorbell rang. Forcing open her eyes, she blinked at the cuckoo clock on the wall until her eyes focused on the hands. Beth had dropped her off barely ten minutes ago. Her sister must have forgotten something.
Nicole levered her body upright, trudged barefoot to the front door of her town house and yanked it open. Instead of Beth, Ryan Patrick stood on her welcome mat—a most unwelcome sight. Surprise knocked her back a step, and her warm and fuzzy good mood evaporated instantly.
Her lack of shoes gave him the height advantage. She had to tip her head way back to look at him. He looked gorgeous in a black polo shirt with his bright blue eyes and an afternoon beard shadowing his angular jaw.
“How did you get my home address?”
“Your clinic file.” His thorough head-to-toe inspection made her yearn to smooth her hair and check her makeup which was ridiculous considering she didn’t care what he thought of her appearance.
How dare he invade her personal space? Antagonism prickled over her. She tried to rein it in. Tried and failed miserably. She could feel her face getting hotter. “Did you need something so urgently you couldn’t call?”
“I called and left a message. You didn’t reply. I don’t have your cell-phone number.”
And he never would. “I’ve been out all morning and just returned home. I haven’t checked my machine yet. What do you want?”
Ooh. That hadn’t sounded friendly. Tamp the hostility, Nicole.
“We have an appointment to look at a couple of houses this afternoon.”
“We?”
“You agreed to help me search.”
So she had. But today? She needed time to prepare for his company and time to concoct excuses to avoid him. “And if I’m busy this afternoon?”
“Are you?”
She’d love a nap, but admitting weakness to the enemy was never good strategy. Times like this made her miss the caffeine she’d given up for her pregnancy. She needed a jolt to put up with Ryan. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Grab whatever you need and let’s go.”
Resigned to a few miserable hours, she put on her shoes, scooped up her purse and followed him out the door with a serious lack of enthusiasm weighting her steps. She’d rather spend her day staked to an ant hill than beside him in his Corvette.
His absolute certainty that he’d win custody of her baby unsettled her and made her doubt her ability to do her job. Her job was to give Beth and Patrick the family they yearned for.
He negotiated his way out of downtown and headed east on the interstate before glancing in her direction. “You left the house early this morning. I called at eight.”
She wasn’t in the mood for chitchat, but the situation demanded she keep things civil. When she caught herself studying the way his khaki pants clung to his long, muscular thighs she quickly transferred her attention to the rolling hills outside the windshield.
“There was an early-bird sale across town. Beth and I were shopping for baby things. She gets teary-eyed and chokes up when she handles the tiny clothes. I bet you don’t do that.”
A beat of silence passed. “I thought pregnant women were supposed to be the emotional ones.”
“Maybe she’s having sympathy pains. Studies show that some husbands have sympathy morning sickness. Apparently adoptive mothers-to-be can, too. Beth and I were always close.” Sometimes too close. Sometimes she’d wondered if Beth were living vicariously through her, because her sister preferred to stay at home and read or watch movies then hear about Nicole’s adventures later.
“If men appear to share morning sickness it’s only because watching their wives heave makes them want to do the same.”
She struggled with the juvenile urge to stick out her tongue at him. She knew Beth shared her roller-coaster emotional swings—swings which had grown worse for both of them since Ryan had exploded into their lives two weeks ago—because she’d witnessed a few wild fluctuations. “You are a cynic.”
“Not a cynic. A realist. I see things for what they are.”
And he was bitter, too, from the sounds of it. “What do you know about pregnant women?”
“I spent nine months with my ex-wife.”
Shock stilled her breath. That implied he had fathered a child before. “You said firstborn Patricks always took over the family firm. Why isn’t this child?”
“She wasn’t mine.” The hard, flat words opened a Pandora’s box of questions.
“I’m not following. She was your wife’s child but not yours?”
A nerve twitched in his clenched jaw. “Yes. The neighborhood is a mile ahead on your left.”
She’d spotted the signs for several Douglas Lake housing developments a few miles back, but location didn’t interest her at the moment. His evasion did.