Page 7 of Degrees of Control
“This will be over soon,” he says, kissing me warmly on the lips before his office line rings.
“Chase here,” he answers, smiling widely as he tries to balance me on his lap and reaches over to hit the desk intercom.
“Chase, I have you dialed into the conference. It should start momentarily.”
“Thanks, Lois,” he says, putting the call back on mute while we quickly take turns freshening up in the adjoining bathroom. The conference lasts a couple hours and I find myself enthralled with the conversations around the expansion of the model and projected outcomes on a national level.
“Now I understand why you wanted to develop an infrastructure for the design work,” I say when the conference is over.
“Yes, the effort you’ve put into the model will provide the platform, but this is going to be no easy feat,” he says.
“If it were, we’d be doing the wrong work,” I say.
“Indeed,” he says.
“I’m glad you included me in the conference. Do you know when we’ll need to have work completed for the other communities interested in the model?”
“No, I thought your teams could help with the timeline development and rollout,” he says.
“They can. We’ve already hired an excellent group of project managers,” I say, avoiding reference to my involvement in future projects. I had intended to make a clean break. Who the hell was I kidding? I can’t stay away from him for two days, much less a lifetime.
“I honestly don’t think I’ve been this excited about a project since I first heard about the Prestian Medical facility,” I say.
“I’m glad you’re pleased, Katarina.”
“We’ll have to step up the pace on the structure Jenny and I put together for theTorzial Division of Prestian Corp. We laid out most of the details before we left for Aruba,” I say.
“I need to send Jenny a note to bring her up to speed on the negotiations, but I’ll leave the details to the two of you.”
“Sounds good. I was going to give her a call a little later in the afternoon. We’ve been talking every day since the rape, but I haven’t heard from her yet today,” I say.
“She’s been working long days at the office, but has been seeing the psychologist she told us about.” he says.
“You have someone assigned to Jenny’s security?” I ask, knowing the answer before he replies.
“I do, I don’t think it’s likely that Ty will try to see her again, but he’s in bed with some pretty rough characters and I want to make sure she’s safe,” he says.
I hug him to me tightly and kiss him on the lips. “I think I’m going to get a little work done and give Jenny a call,” I say, trying to keep my thoughts at bay with his reference to bad characters.
I head toward our bedroom to find my phone. I’m not sure where we now stand, if anything, it’s just become more complicated. Nothing about what Chase has done has changed, but I know that I don’t want to be without him.The sun is shining brightly through the windows. I open the french doors and walk out onto the balcony. The air is a little brisk, but nice, and I settle into one of the patio chairs.
“Siri, call Jenny.”
“Torzial, this is Jenny,” she says, answering on the second ring.
“Hi there.”
“I was just wondering when I would get my daily call,” she says.
“I’m just worried about you.”
“I know, Kate.”
“How are you doing today?” I ask.
“Just trying to keep busy,” she says.
“Anything you feel like talking about?” I press gently.
