Chapter 1

She sat at her desk and read the memo that she found lying in the middle of her desk when she came in that morning. The information it contained was disturbing and she frowned. She had promised her husband that she would free her schedule so the two of them could take a four day weekend and sneak off and be alone. The arrangements were made. Jake had made the reservations at the resort hotel and all was ready.

The memo in her hand said she was scheduled for a 4 PM meeting on Friday, the day she was supposed to be leaving. She and Jake had planned to be on the road by 8 AM Friday morning, but someone had committed her to a meeting on a day she was supposed to be off. She picked up the phone and buzzed Marci. Marci was Dan's secretary and Dan was the general manager of the hotel that employed her.

"Marci? This is Fran. I found a memo on my desk when I got here this morning and I see that I'm set up for a 4 PM meeting with Daimler/Parsons tomorrow. What is going on? I'm supposed to be off tomorrow. Jake and I are taking a four day weekend end to go SCUBA diving."

"All I know honey is that Dan told me to schedule you for the meeting."

"Put me through to him please."

"No can do honey, he is in a very important meeting right now."

"I need to talk with him ASAP Marci. Jake will not be happy if I cancel this weekend on him. It will be the fourth or fifth time in the last six months that my job has gotten in the way of our plans."

"Not to worry honey, about talking to Dan I mean. I'm sure that he will be calling you as soon as his meeting is over. The meeting is with Brian Daimler and I'm certain that Dan will talk to you about what has been said."

Daimler she thought, that's the name of who she was scheduled to meet with at 4 PM the next day. "Okay Marci, I'll sit by the phone and wait for his call."

She hung up the phone and turned to her computer and Googled Brian Daimler. The information she found gave her a sinking feeling. President and CEO of Amalgamated Industries and on the board of directors of five other corporations, one of which was the corporation that owned the luxury hotel where she was employed as an events coordinator. As important as he was there was no way she would be able to skip that 4 PM meeting, not if she planned on keeping her job.

She cleared her screen and did a LexisNexis search and discovered that he was engaged to be married to an Estelle Parsons and it all became clear. She was the hotel's events coordinator and part of her job was planning and coordinating weddings and that she was suddenly set up for a meeting with Daimler and Parsons meant that she was suddenly between a rock and a hard place. To pass on the Daimler/Parsons meeting would please Jake, but probably cost her her job. Take the meeting and Jake would not be happy. He was already upset over how many times her job had gotten in the way of their personal life. The phone rang and it was Marci telling her that Dan wanted to see her in his office.

She entered Dan's office and he told her to take a seat. "Fran, do you know who Brian Daimler is?"

"Yes sir. I know he is on the board of directors of the corporation that owns this hotel."

"Well, he has decided that his wedding and reception will be held here at the hotel. I've scheduled you to meet with him and his intended tomorrow at 4PM. This wedding could very well be the 'social event' of the year and it is important that we shine. I know it will put a lot of pressure on you, but I am confidant that you can handle it. It goes without saying that I will see to it that you have whatever you need. Any questions?"

"Yes sir. I'm not scheduled to work tomorrow. My husband and I are going off on a four day weekend and I won't be back to work until Tuesday."

"I'm afraid that you will have to cancel your plans. Tomorrow is the only day that Mr. Daimler has available. I'm sure that your husband will understand and I will make it up to you. Tell him I will see to it that we comp you for a weeks stay at our hotel in Cabo San Lucas once the Daimler/Parsons wedding is out of the way."

She knew that trying to talk her way out of the meeting was useless so she just stood up, said "Yes sir" and left his office.

"You what?" her husband asked.

"I have to attend a meeting tomorrow at four."

"How are you going to do that? We will be over a hundred miles away."

"I have to make this meeting honey. If I don't make it I could lose my job."

"Your job is more important than our relationship? Your job is more important than spending time with me?"

"No baby, but..."

"No buts Fran. You have let that job interfere with the last five times I've set up something for us to do. I don't give a rat's ass if you do lose it. You don't need it anyway. I make more than enough to take care of us. We don't need the money that the job pays you. The only reason you work is to give you something to do. If you have to have something to do then get another job."

"Be reasonable honey. It is a good job, I like doing it and I'm good at it."

"I don't care Fran. I'm sick of having a job you don't need screwing up our plans."

"Dan said he would make it up to us. He is going to comp us for a full week at the hotel in Cabo."

"Fran, I made plans for this weekend and I'm not going to change them. I'm going. You can either go with me or not, but I am going. And I'll say one more thing while I'm at it. Your job will never again get in the way of any plans I make. If I schedule it, it will happen; with you or with out you, it will happen."

He got up from the table and said, "I'm going to pack" and he walked out of the room. As she watched him walk away she wondered if the job was worth getting in arguments over. She loved the work and she had a flair for it. Okay, so it did get in the way of Jake's plans every once in a while, but so what? It wasn't as if it happened all the time. Granted, it did happen several times in the last five months, but that was an abnormality. Prior to those occurrences they had gone a year and a half with out her job being a problem at all.

She suspected that Jake's animosity toward her job was based on some macho idea that as the man of the house a working wife was an insult to his ability to provide for his family. Well that was just too bad. She was not going to sit at home with nothing to do but watch inane daytime television. And if she was going to work it was going to be at something she liked and was good at and that just happened to be the job that she already had.

It was still dark out when Jake's moving around woke her up. She glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it was only 5 AM. She sat up in bed and watched him dress.

"Why are you up so early?"

"Since I'm going alone I decided to get an early start. If you have changed your mind I'll wait while you get dressed and pack."

"I haven't changed my mind. I have to make that meeting."

"Okay then, I'll see you late Monday or early Tuesday" and he turned and left the bedroom without even offering to kiss her good-bye.

She had cleared her desk in anticipation of being off that day and she really had nothing to do until her meeting at four, but she didn't want to sit at home and stare at the walls so she went into work. She was sitting at her computer checking her e-mails when the phone rang. It was Marci telling her she was wanted in Dan's office.

"A little late perhaps, but some good news, at least for you. Miss Parsons has had a death in the family and has to fly to Kansas City so this afternoon's meeting is going to have to be rescheduled. You get your weekend after all."

As she left his office she looked at her watch and saw that it was five after nine. Her SCUBA gear was already in the trunk of the car and it wouldn't take her anymore than thirty minutes to drive home and pack. She could be on the road by ten and at the beach by noon. She would still be able to get in almost a full day of diving and maybe a hot evening in the sack with Jake would smooth things over between them.

She made good time and got there at a quarter to twelve. One of her tanks was empty so she pulled up at the dive shop to get the tank filled before going to the hotel. While she was waiting for her tank she glanced out the back window at the beach and she saw Jake. He was not alone. He was helping a good looking blonde with the straps on her tank harness and from the way he was looking at her it was clear that he was trying to get something going. She turned and headed for the door intending to go out and put a stop to what she thought was happening, but she stopped as her hand touched the door and as bad thoughts flooded her mind. Jake hadn't been gone from her seven hours. Allowing for the two hour drive he had only been there five hours and he was already working on having a playmate?

She thought back on the dozen or so business trips he had gone on over the last few years and wondered how he spent the nights. Alone in his hotel room or had he found playmates then also? She decided that she was not going to let Jake know that she was there and she was going to watch and see what he did.

Once her tank was filled she moved her car away from the dive shop so it wouldn't be noticed if Jake should happen to need something from the shop. She grabbed her beach blanket from the trunk, got her 7 X 15 binoculars and an old floppy hat out of her duffle bag and went out on the beach. She spread her blanket out and sat down on it just in time to see Jake and the blond wade out into the water. She debated putting on her gear and following them, but at the last second she decided that she didn't want to chance Jake knowing that she was around.

It was an hour before she saw Jake and the blond woman again. They came out of the water and removed their fins and walked to a blanket and picnic cooler under a beach umbrella. They dropped their weight belts and helped each other get their tanks off and then they sat down on the blanket. She was far enough away from them not to be noticed and there were a dozen other people on the beach with binoculars who were looking in all directions so her looking their way wouldn't draw attention.

She watched as Jake and the woman talked, spread sun-screen over each other and talked some more. She was watching when Jake bent down and kissed the woman and she was watching when the woman's arms went around Jake's neck and she returned the kiss. The two of them fell back on the blanket and began to do some serious necking.

She had seen enough. It didn't take the brain of a rocket scientist to know if Jake and the woman had reached that point that early in the day what would happen that evening was a forgone conclusion. Tears were streaking her cheeks as she got up and headed for her car. That bastard! How could he!