A Deeper Dimension (2 page)

Diana accepted the paper folders that he gave her, and for the rest of the morning they argued and deliberated over the various approaches for the contract to their main supplier of iron ore. After that, without a rest, he took her over the entire building, ordered a desk for her use to be moved upstairs in his office, held an emergency conference with Owen Bradshaw about temporary labour to be hired owing to a bout of ’flu going around in one of the factories, and called California to clear up a problem in the San Francisco office. Her mind was whirling by the time they stopped for some quick sandwiches and a cup of coffee. They ate up in his office to save time.

Watching him in between bites of her sandwich, Diana marvelled at his incredible energy. The man fairly sent sparks of electricity into the air, she thought to herself.

“…sandwich?”

She started.

Alex (for that was what she called him in her mind) repeated patiently, “Do you want another sandwich?”

“Thanks, yes.” She took it gratefully, and was unprepared for his chuckle. “What did I do?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“Still a growing girl, aren’t you, my dear?” Alex had a faint smile as he took in her tall frame. “You’re damn near as tall as I am.”

Diana, determined to take his ribbing in her stride, was angry at herself for colouring faintly at the way he was looking at her. She saw his grin widen and realised that he knew what she was thinking. She swallowed a mouthful of sandwich and laconically pronounced, “Six feet in my stockings, sir.” She took another bite of sandwich.

He pretended to look surprised. “Six feet tall!” he exclaimed with a note of wonder. Then, swiftly, “And don’t ever call me ‘sir’ again in that tone of voice, my girl, or I’ll turn you over my knee—yes, all six feet of you, and whack you over the bottom. I’m a bit bigger than you still.”

She was taken aback. “What in the world!” she gasped. “What was the tone of voice that I used, Mr. Mason?”

Mr. Mason leaned back in his chair. “You quite deliberately tried to put me in my place for teasing you, and you know it.” He surveyed her lazily and continued, “I was never one for learning my place.”

Diana had put that tone of standoffishness in her voice when she spoke, but it had been from force of habit, a habit she had acquired a long time ago when she had never been quite sure if the teaser had meant to be cruel or not. It had become an unconscious mannerism over the years, and people, once rebuffed, tended to stay away. Now she took a safe retreat by commenting, “The sandwiches are very good.”

Alex smiled slowly, a gleam in his eyes, and Diana hurriedly offered him another sandwich. His third, she noted. He deliberately waited a moment to let her know that he realised a red herring when he saw it and then took the sandwich with a dry thanks.

A quick look at the clock on the desk had them gulping their food and coffee down in order to be on time for an afternoon conference with several of the different department heads. The afternoon flew by incredibly fast for Diana in an exhilarating way. Alexander Mason was simply fascinating to her—he stimulated her thinking and emotions like no other person that she knew. In that one afternoon, she saw several sides to his personality. One moment he was clicking ideas off of the top of his head like a computer, the next minute he would roar with fury or laughter. He was—intense, Diana thought as they hurried back to the top floor. The word, one that she had been groping for in a vague way, left her feeling uncomfortable. She did not like intensity; she shied away from it like a colt shying away from an unexpected noise. It frightened and confused her. In no way had she ever been exposed to any intense emotions. The past relationships she had experienced were generally those of a passive nature, a mutual reaction of sterile politeness, with no fights and no arguments, and also no loving or caring. She was, with Alex, very much at a loss.

She and Alex reached the office and both sank into chairs. Much to her own surprise, Diana felt wet with sweat. They had worked with so much intensity and single-mindedness that she hadn’t had time to notice how physically drained she was. They sat in silence for a few moments. Then, with a suddenness that made her jump, he said, “You have a smudge on your nose.”

“Thanks,” she said wryly, and rubbed the offending member. She started to chuckle and shake her head. He began to smile.

“Now, what did I say that was so funny?” he asked, his strong teeth showing white against a light tan. It seemed to hit her somewhere in the region of her stomach. Slightly disorientated, she looked at him and blinked.

“Oh—” she started, somewhat at a loss. Then she started to chuckle again. “Someone else would have pointed out the mistakes that I made today, or tell me how well I did, or even just tell me to go home. But you? Oh, you tell me I have a smudge on my nose!”

Alex leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his neck. “And would you like to hear how well you did today?” he asked. One of his eyebrows was cocked in a way that she wasn’t sure she liked. She considered the question seriously. Finally, with a rueful shake of the head, she smiled.

“No, I wouldn’t. I would like to hear that I did well, and I’m not sure I did. I was too ignorant to have been of any real use to you today,” she said honestly.

Alex’s face turned serious also, and he answered her quietly, “Yes, you were, but you also had some very bright ideas today, for all your ignorance and inexperience. I was pleased with you and your work today. You did well.”

Diana glowed. This man’s opinion was something that she found she respected, and his compliment made her happier than she should have liked to admit. Her face was carefully expressionless, but her eyes had a bit of a shine that they hadn’t had before, and Alex’s eyes were keener than she knew. He was suddenly brisk.

“I would like you to take these papers home to study. They contain information concerning our past contracts and percent output. Also, towards the back, I have some proposals that I’d like you to prepare an opinion on for tomorrow. Can you manage to be here around eight in the morning?” She nodded, secretly shocked. He continued, “Good. We have a lot to do tomorrow before eleven. Plan on having lunch like we did today, there’s not going to be much time between meetings. By tomorrow your desk should be here and we’ll see about getting you settled in.”

“Shall I type up a summary and appraisal of these proposals?” she asked, frowning in concentration as she leafed through the pages he handed her.

“It would be a good idea.”

“All right. Anything else you would like?” Diana suddenly saw things in the question as soon as she said it, and she wished she had phrased it differently. Alex, however, answered her seriously. “No, I think you have quite enough to do with just what I’ve given you.” He glanced at his watch. “And for right now, I think you’d better get home so you can get to work.”

She chuckled, “Whatever you say, boss.”

Swiftly glancing at her, he retorted, “That’s right, my girl. Whatever I say.”

“And what you say goes. Isn’t that what you mean?” she teased, and getting up, she moved to the door. She had the most uncomfortable feeling of being watched, but refused to look around.

Alex said lazily, “Hey, lady,” and she turned. He stated clearly, “I’ll remind you about that remark someday. Just so that you know whose say goes first.”

Diana sketched a smart salute and went out while listening to Alex’s laughter.

Making her way through the outer office, she noticed that Carrie had already gone home, then stopped in shocked surprise. Already? Checking her wristwatch, she saw it was nearing six-thirty. Hurrying out the door and to the elevator, she marvelled at the way the day had flown by. Making her way out of the building and to the space where her car was parked, she glanced towards the construction site several yards away, but it was empty. She unlocked her car and got in.

New York traffic was, as usual, hectic and maddening. Finally reaching the outskirts of the downtown section, Diana managed to make a little better time in the suburban areas. Her mind, however, was not occupied with the time it took to get to her little apartment, located in a converted old house in a relatively quiet part of the country. It was well out of the confines of the city, close to Elmsford, and Diana much preferred to commute to work so that she could enjoy more peaceful surroundings. Right now, she happened to be busy contemplating the motives and desires of the remarkable man she worked for. Somehow, after meeting and working with Alexander Mason, she could not reconcile her preconceived notions of him with her real-life impressions. She had thought of him before as the sort of man that would do anything for profit or gain and not be bothered by his conscience. That he was a shrewd businessman was certain, but the ruthless tycoon that the newspapers criticised was not the impression that she had got. Of course, she wisely realised that she had yet to see all the different sides to the man’s personality, but what she had seen so far, she had liked. Liked maybe too much. Shaking her head as she turned down the side street that led to her apartment, she resolved not to think about it.

That, however, was hard to do. Letting herself into the apartment, she paused to kick off her shoes with a sigh, before going into her small kitchen to whip herself up a quick supper. She found herself moving in quick, hurried movements around the kitchen as if she were to dash back to work like they had for lunch. Sighing wryly, she admitted to herself how much she was still keyed up. She decided to get out her homework for the night and get that out of the way while she was still in the mood.

Looking at the different notes that Alex had given her, she again found herself thinking in high gear and coming up with ideas quicker than she could get them on to paper. Finding a major flaw in one of the contract proposals, she sat down at her typewriter to try and figure out a revision. The typewriter keys fairly flew as her fingers moved in pace with her thoughts.

Three hours later, she leaned back in her chair with a tired sigh. It had taken more time and work than she had anticipated, but she had finally come up with a type of contract proposal that would be close to acceptable, providing Alex liked it. Her mouth twisted and she corrected herself, “Providing Mr. Mason liked it.”

Now she was so tired that she barely took time to perform the actions necessary for going to bed before stumbling over to crawl between the covers. She caught herself before she drifted too close to sleep and remembered to set her alarm for five o’clock in the morning. After fiddling with the alarm, she rolled over and was almost asleep before she was settled.

Darkness and loud noise: a loud steady, buzzing noise that sounded very close, very like…her alarm! Diana rolled over and, trying to see her clock, made a grab for the general direction and missed. Grabbing again, she succeeded in locating the clock, but instead of getting hold of it, she only managed to push it farther away from her and out of reach. By now she was fully awake and fully annoyed with the raucous noise emanating from that damn clock. She bounced out of bed, turned on the bedroom light and switched off the alarm. Then she went over to the window, a big, cheerful affair that was intended to let a lot of fresh sunlight and air in. She felt like swearing. The sun wasn’t even up at five o’clock! She grumbled, “God knows any sane person wouldn’t be,” and went to make herself some coffee. While it was brewing, she padded off to her bedroom again to sort out an outfit to wear, then she went off to start some hot bath water. After a good reviving soak in the tub and steamy cup of coffee, she felt almost human again.

Sitting in her bedroom in front of her dresser mirror, she took stock of her appearance. Shadows were under her eyes from such a short night’s sleep and her face looked to herself to be a pasty sort of pudding colour. Resignedly, she reached for her make-up jars. Fifteen minutes later, a vibrant, glowing face looked back when she peered in the mirror. “Thank the Lord for such wonderful blessings as coffee-makers and cosmetics!” she looked towards heaven as she muttered.

Another fifteen minutes and she was on her way.

Knots of tension slowly hardened in her stomach as she tried to cope with the thickening traffic and her own shortening temper. Her nerves were stretched very thinly during the next forty minutes or so that it took her to commute to the New York office. Her confidence dwindled with the passing miles as she thought of what she
could
have done with the revised proposal. She felt even worse when she considered that she hadn’t even started on the other proposals that Alex had given her.

Diana, reaching the parking lot reserved for the workers at Mason Steel, ended up parking not with a sigh of relief from the journey’s end but with a groan of apprehension at the day ahead. Moving towards the building, she mentally composed herself for the immediate future.

The stares were again directed her way as she walked to the elevator doors, but this time she did not really notice. All her attention was concentrated on her own thoughts. She walked on into the cubicle.

“Say there! Hi, Miss Carrington, remember me?” asked the young elevator operator. She blinked a little in surprise at having her reverie interrupted, then she smiled.

“Of course I remember you,” she said warmly, looking down at him with friendliness. The young man had the same engaging grin. “You never told me your name, though.”

He looked pleased. “No, ma’am, I didn’t. My first name is Jerry. I’d be honoured if you called me that, ma’am.”