Romantic Acquisition Page 0,67
sunshine. He’s going to ruin so many people’s lives but how am I supposed to stop him? She looked around the parking lot as if the answers were written somewhere.
“Carlo!” she immediately thought. But then she realized that she had ignored so many of his calls. He wouldn’t want to talk to her now. She’d just have to figure out a way to get him to listen to her. He might be ready to leave her for someone else, but he was fair and reasonable. Somehow she’d get her point across.
Her hand automatically went to cover her stomach where her unborn child rested. She couldn’t let him hurt their child. She wouldn’t let him say the words that would hurt either, she promised herself.
Kate drove her car over to the ATI headquarters and prayed that he would be there. She parked in a visitor’s space and rushed into the lobby. There, security stopped her immediately. “Ma’am, you need a badge to go any further,” an authoritative voice said, when she tried to get onto an elevator.
She turned around to face a security guard who was watching the lobby area.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” she replied and walked with him to the security table. “I don’t have a badge.”
“Do you work for ATI and just misplaced your security badge?”
“No,” Kate answered. “I need to speak to Carlo Attracelli. It’s urgent.”
The guard raised his eyebrows. “The vice president?”
Kate hesitated, not sure what his official role in ATI was. “I’m not sure of his title. I’ve been working on a project with him,” she said, knowing she would be breaking the law if she said anything about ATI acquiring Jamison’s.
“Can I see some identification?” the man asked, picking up a clipboard.
Kate grimaced. “I didn’t grab my purse. But I really need to see Carlo. It’s urgent. Please, I can’t explain but this is something only he can help to fix,” she said, her eyes pleading with the guard to understand.
The man put down the clipboard and looked at her for a long moment. “What’s your name?” he asked, reaching for the phone.
“Kate Avril,” she said, worried that Carlo would ignore her calls, just as she’d ignored his all weekend.
He dialed a number quickly. “Betsy, I have a person down at the security desk who wants to talk to your boss. She says her name is Kate Avril but doesn’t have any ID.”
There was silence while he listened. Then, “Long brown hair, blue eyes, about five feet, three inches tall, thin,” he said, describing Kate’s appearance.
“Five, four,” she corrected, standing up to her full height. She wondered how he had guessed her height so accurately when she was wearing three inch heels, taking her up to the average woman’s height. She supposed he was used to eliminating shoe height when guessing.
He nodded and hung up the phone. He picked up what looked to be a temporary badge, he slid it through a card reading machine and typed in some information. Handing it to her, he said, “This will get you up to Mr. Attracelli’s floor but no where else in the building.”
Kate smiled brightly, immensely relieved that she wasn’t going to be stopped. “Thank you,” she said, grateful that he wasn’t just a bully security guard who found his worth by belittling others.
She rode up the elevator on trembling knees hoping her stomach wouldn’t start acting up again as it had this morning.
As soon as she stepped off the elevator, a smiling elderly woman with a sensible blue suit and low-heeled blue shoes greeted her. “Hello, I’m Betsy Meyers, Carlo’s secretary,” she said and held out her hand for Kate to shake.
Kate was relieved. “I didn’t think Carlo would see me,” she said. “There’s been some tension between the two of us. He’s probably not very happy with me.”
Betsy’s smile widened and her eyes twinkled. “He might not. I didn’t tell him you were coming,” she said.
Kate’s eyes dimmed. This was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.
Betsy wasn’t having any of that. She waved Kate down the hallway. “Carlo is furious with you for not returning his calls. In fact, he mentioned to me this morning that if you were to finally call, that he wouldn’t take your call.”
Kate stopped in the middle of the hallway. “But he has to. Please, help me get in to see him. I know he’s furious with me but I have some information he’ll want to know about.”
Kate wiped the tears from her eyes, hating any show of