Conflict of Interest by Jayne Castle Page B

fearing that she’d wakened him.
    But he continued to sleep, dark lashes resting quietly on his cheekbones, his harsh face relaxed. When she was again certain it was safe to move, Kali finished her retreat to the edge of the bed and stood up hastily. Her one driving thought was to get away, return to her own home where she could think…
    She found her clothing where it had been left in the living room and dressed, shivering, in front of the poor heat remaining in the fireplace. It was only as she located her purse and was hurrying toward the door that she remembered Nalg.

    The little robot was standing quietly in the kitchen, apparently communing with the wall. The sensor which functioned as an eye followed her as she moved past the door but the creature didn’t move.
    As if it were a living being staring at her, Kali felt obliged to say something. „Good night, Nalg. Thanks for doing the dishes.“
    There was no response and Kali realized the machine probably wasn’t capable of receiving verbal input or instructions in a voice that wasn’t Lang’s. It was extremely difficult to program a robot to take verbal input. To a machine the same word sounded entirely different when it was spoken by different voices. So Nalg was probably only capable of responding to his creator’s voice. As for the apparent communion he was conducting with a wall… Kali smiled crookedly for an instant as she realized the robot was merely plugged into a socket for the night so that its batteries would be recharged by morning.
    Kali hurried on toward the front door, her mind beginning to churn as it picked up the clues of the disaster which had befallen her and started putting them together into a coherent whole. The end product was going to be devastating.

CHAPTER SIX
    Why?
    The question which had been haunting Kali since she’d fled Lang’s home in the early hours of the morning came back again and again as she plunged into the work awaiting her at the office.
    Why had Lang seduced her? Was it because of a need to placate his male pride? Had he wanted to show her he could manipulate her?
    Or was it because he thought that if he controlled her physically he could wangle an even better deal out of IAI?
    Kali wanted to flinch from each of the possible explanations but she forced herself to face them with typical level-headed determination. His own explanation, that he was simply, overwhelmingly attracted to her, didn’t wash. Men weren’t simply, overwhelmingly attracted to her, Kali reminded herself grimly.
    A perceptive few had shown a proper appreciation for her business capability and talents and during the past few years there had been two or three who had proposed marriage, discounting Davis Wakefield’s proposal, of course. But the relationships had been built on such things as respect, admiration, and common interests. There hadn’t been a single man to Kali’s recollection who had declared he couldn’t live without her in his bed.
    Not that she wanted such a declaration, she reminded herself violently as she forced her way through a report Mike Jarvis had prepared on the Japanese industry’s approach to the use of robots in factories. Other than the fact that the approach varied from the more cautious mood in the United States – which she already knew – Kali was not getting a lot out of the report. She reached out and touched the button of her intercom.
    „Joanna, would you track down Mike Jarvis and ask him to come to my office, please?“
    „Right away, Kali.“
    Kali sat tapping the report with an impatient finger, waiting. And while she waited she fought to keep her mind from straying into the realm of the other problem in her life.
    „Did you want me, Kali?“ Mike sauntered through her doorway a few moments later, a cup of coffee in one hand and a smile on his handsome mouth for Kali’s brisk, middle-aged, and highly efficient secretary, Joanna Mills.
    „I’ve read the report on Japan’s approach to the use