Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steel Page A

and still do in some places. I think you've already carved a remarkable spot for yourself, particularly in dealing with high-tech companies for them. But the reality is they're still sending guys like Paul Black out to see clients with you. Those guys still have more power than you do. You do the work, and they get all the glory.” It was something she had thought herself for years, but she didn't want to admit it to him.
    “You're a real rabble-rouser, aren't you, Mr. Dow?” She looked at him with a broad grin. “What do you want me to do? Go back and quit? They'd love that.”
    “No, I guess I'm just shit-disturbing a little bit. When I see a good thing, I hate not having a piece of the action. We work well together, Meredith. We think alike in a lot of ways. I hate to waste that.”
    She couldn't help agreeing with him, but they hadn't exactly wasted it either. “I wouldn't say we've been wasting time, would you?” They had put together a hell of a good IPO, working together.
    “Of course not. I'm just already thinking about how much I'm going to hate it when our stint together is over. I may have to call you for advice every day. I'm already having withdrawals, thinking about it.”
    She laughed at what he said. “I told you, you'll be sick to death of me by the time the road show is over. But you can always call me.”
    “You'll probably be on the road with some other novice, whining and sniveling and needing you to hold his hand while you take his company public.”
    “Not for a while anyway. I'm going to take it easy for a few weeks. Steve and I have hardly seen each other all summer.”
    “I don't know how you do that,” he said admiringly. “Maybe that's how you've kept your marriage together for fourteen years. Maybe it works better if you don't see each other all the time,” although that hadn't been true for him, and he knew that.
    “Steve says it's like being married to a flight attendant.”
    “Not exactly,” Cal smiled at her, and seemed to relax at the end of a long week. He was looking forward to spending the weekend with his children before he left for Boston on Sunday. “How about an early dinner with my little monsters? I'll take you to the airport myself in time for the red-eye. You won't have to leave the house till eight thirty.”
    Although she had agreed to meet them, she had resisted the offer of dinner earlier, but it seemed too awkward now to keep insisting she didn't want to impose on him, she enjoyed his company, and was curious about his children. “Are you sure they won't mind your dragging a stranger home from the office?”
    “They'll survive it. They're used to businesswomen, like their mother. They don't pay much attention to what I do. At this point, all the girls are interested in is short skirts and makeup. And all Andy cares about is my Ferrari. I don't talk about work much with them.”
    “That's probably just as well. They've got plenty of time for that later.”
    “We just got back from Tahoe last weekend, and they started school yesterday. They were all complaining about it this morning.”
    They walked out of his office together, and almost everyone else had gone home by then. His Ferrari was in the parking lot. He had driven Meredith down from San Francisco in it, her bags were still in the trunk, and as she got back in now, he put the top down.
    “We're only five minutes from my house. It's nice to get a little air,” he said easily. It was at least fifteen degrees warmer in Palo Alto than it had been in the city. And Meredith enjoyed the brief ride with the top down.
    They were chatting comfortably, as he pulled into a driveway with hedges on either side, and a gate opened automatically when he pressed a button on his visor. And once it opened, she saw a handsome stone house, with a large expanse of lawn to one side, several beautiful old trees, and a big swimming pool, with a bunch of children in it, and several others sitting on deck chairs wrapped in