"Absolutely. I am definitely on your side. It's just that, well, Cruz Sweetwater is one of the men of Amber Inc. Everyone pays attention when a Sweetwater shows up. It's like having a Guild boss walk into the room. Actually, a lot of people would say that now that Cruz has taken over his family's private security business, he's got more power here in Frequency than the head of the local Guild."
"That wouldn't be hard," Lyra said dryly, "given the fact that the local Guild is between bosses at the moment."
"You know what I mean."
Lyra sighed. "I know. Sorry. I'm just feeling a little testy."
Harold Taylor, the chief of the Frequency Guild, had died recently, and the Council had yet to select a new boss. But that was, Lyra had to admit, a technicality. Nancy was right. As the new CEO of Amber Inc. Security, Cruz Sweetwater did wield more power than a Guild chief, at least aboveground. When it came to the underground world, the men of Amber Inc. had historically maintained very close working relationships with the Guilds. In Lyra's opinion, the association was not unlike an alliance between two criminal organizations that had agreed to respect each other's territories.
The ability to psychically resonate with amber had begun to appear in the colonists shortly after they had arrived from Earth. Initially it had been considered an odd adaptation to the environment with no practical importance. But when the energy Curtain that had made travel between the home planet and a host of new worlds possible had closed without warning, amber had become the one thing that stood between the colonists and total disaster.
When their high-tech machines inevitably began to fail, the struggling members of the First Generation—united in their determination not to be the last generation on Harmony—had turned to amber as a source of energy. It had served their descendants well in the two hundred years since the closing of the Curtain. Today it powered everything from washing machines to computers.
The immutable laws of economics being what they were, whoever controlled the mining of standard resonating amber—SRA—controlled a lot of things on Harmony. And for the past fifty years, the mysterious, reclusive Sweetwater family had managed to corner a huge chunk of the market. Amber Inc.'s only serious competitor was the RezStone corporation, which controlled an equally large market share. The rivalry between the two firms was legendary.
"You can't blame me for being a little curious about Cruz Sweetwater," Nancy said. "I never even got to meet him three months ago when you were dating him."
"Take it from me: curiosity is a dangerous thing when it comes to Mr. Sweetwater," Lyra said.
He was very close now. The sparkling sensation fluttering across all her senses was making it hard to breathe. The half-empty glass she held trembled ever so slightly in her fingers. She could literally feel Cruz closing in on her. The urge to run was almost overpowering. Unfortunately, what she wanted to do was run to him, not from him. It was crazy, she thought. If she had any common sense, she would slip out the back door. Whatever Cruz wanted from her, it was a sure bet that it would not be good for her.
But the memory of the purple orchids sitting in the black vase on her coffee table swamped common sense. The latest delivery of the spectacularly gorgeous, outrageously expensive flowers had arrived that afternoon. The card that had accompanied them was identical to all the others: "We were meant for each other." There was no signature. There was never a signature.
She had dared to dream these past few weeks, but she was forced to acknowledge that her lovely little fantasy involving the return of Cruz Sweetwater had a dark side. Part of her was terrified that the romantic scenario she had conjured was nothing more than a seductive new variant of the strange, waking nightmares that had been plaguing her recently. If that was the case, at least it was a far more enjoyable hallucination than the others she had experienced.
The unnerving episodes were getting worse. She had not confided in anyone, including Nancy, half afraid that even talking about the strange visions would somehow make the awful dreams more real.
"There he is," Nancy said in a breathy voice. "He just walked into the room. I recognize him from the pictures in the newspapers. Wow. I see what you mean."
"I told you, the clothes are good."
"The suit is terrific," Nancy said. "Nothing like black on black to bring out the best in the male of the species, I always say. But that wasn't what I was talking about. It's that cool, sophisticated hit man thing he has going. You're right. Wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley." She managed a slinky, theatrical shudder. "Now a darkened bedroom, on the other hand—"
"Don't go there," Lyra warned.
"You're just saying that because you didn't get there, yourself. I ask you again, as I have so many times these past three months. What were you thinking, woman?"
"Gee, I don't know. Maybe about self-preservation? What was I supposed to do, after I discovered that he was about to screw me out of the amber discovery of the decade, if not the century? Let him screw me literally? I don't think so. Besides, I was reading that marriage manual at the time, and it strongly advised against going to bed with a man too soon."
She had bought Ten Steps to a Covenant Marriage: Secrets of a Professional Matchmaker immediately after meeting Cruz. She had been so sure he was the right man. She had not wanted to leave anything to chance. The Dore luck had a way of going sour when you needed it the most.
But in the end, she had never had the opportunity to fall victim to temptation. And it was not Ten Steps to a Covenant Marriage that had saved her. The truth that she would never admit to anyone, not even her best friend, was that it was Cruz who had drawn the invisible line in their short-lived relationship.
He had never even tried to lure her into bed. There had been plenty of torrid kisses and a lot of heavy breathing three months ago, but that was as far as matters had gone. How much worse would she have felt after the heavy boot of Amber Inc. had come crashing down on her if she had made the mistake of sleeping with Cruz?
Then again, how much worse could she have felt?
"Here's a tip, friend," Nancy said. "Next time you meet a really interesting man, you might want to wait until after you've had a little fun in bed before you file a lawsuit against him and his company. Guys tend to get annoyed when they get sued."
"For all the good it did me." Amber Inc. had swatted her pathetic lawsuit and her even more pathetic lawyer without breaking a sweat.
"How did you do that, anyway?" Nancy asked, her attention still riveted on the scene behind Lyra.
"File a suit?" Lyra shrugged. "It's not that hard. It just takes money. A lot of it. More than I had, as it turns out."
"I wasn't talking about the lawsuit," Nancy said impatiently. "I meant, how did you guess that Cruz Sweetwater was about to walk into this reception a few minutes ago? You knew he was here before he even entered the room. What's up with that?"
"Probably some sort of primitive survival instinct. Too bad it wasn't working three months ago."
But the reality was that her para-senses had been instantly and indelibly tuned to Cruz Sweetwater the first moment they had met. She had never actually concocted a mental image of her personal dream man, but she had recognized Cruz the moment she met him. This is the one you've been waiting for.
That bone-deep certainty had intensified with each hour they had spent together and with each scorching kiss. Three months and a futile lawsuit later, the psychic bond had not weakened one bit. She was pretty sure that three years, three decades, or the rest of her life could pass, and still a frisson of knowing recognition would alert her if Cruz suddenly showed up anywhere in her vicinity. You were supposed to be mine.