* * *
It was 4:20 p.m. when he knocked at her office door. “Yes?” she called.
“It’s Duke Cochran.” He opened the door as he said it. “You still haven’t given me that interview.”
She looked at him. Get it over with, Lee, she told herself. “I suspect, Mr. Cochran, that you won’t find it much of an interview. Much of what I do is confidential.”
His gaze had turned to her wall screen, where she’d been playing with the chart. Reaching to her keyboard, she turned it off. “Sorry,” she said, “that’s part of what’s confidential. And the most interesting part of what I do.”
He grinned. “Part of what’s interesting,” he answered. “You’re the other part, the major part: How you came to be here, what your life is like here, what you like and dislike about this place, and why. What you did before you got involved with Millennium. That sort of thing.”
He pulled a chair to him and sat down on it backward, facing her. “So when can we get together? I want to very much, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up enjoying it too.”
Her look and tone of voice were businesslike, as he’d expected. “I can give you one hour this evening, 7:30 to 8:30. I’ll be coming back anyway, to finish off some things.”
He got to his feet. “Thanks, Lee. I’ll be here at 7:30 on the dot. I’m looking forward to it.”
When he’d gone, she stared at the closed door for a long moment, then shook her head and turned the wall screen back on. She had trouble concentrating though, and left a few minutes early.
* * *
It seemed to her he must have been watching through the window in the elevator alcove, and seen her coming down the sidewalk. She herself used the stairs. Her office was on the third floor, and she believed in taking advantage of exercise opportunities. She’d hardly hung up her coat before he knocked. “Come in,” she said cordially; she’d make the best of this.
He was grinning again as he entered, reminding her of a college jock, a Big Man On Campus. He was definitely attractive and very sexy, and unquestionably he knew it. Thought of himself as God’s Gift to Women, she had no doubt. He hung up his jacket. Beneath it he wore a knit polo shirt well out of season. His arms were large and muscular, as if he worked out. His belt fitted snugly, with no fatty bulge. A hard body.
She pulled her gaze away, wondering if she’d stared. Two of her visitor chairs had desk arms, like a school desk, and he positioned one to face her from no more than five feet away. Closer than she preferred. Then he put a recorder on her work table, its pickup facing them, and smiling, sat down with an electronic notebook. He was, she thought, more attractive when he simply smiled. His grin had seemed aggressive.
She glanced at her wall clock. “It’s almost 7:30. We might as well start. The ball’s in your court, Mr. Cochran.”
“Fine. I’ll do a better job of this if we start at the beginning and move toward present time. Where were you born?”
“Good. I was afraid you’d ask when. I was born in Rochester, New York. Grew up there, went to school there, and went to college at Syracuse, only an hour and a half away.”
“Whoa!” he said. “From the cradle to the university in what? Four sentences? I need more than that.”
He took the interview over then, completely, and she discovered he was very good at what he did. When it occurred to her to look at the clock, it was 9:05, and he knew more about her early years than almost anyone. About her best friends in childhood, early boyfriends, stories of living in the Delta House . . . She hadn’t told him everything, of course.
“My god!” she said, “It’s after nine! And we never got close to Millennium! I really have to go home.”
His smile was warm and reassuring. “But it’s gone well,” he said. “The early years are the most important, and I feel as if I really know you now. Next time we’ll talk about your career before you came here. After that we’ll talk about Millennium.”