couple that prove for a fact that Ace Cooper not only knew about the dumping campaign in Prudence, but ordered it himself.’
‘Holy shit,’ Clara gasped, ‘this will make the whole case.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Bobby nodded, ‘just like I said.’
A world of emotion welled up inside of her and Clara threw her arms around the man. ‘Thank you!’ she sighed, kissing him tenderly on the cheek. ‘You’ll be a hero after this.’
A dark look came into Bobby’s eyes. ‘No I won’t,’ he said, ‘I’m going to try my hardest to make sure nobody knows the leak came from me and I hope you’ll do the same. This is my family, after all.’
Clara stared at him. ‘But you’ll be ruined,’ she said, ‘even if you don’t get charged on conspiracy with your father, you might be forced to resign.’
Bobby smiled. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but some things are more important than business. Besides, I been meaning to get back to the family ranch for a long time now. Breathe in the fresh air of the wilderness, just me and a steed to carry me across the sand.’
Clara smiled, she took his hand in hers. ‘You’ll always be a hero to me, Bobby Cooper,’ she said, ‘even if nobody else knows just what you gave up.’
‘Thank you Clara,’ Bobby said and held her in his strong embrace.
Bobby led her back out the way they’d come in, slipping ahead himself to make sure the coast was clear. It would be even more risky if she was caught on the Texxon grounds now, considering she now had these illegal documents in her possession. Luckily the area seemed to be deserted and Bobby soon hissed at her to step out of the shadows and hurry through the break in the fence.
‘Thank you!’ she whispered to him as she fled to the exit. She didn’t get a chance to hear his reply.
A few minutes later, she was back in her car. She looked at the folder in her hands in wonder. Right now it was the most valuable thing in the world. From here on out she would keep it on her person until she got a chance to unveil it in court. She couldn’t wait to see the look on Ace Cooper’s face when he saw that the most sensitive documents in his company were now in her hands.
She wondered if she’d ever get a chance to speak in private to Bobby again. As she drove off across the desert back towards the city she knew that it might never happen. That was the sacrifice that they both had to take.
###
Ad Men
Seducing the Heiress on the Skyscraper Roof
‘ Unleash your wild side ,’ the ad read with a picture of a puma beside a car, possessive and dominant. It was cute.
Jon Sugar ruffled the newspaper and cleared his throat. It was eight am and the train to the city was filled with professional working men making their way into New York to try to seize the day. No different, on the surface at least, than he was.
Jon was the creative director at Harlan Fisher Advertising Agency, one of the Madison Avenue firms, albeit a little smaller than the main contenders. But then, that was part of what he liked about it in the first place. The freedom afforded to him by the lower scale of operations; the opportunity to build something meaningful and strong; the control bestowed upon him, creative and otherwise.
He sat in an empty booth, with his legs crossed beneath the paper and a cigarette held in his fingers. He turned the page and scanned the stories. The Russians had just put a man in space, while elsewhere the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Nazi war criminal, was underway. Jon brought the cigarette to his lips and glanced dryly out the window as he inhaled. Things were definitely happening in the world, but sometimes it still seemed like nobody on the entire planet really knew what they were doing.
‘Rex?’
He almost reacted but did not. Surely they couldn’t mean –
‘Rex Walton? My God, it is you.’
A rush of adrenaline shot to his brain. From the outside it was imperceptible. He cleared his throat and glanced up. ‘Excuse