Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley Read Free Book Online Page B

thirstily, Luigi had stood staring at them and trying to understand how it was that the Duchess had known. His eyes had not left the Duke’s lips in all of the time that they had been there and he knew that the Duke had not spoken to the Duchess. Yet she had known. There must be, he had reasoned, some mysterious manner of silent speech between them. Now he knew that there was that same gift of wordless communication between Mr. Bullard and Miss Martin. She, too, had some way of knowing what he wanted before he asked for it. He had seen it happen many times.
    Luigi had never dared to pursue the parallel because he also knew that the Duchess was the Duke’s wife and Miss Martin was only Mr. Bullard’s secretary. If, in the case of the Duke and the Duchess there had been some connection between the love that made them man and wife, and their ability to talk without speaking, there had to be some other explanation for the case of Miss Martin and Mr. Bullard. Luigi never tried to find that explanation because he was certain that it would require a high order of thinking of which his mind was sure to be incapable. In any event it didn’t matter. Miss Martin was, above any woman that he had ever known, beautiful and intelligent and kind, and a part of the pleasure he found in coming to the twenty-fourth floor were these moments when he stood in the doorway and spoke her name and she would look up pleasantly startled, speaking his.
    â€œHello, Luigi.”
    â€œTelegram, Miss Martin.”
    He waited while she opened the envelope, noting the quick-flashing instant of reaction as she read the message, following her eyes as she glanced at a time-table that seemed to have been waiting for this moment, then back at the time stamp on the telegram again.
    â€œMr. Bullard’s coming in this afternoon. Probably on the five-four.”
    â€œYou want me tell Eddie be there with the car?”
    â€œWill you?”
    â€œSure, Miss Martin, I tell him.”
    â€œAnd, Luigi, please ask Eddie not to have the car sitting out in the sun. It gets so terribly hot and Mr. Bullard will be worn out after two hard days in New York.”
    Luigi nodded. “Mr. Bullard come back here from the train?”
    â€œYes. He’s called an executive committee meeting for six o’clock.”
    â€œThen I tell Maria not to wait dinner.”
    â€œThere’s no reason why you have to wait, Luigi. There’ll be a night man on who can take us down after the meeting.”
    â€œNo, I wait!” he said quickly. “Waiting don’t matter, not for him.”
    Unexpectedly, her eyes flashed up, searching his face as if she suspected some hidden meaning, giving him the uncomfortable feeling of having said some improper thing. Suddenly, his self-conscious concern seemed to be matched by hers and an instant later she was laughing.
    â€œIt’s a hard life, isn’t it, Luigi?” But the words had no meaning for they floated out on a wave of denying laughter. Then, as quickly as the laughter had come, she turned and was reaching for the telephone.
    Walking back to the elevator cab, Luigi toyed with the temptation of trying to make himself understand what had happened—why Miss Martin had looked at him in that strange way and then so suddenly broken into laughter—but there was no explanation that came before he saw the first-floor signal glowing like a beckoning jewel from the control panel.
    Going down the shaft, all that remained in his mind was the pleasantly echoing sound of Miss Martin’s laughter. It was too bad that his wife did not laugh like that. But a man could not expect everything. He was very fortunate. There were men … even men who were very intelligent and had been to college … who did not have a wife.
    3.11 P.M. EDT
    Erica Martin hesitated, her fingertips playing nervously over the black arch of the telephone instrument. Here again was that annoying puzzle of