Speed Dating by Nancy Warren Read Free Book Online Page B

my pleasure to present this year’s Sharpened Pencil Award to Kendall Clarke.”
    “Hah,” she said, tipping her head back to smile at Dylan. “Talk about good timing.”
    “This is your award?”
    “Yep. I’m Actuary of the Year. I have to give a speech. Kiss me for luck?”
    He did, and the tingle on her lips was just the fuel she needed to make the long walk to the podium.
    All the dark-clad men and women at all the tables in ballrooms A and B were clapping.
    They were clapping for her. The tiny voice that had ruled her, sleeping and waking, for so many years, was throwing some kind of hissy fit, but she couldn’t hear it over the sound of polite applause.

CHAPTER FIVE
    S HE WALKED to the microphone and there was the president of her organization, Gordon Carstairs, staring at her as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.
    Mr. Carstairs had been a friend of her father’s and ran the only insurance company in Portland larger than the one where she worked.
    “Thank you very much.” She reached forward to kiss him, Hollywood-style, and he pushed the award forward, Actuary Association-style. The sharp point of the trophy, a sharpened pencil, poked her right above her heart. Somehow, that seemed significant.
    She stared out at all those dark suits and dresses, all those white-moon faces staring at her.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, guests, colleagues.” Pause. Breathe. “Trust is the cornerstone of our business.”
    Trust. The word seemed to shimmer in her mind so each letter sizzled neon.
    “Trust.” She repeated the word, hearing it echo around the still, waiting room.
    Three hundred ghostly faces stared at her. Marvin sat about three tables from the front. Through some trick of the overhead lighting, or maybe the fluorescent bounce of his pale blond hair, he stood out.
    If she scanned her gaze to the left, to the entrance and exit to the ballroom, there was Dylan, standing with his back against the wall, watching her.
    In that moment, everything inside her went still.
    The silence lengthened to become a palpable thing—something you could feel in the air, like humidity. She heard some shuffling, and a couple of cleared throats. Somewhere, somebody started chatting in a low voice.
    She felt dizzy, and realized inside her she’d sailed blindly into the perfect emotional storm.
    She glanced at the Sharpened Pencil Award she’d placed on the podium. So straight that pencil was, so sharp. And she started to speak.
    “I am honored that you would choose me for this prestigious award, but I can’t accept it.”
    Actuaries weren’t the most emotive of souls, and there was not so much as a gasp from the audience. She noticed that the chatting stopped, though, and the silence felt keener.
    She smiled. “I know these speeches are usually pretty boring. Let’s face it, our jobs are pretty boring, but what we do is important. Without us and our calculations, retirees could run out of money before running out of life. Insurance companies would go bankrupt if we didn’t calculate risk. What we do matters.”
    She took a sip from the glass of water that had been provided.
    “I talked about trust, but there’s more than just trust involved in being a good actuary. We also need to act with integrity and good judgment.”
    She looked straight at Marvin. “I’ve always pridedmyself on my judgment, but somewhere I went badly wrong. I became engaged to a man who has been carrying on with another woman under my nose. We three are colleagues in the same office, and I was clueless.”
    She shook her head, appalled. She had everyone’s attention now.
    “I think a person who is so blind to the kind of deceit and drama going on in her own life might not be sharp enough to catch discrepancies in her work.”
    She paused to sip more water. Her hands were surprisingly steady.
    “Trust, integrity and good judgment are three cornerstones.” And what kind of judgment are you showing now? an inner voice railed.
    “But a building has