Chase Anthony Brighton stalked gracefully across the checkered tile lobby of his floor and paused to nod at his colleague as the other man stepped into his own office.  He gave a short wink to the shapely brunette receptionist doggedly following the old man, and she laughed in return, waving him back to his own business with a quick flip of her fingers.  She had no illusions about why she had been hired and given a quick promotion by ‘dear old Mr. Winstead’ and Chase had no illusions that she would be going anywhere anytime soon with her outrageous salary for such simple work.  Most of the time, she fetched coffee and made copies – when she wasn’t updating every file in the senile old man’s office to the computers for when he passed on.  Chase gave a half-smirk to his own secretary, a young and pretty, but homely looking graduate student from the local university.  She smiled serenely and ignored the look he had given her.  He could only surmise that she was hoping to get a letter of recommendation to a local design firm at the end of her tenure with him.  She was smart enough, and efficient enough, and Chase just didn’t have the heart to be able to break hers.  She had sorted and filed and typed all summer, and more than once, her organization skills had come in handy after Madeline had dug through his office and wrecked a presentation.  She would get a glowing letter, he guessed, even if she had to write it herself.  He leaned on the desk with an air of impatience and allowed her to pick through this morning’s messages in order of importance, or at least what she thought was most important.  When she began listing his meetings and consultations for the day, he noticed there was one more message note sheet under the color-coded schedule book.  Chase casually leaned over and fished it out; his secretary started slightly, but waited for his to read it calmly before glancing up at him in an obviously bored manner.  He had to give the girl respect for knowing he would have zoned out if she had given him this particular message first, and would have probably missed some of his meeting agenda by walking away – and she had the grace not to blush when caught as well.  That alone told him what she thought of his loud and often rude caller.

“Tell Mr. Ammeretti that our lunch meeting is still on, but we’re moving it to the Russian Tea room on West 57^th street.  I’m sure he can find it.  If Mr. Ralston calls, put him through.  It is very important that I speak with him as soon as possible to set up a meeting while he is in New York.”  Chase paused, working out the time table of his day in his head.  His schedule currently allowed for a two-hour meeting with Luiso Ammeretti for lunch and then at least a three, no better make that two, hours for an evening meeting with Thomas Ralston if he made it into town early enough.  That would be more of a family gathering than a meeting, so he wasn’t worried too much about being around Thomas’s family.  He, after all, still had to feign interest in whatever Madeline, his dear fiancée, had called for this time.  His secretary had scribbled urgent in quotation marks, but he could see from her eye roll, that it would probably be far from important.  Knowing Madeline, it would most likely be what color shoes she should buy at Saks to match that new dress, didn’t he remember the one?, or would he be such a dear and fetch her purchases from Neiman Marcus on his way to her apartment?  Chase’s lips lifted into a pleasant smile as he turned his mind away from Madeline and toward the thought of Thomas’s step-daughter.  She should be headed into town at least for a little while to catch her sister’s shows while she was still state-side.  Catching himself tromping down a road of regret, he addressed his secretary again.  

“If Madeline calls, tell her I’ll be out and about for the day, but she can always call my cell.  If she’s lost it again, give it to her yet again.”  Chase wondered at the patience of his secretary with his new fiancée.  “And try not to drop the call too many times this time.”  Poor Madeline was always losing things and a cell phone number, or better yet, her new cell phone was often the last thing on her poor little taxed mind.  If it didn’t pay for itself or keep her apprised of the latest society gossip, she just wasn’t interested.  The only time she could keep track of the damn little cricket was when it was attached to her head and she was trashing some poor girl who didn’t have the same designer fashion sense as Madeline’s witchy little friends.  He chuckled to himself as he lifted himself off the edge of his secretary’s desk and headed to his office.  If there was one thing right about that thought, it was that Madeline’s mind was taxed by very little.  She was quite often vapid, and not for the first time, Chase wondered why he had ever agreed to marry her in the first place.  It wasn’t as if his mother actually cared for her either.  In fact, Venetia Brighton downright despised the girl.  But, since his father’s passing, there was very little that Venetia actually cared for.

Chase supposed it was Thomas’s step-daughter’s fault that he was leg-shackled to Madeline.  Antoinette had been the one that introduced him to Madeline in the first place.  Back then, she was pretty and perky, but hadn’t seemed as money-hungry, or sometimes downright vicious, as she was now.  And then, Antoinette had left a crying Madeline on his doorstep while she jetted off to Malawi, or whatever developing country in who knows where.  The only thing Chase had been able to do to get the wailing debutante to shut up had been to kiss her, and then, he couldn’t get rid of her.  He had tried to break up with the poor girl twice in the last six years and the only thing that succeeded in doing was giving him a headache.  He supposed it could be worse.   She was decently pretty, with a good family line, and so airheaded that she would be able to smile and look pretty as he vied for the New York senate seat.  Chase knew better than anyone that the Senate seats were hard to secure if anyone tied to the mob opposed you, so he had taken extra care not to impinge on anyone’s known territory or business while building his own.  Albeit, Chase had also taken special precautions to make sure his business had no dealings with the mobs or any undercover operations.  Import and architecture in New York weren’t the easiest things to keep in clean operation, but at least he was a private and not public shipper, and his reputation in South Carolina had made it easier to hand-select his clientele.  Chase was also known for not taking any high profile cases as a rule of thumb, since he didn’t care to get wrapped up in anything deeper than Madeline’s hobbies.  These days, he could afford to be picky about his cargo, and demand a higher price because of it.

As he pushed the door closed behind him, Chase wondered how much work he could get done before Madeline would get bored with waiting and call him again.  He guessed that he had at least 30 minutes.  He could add another 30 minutes if his secretary feigned ignorance and hung up on her a couple of times before either forwarding the call, or giving Madeline his cell number for the tenth time.  He didn’t blame her, really.  He just wished he didn’t have to deal with the whining about her supposed incompetence it involved and then having to listen to the numerous ‘oh so obvious’ reasons why he should fire her and hire another secretary.  The last time, Chase had given the poor secretary a raise.  He usually just listened to her tirade until he broke down and mentioned hiring a secretary like Winstead and effectively launched her into another diatribe about how he was going to leave her for a secretary and how would that look in the Post?  Usually, chase couldn’t help but mumble “smart” under his breath at that point, attempting to cut her off by any means possible.  Chase paused in his musings and flipped on his computer.  He loaded his email and scanned through, noticing a new one from Mrs. Ralston, and surprisingly one from his mother as well.

Chase, against his better judgment, opened his mother’s note first and scanned the few lines.  He could imagine her ticking away at the keys, careful not to chip one of her manicured nails.  His mother had always been a beauty and nothing if not straight to the point, which is what his father had loved so much about her.  Lately, she had seemed to waste away in the looming two story mansion and it saddened Chase that she was so lost without his father.  However, the neatly worded missive about how she would be grateful if he would take an evening out of his busy schedule to make an appearance at the Ralston house for their annual neighborly get together in Charleston had him raising an eyebrow.  Such a flowery skip around her demand that he show up and ‘make the nice,’ as she often called it was almost enough to make him hit the reply button.  He supposed it was time to settle down and give his mother grandchildren to break her out of her downward slump.  He stayed his fingers over the mouse and looked at the date and time of the other feminine email in his inbox.  Since it was getting closer to that time of year, he assumed Mrs. Ralston’s email would have a similar invitation.  It would probably have a similar tone as well.  Antoinette’s mother had perfected the passive aggressive guilt trip.  Chase could remember being on the receiving end of her snide, yet perfectly proper requests more than once in the years he had spent at their summer home in Charleston.  He quirked his lips and scanned through the rest of the notices, marking several off as junk mail.  There was one from his lawyer, probably about the prenuptial agreement he was drafting, and one from his broker, definitely outlining their plans for the investments next quarter, and one from an address he didn’t recognize.  His security measures hadn’t filtered the document out as junk, and yet something made him want to delete the note anyway.  His pointer hovered over the link for a moment as he debated whether or not to open it.

Chase’s mind jerked back to the present with the ringing of his cell.  He dragged the device out of his pocket and scanned the identification as if he needed it with the obnoxious jingle coming from it:  Madeline.  He waited for a second while checking the time on his computer before sliding the phone open and answering.  He had just enough time to talk to her for a few moments before his noon meeting.  Chase made sure to make appropriate murmurs of consent at the contents of Madeline’s busy schedule as he gathered up his contract drafts and designs and filed them away in his briefcase.  She continued listing off her plans for the afternoon.  Mentally, Chase made a reminder to invite Madeline to stay at the Brighton house for the Christmas get-together with the Ralstons.  For some reason, the Brighton house and their holiday party with their neighbors triggered a thought of the email still sitting unopened in his inbox, but he could not place the cause.  It continued to weigh on his conscious, as he shut down the computer, but it would have to wait until later, he thought, as he clicked off the monitor and strolled out of his office, motioning to his secretary to lock up when she left.  He knew she would understand this to mean he would not be back for the afternoon.  Whatever or whoever it was, could definitely wait.