Raven (Kindred #1) by Scarlett Finn Page A

you can call me and I’ll come in if you need someone to record meetings and—”
    “No,” he said, holding up a firm hand that suggested his own panic. “That meeting is not to be recorded anywhere, do you understand? It happened in the way it did for a specific reason.”
    Grant was keeping secrets. If Raven hadn’t brought that to her attention, Zara wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken her to come to that conclusion on her own. She and Grant had an honest working relationship and she couldn’t figure out why that would change when there had been no big event to cause such a fracture in their rapport.
    “You know that I’m with you, don’t you?” she said, locking her gaze on his while lowering her chin a fraction. She touched the sharp tip of a pencil in the pot on his desk. “Whatever is going on, whatever you’re doing… you’re not alone.”
    Grant’s anger and disappointment cleared and he scrutinized her for a few seconds. Whatever he was looking for in her, she wanted to portray her fidelity to the company and to this man who made good business decisions and had provided her with a lucrative career.
    Raven was a tempting figure. Alluring in the sense that he was dangerous and fleeting, something that few women could hold onto. He’d come into a woman’s life, smash it to pieces, and then fade into the night never to be seen again. Zara did not want to trash her own life only to be left with chaos when Raven had taken what he wanted from her. Grant and this company were the solid foundation of her life.
    He must have gotten the message, because his frown faded. “I’m setting up a deal,” Grant said. “To sell a piece of tech that’s been protected by those in the highest levels of Cormack Industries for decades.”
    “Decades?” she asked, and he again gestured for her to sit, which she did in time with him.
    All previously frazzled emotion receded into their familiar corporate calm. “Technology has evolved, and in recent years there have been great advances. However, not every piece of technology is some whizz kid’s invention. Many things have been theorized for a long time. Some of our most elite R&D guys have been working patents filed in years gone by for products that were not viable with the contemporary technologies.”
    “And now this piece that you’re trying to sell, it’s viable.” With a single nod, he smiled and linked his fingers in front of his chest. “I don’t understand. If CI has refined this piece and gotten it ready for market, why not sell it through conventional means? Why have unrecorded meetings in the dead of night?”
    “This piece is revolutionary,” he said. A glint of excitement in his eye came closer when he leaned on the desk. “The bidding has to be private because whoever gains this prototype will require exclusive rights and they may further develop the product. Such information will of course be proprietary.”
    “You’re handling the negotiations personally?” she asked.
    Grant handling initial negotiations was unusual. Preliminaries were always done by vice-presidents or lower associates. If Grant wanted to be part of a significant deal, he didn’t enter the boardroom with clients until the latter stages. And giving out the private phone number was unheard of.
    “This deal was important to my father and to Frank,” Grant said. “It’s the least I could do.”
    Family. Grant never brought up family and he wasn’t a man who liked to expose his vulnerabilities. But it was too much of a coincidence that Raven had mentioned the McCormack family and now Grant was bringing it up for the first time in their association. Tim’s death, the meeting, her attack, it was all linked to this product.
    At least she now understood one thing, if this was a deal important to his father, it made sense that Grant would want to handle it himself. “I understand,” she said.
    “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what you saw or what you