Page 14 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)

I had time to walk uptown, but I took a cab anyway, just to honor the promises my sisters and I had made to each other about safety. I dithered for just a few minutes outside the building before I had the nerve to take myself and my swirling flock of internal butterflies inside.

I took the elevator to the sixteenth floor and approached the door to Duncan Burke Solutions, Inc., gathering my nerve. As I reached for the handle, the door flew open.

I looked straight up into Duncan’s startled eyes. My throat clenched. So did my toes—and various other intimate parts of my anatomy.

His eyes flashed down over my body, taking it all in. “It’s you,” he said blankly.

“Yes,” I said, bemused. Did I get the appointment time wrong? Isn’t it tonight that we were supposed to meet to talk about the project with your brother?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he muttered. “Come on in.”

I was already regretting the dress. It didn’t cling provocatively, but the way he looked at me made me feel as if I was reclining naked, draped in silk, like Bathsheba in an old Renaissance painting. Come and get me. At your peril.

Or my peril, rather.

“You look different. You changed your hair.” His tone was faintly disapproving.

“Why, yes, I did. And so?” I said, instantly on the defensive.

He looked like he was about to speak again when a handsome young man strode out into the lobby. He flashed a big smile and shook my hand, continuing to hold it. “Wow. Duncan told me you were an excellent writer, but he didn’t say you were so pretty. Can I call you Nell?”

“No, you can’t,” Duncan said sharply. “Ms. D’Onofrio, this is my brother, Bruce. Please excuse his unprofessional behavior. It won’t happen again. Will it, Bruce?”

Unprofessional behavior …? For real? From him? Once again, that moment in the stairwell flashed through my mind, and I could tell it was in his mind, as well. His eyes met mine, then slid away, abashed. Hypocritical bastard.

“Uh … I guess it won’t.” Bruce looked chagrined. “Sorry.”

Duncan gestured toward the conference room. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

I marched into the room and sat down, pulling out my folder of notes just before the two men took their places across the table from me.

Bruce began. “Ms. D’Onofrio?—”

“Nell is really okay,” I told him.

“I prefer that he use ‘Ms. D’Onofrio,’” Duncan said.

There was an uncomfortable pause while my mind revved and stalled in one of those what’s-wrong-with-this-picture moments. That was swiftly followed by the what-the-hell-do-I-do-about-it moment, and at the end of the queue, the is-it-actually-worth-it moment.

Bruce tried again. “So, Ms. D’Onofrio, as I was about to say to?—”

“No,” I broke in.

The two men just looked at me in silent confusion.

“Um, no, what?” Bruce said carefully.

“In this context, I believe it is my own personal preferences which should determine how I’m addressed.” I stared into Bruce Burke’s eyes. “Can I call you Bruce?”

“Of course,” he said swiftly. “In fact, I insist on it.”

I turned to Duncan. “How about you? Since both of you would be Mr. Burke, using your surname would be confusing, don’t you agree?

” I waited, holding his gaze relentlessly and letting him ponder that moment last night in the stairwell for himself.

Like I was going to address a guy who had tongue-kissed me and brought me to orgasm by ‘Mr. Burke.’ As-fucking-if.

What would he want next? Sir? Not in this lifetime.

He looked like he’d swallowed a rock. “Fine. Call me Duncan.”

“Excellent,” I said briskly, turning to Bruce. “Then you can call me Nell.”

Bruce’s gaze flicked nervously toward his brother, then to me. “Ah … okay,” he said. “So, Nell. Moving on. Duncan showed me your writing sample. I was really impressed. I take it you’ve looked over our game outline?”

“Of course.” I’d been too rattled last night to review it, after the stairwell incident, but I had glanced at it this morning over my coffee, and had been pleasantly impressed.

“So?” Duncan prompted. “What do you think?”

I leafed through the folder, choosing my words carefully. “All in all, I think it’s great. The story is involving, and the graphics are beautiful.”

“Thanks. I sense the setup for a ‘but’,” Bruce said. “Let us have it.”

“It’s just that I think the choices the player needs to make to move through the game seem too, um ...” I hesitated, still reluctant to criticize.

“Too what?” Duncan demanded, his voice curt.

“Too rational,” I said. “Too logical.”

The two men looked at me, confused.

“If you want to appeal to people who love stories, it makes more sense to play up romantic, magical elements,” I continued. “Ultimately, to win, the player should be required to grow in some way—like a protagonist in a story with a growth arc.”

The frown that had creased Duncan’s brow since he opened the office door for me deepened. His chair creaked in protest as he pushed himself away from the table.

I pressed on. “I suggest introducing plot twists toward the end based on leaps of faith. Acts of selfless courage and generosity. This could deepen the feeling of mystery, intensify a sense of wonder, and set it apart from almost every other game of its type. Also, the game’s title.

‘The Dagger and the Thorn’ strikes me as, um . ..”

“Pointy?” Bruce grinned at me.

“Yes, exactly,” I said. “Warlike, aggressive, hyper-masculine. You’re want to market this game to women, too, right?

To that end, I recommend a more evocative, mythical, dreamlike image for the title.

When I read about the sixth-level forest sequence with the lake and the magical swans, I thought of ‘The Golden Egg.’ ”

“ The Golden Egg, ” Bruce mused. “That has possibilities.”

“I like it,” Duncan announced.

Bruce whipped his head around, incredulous. “Really? No shit, Duncan. You’ve never liked anything imaginative in your whole life!”

“Not the title,” he said. “I mean her hair.”

Bruce looked confused. I stared from one to the other, mortified.

Duncan looked defensive. “So? What of it? I didn’t think I liked it at first. Now, I’ve decided that I like it. Is that so hard to understand?”

After a moment of uncertain silence, Bruce spoke up gallantly.

“Well, ahh, fine. That was a sharp left turn in the conversation—par for the course when dealing with Duncan.” He shot me an apologetic look.

“I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing how you wore your hair before, so I can’t offer any comparisons, but I can certainly say that it looks lovely now.

If you’ll excuse the personal observation. ”

“Thank you,” I said, my face hot. “I suppose. Strangest two-headed, backwards compliment I’ve ever gotten—but whatever. I’ll take it.”

“And if you got the approval of anybody as resistant to change as my brother, you better believe—it’s a humdinger,” Bruce added.

“Shut up, Bruce,” Duncan said.

“You’re acting unprofessional, Dunc,” Bruce murmured. “Count your breaths, remember? Activate your parasympathetic nervous system.”

“Don’t start,” Duncan ground out. “You’re bugging me.”

“Listen, gentlemen. My hair is beside the point,” I said. “I’m not loving this sharp left turn. Let’s get back on track. I’d much rather talk about what you think of my ideas.”

“I don’t like them,” Duncan said.

I exhaled slowly. “I see.” Well, shitstickles. This was going nowhere fast.

“I don’t want an interactive fairy tale.” His voice was impatient. “I want a fantasy adventure quest. What you’re proposing sounds impossible to reason through—an exercise in useless frustration.”

“But that’s just it,” I argued. “Reason isn’t the only tool people use when they’re problem solving. There are spells to break, dragons to defeat, a princess to woo. It should require using more heart, more soul, not just the head. It should be romantic, unexpected, moving. Surprising.”

“Duncan hates surprises,” Bruce informed me.

“Shut up, Bruce,” Duncan snarled at him.

“Sheathe your claws, Dunc. You’re scaring her,” Bruce warned.

“Not at all,” I said. “I don’t scare easily.

” Which was true, actually. There was nothing all that scary about a brotherly spat, or even a few mild insults.

Not after the Snake Eyes incident. The one good thing about a brush with mortal danger was the ruthless perspective that it afforded. One ceased to sweat the little things.

Duncan got up with an abruptness that knocked his rolling chair against the wall with a smack. He stalked out of the room, anger radiating from his broad, rigid back.

I watched the door fall shut behind him and turned to Bruce, bewildered. “What the hell is going on? Did I say something wrong? Is there something I don’t know?”

“No, not at all,” Bruce assured me. “He’s just that way. Don’t worry—he likes you. Really. I can tell from the way he acts. And your ideas are fascinating. It’s all good.”

“Uh, thank you,” I said, confused. “But, ah … that reaction did not bode well.”

“I swear,” he said. “It means nothing. Don’t mind him. He’s just twitchy because there’s been so much turmoil in his company since we started working on this game. And there’s an element of risk, too. Everything’s shaken up. He’ll calm down.”

“But if he hates all my ideas, I really don’t see the point in developing?—”

“He doesn’t hate anything,” Bruce soothed. “He’s just being a dickhead. It’ll pass. Pay him no mind—he’s just programmed that way. I think maybe because he always has his guard up. He used to be a spy, you know.”

That startled me. “Really? I did not know that!”

“Yeah. Intelligence and analysis for the NSA. He spent a lot of time in nasty hot spots, sneaking around and monitoring bad actors. I’d like to say that being a spy made him a tight-assed bastard, but the truth is, he’s been one since we were kids. So don’t expect it to change anytime soon.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything of the kind,” I murmured.