He wanted a drink, two drinks, perhaps a whole bottle to help him forget. He'd become quite drunk last night, but not drunk enough… and today it was plain impossible to do any work. Not until this matter was cleared up one way or another. Thankfully, today was Saturday, and the factory was only open until noon. He would spend the afternoon by himself and get thoroughly drunk, so damned drunk that the lashing, whip-like images in his mind would go away…

A knock on the open door of his office brought him upright. He saw a girl standing in the door way, the secretary to Larson, the personnel manager. He didn't know the girl's name, wasn't especially interested at that particularly moment, and said in a brusque manner, "Yes? What do you want?"

Kim Copeland smiled tentatively. Demurely she clasped her hands in front of her clinging blue shift, and in a small, hesitant voice, she said, "I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Carmel, but…"

"Well? I'm very busy," Carmel snapped.

You son of a bitch, you're going to pay for this. Kim's brain looked at the muscular, handsome man who was frowning at her, and she felt the blood boil in her. Kim knew the best way of worming her way into the soft underbelly of a naive and preoccupied man like Roger Carmel, and long practice she judged that this was not the time to be seductive, bewitching, alluring; that was for later, after he had become friendly with her and his guard was down, and perhaps a couple of drinks was warming his stomach and dulling his thoughts. Now she had to be all sweetness and angelic helplessness, and although inside her beat the heart of a carnivorous feline, outwardly she trembled like the mousiest of retiring people.

As shy as she seemed to Roger, she still couldn't hide the fact that she was a beautiful sensual woman. She was proud of the thick coils of burnished copper hair, her soft, small hands and smooth white shoulders, of her ripe, up-lifted breasts and her large, round green eyes with their luminescent flecks of gold.