Impatient, she paced to the window and back again. Time was wasting, and there were few things that annoyed her more than waste of any kind. If she hadn't had a specific point to bring up to Tim, she would have found a way to avoid the meeting altogether. The one thing about Tim, she thought with a humorless smile, was that he wasn't really bright enough to recognize double-talk. In this case, she wanted to make the pitch herself, so she'd come. But-she glanced at her watch-she wasn't going to twiddle her thumbs much longer.

This had been Thornway's office. She'd always liked the cool, authoritative colors and the lack of frills. Since Tim had taken over, he'd made some changes. Plants, she thought, scowling at a ficus. It wasn't that she disliked plants and thick, splashy pillows, but it annoyed her to find them here.

Then there were the paintings. Thornway had preferred Indian paintings and landscapes. Tim had replaced them with abstracts that tended to jar Abra's nerves. The new carpet seemed three inches thick and was salmon-colored. The elder Thornway had used a short-napped buff so that the dust and dirt wouldn't show. But then, Tim didn't often visit the sites or ask his foremen to join him for an after-hours drink.

Stop it, Abra ordered herself. Tim ran things differently, and that was his privilege. It was his business in every way. The fact that she had loved and admired the father so much didn't mean she had to find fault with the son.

But she did find fault with him, she thought as she studied the tidy, polished surface of his desk. He iacked both the drive and the compassion that had been so much a part of his father. Thornway had wanted to build first for the love of building. With Tim, the profit margin was the bottom line.

If Thomas Thornway had still been alive, she wouldn't have been preparing to make a break. There was a certain freedom in that, in knowing that this current project would be her last for the company. There would be no regrets in leaving, as there might once have been. Instead, there was excitement, anticipation. Whatever happened next, she would be doing it for herself.