Incognito

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Cam kicked off her heels, shed her suit coat, and unbuttoned the top button on her blouse. It had been a long day, but her work was just beginning. She’d been in the meeting with John Taylor and the delegations from Argentina and Uruguay since eight thirty this morning. Some things had been settled, but there were still at least forty pages of the trade treaty that needed to be negotiated. Tomorrow should be just as hard, just as long. Why was it this difficult? Why was everyone so paranoid? Damn! She’d forgotten how delicate these things could be.

This might become a lengthy assignment. She was glad she’d stopped in Montreal to visit with Michael before she came here. She wasn’t sure when she’d get back home and from the looks of the treaty, it could be a while.

She thought back to all the projects that she’d done when she was in school in Spain. This was nowhere near what she thought it’d be. Although some of the students had been very good at acting the parts of the teams that had negotiated the settlements, they’d been nowhere near as angry or stubborn as the delegation from Uruguay. Those men were so intent on getting just what they wanted that there was almost no room for compromise.

Now, she had to start working on the other half of her assignment. Would that be as hard? Maybe a shower would give her enough energy to be able to work, or at least think, through the rest of the evening. At least she would be able to wash off the makeup she wore. She probably shouldn’t have accepted the invitation to have dinner with John and his family, but that had given her the opportunity to observe the family…and Tad.

John’s family…now there was a piece of work! Ramón was right about that. John and his wife, Joyce, tried very hard to make the family appear perfect but they were all so stiff and repressed, that anyone could tell they weren’t. John was controlling and Joyce tried too hard. Their sixteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl, just sat there petulantly, and Tad looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there, answering questions in as few syllables as possible. She didn’t want to have to settle arguments within the family, but that might be the only way to get Tad out of his problem.