Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steel Page A

final number of shares to be sold, and the final price, although there were going to be ballpark figures in the prospectus, which was now well over a hundred pages. It was an unbelievable amount of work that required her constant attention, and she felt as though she were leaving halfway through the day when she went home every night after midnight.
    Callan Dow was immensely impressed by what he heard whenever he spoke to her, and particularly so with the way she had turned the risk factor section of the prospectus into an almost positive treatise on the company's behalf, an art form she had carefully developed. In fact, he was delighted with everything she did, and couldn't believe his good fortune in working with her.
    A week before the road show was to begin, the lawyers they used sent the final prospectus to the SEC for approval, and Callan was understandably nervous about it, but once again Meredith reassured him. She told him it was one of the best IPOs she'd ever worked on, and he didn't need to worry about it.
    By the end of the last week, all the loose ends had been tied up, and she felt confident that they had thought of everything. The syndicate was set up, the analysts were pleased, the salesmen were as excited about Dow Tech as she and Callan were, and even the SEC wasn't giving them any trouble. The only thing she was worried about by the end of the week before the Labor Day weekend, was how little time she had spent with Steven, and she could tell from her phone calls with him that he was upset about it. But there was very little she could have done about it in the last two weeks. She had too many important details to attend to, to spend time with her husband.
    “I feel like I'm married to an imaginary friend,” he complained on Thursday night when he called her from work. She was still in the office at one A.M. , and mercifully he had just come out of surgery himself and wasn't due to get off duty until noon on Friday. He had been at the hospital on and off since Tuesday morning. And he'd been called in four times for emergencies when he was on call over the weekend, so he couldn't complain too much that she was busy.
    “I'm sorry,” she said, sounding tired but pleased. She was thrilled that everything had gone so smoothly. It had been an unusually good deal for the firm, and one of the rare ones where no unexpected dragons reared their heads with surprise disasters at the last minute. “It'sjust been crazy for the past two weeks, but it's been worth it. I don't think we've ever been as well prepared for an offering as we have this time.” She felt good not only about the validity of the company, but about the quality of its products. Even Steven had told her that the instruments they made were exceptionally good ones. Meredith had talked to him about it right from the beginning, and he had reassured her on that subject.
    “If you have to work this weekend, Merrie, I'm going to kill you.” And for once, he sounded as though he meant it.
    “I swear I'm going to try to wrap up everything by noon tomorrow, and I'm all yours till Monday.” She had promised herself and him that she would keep the Labor Day weekend sacred for him. He deserved it. “You're not on call, are you, sweetheart?”
    “No way. I don't care if half of New York bleeds to death or if a volcano erupts in Central Park, I'm off call, and I'm throwing my goddamn pager in the garbage can at noon tomorrow. I intend to spend the weekend in bed with you, if I have to handcuff you to the headboard.”
    “That sounds pretty kinky,” she giggled as she listened to him, but she could hear that he was tired too. And when he finally came home at noon the next day, she was already there waiting for him. It was another one of those steamy humid days that everyone in New York expected at the end of August, and she was wandering around their living room in her underwear when he walked in, in wrinkled scrubs and a two-day-old beard he hadn't had