Читать книгу A Promise Kept - Barbara Jeffs - Страница 2

Reminiscence.

Dominic suddenly stopped writing mid sentence, the pen falling from his trembling fingers onto the desk.

It was completely illogical and unexplainable, but he felt a sudden urge to take the lift down to the old conference rooms on the first floor.

He had not been on that floor in thirty-five years. In fact, no one ever visited that particular floor. The rooms there were last used to conduct meetings forty years ago.

Nevertheless, some instinct was telling him that he had to go down there now.

Why? Why did he suddenly feel compelled to return to where it had all begun?

His gaze fastened onto the framed photograph of Rebecca sitting on the desk, his fingers twisting the wedding ring around the third finger of his left hand.

It was the weirdest sensation he had ever experienced. He felt an icy chill up his spine.

Although it made absolutely no sense to him at all, he accepted that he was powerless to resist the impulse and he quickly walked out of his office.

His secretary opened her mouth to ask him where he was going, and then closed it again with the words left unsaid as she watched his back disappearing down the hallway.

Worried by his odd behavior, she lifted the telephone receiver and promptly made two calls. The first was to call security to instruct them to organize a search for her wayward boss. The second was to call his children who fortunately, were both in the building at that time

After all, he was an old man approaching his seventieth birthday and he had behaved in a most unusual manner.

Shortly afterward a multitude of people began frantically searching for their missing employer throughout the building.

Standing alone in the lift, Dominic was unaware of the mayhem he had created by his uncharacteristic behavior. He would not have cared even if he had been aware of the chaos.

One consuming thought filled his mind---he must reach the room where he had first met Rebecca.

The lift doors slid open and he was immediately aware of the musty smelling air. The stale air did not surprise him as the air-conditioning had been deactivated on this floor many years ago.

Entering the conference room, he sucked down a sharp breath as the same weird sensation he had experienced in his office returned even stronger than before. He was suddenly overcome by a feeling of déjà vu.

The old leather couch was covered in dust and beginning to split and tear in places, and as he sank down onto the middle cushion he experienced once again all the joy, happiness and heartache he had shared with his beloved Rebecca for such a short time.

He had thought he had lost her forever when she had walked out of his life, but fate had given him a second chance at happiness with her telephone call to Mike on a stormy summer day.

He could remember that day as if it was yesterday----not thirty years ago.