COLE COULD HARDLY BELIEVE IT HAD BEEN ONLY A FEW DAYS since he'd walked through the doors of Unified's executive office building. He had married Diana Foster. He had actually done that. The thought made him smile as he walked past the startled receptionist.

To add to his feeling of unreality, everything seemed to have changed since he last was here. When he drove onto the grounds a few minutes ago, the manicured grass suddenly reminded him of emerald velvet, and the lake, shimmering blue crystals. He'd commented on the remarkably fine day and unusually bright sky to his chauffeur, and although the driver agreed at once, he had been shocked that his normally silent employer had taken a moment for idle conversation.

They didn't really notice the difference in the surroundings, Cole knew.

Because they hadn't just married Diana Foster. They didn't know how sweet she was, or how funny, or how brave and beautiful. Their wives had probably never packed up snake repellent to take on a camping trip or sobbed during their own wedding and then sat on their lap and told them jokes in a plane. Their wives had probably never worn a royal purple silk gown and walked through a ballroom like a queen, then gotten tipsy on champagne and called CNN to announce their marriage…

An executive staff meeting was just breaking up as Cole walked past secretarial cubicles and neared his office. A dozen of his executives filed out of the conference room, including Dick Rowse and Gloria Quigley from public relations, and Allan Underwood, the vice president of human resources. They looked at him with uncertain smiles, and finally Allan Underwood broke the ice. "What a surprise!" he said to Cole, referring, Cole knew, to his marriage to Diana. The others immediately chimed in with a chorus of remarks.

"Congratulations, Cole."

"It's great!"

"So nice!"

"Terrific!"

"Wonderful."

Cole was in a hopelessly lighthearted mood. "Oh—so you all like my new tie that well?"

"Your new what?" Gloria said blankly.

"My tie," Cole said, but he couldn't quite control the smile that lifted a corner of his mouth or gleamed in his eyes. "It's brighter than the ones I usually wear."

"I meant your new—"

"Yes?"

"Wife."

"Oh, yes," Cole replied, losing the battle to hide his smile. "She gave me the tie."

He turned and headed off to his office.

Behind him the executives gaped at each other. "Was he serious about the tie?" Underwood asked the others.

Gloria rolled her eyes at him. "No, it was a joke!"

"Cole never jokes," Dick Rowse said.

"He does now," Gloria said and sauntered down the hall to her own office.

"Congratulations, Mr. Harrison," Cole's secretary said with a formal smile as she followed him into his office, notepad in hand. "I'm a great fan of the whole Foster family," Shirley Forbes confided.

"So am I," Cole said with an answering smile as he opened his briefcase on the desk and began removing the files he'd taken with him. Unable to dwell any longer on Diana, he turned his attention to pressing business matters. "Tell John Nederly I want to see him."

Shirley nodded. "He's called twice already, asking to see you."

"Congratulations on your marriage, Cole," Nederly said as he walked in. "My wife called me with the news an hour ago. She's excited about the prospect of meeting Miss Foster someday. She's a big fan."

Cole wasted no time on niceties. "Close the door," he replied curtly. "Now, what the hell is going on?" he demanded, leaning back in his chair and studying one of Harvard Law School's most gifted graduates with a frown of extreme displeasure. "This morning a reporter informed me during a press conference that I'm under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Nederly shook his head. "You're not."

Cole's frown cleared, but only for a moment.

"The SEC has asked the New York Stock Exchange to investigate the Cushman buyout, which is the first step, and that's what's happening now."

"Then what?"

"The SEC reports directly to Congress so they have oversight powers, which means that regardless of what the NYSE finds, the SEC will review it and make their own decision.

"If they think there's evidence of probable wrongdoing, you'll be subpoenaed to appear at a hearing before an administrative law judge of the SEC. If the SEC judge rules against you, he'll turn it over to the federal courts, and you'll probably be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. There's no way of knowing what they'll try to charge you with—stock manipulation is a sure thing, so is general fraud. They won't hit you with providing false information unless they can prove we falsified the testing information."

"Tell me something," Cole said in a low, furious voice, "don't you think the last part of that recitation is a little premature?"

Nederly looked down at his suit and flicked a speck off his trouser leg. "Maybe I was showing off my superior knowledge," he tried to joke.

"Or?" Cole snapped.

Nederly sighed. "Or maybe I don't have a good feeling about this, Cole. The NYSE investigation is moving forward at an unusually fast pace, and I've already heard a rumor from a semireliable source that the NYSE investigation is just a routine formality. The SEC already thinks there's reasonable cause to subpoena you before their own judge."

"What 'reasonable cause'?" Cole said scornfully.

"One week, Cushman's stock is selling at twenty-eight dollars a share and rising because they're working on a new microprocessor. The next week rumors start circulating all over Wall Street and the media that the new chip is unreliable. The stock drops to fourteen dollars, and you offer to buy the whole company. It looks suspicious as hell!"

"Let's not forget I paid nineteen dollars a share, not fourteen dollars."

"Which you had to do in order to buy the entire company. I'm not denying that Cushman's shareholders got a good deal when you exchanged their stock for ours. They got an even better deal because you arranged a tax-free exchange."

"Then what the hell are they bitching about?"

"I said, it looks bad on the surface."

"I don't give a damn about how things look—"

John shook his head, his expression solemn. "I think you'd better start."

"Is that your best legal advice?"

"There's nothing else you can do right now."

"Like hell," Cole said in a savage voice; then he pushed his intercom button. "Shirley, get me Carrothers and Fineberg in Washington on the phone. I'll talk to either one of them."

The name of the most expensive and most influential law firm in Washington made John smile a little. "I've already got them working on your behalf. Maybe they can persuade the SEC in advance that they're acting recklessly."

Cole instructed his secretary to cancel the call. Satisfied that a combination of expensive legal talent and lack of proof would cause the SEC to drop the whole thing, he leaned back in his chair again and subjected Nederly to a thoughtful scrutiny.

"Anything else you want to talk about?" the lawyer asked.

"Your tie," Cole said blandly.

Nederly seemed to be as alarmed by the potential slur on his perfect appearance as he'd been by the various threats to Cole and Unified that they'd just discussed. "What's wrong with my tie?"

"It's very conservative."

"You always wear conservative ties, too."

"Not anymore," Cole said, amused by the discovery that the immaculately groomed lawyer had apparently been imitating him.