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“You’re sure it’s Matt?”
“Positive.”
Steam filled Carly’s veins until she recalled her confrontation with Matt that morning and her anger turned to dread. She’d been so cocky about him having to fill out the survey to get the job, had accused him of trying to cheat even. And all the time Hall had already lined him up for the project.
She slowed her pace and sighed. How long would she continue to make a fool of herself in front of that man? It was bad enough infatuation turned her into a babbling idiot whenever he was around. Now the one moment she’d held her wits long enough to tell him off, she’d ended up being wrong about the whole thing.
It was too humiliating to consider.
“Does he know?”
“I don’t think so. Patty told me they were keeping it really close to the cuff. Only she, her boss and one analyst there are aware of Hall’s instructions on how to tally the surveys. In fact, now that I’ve told you, I’ve been ordered to kill you.”
Carly would have laughed if she wasn’t so dumbfounded, not certain whether she should wallow in embarrassment over popping off to Matt when she was the one with egg on her face or ire that once again he was being handed the big job.
Ire was winning by a nose.
“So all the surveys are for nothing?”
“All the men’s surveys. The women’s are legitimately being used to match against Matt’s.”
“I can’t believe it,” Carly fumed. She placed her hands on her hips and slowed down to a stroll. “Matt’s walking away with another top project again.”
“Matt and whoever strikes the closest match to his survey.”
She stared out over the grassy lawn. The warm day had brought a crowd out from under the fluorescent canopies to enjoy lunch at the tables or hold an outdoor meeting. It was the first sign of spring, normally Carly’s favorite time of year, but today even the good weather wasn’t enough to hold up her spirit.
“Why do they think he’s so great?” she asked. “So he’s got, like, double master’s degrees. Big deal. He’s arrogant and flippant and not the least bit interested in sharing that wealth of talent with anyone else on the team. Why they keep raising the man to the level of he-god, I’ll never know.”
“He-god?”
Carly frowned. “You know what I mean. He doesn’t deserve the constant accolades. There’s a lot more to being a company asset than good Web design.”
“True,” Bev agreed, stepping over to a park bench and plopping down for a rest. “Though he’s got a few assets someone’s company would enjoy.” She smiled as Carly sat down next to her. “You ever noticed him on casual Fridays? Man, does he have a butt for a pair of jeans.”
Noticed? Carly had studied that butt so many times she could pick it out of a lineup. But this wasn’t where she wanted the conversation to go. Matt Jacobs had had enough of her attention over the last two years. If there was ever a day to squelch it, today would be it.
“He used to play pro baseball, you know,” Bev added. “Can you imagine that ass in a pair of those tight-knit baseball pants?”
The Anaheim Nationals, two years in their AA league before he’d been “cut loose,” as Adam had put it. He hadn’t said much more than that, just enough to feed a few steamy images of Matt in a uniform—and then out of it.
She shook off the thought, annoyed that she could be so easily pulled off track. This conversation wasn’t about Matt’s assets but how he’d become her personal liability. If this latest move by Mr. Hall wasn’t enough to permanently exorcise her lust for that man, she seriously needed to consider psychotherapy.
“Can we get back to the subject, please? We’re talking about Singles Inc. and who deserves that job. Mr. Hall lied to all of us. This project was supposed to be a fair game.”
Bev blew out a sympathetic sigh. “I know, but in retrospect, none of this surprises me. It’s our biggest account. There’s no way Hall was going to let the project randomly go to two people on the staff. He needed one person in there as his anchor to make sure the job ran smoothly.”
“And that anchor couldn’t have been me?”
“Carly, they love your work. You and Matt are the two top designers on staff. They still consider you one of the best.”
“They did before Matt came along. Now who knows what they think? I haven’t had a challenging project in over a year. It’s just the same old stuff, info screens without any user interactivity. How am I supposed to keep up my programming skills if I’m just putting graphics and text on pages?”
This job was not working out as she’d planned. She wasn’t supposed to have hit a glass ceiling at the age of twenty-six. She was supposed to be on her way up the ladder, making the steady climb to bigger jobs and a bigger salary. Granted, she hadn’t expected to spend her life working for Hall, but she’d thought as new opportunities opened up she’d continue to be in the running. But since Matt had come on board, her career seemed to have come to a screeching halt, and if she wanted to keep progressing, maybe it was time to accept the fact that she’d have to do it somewhere else.
“I’m tempted to quit.”
Bev scoffed. “And go where? The high-tech industry is barely picking up around here. To find anyone hiring, you practically have to move to Texas.”
“I could go to Web Tactics.”
“Rumor has it they aren’t doing so well.”
Carly’d heard that, too. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d just bought a house with a hefty mortgage. She couldn’t risk losing it by leaving a secure job for something unknown. Wherever she went, she’d be the new gal on the team, the first one on the chopping block if a company decided to downsize, and with so many firms being swallowed up by the big fish or relocating out of state, she wasn’t certain she could take the chance.
“I could move to Texas, but Mom and Jodi need me.”
“They rely on you for a lot.”
Carly sighed. She knew if she left Hall Technologies, she’d find a way to make things work, but making a move like that out of anger wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
Right now she felt stuck, and if there was anything Carly hated, it was feeling trapped without choices.
“It’s not fair,” she said, the tone coming off whinier than she’d intended. “They should be giving everyone opportunities to be challenged. When they announced how they were handling the assignment of Singles Inc., I thought they’d finally seen that and done something about it.” Gazing out toward a clump of cattails, she added, “I guess I was wrong.”
“I don’t know about that. I heard another rumor today.”
“There’s more?”
Bev nodded.
“Is it good news?”
“I don’t know. It’s all in how you choose to speculate.”
Carly clasped her fingers around the seat of the wooden bench and braced herself. “What is it?”
“I heard Hall’s planning to open a new management position.”
“A manager?”
This was news. Mr. Hall had always preached the hazards of being top-heavy, which was why so far he only had two managers under him—Hugh Simonds, in charge of the programmers, and Frank Meyer, Carly’s own manager and head of the creative-design team. The sales staff reported directly to Mr. Hall, as did Renee and Andrea, the two women who handled Human Resources and Payroll. The idea of a new position opening up was a big deal.
“Any idea who’s getting the job?”
Bev shook her head. “Not a clue. I don’t even know if he’s planning to hire from within or bring in someone from the outside. But what I’ve heard is he wants to put together a team that exclusively handles the bigger projects and that he plans to assign the team a leader.”
“A special project team, huh?”
“To take on jobs like Singles Inc. I guess he wants to keep moving in that direction.”
The mention of Singles Inc. darkened Carly’s mood. “And if he’s thinking about hiring from within, you know what golden child he’s got in mind.”
Bev quickly held up a hand. “No one’s said Matt’s getting that job.”
“But it’s obvious he’d be considered. They’re handing him Singles Inc., aren’t they?”
Bev shrugged and Carly’s infuriation mounted. “I’ll kill myself if they give him that job.”
“Carly, you’re getting too far ahead of yourself. No one even knows if Hall’s going to promote anyone on the team. He could have a golfing buddy or some IBM crony in mind. Who knows? And if he was planning to promote from within, who’s to say you wouldn’t be considered? You’ve been here from the start, have handled just as many big projects as Matt has and you’re a way better people person. There’s a lot more to managing staff than technical expertise.”
Carly knew that, but did Mr. Hall? And what if he did think technical skills mattered most? If that was the case, whoever handled Singles Inc. would have the best shot at proving themselves where that was concerned.
And she wanted a shot at that job.
She deserved it. In fact, she shouldn’t even have to fight for it after all these years. She should simply get it. But apparently Mr. Hall didn’t see it that way. Which meant she’d have to show him.
“I need to get on that project,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Singles Inc. I need that job.”
“Then you’ll have to match Matt’s answers closer than anyone else on the team.”
Carly’s hopes faded. “And of all the women on the team, I probably know the least about him.”
“But you and I are the only women on the team who know he’s the guy to match.”
True, she did have that advantage. But unfortunately, thanks to a two-year-long resentment, coupled with her relentless attraction toward the man, she’d all but avoided Matt from the start. What she knew about him could be jotted down on a two-inch sticky note. She knew he was single, lived in an upscale condo down in Sausalito, drove a shiny BMW, had once played baseball and looked delicious in faded Levi’s. That was the sum of her Matt Jacobs knowledge. Five basic facts. Plenty to feed her sexual daydreams but hardly enough to strike gold on a compatibility survey.
Attempting to change her answers to match his would be a total shot in the dark. Unless she had help.
“How close a friend are you to Patty?”
Bev shook her head in protest. “Oh, no. You could get in big trouble. Our company’s image would be at stake, and you know how Hall feels about that. If Singles Inc. found out we’d tampered with their survey and it got back to Hall, heads would roll.” She added with conviction, “I need my job and so does Patty. I can’t ask her to get Matt’s answers for you.”
Carly frowned. “I won’t ask you to, but it’s so unfair. You know as well as I do, I deserve a shot at this. I was the lead Web designer before Matt stepped in, and you were just as angry as me when he kicked me off that first project by telling Frank he could handle it alone. We were supposed to work together on that.”
“Jay-Lee Personnel Services. I remember that.”
“I don’t want you to do anything that would put your job at risk. Just help me brainstorm how I can swing this.” Pushing off the bench, the two women returned to their workout, but this time headed back toward the office. “We still have through Thursday to finish our surveys, right?”
“I don’t think that’s changed. Holly and Paul are only coming back from vacation tomorrow. Hall wanted everyone to have an equal shot at the project.”
Carly snorted. “Except for Matt.”
What a joke, she thought, Mr. Hall making such a big deal out of the survey, how Singles Inc. had liked his idea so much they were considering developing a new survey designed for corporate teams. It was a huge publicity stunt, and in the end it was all a sham.
“Brian could get you in,” Bev said.
Carly eyed her friend and grinned. Of course. Brian Shanahan, one of their programmers barely out of college, who prided himself for his hacking skills. And he was pretty good, too. Heck, knowing Brian, he’d probably already hacked into the database just to see everyone’s answers.
“I don’t know if I trust him to keep his mouth shut, though,” Bev warned.
Good point, but Carly remained unfazed. “I’ll take my chances.”
“Really, Carly, you need to think twice about this. You could get in serious trouble.”
“If I have to sit back and watch Matt walk away with both this project and a promotion, I’m not sure I want this job anyway.”
“You say that now because you’re angry, but think about your house and your family. Is it really worth the risk?”
One side of Carly would say no, but the other side wasn’t about to get stomped on out of fear. Security was one thing, getting passed over for jobs she deserved called for taking a stand, no matter how she had to do it.
“I can’t let this happen without putting up a fair fight. If Mr. Hall had Matt in mind for the project, he should have just assigned Matt a partner instead of dreaming up this stupid survey idea. And if I could say so to Mr. Hall without jeopardizing you, I’d do it.”
Bev gasped. “Oh, you can’t tell Hall what you know. He’d trail it right back to Patty in a heartbeat.”
“Of course I won’t. But that means I’ve got to even the stakes my own way, because if I don’t, if I keep sitting around letting them choose Matt over me, I’ll never get anywhere in this company. And if I’m in a dead-end job, then I’m not risking much, am I?”
“I just worry what they’d do if they knew you tampered with the results. They went to great lengths to make sure everyone answered honestly. Remember that speech Hall gave about people comparing answers?”
Carly remembered it, though it seemed pretty hypocritical given what she knew now. Taking a deep breath, she elbowed her friend affectionately, Bev’s warnings heeded but her decision made. “Then I’ll just have to make sure I don’t get caught.”
3
CARLY OPENED THE door to a ringing phone. Hoping to catch it, she dropped her purse and take-out dinner on her entryway table, rushed to the kitchen and grabbed the cordless from the counter.
She’d had a private conversation with Brian Shanahan this afternoon, and he was all but certain he could get her the survey answers she wanted. If this was him calling already, he was better than she thought.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey, it’s Mom.”
She dropped her shoulders. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”
“I just got Jodi’s softball camp information in the mail.”
“That’s great. So we got her signed up in time.”
As a sixth-grade-graduation gift, Carly had paid for her younger sister to attend a weeklong softball camp. It was, in a way, a gift to both Jodi and their mother, Jodi having dreamed of going all year, and their mother needing a break between working full-time, taking night courses at the JC and raising a daughter alone. As she’d had to scrape together the cost, Carly had just made the payment under the wire, so it was a relief to get the printed confirmation of Jodi’s enrollment.
“Yeah, and she’s thrilled. She’s making you a special thank-you present for when you come over Friday.”
Carly smiled. “That’s sweet.”
“But I was wondering if you could do me one more favor.” Her mother sighed. “The strap on Jodi’s backpack broke and there’s no way to fix it.”
