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He turned his attention to his e-mail, his eyebrows rising with surprise as he saw he had a message from the Big Kahuna himself, Morgan Beck. He scanned the note quickly, then called Linda in.
“Can you cancel my two o’clock and reschedule it for me? I’ve been summoned upstairs by God.”
“Can do. Anything else?”
He flashed his most disarming smile, turning on the charm shamelessly. To her credit, Linda remained steadfastly unaffected, instead shaking her head ruefully.
“Don’t waste your little-boy-lost routine on me. What do you want?”
“Do you think you could also swing past the post office and collect the mail from my personal box? I haven’t had a chance to get over there since I flew back into town yesterday.”
“Jack, we’ve been over this. I’m more than happy to collect your personal mail for you every day during my lunch break. Just give me the key to your box and it will be taken care of.”
Sliding the small key from his key ring, Jack hesitated before handing it over.
“I feel bad asking you to run personal errands for me,” he confessed when Linda made an impatient noise.
“Well, get over it. You’re a good boss, you don’t treat me like a slave, and I’m happy to help you out however I can.”
Overcoming his personal scruples, Jack shrugged and handed the key over. Linda gave him an amused look as she slid it into her hip pocket.
“Don’t worry—I’ll let you know when you’ve crossed the line and turned into a heartless corporate shark.”
“My deepest, darkest fear. How did you know?” Jack joked.
“I’m psychic. Which is why I suspect it’s useless suggesting you tidy yourself up a bit before your appointment with Mr. Beck,” Linda said, her tone indicating she already knew his response.
“You are psychic, you know. It’s uncanny,” he said, loving that he could annoy her.
Linda’s eyes flicked down to his black, three-quarter-length cargo pants, slip-on sandals and unironed Hawaiian shirt.
“You’re lucky Mr. Beck likes you,” she said on her way out of his office.
Jack snorted, his mood shifting abruptly as her words triggered a memory.
Luck.
What a concept. What a stupid, random, insane, cruel concept. He was very quiet for a moment as he stared out unseeingly at his view. And then he remembered that big smear of lipstick across Claire Marsden’s face and he laughed to himself all over again.
2
BUSY. THE THOUGHT registered somewhere between Claire’s third impromptu meeting of the day and the fourth phone call from the client she’d been wooing for the past six months. Now that they’d signed the contracts, Hillcrest Hardware were keen to have their new custom magazine in their hot little hands.
Ironic, if you had the time to appreciate such things. She’d spent so long explaining, and illustrating, and cajoling to bring them to the point of saying yes, and now they were more keen than she was. And she was pretty damn keen.
Despite the fact that it was well past midday and she still hadn’t read her e-mail, she paused to appreciate the larger-than-life blowup of the front cover for the launch edition of Welcome Home magazine that was leaning against her office wall. Gleaming floorboards reflected light from wide, white-framed windows, and a rustic wood dining setting graced the center of the tastefully decorated room. Color Your World read one of the cover lines, while another claimed Bring Your Garden to Life in an Instant. A little bubble of pride blossomed in her belly. After all the hard work, they were finally a go.
Her own magazine. Based on a concept she’d created. Executed just how she thought it should be executed. It simply didn’t get better.
She was the one who had seen the opportunity for a custom magazine within the Hillcrest Hardware chain. She’d watched the growth in demand for decorator magazines, and she’d found a progressive hardware retailer in the marketplace who was looking for a new way to create relationships with its customers. It had made sense to her to answer one need with the other, just as it had made sense to the executives at Hillcrest when she’d pitched it to them six months ago.
Now she was about to launch a new magazine title into the Australian marketplace, an important, key part of her five-year plan. Soon, if she played her cards right, the corner office and senior management status she coveted would be hers—it was just a matter of time.
Today was Wednesday; by this time next week, she should have editorial sign-off from her client, and the magazine should be well into production. Another week or so later, and the first edition would be rolling off the printing presses.
A goofy smile still wreathing her lips, Claire clicked the mouse on the e-mail icon on her computer screen and watched as her in-box registered way too many notifications. Sighing, she realized she was going to have to get her assistant to prioritize them for her, alert her to the urgent ones and print the rest off for her to read in bed later that night. Another fascinating evening.
It was just as well there was no man also planning on sharing her bed.
She paused for a moment, annoyed with herself. Where had that thought come from? Parts of her body twitched suggestively, and she shrugged. Okay, it had been a while. And a bit of frustration release was necessary every now and then, but that was what George Clooney movies were for. This was more important. Welcome Home was her baby, and it deserved all her attention.
Besides, it wasn’t as though there was a battle going on here between the magazine and her personal life; apart from her training regime and the actual triathlon meets themselves, she had no personal life. There was work, and there was the road and the pool and her bike. End of story.
And it was a nice, uncomplicated, successful story. She was fulfilled. Really. And hadn’t she made it into the state triathlon semifinals thanks to all that focus?
Okay, maybe she was a little horny. But that could wait. Sex would always be there, but this opportunity wouldn’t.
A recent memory volunteered itself suddenly—last time she’d visited her grandmother she’d been astonished to learn that her gran was telling everyone in the old people’s home that she was a lesbian.
“Just to take the heat off them all wondering when you’re getting married and having children, dear,” her gran had explained.
So Claire wasn’t going to be young forever. But this was important, and sometimes other things had to take a backseat to work. In five years’ time, she’d be ensconced in that corner office, in charge of a handful of quality magazines. The sacrifices and loneliness were worth it. For the time being.
Having talked her nether regions into submission, she called her assistant, Tom, in and asked him to sort through the rest of her e-mails.
She was just about to plunge into her in-tray when a familiar figure propped itself against her door frame.
“We still on for lunch?”
Claire stared at her friend Katherine in dismay.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Katherine guessed, one hand resting on her slim hip.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got so much on, I think I should just work through lunch,” Claire apologized.
But Katherine wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Swinging around, she called in reinforcements.
“Tom! Get over here and help me convince your boss she needs to eat lunch,” she called imperatively.
Tom shot up from his seat as though he’d been electrocuted, and Claire had to stifle a laugh as he stared at Katherine slavishly. At nearly six feet tall with legs that seemed to go on forever and a bust that would put a 1950s pinup to shame, Katherine was every man’s sexual fantasy. The fact that she was funny, clever and worked as editor of a sports magazine were bonuses that most men didn’t seem to mind, either. At a tender twenty years, Tom was like a bunny in the headlights of her attractiveness.
“I tell her all the time she should have a lunch break, but she thinks a protein shake is enough,” Tom said, sounding for all the world like a worried Jewish mother.
“Are you listening to what Tom is saying, Claire?” Katherine asked, the glint in her eye signaling that she wasn’t unaware of Tom’s adoration.
Shaking her head at her friend, Claire checked her watch.
“Twenty minutes,” she said.
“Done. Thanks for the backup, Tom,” Katherine said, giving him a big smile.
Tom just stood there, apparently stunned by such beneficence.
Claire grabbed her handbag and followed Katherine to the elevator.
“You’re cruel,” Claire admonished.
“How so? I was perfectly nice to him!”
Claire gave Katherine’s close-fitting deep red, short-skirted suit and elegant high heels a once-over.
“You ought to be registered as a deadly weapon. Or given a handicap. How are the rest of us mere mortals supposed to compete?”
“You do okay, from what I’ve seen,” Katherine commented dryly.
“Right. That’s why I watched three George Clooney movies this month.”
The elevator door opened and they exited into the foyer, heading for the coffee shop.
“The opportunities are there, but you choose not to see them.”
Claire rolled her eyes—as if she wouldn’t have noticed an eligible guy interested in her! To prove her point, a young courier walked straight into a potted palm because he was too busy tracking Katherine’s progress across the foyer to look where he was going.
“You see that? Nobody walks into plants for me, I can tell you.”
“You don’t believe me? What about Cameron Johnson in layout? And that cute security guard on the night shift?”
Claire had to rack her brain to get even a vague mental image of the men. Needless to say, they hadn’t walked into a wall, or any other obstacle, the last time she had been in their vicinity—that she would have remembered.
“You’re deluded.”
They settled at their usual table in the far back corner of the coffee shop and picked up a menu each, even though neither of them ever strayed from their normal order—a chicken club sandwich.
“You don’t want to see—that’s your problem. When was the last time you had a date?” Katherine challenged.
Claire studied the menu intently. Why had she even brought this subject up? Hadn’t she just decided that she was happy with her work-oriented world at the moment?
“Forget I said anything. I was only joking, anyway,” she hedged.
Katherine shook her head sympathetically.
“That long, huh?”
Desperate for some way to avoid the conversation Claire suspected was in the offing, she scanned the coffee shop looking for a distraction. She twitched as she noted Jack Brook propped at the lunch bar, one leg resting comfortably on the foot rail as he chatted to a woman she didn’t recognize. He looked so confident and happy and self-assured that she felt her toes curling in her shoes with annoyance.
“You went out with Jack Brook for a while, didn’t you?” she found herself blurting.
Katherine looked surprised and she turned to follow Claire’s line of sight, quickly spotting Jack lounging at the bar.
The glance she shot Claire was unreadable.
“Yeah, I did. For a few short, spectacular weeks a couple of years ago.”
The waiter stopped by their table, and Claire and Katherine both ordered the chicken club sandwich. Silence fell. Aware that Katherine was now thinking completely the wrong thing, Claire felt honor-bound to correct her.
“He parked in my space this morning,” she explained. “He’s such an arrogant jerk, I just wondered what you saw in him.”
“That’s simple—pretty much what every other woman sees in him. He’s gorgeous.”
Claire pulled a face, her eyes sliding across to contemplate Jack’s profile.
“He really does nothing for me,” she said airily.
Katherine made a small disbelieving noise.
“Then you’re officially the walking dead. Whether or not Jack Brook is gorgeous is not a matter of subjective opinion. He has those amazing eyes, and a body to die for—fantastic skin, great arms. And he’s a great lover. Really…gifted, if you get what I mean,” Katherine said, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
Claire shifted in her seat, but she was unable to stop her gaze from sneaking over to him. He was teasing his lunch companion, reaching out to swipe a bit of frosting off her cake. As Claire watched he slid his chocolate-coated finger into his mouth and licked it, his actions completely unconscious and completely erotic. She flicked her eyes away from the blatant display, but, again, they slid back to him of their own accord. Now he was shoving his hand into his pants pocket as he leaned casually on the bar. The fabric tightened across his thighs and, unbelievably, she felt herself blushing as she considered what Katherine had said. Gifted…What exactly did that mean? Was that about the finger-licking thing, or the part of his trousers that was holding her attention right now?
“You know, a fling with someone like Jack could be exactly what you need,” Katherine said.
Claire jerked her attention back to her friend.
“Are you insane? I wouldn’t sleep with Jack Brook if you paid me. He’s cocky, conceited, smug—and a complete man-slut.”
“I see.”
Katherine was smiling knowingly, and Claire bristled. Determined to prove her point, she leaned across the table.
“If you gave me the choice of kissing Jack Brook or punching him in the face, I’d choose the punch every time,” she said firmly.
“Ah. So you have thought about kissing Jack, then?”
Claire was about to launch into all the reasons why she considered Jack Brook to be subhuman when Katherine’s face suddenly lit up as though she’d just thought of something funny. She laughed, nodding her head as though she’d just worked something out. Claire frowned at her, suspicious.
“What?”
“I just remembered something. I was talking about you with Jack once. He wanted to know why we were friends—he thought you were prissy.”
Claire sat bolt upright in her seat and glared across at Jack. What a pig! How dare he call her prissy? What a horrible thing to say—as if she was some dried-up spinster aunt or something. She had the urge to go over and give him a piece of her mind….
“Where does he get off talking about me like that?” she snapped, dragging her gaze away from Jack to find Katherine studying her speculatively.
Claire suddenly felt very exposed under her friend’s knowing gaze.
“I mean, as if I care what a jerk like him thinks about me.”
Katherine simply quirked an eyebrow disbelievingly.
