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She stared at him. “Hello. We’re up against each other for this account!” Was the man insane?
He stared at the ceiling of the elevator, contemplatively. “And yet, I still crave food. I imagine at some point, you might feel a little nibbly. So what the hell, we run up the white flag and just have a bite?”
“No, Mark.”
“No, you won’t be hungry?”
“No, I won’t be eating with you!” She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “Damn. Either you’ve got a ton of moxie, or…”
She stopped. Or he’d reconsidered his stance on sleeping with her.
Of course. Now that she absolutely could not, in good conscience, sleep with him…he’d changed his mind.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” she said bluntly.
Now he smiled back at her, devilishly handsome. “Um…ever?”
She forced herself to keep a straight face. “More than likely. But definitely not as long as we’re both in the running for this account.”
“Somehow,” he said, “I can probably manage to share a meal with you without pushing the dishes aside and just taking you on the table.”
The image that conjured up sent shivers of heat along her body. “Don’t even joke,” she said, hating the breathless edge her voice took on.
“I wasn’t really joking,” he said.
He was dangerous.
“Stay away from me, Mark,” she said. “I really appreciated yesterday…on a couple of levels. And I would’ve loved to become friends with you. But you’ve got to see how this won’t work.”
He took that in silence for a moment, then the two of them headed to their respective rooms. She noticed her hand shaking slightly as she wrested with the card key.
She’d been so close to sleeping with him, she thought, with regret so keen it was painful. Now, she knew that every single ounce of common sense told her that he was off-limits, for good.
He pulled out his wallet, producing a business card that he quickly scrawled something on. “Here,” he said.
She stared at it. “What’s this for?”
“It’s my cell-phone number,” he said. “Just in case you change your mind about dinner.” He paused. “Or anything else.”
She watched as he effortlessly opened his room door and shut it behind him. She finally went into her own room…the card burning a hole in her pocket.
You’re not going to call him, she told herself.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to throw the card away.
“ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS TAKE OUT one puny competitor, and the house brand for Marion & Co is ours,” Simone said, back at the office in New York. “Now—brainstorm. What do we know about Diva Nation, and how can we knock them the hell out?”
Mark looked at his boss, and then at the VP of marketing, Roger, who was sitting in on the meeting. They were both standing at the head of the large conference-room table, looking puzzled. Well, puzzled wasn’t the best way to describe it. Simone looked determined, as always, but also somewhat frazzled. Roger looked gob-smacked. The rest of the Trimera team, seated around the broad expanse of table, was somewhere between the two. Except for the resident pit-bull saleswoman, Carol, who looked as if her solution would involve some kind of violent force.
“I cannot believe this. I cannot…frickin’…believe this,” Roger finally said, anger filtering through his obvious surprise.
Simone sighed. “Roger, we’ve been over this.”
“I don’t think you realize what a slap in the face this is,” he countered, obviously eager to discuss in front of the team what he’d already hashed out with Simone in private. “Marion & Co. has always carried Trimera. We’ve always had a good relationship with them. Now, they’re creating an exclusive house brand, and they’re going to pit us against some nobody brand from California?” He looked at Mark. “I thought sales were doing well in that channel! Could somebody please tell me how the hell this happened?”
Carol cleared her throat before Mark could respond. “Account management has reported some problems with the Marion & Co. account,” she said, her voice deceptively calm. Her eyes looked fiery and triumphant, though.
“That true, Mark?” Roger snapped.
Mark forced himself not to glare at Carol. “Actually, it’s not,” he responded, his voice cool. “At least, we may have lost sales volume, but not market share. We’re doing fine.” He paused. If you’d read my last three reports, you’d know that.
Roger brushed off the comment, as Mark knew he would. “So, if we’re doing fine, who the hell is Deviant Nation, anyway? And why are they even in this?”
“Diva Nation,” Mark corrected. “They’re a small independent brand out of Los Angeles. They’re getting some decent distribution, though, and their products are getting a good deal of buzz. They’re not much now, but if their numbers keep up…”
He drifted off when they all looked at him.
“Is there any pulse you don’t keep your finger on?” Simone asked with admiration.
He didn’t want to think about how many fingers he’d had on the pulse of Diva Nation…or how much closer he would’ve gotten, if she’d let him.
“I keep an eye out,” Mark said elusively.
“Well. This calls for desperate measures,” Roger said in that finicky, snarky tone of his. “Carol—you’re my point person. We’ve got to make sure that this thing runs smoothly.”
Mark felt his blood pressure raise slightly. He was tired of being passed over. And, frankly, this one was too damned important. He really liked Sophie, but business was business—and since business was the one thing that stood between him and Sophie, he figured she’d probably understand more than anyone.
“Roger,” Mark interrupted, before the man could continue barking out his instructions, “Simone said that she was going to give me the next product launch. You agreed to let me be point on the next proposal. I think that this counts.”
The rest of the team was now openly gaping at him. He had to admit, he was a bit surprised, himself.
Nothing ventured, he reminded himself nervously.
“A little crappy product launch is one thing,” Roger said dismissively, although he seemed surprised, as well, that Mark had spoken up. “But after all, you didn’t report the sales information to me, and that would’ve been important.”
Mark gritted his teeth.
“Besides, we’re going to need more than charm on this,” Roger added. “I need somebody who knows product and figures.”
Mark tried not to let the obvious insult get his temper too high. “I know the product, and I know the background. Most of all, I know Marion & Co.”
Roger smiled indulgently. “Not well enough, obviously, to—”
“If you’d read the last report I sent, you’d know exactly why we’re stuck in this mess.”
Now the rest of the team was more than gaping—they looked horrified. Being assertive, or aggressive, was one thing. Committing career suicide in public by challenging one’s extremely temperamental vice president…well, now, that was something else.
Smooth move, McMann.
“I see,” Roger said, in a flat tone of voice that said he was purely pissed off. He glared at Simone, as if it were her fault things had gotten out of hand.
Simone hastily shuffled some papers on the desk, keeping her voice brisk. “You know, I think that a compromise might work. If Carol took the lead, and Mark worked with her, he could bring his competitive knowledge and his familiarity with the account to the table, while she could hone the message and get the product side in line. What do you say?”
Mark sent a silent prayer of thanks that Simone was firmly on his side. She was far more diplomatic, for one thing—and she’d been playing internal politics for years.
“We’ll talk later,” Roger said sharply, “but since you seem so intent…fine. McMann, you’re working with Carol. I’ll expect to see preliminary notes by next week. Pull the meeting together. And don’t screw this up,” he said, with obvious menace in his voice. “I want this one locked down.”
With that, he stalked off. The team let out a sigh of relief as Simone instructed them to go back to their desks. That is, everyone except Carol, who was looking both exceptionally arrogant and irritated.
Gonna have a problem with you, Mark noted.
“Mark,” she said, “I’ll have my assistant pull together the meeting, and I’ll get the notes done, as well. Why don’t you send me any information you have on Diva Nation and Marion & Co. in an e-mail? Or give me any copies of paperwork you have.” She smiled, an echo of Roger’s humoring grin. “I’ll start working on the actual presentation.”
“I’ll work with you, Carol,” he said, keeping his voice smooth. Charm, as Roger had said. “A lot of my knowledge isn’t on paper. I’d rather we just work together.”
She set her face in a frown. She was a slender woman, with red hair cut in a straight bob, and eyebrows so sculpted they looked chiseled onto her face. She’d had a problem with Mark since the day he’d joined the team. “Mark, can I talk to you for a minute?” she said in a low voice.
He nodded, allowing himself to be pulled aside, knowing that Simone was studying them intently. “Yes?”
She took a deep breath. “Look, it’s obvious that Roger doesn’t really want you on this project. So why don’t you let me do the bulk of the work?” Her eyes were like laser beams in their intensity. “No offense, but I know that this stuff—reports, this kind of leg work—isn’t really your strong suit.”
He winced. Remind me again how that’s not supposed to offend me. “I’m curious—what makes you say that?”
“Well, you’ve never done something like this before,” she said, as if it were patently obvious.
“But I’ve worked on lots of projects,” he countered. “Hell, lots of people on the team have asked me for advice. And Simone knows nobody knows competitive info like I do.”
She frowned, as if amazed he was still putting up a fight. “Well, you’re a sales guy. You don’t have the background…”
“I got my MBA two years ago,” he said shortly. “In marketing.”
She sighed. “You don’t know how we work.”
It was like battering up against a concrete slab. He sighed. He wasn’t going to win if he fought her way—supposed rational arguments, business talk. He only had one choice left.
He leaned forward, smiling…his most winning smile. He made sure he focused his gaze on her as if she were the only woman on earth. It was something they’d always talked about on the catwalk, back when he’d modeled.
She swallowed hard, obviously taken off guard.
“I won’t get in your way, Carol,” he said, his voice pitched low, almost intimate. “I know that this is a big deal, and you’ve probably done tons of marketing launches and competitive proposals. I’m only asking for a chance.”
She blinked at him. He’d never turned the full force of his charm on her before—he hadn’t wanted to waste the energy, and frankly, he always felt a little dirty when he used it this deliberately. Still, he knew the minute she started to waver.
He deliberately pulled his drawl out to a ribbon. “Please,” he murmured. “It would mean a lot to me.”
She flushed slightly, and looked away, taking a deep breath before looking back at him. “I…I’ll need to do most of the work, though,” she said, and then cleared her throat so her voice didn’t sound so ragged. “And we’ll need to make sure that I’m the one that does most of the talking.”
“Of course,” he said easily. He didn’t agree, but he’d tackle that later—he had a yes and he wasn’t going to mess with it, just as he’d always learned in sales. “We’ll set up something tomorrow to touch base, would that be all right? Then get all the details ironed out.”
“All right,” she said, although she finally sounded a lot less sure of herself. Then she walked away.
Mark gathered his papers together, and Simone walked up beside him. “You are amazing.”
He paused, picking up his pen. “How’s that?”
“I didn’t think anybody could chill out Warrior Princess Carol,” she responded, with a light chuckle in her voice. “But if anybody could, it would be you, huh?”
He chose to ignore that. Simone was his boss, and sort of a friend, but her sense of business ethics could get somewhat hazy. “Thanks for standing up for me with Roger,” he said instead, focusing on her kindness.
“It’s time. I know you’re smart, Mark,” she said. “You just need a chance, that’s all. So—what else do you know about Diva Nation?”
“Not as much as I’d like,” he admitted. “They’re not very big, but their products are amazing—really outside the box.” He smiled slightly, remembering. “I know that they’ve got a perfumed body lotion that is practically hallucinogenic.”
“Really,” she said, her voice ripe with speculation. “I probably don’t want to know how you know that.”
He realized he was letting something slip, and quickly clammed up. “I’ll buy their entire product line before I meet with Carol. And I’ll know a ton more by tomorrow.”
“You know,” Simone said carefully, “I couldn’t help but notice you had a bit of a connection with that Diva Nation woman—Sophie, her name was. Right?”
“She’s a nice woman,” Mark said carefully. “And just because we’re competitors doesn’t mean I need to hate her on sight, does it?”
“I’m merely saying,” Simone continued. “She seemed to like you, too. Maybe you could see what you could find out. I’m sure she’d be happy to talk to you on some kind of neutral ground.”
Mark felt it again—that dirty, unethical, icky feeling. “Trust me, she’s not the type.”
“Already tried, huh?” Simone laughed, and in that moment, Mark wished he were anywhere but here. “I might’ve guessed. You’re going to be a great marketing guy, and you’re going to knock this one out of the park. You’ll be one of the best.”
He smiled weakly, then fled. If being one of the best meant using a sweet person like Sophie…
He shook his head. It wasn’t as if he had anything with Sophie, and even if he did…well, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, he promised himself. He just wouldn’t.
3
SOPHIE GLANCED AT THE CLOCK by her bed. Ten o’clock. Early, by a lot of people’s standards. Unfortunately, she knew that sleep would evade her for another three hours, at least. She felt wired, even though she’d deliberately only drunk decaf all day. She’d gotten a good chunk of work done: she had most of the slides ready for the Marion & Co. presentation. She was a little nervous, but more excited—the sign that it was going to go very, very well.
But right now, she wasn’t thinking of the presentation. She was thinking, as usual, about Mark McMann.
She pushed her face down into her foam pillow. They’d agreed not to have any contact other than professional—after all, they were in competition, their paths would cross. But they had to be very, very careful, so no one would suspect how close they’d come to…well, getting very, very close. No friendly chats in elevators, no random “bump-into” exchanges in the lobby. Certainly no drinks in the hotel bar.
It also meant she sure as hell shouldn’t call him.
She sighed heavily. Even without the competition, she knew they shouldn’t get involved in any way, shape or form. Men who looked like him did not under normal circumstances go for women who looked like her, for one thing. And while Sophie knew she wasn’t ugly, she wasn’t about to pass for a model any time soon. She also knew that he had plenty of women going after him. He probably had no shortage of willing applicants for the position of bed warmer, and no doubt had spent plenty of time with a variety of them. And that type of man wasn’t her type at all.
She thought about Troy, her last and longest-lasting relationship. He had been tall, geeky, with blond hair and glasses. He was a finance analyst, and a good one. They’d met in the MBA program at the University of California, San Diego. In her case, it had been love at first sight. They’d been friends first, but she’d always known they’d shift over to lovers.
What she had not known was they should’ve stayed friends. She’d nearly smothered in all that comfort and compatibility. And she had to admit, she’d been shocked when he’d said the same thing, just before he’d broken up with her. She’d been the best study-buddy he’d ever had, but he just couldn’t see himself marrying her.
Not that you want to marry Mark.
