Her Favourite Rival

Not enemies anymore. Rivals? Colleagues? Both words didn’t feel quite right.

Audrey gave herself a mental shake. It was late; she was tired and hungry. It was time to go home and pretend she had a life.

* * *

ZACH SPENT THE bulk of his spare time for the rest of the week working on the competitor analysis. He pulled company reports from Mathesons off the internet, paid for a media search, and spoke to various suppliers and industry bodies. He spent Saturday pulling all the information he’d gathered into some kind of shape, staring at his laptop until he was bleary-eyed. The only upside of any of it—apart from the potential payoff at the end when Whitman was blown away by the report—was knowing that Audrey was in the trench with him.

Three o’clock. Sunday morning found him tapping away on his laptop, driven from his bed by restless thoughts. He swore out loud when the email notification pinged loudly in the quiet of the living room, startling him, then shook his head when he saw it was from Audrey. Nice to know he wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping.

What’s wrong, Mathews? Did you wet the bed?

He was tired enough that he’d hit Send before it occurred to him that even though their working relationship had improved since their little cards-on-the-table chat the other night, it might not be up to incontinence jokes just yet.

“Good one, smart-ass,” he told his computer screen, scrubbing his face with his hands.

A second later, another ping.

Had to get up to see Sven and Lars out. Crazy night. Think we might have broken the bed.

He barked out a laugh at her bold response.

That’s the problem with the Swedes: too enthusiastic, he typed back.

He stared at the screen, waiting for her response.

Is there such a thing as being too enthusiastic? I’m not sure. Speaking of...I’ve finished my first draft. Want to correct my grammar?

Thought you’d never ask. Here’s mine, just so you don’t feel left out. In an attempt to preempt any ridicule, I freely admit that spelling is not my forte. Have at it.

Thanks for taking all the fun out of it. I was going to print off your worst offenses and show them to Megan on Monday.

Feel free. I’ve already posted your comments about Whitman’s sausage fingers on Facebook.

I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned Whitman’s freakishly overinflated digits to you before, so I’m not sure what you’ll be posting...oh, wait...

He laughed out loud again and pulled the laptop a little closer to the edge of the coffee table.

Your secrets are safe with me, he typed.

Seriously, though...Those sausage fingers. Megan and I thought we were the only ones who’d noticed.

Dude, you’d have to be hard of seeing not to notice those puppies.

I haven’t been called “dude” since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were big in primary school.

My pleasure.

There was a short pause before the next message appeared.

Hey. I just realized Can’t Stop the Music is on. And they say insomnia is bad.

????

You haven’t seen it? Dude, you are missing out. Let me sketch a few details for you: Steve Guttenberg, roller skates, New York City. And if that doesn’t clinch the deal for you, it was a movie vehicle for the Village People.

Sold.

He grabbed the remote, flicked the TV on and changed the channel. Cheesy music blasted into the room, while the screen filled with a cityscape, complete with a man in white jeans roller-skating down the street, Walkman clutched in one hand.

Wow, he typed.

I know. I’ll leave you to enjoy in peace. My gift to you, fellow workaholic.

He stared at the computer screen, only now registering how much he’d been enjoying their exchange. How engaged he’d been, imagining Audrey sitting up in bed tapping away at her laptop, wearing nothing but one of those tight little tank tops and a pair of lacy panties....

Yeah.

Maybe it was just as well she’d signed off, before he let lack of sleep and the intimacy of the early hour lead him into dangerous territory.

Audrey might be sexy and funny and smart, but she was still his coworker. He had no business thinking about her panties. Especially while he and Audrey were coauthoring the competitor analysis together.

He shut his laptop, in case he was tempted to renew contact, and settled back on the couch to watch what promised to be a spectacularly bad movie.

He liked the idea that somewhere in Melbourne, Audrey was doing the same thing.

In a tight little tank top.

And black—no, red—panties.

He was only human, after all.

* * *

“SO. HOW’S IT GOING?” Megan took a slurp from her milkshake and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that when you say ‘it’ you’re referring to my working relationship with Zach,” Audrey said drily.

It was Thursday, one day before they flew out to Queensland for the conference, and her last day of working hand-in-glove with Zach.

“Quit stalling. Have you had wild monkey sex yet? Have you seen him without his shirt?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed with sex, you know that?”

Although it was very telling that the thought of Zach sans shirt made her heart rate go a little crazy.

“Hello? Trying to get pregnant over here. Sex is my life. Not wild monkey sex, though, sadly. We have slightly dutiful procreational sex. Still fun, but not very spontaneous. I think it’s all the mucous checking.”

“What on earth—” Audrey caught herself and held up a hand. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to know.”

“I’ll spare you. I’d hate for there to be no surprises for you if you ever decide to have children.”

“Thank you. You’re very generous.”

“So, I’m thinking eight inches, solid girth...?”

“Jesus, Megan.” This time Audrey glanced over her shoulder, even though she was pretty sure no one else from work was currently patronizing the food court at the local shopping mall.

“What?” Megan asked, a devilish glint in her eye.

“I don’t want to think about Zach’s...girth, okay? We’re working together.”

Not that she hadn’t given some consideration to the more intimate aspects of his body over the past week, most notably when she’d been drifting back to sleep at four o’clock Sunday morning, picturing Zach doing the same thing on the other side of town. She was only human, and he was the sexiest man she’d ever spent so much time with.

Hands down.

All he had to do was walk into the room these days and she could feel her body warming. She didn’t even want to imagine what he could do if he put his mind to it.

Okay, she did. But she wasn’t going to, because she loved her job, and she wanted to get ahead, and sleeping with Zach was the best way she could think of to destroy both those things.

She would dearly love to discuss all of the above with Megan, however, because that was what they did best. It would be so good to get her friend’s perspective. But Megan would make a big deal out it, along with encouraging all sorts of reckless fantasies and behavior, and Audrey so did not need that kind of encouragement right now.

It was bad enough dealing with her own inappropriate thoughts and feelings.

Megan sighed heavily. “I knew it. You’re wasting this golden opportunity by squabbling with him, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Not since the night he’d forced her to see him as he really was. Nope, since then they’d been getting on just fine. Chatting in the staff room. Popping into each other’s offices to pass on new pieces of information they’d dug up. Emailing each other in the dead of night and having inappropriate, unprofessional conversations.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

Audrey adopted a more serious expression. “Is that better?”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if you and Zach were doing the dirty?” Megan asked beseechingly.

Audrey suspected her friend was only half kidding.

“You’ll be the first to know. Outside of Zach, of course.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Stick a needle in my eye,” Audrey promised.

It wasn’t as though it was ever going to be an issue, after all. She might be sexually frustrated, but she wasn’t an idiot.

“Okay, fine.” Megan pointed to the half a sandwich still left on Audrey’s plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

“It’s all yours.”

“Thank you. That sub barely touched the sides. I think I’m having a growth spurt.”

Audrey managed to change the subject then, but Megan’s words popped into her mind as she hit the mall afterward to shop for a present for her sister.

The truth was, she was finding it incredibly difficult to believe that she had ever not liked Zach. He was funny. He was cheeky. He said amazingly clever things that made her brain hurt trying to keep up. And he was also one hundred percent male.

Hot, firm, hard male.

Yesterday, they’d shared a pizza and worked into the night as they pasted their separate sections of the analysis into one coherent report and massaged it into shape. At some point he’d loosened his tie and she’d kicked off her shoes. She’d been tired after days of doing her normal job as well as working every spare minute on the project, but Zach had made it fun.

Be honest. He made it more than fun.

Okay, he’d made it exciting. Sitting in the same room with him when the rest of the building was dark and silent had created a special sort of intimacy. They’d laughed and told jokes in between bouts of intense productivity. And they were doing it all over again tonight.

There was no denying the frisson of excitement that fizzed through her belly at the thought. There was also no denying that she’d dressed with particular care this morning, choosing a black pencil skirt and fitted latte-colored silk blouse that made her feel like a heroine in a forties movie. And yes, she’d even spritzed on perfume, something she didn’t usually bother with for the office.

“He’s your coworker,” she murmured to herself, in case that rather important fact had slipped her mind.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Can I help you?”

Audrey lifted her gaze from the scarf display she’d been eyeing and realized that the sales assistant had overheard her talking to herself. Such a good look.

“I’m just browsing, thanks,” she said with a sheepish smile.

“For yourself or are you looking for a gift?” the young woman asked.

“It’s a gift, for my sister. Her thirtieth, actually.”

“Something special, then? Were you thinking a scarf? We have some lovely French silk scarves....”

Audrey blinked at the display. She had no idea, really, why she’d stopped in front of it.

“I was thinking maybe a watch, actually. Or a piece of jewelry.”

“Lovely. Jeannie is over in the watch department. She’ll be sure to help you out,” the saleswoman said, already drifting away to serve another customer.

Audrey made her way to the shiny glass display cabinets in the jewelry department, finally locating the watches. She did a slow circuit of the cabinets, running her eye over the range, hoping something would jump out at her as being perfect for Leah.

Her gaze moved from watch to watch, doubt and indecision gnawing at her. Despite the fact that there were only four years separating them, she and Leah had never really been close. She had no idea whether her sister would be all over a watch loaded with shiny bling, or if she would prefer a more conservative, traditional model.

Funny, because she could still remember how excited she’d been when she’d learned her parents would be bringing home a little sister for her from the hospital. She’d mistakenly believed that it would be her and Leah against the world.

She did a slower circuit, this time stopping when she saw a small-faced gold watch with a leather band and distinctive art deco styling. She thought it was beautiful, but there was no telling whether Leah would. For a moment Audrey was filled with a piercing, ineffable sadness that she knew so little about her own sister’s likes and dislikes.

“Excuse me. Could I take a closer look at this one, please?” Audrey called out to the saleswoman.

“Of course, let me grab my key.”

Half a minute later, Audrey was wrapping the thin leather band around her wrist. It really was gorgeous. Maybe she should take a punt on it, go with her gut and hope for the best. She flipped the dangling price tag over and blinked in shock when she saw the price.

Twelve hundred dollars.

Whoa.

She did a mental check of her savings account, but she already knew the watch was beyond her budget.

“So, what do you think?” the saleswoman asked.

“It’s lovely, but I might look around a little more before I make my final decision,” Audrey said.

She smiled politely and handed the watch back before resuming her slow cruise of the display. Nothing else caught her eye, and after five minutes she left the store and headed for her car. Her thoughts kept returning to the watch as she drove back to Makers, however. If she extended the limit on her credit card, she could swing it, barely. It would take a bite out of her savings and make life a little less fun for a few months, but she could do it.

It was her little sister’s thirtieth, after all. She wanted to mark the occasion.

What you really mean is that you want to try to buy your way into her favor.

It was a sobering realization, so profound that she didn’t notice the traffic light change and had to be honked to awareness by the driver behind her.

Amazing, the way the past could keep coming back to bite her on the ass, even when she was sure that she’d dealt with it and reconciled herself and gotten on with things. Because she’d thought she was done with trying to make amends, in the same way that she’d thought she was beyond feeling hurt by her outsider status in her own family.

She drove into the garage and parked in her allocated spot. She didn’t immediately get out of her car. She needed a moment to get herself together.

If she could go back in time, if she could change one decision, undo one choice, she would return to the moment when her angry, resentful, achingly lonely sixteen-year-old self had stuffed a handful of clothes into a duffel bag and climbed out the window and into the waiting car of her boyfriend.

But she couldn’t, just as she couldn’t undo any of the foolish, dangerous things she’d done in the eighteen months following that night. Stealing from her parents and her sister. Endless rounds of binge drinking. The way she’d allowed herself to be treated by Johnny and his friends for fear that she’d lose the one person who had ever really seen her and believed in her and loved her. Or so she’d thought at the time.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest. God, she’d been so young and so hungry for approval and attention. The great irony was that the two people she’d most wanted to sit up and take notice—her parents—were the two people who had never quite forgiven her for the months of worry and heartache and shame she’d inflicted on them as they searched and fretted over their runaway daughter.

They pretended they had. Everyone was perfectly civil and polite to one another once she’d moved home and embarked on the never-ending mission of redeeming herself. But the truth was that that rash, reckless dash into the night when she was sixteen had permanently cemented her black sheep status, and she’d never been able to claw her way back.

Not with good behavior. Not with heartfelt words. And not with gifts.

And certainly not by buying her sister a very expensive watch for her birthday.

She breathed in through her nose, held her breath for a handful of heartbeats, then released it fully. Then she opened the door and climbed out.

How did that L.P. Hartley quote go? “The past is a foreign country.” And she didn’t have the time or the energy to go there.

Not today, anyway.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE WAS WEARING perfume. Something light, with sweet vanilla undertones.

Zach looked up from the page he was proofreading and glanced at Audrey’s profile, trying to gauge her mindset. They’d been going over the finished analysis for the past hour, correcting typos, adding information, finessing the layout. Not by the flicker of an eyelid had she indicated that tonight was any different from last night or any of the other times they’d met to work on the report—except she didn’t usually wear perfume.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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