Can't Get Enough (4 page)

Oh, boy.Jenny was renowned for being a real stickler for protocol and
proper office conduct, and Claire almost winced as she imagined the
arctic blast Jack was about to receive. Almost, but not quite. Instead,
she leaned forward, just in case she missed a single delicious nuance.
It was about time Mr. Cocky got the message that the world was not his
personal love pit….

"You'd better be careful, Jack. I might just take you up on that offer one day—we'll see how fast you run then."

Claire blinked. Good grief, Jenny Bell was
flirting
with Jack Brook. Actually batting her eyelids and flicking her thick
plait of gray hair over her shoulder. Claire slumped a little lower in
her seat. Was she the only member of the sisterhood who was immune to
Jack's flashy charms?

"You say yes, we'll see
what happens," Jack warned her. Claire almost gasped with outrage as he
reached across and plucked the pencil from Jenny's hands. "I'm going to
keep this as a souvenir," he said cheekily, sauntering over to take a
seat beside Claire.

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A delighted peal of laughter sounded from Jenny Bell.

"For that you get a coffee while you wait—black, one sugar, right?" It
was like James Bond and Ms. Moneypenny , only he was licensed to make
her feel ill. Claire could feel her upper lip curling with distaste.

"How about you, Claire? Would you like a coffee, or tea perhaps?" This came as Jenny was about to exit, an afterthought.

"No, I'm fine, thank you," Claire managed to choke out, even dredging
up a smile from somewhere. Jenny disappeared into the small kitchen
behind her desk, and Claire concentrated on the magazine she'd picked
up. She should have paid more attention when she'd grabbed it from the
pile on the table—

Big Game Fishing
was hardly her bag. Worse, as she flicked through it trying to find
something to grab her attention, her eye was caught by the byline on
the major story—Jack Brook. She rolled her eyes. Of course he was into
big game fishing. What was she thinking? The man was practically
Hemingway reincarnate, with his skydiving and racy car and chain of
women and travel writing. He'd probably even run with the bulls in
Pamplona .

Out of the corner of her eye she
saw him stretch out his long legs, his tanned arm resting on the couch
between them. He was amusing himself with the pencil he'd taken from
Jenny, rolling it back and forth between his long, strong fingers. She
found herself fixating on the dexterous movement of his hands for a
beat.
He has a body to die for.
Katherine's words slipped insidiously into Claire's mind. Jack Brook
would be an amazing lover, of that she had no doubt. The way he looked
at women, the glint in his eye, the casual, animal elegance of his
walk—the man simply screamed sex. There would be nothing tentative or
uncertain about his technique—he looked as though he knew exactly what
buttons to push, and when, and how hard, and…

Claire blinked, stunned at the direction her thoughts had taken. She
must be stressed out or something. That was the only explanation for
her aberrant thoughts.

Mindlessly flipping the pages, she surreptitiously checked her watch.
What was it with big bosses and the waiting game? In all her years in
publishing, she'd yet to walk straight into a superior's office at the
time of her appointment. There was always the standard keep-you-waiting
ploy to be played out, just to remind you of your place in the pecking
order.

A big male hand suddenly grabbed the page she was staring at blankly,
pulling the magazine across so that Jack could see what she was
reading.

"Thought I recognized that picture," he said, stabbing a neatly
manicured index finger at the photo accompanying his big article. It
showed a snow-white, luxuriously appointed yacht bobbing on a brilliant
azure sea. "Hell of a boat. Crew of fifteen just to run her. Now that's
money." She gritted her teeth.

"Spent a full week on her. Pretty hard coming back to nine-to-five-domafter that, I can tell you."

"I wasn't aware you workednine to five," she couldn't resist saying. The man was always off on some
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stupid assignment somewhere.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"I was speaking metaphorically. You know what that is, don't you? As
in—she was as sour as a lemon," he said, and she sat up straighter.
What a jerk!

"Actually, that's a simile. A metaphor is more like—his ego was
monumental," she returned sweetly. He was opening his mouth to respond
when the door to Morgan Beck's office swung open. Their heads swiveled
as one and she didn't need to look to know that Jack's face wore the
same friendly-not-too-suckysmile that hers did.

"Claire, Jack. Come on in," Morgan said.

She stood, the smile almost slipping off her face. Up until this
second, she'd been telling herself that Jack Brook's visit to the
thirtieth floor had nothing to do with her. And she'd almost been
believing it. Now she gave free rein to the paranoid feminist within
and began imagining half a dozen scenarios where she was shafted
royally. Her stomach sunk below knee level as she followed Jack into
Morgan Beck's inner sanctum.

"Now, Jack, how much do you know about Claire's new project for the
Hillcrest Hardware chain?" Morgan asked, toying with an
expensive-looking fountain pen as he leaned back in his well-padded
executive chair.

"I understand it's a custom magazine job, a monthly decorator title to
be sold only in their stores at a cheaper than usual cover price to
create customer loyalty," Jack said. She resisted the urge to stare at
him. How did he know all this? She couldn't have named a single title
he worked for. Apart from
Big Game Fishing,
of course.

"Sounds like he's got the important bits right, doesn't it, Claire?" She nodded, too anxious to trust her voice.

"Before we go any further, I want to acknowledge that this project has
been yours, Claire, from the word go. But unfortunately, we've hit a
bit of a snag. I've had my thinking cap on, though, and I've come to
the conclusion that Jack might be the man to help us out." She
swallowed hard and forced air into her lungs.

"This is a problem from Hillcrest, I'm assuming?" she asked, trying to find her feet.

"Yes, but don't go getting too fussed about it. Old Hank Hillcrest is a
dyed-in-the-wool sexist and he's got some pretty wacky ideas. One of
those is that the magazine's outlook is too feminine." Claire frowned.
Too feminine? Over half of the magazine's content was aimed at offering
heavy-duty building projects to experienced DIYers , along with reviews
of new hardware and building products. In fact, the only feminine parts
of the magazine were the decorator segments, and a small cookery
section which was designed to showcase Hillcrest's kitchen products.

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She said as much to Morgan, and he nodded his head sympathetically.

"Claire, I know all this. They know all this. Hell, even cranky old
Hillcrest knows all this. But he just doesn't have it in him to let
this go without putting his sticky fingerprints all over it. So, as I
said, I had an idea.

"You probably don't know this, but Jack started out his career with us
in the Homes and Decorating division, writing up projects for our DIY
titles. Over the years, he's branched out, moved on. But I bet I
wouldn't be wrong if I suggested you still keep your hand in with a bit
of DIY work here and there, right, Jack?"

She found herself turning to look at Jack, all the words of protest
catching at the back of her throat. She was going to be sick. She was
truly going to puke her guts up all over Morgan Beck's polished walnut
desk.

"Sure, Morgan, I've got a few projects on the go. But it sounds to me
like you've got a done deal with Hillcrest already. And by the looks of
things, Claire's put in all the hard yards on this project," Jack said.
Underneath the sick feeling and the anger and the dread, she managed to
be surprised at this response from Jack. He actually sounded
uncomfortable, reluctant.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, people. I'm not suggesting for a
moment that Claire be cut out of this thing. We would never do that to
you, Claire—please be assured of that." Morgan took a moment to simply
make eye contact with her, his faded blue eyes powerfully sincere. She
held his gaze, wanting him to see she had what it took to survive this
last hiccup.

"What exactly are you suggesting then, Mr. Beck?" she asked carefully.

"I want to assign Jack to
Welcome Home
as an associate editor for a while—six months, tops. Just so he can
have a few meetings with old man Hillcrest, shoot the breeze, all that
stuff Jack does so well. It'll be purely window dressing. Jack'll write
up a few articles, and then we'll just downplay his involvement until
he simply disappears altogether."

She tried
to get her head around it. They wanted to give half the credit for her
magazine, based on her concept, sold to the client by her, to this
crinkle-shirted lothario slouching next to her?

"This…this really…" She struggled to find a way to finish her sentence that didn't have the word "sucks" in it.

"I've got to agree with Claire, Morgan. Surely we can just tough this
out? Once Hillcrest have the first edition of their new magazine in
hand, they'll be so dazzled they'll forget any objections," Jack said.
Morgan nodded, almost as though he was giving Jack's suggestion some
thought.

"We've gone over all this, Jack, believe me. What I'm suggesting is
painless, simple and foolproof. I think we can all work together to
pull this off, don't you?" There was no mistaking the sudden glint of
steel in Morgan's eyes now. She found herself fixating on the small
tufts of hair remaining on his otherwise bald head. She'd always
thought of them indulgently as pseudo teddy-bear ears, but now she
realized he probably cultivated them to cover the scars from where
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he'd had his twin horns surgically removed.

"I'll leave the details of all this up to you two, and I know I can rely upon you both to be discreet about this…arrangement."

Somehow she managed to find her feet. Her legs felt numb and heavy, and
the distance between her chair and the doors leading back to the
reception area seemed a mile off. Morgan leaned forward and shook her
hand, again going for the meaningful eye contact. He'd probably look
that way as he was pushing her out of a lifeboat on the
Titanic
—deeply moved, but completely committed to saving his own backside.

Anger trickled into her frozen limbs. She lifted her chin, aware she
must be looking like a stunned mullet. Although it felt as though her
face might crack, she forced her lips into a curve that she hoped
resembled a smile.

"I'm sure we can smooth this over," she said, and she was amazed at how
professional and calm she sounded. As she turned toward the door she
glanced just once at Jack Brook, and she saw surprise and something
else—respect?—in his deep blue eyes before she fixed her attention on
the double doors ahead and concentrated on putting one foot in front of
the other. Just get me out of here, just get me out of here, just get
me out of here,she begged herself, already aware that her mask of calm
was about to dissolve. To show any weakness in front of these men…She'd
rather charge at the plate-glass window behind Morgan's desk and take a
dive down to the sidewalk. Jenny looked up and smiled at Claire as she
approached, and again Claire dragged her lips into a smile.

"See you later, Claire," the assistant said.

The rest of the office geography assumed the visual equivalent of white
noise as Claire honed in on the ladies' sign at the end of the hall and
simply walked.

She had no idea what had happened to Jack Brook, but she had no
intention of hanging around to discuss details with him—or worse, to
listen to some mealymouthed vote of sympathy. The veneered surface of
the restroom door felt smooth and cool beneath her fingers and at last
she was alone. She couldn't even look at herself in the mirror, afraid
all of her emotions would be painfully obvious: disgust,
disappointment, anger, betrayal.

God, when would enough be enough in this world? When would her
achievements measure up for these people? When would her skills and
talents be acknowledged?

She threw her handbag and briefcase onto the marble vanity and at last
faced her reflection in the mirror. To her surprise she looked calm.
Cool. Hard. Determined.

She snorted. The great irony of her life was that a childhood of
insecurity and disappointment had helped her build a tough fortress of
impenetrability as an adult. So now when she was disappointed, no one
ever knew. Except for her.

Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes and she clenched them shut
for a moment. She would not cry. She hated that when she became angry
one of her first responses was to feel tears coming on. It felt weak,
ineffectual—a child's response to being thwarted or hurt. If she were a
man, she wouldn't be in
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here being a big sooky -la-la. If she were a man, she'd be off
somewhere kicking a hole in a wall or punching up some innocent
bystander in a bar.

Inspired, she took a step toward the wastepaper can and gave it a good,
solid kick. It slid across the tiled floor and slammed into the far
wall, toppling to one side and spilling out a morning's worth of
scrunched-up paper towel and tissue.

"Hah!" she said out loud.

As an expression of her anger and hurt and disenchantment, it felt
woefully inadequate. And now there was a pile of tissue all over the
floor. Unable to stop herself, she knelt and scooped the scrunched-up
paper back into the bin.

Just like a man,she mocked herself.

The outer door swung open and one of the finance directors' assistants
entered the room. Claire shot to her feet, smiled awkwardly, then
entered a stall as a way of avoiding explanations. She waited until the
other woman had left, then emerged to wash her hands. Patting them dry,
she checked her watch: a good five minutes since the meeting had ended.
She could head for the elevators now and be confident of avoiding Jack.
She could ride the elevator all the way down to the foyer, and just
keep on walking. She'd always planned to come back to the office after
her appointment with Hillcrest and work late, as usual, but now she
impulsively decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. Perhaps if
she went for a really punishing run she could lose some of the anger
coiling in her belly. And then she could return to Beck and Wise
tomorrow and show them that she wasn't going to let them beat her.