Trust in Advertising (32 page)

We have the matching boa and everything,” Anna chimed into the conversation, ignoring Lexi’s murderous glare.

“When’s the party, sweetie?” Lexi asked Madison, ignoring Vincent’s chuckles.

“Tonight!” Madison twirled around the office, her cookie held high above her head as she spun.

“Oh, I might not be able to make it. I don’t have a car today. I was supposed to pick it up last night.” Anna watched Lexi’s pained expression when she saw how sad her news had made Madison. “If there was anything I could do I would.”

“Maybe another time then, Maddie.” Anna tried to comfort her daughter.

“She’ll be there,” Vincent said as he pulled the flash drive from his computer and tossed it to Lexi. “I’ll give her a ride, no problem.”

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Before Lexi could say a word, Madison squeaked in delight. “I love you, Uncle Vince! Thank you.” She waved as Anna gently ushered her daughter out of the office. “See you later!”

“Bye, Maddie,” Lexi and Vincent said at the same time as Anna closed the office door.

Lexi smiled and turned from the closed door. “You don’t have to take me over to Anna’s this afternoon. I’ll call Hope and see if she can drop the car off for me.”

Vincent shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Lexi glanced at her watch. “Do you want to run through the presentation one more time really fast? Or do you need to go home and change instead?”

“Well, first I have favor to ask.” He eyed Lexi apprehensively, but her warm smile put him at ease. “Feel like coming to the Stone presentation with me? That way, if I get stuck or go off track, you can be there to set me straight.”

“You want me to go?” Lexi stammered. “And talk?”

Vincent’s smile made her stomach do that wonderful flip flop thing. “Yes, please?” The intensity of his eyes alone would have been enough to make her agree, but what he said next sealed the deal. “I need you, Lexi.”

Unsure that her mouth would be able to produce coherent speech, she simply nodded her head.

“Fantastic. Why don’t I drive you to your place and drop you off. Then I’ll run to my apartment, shower and change, and then pick you up about forty-five minutes before the presentation. That should give us enough time to get there and get everything set up and maybe even run through it one more time before Julian shows up. Will that give you enough time to get ready?”

Lexi’s brain shut down after hearing that Vincent would be coming to her apartment. Busy worrying about whether there was a pile of laundry on her couch and dirty dishes in her sink, she only half listened to what he was saying.

“That should be—”

“What the hell happened to my art room?” Tony roared as he burst through the door. Vincent’s entire body tensed, his jaw clenched, and his eyes darkened with anger, but he remained cool as he spoke, his voice never faltering.

“
Your
art room?”

“There’s stuff everywhere. Papers, prints, photographs. What the hell was wrong with the presentation that you had to mess with it and leave the place 189

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looking like a bomb went off? You signed off on everything. There should’ve been no edits necessary!” Tony’s face was red by the time he ended his rant. It was only then that he noticed Lexi. An evil sneer crossed his face. “Or maybe it was
you
that messed everything up.”

“Tony,” Vincent growled, taking a step toward his cousin. “Enough. I was down in productions last night. I made the mess. I had this new idea for the Stone account, and I went for it. No one else was in town to help, and you were conveniently unable to be reached, so I handled it myself. I
apologize
,” he ground out the last word through gritted teeth, “if the room is not as clean as you would like. I’d be happy to have someone clean it for you.”

It took every bit of self-control Vincent had to make that statement, Lexi was certain of that. His hands were balled at his sides, his knuckles white from his tight grip. The muscles of his jaw visibly clenched and unclenched as he attempted to keep his fury in check.

Tony continued to glare at Vincent, then glanced over at Lexi in her wrinkled clothes and disheveled hair. His gaze turned back to Vincent, and he seemed to take note of his haggard appearance, something very out of character for his usually perfect cousin. That’s when he asked in a snide voice, “So the two of you were here all night?
Together
?”

“I’m going to start printing out the packets and getting everything packed up. I’ll be at my desk.” With her gaze planted on her shoes, Lexi stepped out of the room and, in her hurry, didn’t close the door all the way. From behind her desk she had a view of everything going on inside and could hear the argument continue.

Tony hardly waited for Lexi to leave the room before he started in again,

“So you and Lexi, huh? I knew you two were hooking up.”

With Lexi out of the room, Vincent apparently saw no reason to contain his anger any longer. He began laying into Tony without apprehension. “Listen, I’m going to say this once. You work for me. If I want to come down to productions and work on a campaign, I can do that. Would I have preferred to hand this off to you or one of your people? Yes. However, you sent them all to a conference the same time Jared took his team out of town with my mother
and
on the eve of a huge presentation, I might add. Pretty piss poor planning on your part, wouldn’t you say? I wonder what Elizabeth would think? Doesn’t show very good management skills, now does it?” Tony remained silent as Vincent continued to seethe. “But don’t worry. Lexi did stay and help me with it, and this pitch is ten 190

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times better than the original. You better be careful, cousin, she might move up the corporate ladder faster than you.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck
you
, Tony. And if I hear one little hateful word come from your mouth about Lexi again, you’ll be sorry. Painfully sorry.”

The anger in Vincent’s voice made Lexi shudder.

“So protective of her. I wonder what Jade would think about you showing such loyalty to your assistant.”

Vincent charged at Tony like a bullet, pinning him to the wall with a loud crash. His nose was millimeters away from Tony’s. “Not another word or it will be your last.”

The two men stayed locked together for a minute before Tony broke eye contact. “Get off me.” He gave Vincent a shove, but like a brick wall, Vincent didn’t budge.

“Do we understand each other?”

Tony refused to answer him. Instead, he wormed his way out of Vincent’s grasp and stepped out of Lexi’s view in the direction of the production boards and began critiquing everything.

“The photo layouts could be better. You needed to use the higher resolution when you merged the picture fields. Next time leave it to the professionals so you don’t look like such an amateur. This one is on you, Vincent. You lose this account, and you have no one to blame but yourself. And personally, I would love for everyone to finally see that you aren’t half as great as you think you are.”

Lexi heard Tony’s footsteps heading toward the door so she quickly busied herself, keeping her gaze down on her desk as he stormed past and slammed the door shut behind him.

Seconds later, Vincent had gathered up all the presentation materials and rushed out of his office with the production boards in his hand.

“You ready?” he asked Lexi as she bent behind her desk, scooping color copies out of her printer as fast as she could.

Lexi waved a single finger at him. “Last copy, then I’m good to go.”

Vincent laid the materials down and quickly poured each of them a tall cup of coffee. By the time Lexi came from behind her desk, he had her coat draped over his arm. He gallantly held the jacket out so she could slip her arms inside.

She stole one of the cups of coffee from the counter and headed down the hall, not even bothering to wait for Vincent.

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In the elevator, Vincent began practicing the pitch, and they came up with a hand signal for Lexi to give if he slipped into too formal a tone, which he had a tendency to do when feeling stressed. Their voices echoed in the massive concrete parking garage as they continued discussing what points Vincent should emphasize. Lexi nearly dropped her briefcase when Vincent stopped at his car.

In the parking space was a Matchbox-sized black Lotus convertible.

“What the hell is this?” she laughed, peering down at his undersized car.

He popped the trunk and carefully maneuvered the production boards inside with barely any room to spare. He slammed it shut and rolled his eyes.

“It’s a Lotus, Lexi.”

“Yeah, but where’s the rest of it?”

“Get in the car.” Vincent held the door open for her and pointed to the seat.

“Does it run on triple A batteries?” Lexi snickered as he closed her door with a little more force than necessary.

He slid gracefully into his seat, the engine roaring to life with the turn of his key. He turned to her, his sunglasses in place, and revved the engine. Over the thundering noise he shouted, “No batteries, honey. It’s all about power.”

Even though the man was sexy as hell as he pulled out of the parking garage and onto the city streets, Lexi managed to keep her cool, refusing to stroke his ego where his car was concerned.

“Power shmower. Can you drive this thing or what? There’s nothing worse than a guy with a fast car who can’t drive it properly.” She raised a challenging eyebrow in response to his incredulous glare.

“Hold on.” He threw the car into gear, and they went screaming down the street.

Lexi tried not to focus on the way the muscles of his forearm clenched and coiled as he shifted gears. She tried to ignore the way he licked his lips and smiled as he whizzed past car after car. And more than anything, she tried to ignore the way his hips rocked slightly as he pumped the clutch in and out. There was no reason to dwell on the sensual confidence with which he drove the city streets, changing lanes and fluidly gliding along the road. Nothing good could come from fantasizing about those things, but the adrenaline rush as they whipped along the street made Lexi’s body ache in a delicious way that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Unconsciously, Lexi fanned her hand in front of her face, trying to cool the flames that engulfed her body. Vincent, of course, noticed. “Are you hot? Do you want me to turn up the air conditioning?”

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“No, no, I’m good,” Lexi said, blushing. She took a few deep, calming breaths as she watched the buildings fly past the window. She maintained control until she felt a warm hand gently graze her thigh.

“Still think it’s tiny?”

Before she could stop the words from flying from her mouth, she said, “I’m quite certain nothing of yours is tiny, Vincent.” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “I said that out loud, didn’t I.”

Vincent laughed. “Yes, you did.”

“Sleep deprivation, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.” She sighed in relief and pointed out her window. “Oh look, there’s my place. Pull over here.” The car had barely stopped before Lexi leaped out and made a run for her door, desperate to put some distance between her and Vincent, but he jumped out and called after her.

“I’l be back in,” he glanced at his watch, “an hour? Be ready when I get here.”

She stayed on the sidewalk and gave a tiny wave as the car peeled out of the parking space. In a matter of seconds it disappeared down the street and out of view. Lexi shook her head, trying to clear out the very dangerous thoughts that rolled around in there. For the sake of her heart, she had to purge her erotic fantasies about Vincent. She leaned her head back as she rode the elevator to her floor, mentally trying to plan out her wardrobe for the presentation so she could save time after she jumped out of the shower. When she got to her apartment, she found a note taped just under the peephole.

Lexi,

You are in so much trouble with me. Get over to my place as soon as you read this.

Hope

“Ugh.” Lexi didn’t have time to deal with a tantruming Hope. She had just under an hour to get ready and clean her apartment before Vincent returned, and she couldn’t be late. Carefully turning the knob, Lexi tried to silently slip into her apartment unnoticed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Hope’s eagle eyes peeked out of her apartment door. “You weren’t going to blow me off
again
and sneak inside, were you?”

“Hope, I have to leave for the Stone presentation with Vincent in an hour, so I don’t have time.”

“Oh, you have plenty of time.” Hope linked her arm with her friend’s and guided her into her apartment. “So Vincent’s coming over? I assume he dropped 193

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you off, and going by your clothes, it looks like you two crazy kids spent the whole night together.”

Lexi unhooked her arm from Hope and began putting the couple of dishes that were in the sink into the dishwasher. “We were working, Hope. I told you.”

“No, you didn’t tell me anything. The Neanderthal you sent downstairs to take me to dinner told me.”

“I worked all night and then fell asleep on a couch. Boring. How was your evening with Sean? You’re being very quiet about things, and I didn’t even get an angry text from you.”

Hope’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t get a text? Are you serious? Did you lose your phone or something? I texted you about twenty times!”

Confused, Lexi rummaged to the bottom of her purse where she found her BlackBerry. Twenty-one missed calls. Eighteen were from Hope and three were from Sean. She remembered that after she got Hope’s text, she had set the phone to vibrate and tossed it into her bag. It must have fallen to the bottom, and with her hectic night, she completely forgot about it.

“Hope, I’m so sorr—”

“Save it. The night was … well, it wasn’t a total bust.”

Lexi laughed. “I’d say so after this ‘OMG he’s so flippin’ hot!’ text you sent at nine-oh-nine p.m.”

“That wasn’t from me. He stole the phone for a minute.”