Trust in Advertising (55 page)

Erik looked over his shoulder and noticed what Lexi was staring at. He put his hand on her arm. “The camera never lies. I know you can see it. He will too, someday.”

Tears welled into Lexi’s eyes but she refused to let them fall. “Sure, Erik,”

she said, unconvinced.

“Really?” He arched his eyebrow and began flipping through more pictures that he had taken today. “Maybe you should look at the rest of these.” There was one of Lexi and Madison in the garden. Over Lexi’s shoulder, there was Vincent, standing at the edge of the deck, watching her. There was another from when Lexi was making a plate for Robert, and Vincent watched her adoringly as she kissed Robert on the cheek. The last one was her sunbathing while Vincent was on the other side of the pool, peeking at her over the top of his newspaper. The look in his eyes was not playful or adoring, it was lustful and hungry, the way a man looks at a woman he wants in his bed.

“Now do you see it?”

Erik flipped to one last picture. It was the two of them standing against the rail of the deck, eating and laughing. Their bodies were touching, their faces turned toward one another. They were, in that picture, the perfect couple. “
This
is what I see when I look at the two of you.” Erik smiled. “And it’s beautiful.”

Lexi didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply nodded. Then she heard Vincent call out to her.

“Lexi, I need you.”

332

∙ 27 ∙

Monday morning, Lexi arrived at Hunter ready to work. They finally knew where they were going with the Marradesi account, and after numerous E-mails back and forth on Sunday, she and Vincent were focused and ready to work out the remaining details.

Jade had had a fit when she saw the picture that Elizabeth insisted be the focus of the campaign, and when Sean pointed out that at least she’d get to be in the print ad, she went storming to Vincent’s car. She stayed there and pouted until Vincent came out and took her home.

As Lexi poured herself a cup of coffee, Vincent snuck up behind her.

“Lexi, I need you.”

“Jesus, give me a heart attack, why don’t ya? I swear I’m going to tie a bell around your neck.” She saw what was in his hand and nearly passed out. “What the hell is that?”

“This?” Vincent held up a poster sized blowup of Erik’s photograph. “It’s for the presentation boards.”

“Can’t we reshoot it with professional models?”

“Eventually, yes, but we’re in a crunch, so no, not right now. We use this and go with it. Once they sign as clients, we’ll talk about it, but I think you and Hope look absolutely beautiful. Besides, professional models would look too posed.”

Victoria Michaels

Lexi stared at the picture again, trying not to focus on the way Vincent was looking at her in it. It was too much to take in. “Fine, but keep it in your office. That thing creeps me out.”

Laughing, Vincent went into his office to get settled in. Lexi began returning E-mails. There were quite a few for Vincent from Julian and Christina about the upcoming fashion show. This week was going to be a busy one for everyone at Hunter.

In the middle of the day, Vincent stuck his head out the door. “Lexi, when you get a minute, I need to talk to you about something important.” His teasing tone from earlier in the day was gone. It was all-business Vincent asking for her time. His features were tightly drawn, tension radiating off of him.

A sense of dread washed over Lexi. “Sure, give me a second to finish this up.”

“Actually, I need to speak with you now, and if that’s the Excalibur file on your desk, bring it with you.” He pointed at the pile of papers beside her hand and held the door open wide.

Lexi logged off of the computer, grabbed her desk keys and the file, and sat down on Vincent’s couch, waiting for the bad news. Her stomach dropped when he began pacing the room. Pacing was never a good thing where Vincent was concerned. When he sat down beside her, Lexi felt like she might throw up.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“What?” Vincent was caught off guard by her question. “No, of course not.”

“Real y, you can tel me, Vincent. I can take it. No need to sugar coat things.

If I did something—”

Very abruptly, Vincent exploded. “Not everything is about you, Lexi.”

“Okay, thanks for biting my head off.” Lexi’s eyes threatened to fill with tears, but she turned her face toward the window so Vincent wouldn’t see.

“Damn it.” Vincent tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. He took a deep breath and told her the truth. “Someone at Hunter is leaking our ideas to the competition and costing us millions in accounts.”

Lexi’s head spun so quickly she was surprised her neck didn’t snap. “What?

Who? Tony?” She immediately slammed her hand over her mouth, unable to believe she’d accused his cousin of corporate thievery.

“I wish I could say you’re wrong, but I honestly have no idea.” He was back on his feet and began his usual path across the office, and then spun and retraced his steps.

“Do you have any idea which accounts?”

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“Well, I think we both know they tried on the Stone account, but we got lucky on that one. Then there was the Keller account, and I’m going to venture a guess that we lost the Garcia account over it too. God, do you know how stupid I looked every time I walked into an office and gave what appeared to be a recycled presentation?” Vincent clenched his hands into fists and thrust them deep into his pockets as if to keep from punching the wall.

“Let’s think about this.” All Vincent’s pacing made Lexi nervous, so she too began walking her own route around the room, occasionally bumping into Vincent, who was deep in thought. “Can I ask how you found this out? Who’s the source?”

Vincent had a guilty look on his face as he answered. “That really doesn’t matter. The fact is the information is good.” Lexi watched him shrug then continue around his desk, closing that topic.

Suddenly all the meetings the previous week made sense to Lexi. He’d been fishing for information. “So, what do you need me to do? How can I help you?” she immediately asked.

“I really don’t deserve you,” Vincent muttered as he sat down at his desk and put his face in his hands. He took a deep breath and his head popped up.

“Give me the file.”

Lexi slid into a nearby chair and handed him the Excalibur file.

“This client might seem like small potatoes right now, but I happen to know that Mr. Johnson has connections, and this line of watches is getting huge celebrity buzz and is looking to go very big very fast. He’s a family friend, so I really want to hit this out of the park for him. If we can snag this account now and look a little bit to the future in the presentation, this could be a huge money maker for Hunter. But we have to blow everyone away with our campaign.”

Lexi’s brow furrowed together in confusion. “I’m not following. What does this client have to do with catching the mole?”

Vincent sighed. “I want you to work on this, only you and me. I can’t risk anyone leaking this information. Not the long term plans of Excalibur or our concepts, none of it. Only three people know about Excalibur’s big plans. Two of the three are sitting in this room. Mr. Johnson is the other.”

Lexi examined the file he handed her. In it was his initial presentation plan.

The idea was brilliant. She quickly scanned the documents and understood the direction he wanted to take this project. “What do we need for the initial meeting?”

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“I have a PowerPoint in there. I need you to fact check it and clean it up.

I’ve stared at it too long, and I know it’s sloppy in places. It needs a fresh set of eyes on it. If you think something needs to be changed, just do it. We aren’t going to do a full presentation. He wants a brief concept outline and a small mock up ad, which I will work on myself.” He shrugged when Lexi looked at him in surprise. “Fewer eyes on this the better.”

“When do we need this done by?”

“Sunday.” Vincent smiled apologetical y when Lexi’s face went white. “Real y, I’ve done most of the leg work on this, I just need you to polish it up and make it better. And keep a lid on it. Everything stays locked up tight.”

“I can handle that. Who else is presenting to him? Are Parketti or Reid?” Lexi asked, trying to get a handle on what direction this mole might be coming from.

“I know Reid is, and I bet Adria will also be presenting since she met him years ago when we were dating. He liked her then, so I assume she has weaseled into this as well.”

“And we’ve lost accounts to both of them, right, not just Reid?” Lexi was on her feet, tapping her pencil against her thigh as she walked the room.

“Yeah. Like I said, whoever this is, is giving information to a number of sources. It’s not like Person A here at Hunter is feeding everything to Person B

at Reid. Whoever this is has lots of shady contacts and is working them to the fullest.” He began rubbing his temples slowly.

The exhaustion she had been seeing in his face all week suddenly made sense. She couldn’t imagine the amount of stress he was under with all of this happening at the same time as the launch of the Stone campaign and while they were still trying to nail down Marradesi.

“I’m sorry,” Lexi said softly as she watched Vincent lean back in his chair and stare at the ceiling. He looked so hollow, so stressed.

“For what?” He shot up out of his chair and walked over to the window.

She went over and stood beside him. “Because this has to be awful, wondering who has been lying to your face.”

He turned and peered into her eyes, his own full of sadness. “I really should be used to it by now, but yeah, it’s the worst, because it could be anybody.”

Vincent turned his head back toward the window, pressing his forehead against the glass.

“I’m going to get to work on this and give you some space.” She rubbed her hand across his back. “If you need me, let me know.”

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He reached out and grabbed her hand before she walked away and squeezed it as if his life depended on it. “Thanks.”

Lexi went out to her desk and got right to work on the Excalibur account, wanting to make sure everything was perfect for Vincent. There was no way in hell she was letting this one get away from them. He had been so gracious in teaching her everything he knew. She was overwhelmed by his generosity and wanted to do this for him and in some small way repay him for everything.

It was well into the afternoon, and Lexi was starting to feel a headache coming on when Tony strutted into the room. “What, no cape today, Supergirl?”

It was hard to resist slapping the smug grin off his face. His behavior was always so suspicious that she wanted to pin him to the ground and force him to confess. Even more horrific was that he was doing this to his own family. How he could do that to such good people baffled Lexi.

As subtly as possible, she flipped off her monitor and hid the stack of papers she had been working on. She felt Tony’s beady eyes following her every movement. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked, making sure she sounded as unenthused as she felt.

“When are you going to get it through that thick head of yours that I don’t need an appointment?” He angrily held up the boards in his hand. “These are my appointment card with him whenever I feel like it. You better remember that, or else.”

“Or else what?” Lexi rose to her feet and planted her hand on her hip. “Are you threatening me? What exactly are you going to do?”

Tony glanced down at the file she had tried to hide. “What’s that? Were you doodling my cousin’s name in a heart? Everyone knows you have the hots for him.” He looked her up and down, his lips pulled into a lecherous sneer.

“You’ve got a great body, I’ll give you that, and the whole Girl Friday thing is probably really hot for Vincent, but Jade’s some stiff competition. She
is
a supermodel.”

“So I’ve heard,” Lexi said through gritted teeth.

“I’m just saying she fights dirty. Wonder what she’d do if she knew you were going after her man.”

“Jade’s paranoia is nothing new. She isn’t a very rational individual.”

Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Look at you, openly talking trash about Jade. My, you must really feel comfortable in your position here to talk so freely against Vincent’s girlfriend. That, or you’re already screwing him.”

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“How I feel about Jade has nothing to do with my work at Hunter, which is all Vincent’s interested in, and he’s given me an assignment which I need to work on, so this conversation is over.”

Tony tucked the presentation boards under his arm and leaned over her desk. “Watch yourself, Lexi. That pretty little mouth of yours just might get you into a whole world of trouble.”

She grabbed the phone to buzz Vincent, but Tony was faster. As Vincent’s phone rang, Tony knocked on the door. “Vincent, it’s me.”

“Tony,” Lexi hissed into the phone, hoping Vincent heard and would hide any confidential information, then hung up.

“What?” Tony swung around hearing his name.

“Um, would you like some coffee?” Lexi asked, quickly trying to cover.

“As if I’d drink anything
you
made for me. I’m not looking to be poisoned.”

Lexi shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She glanced at her desk, hoping enough time had passed. “Vincent will see you now.”

Five minutes after Tony went inside Vincent’s office, he left without another word to Lexi. Vincent stepped out not long after and made another cup of coffee.

“So, Tony was exceptionally snippy just now.”

“Good.” Lexi shuffled the papers around on her desk, and then looked up and found Vincent standing over her, smiling. “What? I piss off Tony somehow and that cheers you up?”

“It’s the little things you do that mean the most.”

Lexi stuck her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. “Thank you, Mr.

Hallmark.”

“Are you in the middle of something important, or can I grab you for a few minutes?”

“Mr. Drake, I don’t think that would be appropriate,” Lexi laughed.