That New York Minute

by Abby Gaines

  “Will do, Rachel. Thanks.”

  “Any chance we might resume our meeting soon?” Garrett asked.

  Rachel hefted her chair with an exaggerated grunt of exertion and clanked her way forward.

  “Okay,” Garrett said when she was in her designated position, “I’m going to brief you guys about Brightwater, then I’ll take questions. We won’t be discussing any creative ideas while Rachel’s here as an observer.”

  Ready agreement from the team, though there were some apologetic glances toward her. The idea of three teams pitching for the same account had generated a buzz of excitement around the office.

  Rachel had run the same kind of briefing for her own team yesterday, basically reporting what they’d learned at the client meeting. She didn’t expect any surprises from Garrett.

  But she got one. Yes, Garrett did say much the same as she had…but his disinterested manner fell away and he delivered a briefing that made Brightwater sound like the most exciting opportunity since…well, since that Lexus campaign the world loved so much.

  Was he genuinely that excited about Brightwater? Because although she’d given her own team a comprehensive briefing, she wasn’t sure if she’d left them with the kind of fervor she saw on his people’s faces.

  “Questions?” Garrett asked when he’d finished. “Anyone got any research areas they’d particularly like to cover? I want something from each of you.”

  He folded his arms and waited. Having said his piece, that wall of impatient aloofness was back in place.

  It was as though he’d switched off a light.

  The discussion limped along. A team member would present a decent suggestion for a research area, clearly wanting the approval of the man who’d just inspired them all, and Garrett would barely nod his head before moving on. Other, less-smart ideas, he simply shot down.

  Rachel had never seen such a glaring lack of engagement. How could he have got so far in his career without paying the least attention to the emotional needs of others?

  Rachel believed people gave more when they were encouraged, rather than intimidated. Paul Crane, the partner responsible for HR at KBC, had mentioned in an email supporting her plan to mentor Garret that Garrett’s team had the highest staff turnover. And yet…Garrett was the one with the reputation for pulling together brilliant pitches, while she was stuck on “tame.”

  How did he ever get a girlfriend? Maybe getting the girl wouldn’t be a problem, Rachel conceded—he probably charmed them with the kind of meaningless garbage he’d spouted with their client at the Brightwater meeting. If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be, Cindy/Tammy/Jodie? But keeping the girl might be more— She pulled her thoughts up smartly. What did she care about Garrett’s seduction techniques?

  “Any thoughts, Alice?” Garrett asked one of the artists, midway through a discussion of field trips to various Brightwater colleges. Rachel was a step ahead of him there—two of her team members were out at Brightwater campuses today. By lunchtime they would be emailing photos.

  Alice made an inarticulate sound, then managed a faint, “No.” She was a bright young thing—and Jonathan Key’s goddaughter, which had got her the job here—but painfully shy.

  “You can’t keep doing this,” Garrett told her. “The rest of the team can’t be expected to carry you. You have two minutes to come up with an idea.”

  Rachel could practically see Alice’s mind going blank. Poor girl.

  “Garrett,” she warned.

  “Not a peep,” he reminded her.

  As if she would sit by and let Alice get shredded. She leaned in to him so the staff wouldn’t hear, garnering a whiff of that pine-and-citrus scent of his. “If you start displaying some people skills, I promise I’ll shut up.”

  He made an exasperated sound. “Alice,” he said in a playing-nice voice, “you need to contribute more if you want to keep working at KBC.”

  Oh, boy. This was his idea of people skills? Threatening Alice with the boot? Rachel should be delighted—his incompetence was her best chance at winning the partnership—but Alice had turned white and looked as if she might faint or burst into tears. Or both. She would probably be the next casualty on Garrett’s staff turnover list. A fate she didn’t deserve, since she was a nice person and a talented artist.

  Garrett wasn’t done yet. “I’d like to hear your ideas as to what you can offer this firm,” he added.

  “Is that part of the two minutes?” Alice squeaked.

  “No,” he said with exaggerated patience that was every bit as intimidating as his ultimatum. “Forget the two minutes. Right now I want some halfway decent suggestions about other research areas.” He glanced around the table. “Anyone? Anything?”

  The entire team busied themselves flicking through Brightwater brochures, scribbling notes, or staring at their fingernails. If it hadn’t been so tragic, Rachel would have laughed.

  The silence stretched to biblical proportions as people hesitated to offer up ideas that would be either damned with faint praise, or dismissed. Garrett’s face betrayed a mix of irritation and confusion, as if he couldn’t figure out why this bunch of bright people didn’t have two ideas to rub together.

  At last Adam, the account exec who’d offered to carry Rachel’s chair, spoke up. “It’s going to be hard to promote the Brightwater brand—people care more about individual colleges’ track records than they do about the company that owns them.”

  Rachel’s team was already grappling with that issue.

  “Maybe we should talk to parents of precollege kids to see if there’s something that would make them care about the corporate brand,” Adam said.

  Garrett nodded. “Or to the kids themselves.”

  Since that was as close as Garrett came to wild enthusiasm, Adam carried on. “I think this is the kind of thing where kids really value their parents’ input.” Unfortunately, confidence turned him earnestly self-important, which Rachel could have told him Garrett would hate. “I know I did, when I was looking at colleges. It was, like, the first time in years I cared what my mom thought.” Sensing he’d lost Garrett’s interest—maybe because Garrett was folding a piece of paper into an airplane—Adam said, “You know what I mean? Didn’t you pay attention to your mom’s views on college?”

  Garrett launched the paper plane. “My mom’s dead.”

  Sympathy rippled around the table.

  The plane crash-landed into the water jug.

  Adam reddened. “Uh, sorry, Garrett. How did she, uh—”

  “She picked up malaria on a missionary trip to Africa,” Garrett said. “A particularly virulent strain that the doctors here couldn’t treat. So, no, I don’t know what you mean about parents and college decisions. But I take your point—figure out who you’re going to question and how, and run it by me before the end of the day.”

  He pushed back in his chair. “Let’s move on, people. Rachel, your mouth is hanging open.”

  Rachel snapped her jaw shut. Another story about his mother’s death. Was this one true? Were any of them true?

  Apparently sick of waiting, Garrett moved around the table, assigning research tasks to people who couldn’t think up their own.

  “Okay, you all know where you need to be,” he concluded. “I’m visiting Brightwater’s Porchester campus tomorrow—” Rachel and Clive would be on that trip, too “—then I’ll be in the library on Friday. Call me on my cell if you need me.”

  “The library” was the glorified name for KBC’s archive of former pitches and campaigns, on the fifty-fifth floor. Rachel wondered what he hoped to find there—it seemed an unlikely source of inspiration for a man who prided himself on his originality.

  The meeting over, the team filed out, tension dropping by measurable degrees.

  “Join us for a drink at O’Dooley’s tonight?” Adam asked Rachel as he left.

  “Love to.” She noticed he didn’t invite Garrett.

  “Alice, don’t forget,” Garrett said, “I want to talk t
o you soon about your contribution.”

  Alice muttered something incoherent and fled, leaving Rachel and Garrett alone.

  Rachel opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Garrett held up both hands, palms out. “Stop giving me those accusing looks. I don’t care whose goddaughter she is, she’s not pulling her weight. She doesn’t fit here.”

  “So you threatened to fire her? Nice going.” Rachel turned over an unused water glass and reached for the jug. Ugh, it still had that paper plane in it, but she wasn’t about to indulge his bad behavior by fishing it out. With the soggy plane blocking the spout, the water came out in a trickle. She gave up when her glass was only half-full.

  “I didn’t threaten to fire her,” he said.

  “You told her that if she wanted to work at KBC, she had to contribute more.”

  “That’s the truth, and Alice needs to think about it.” He picked up Rachel’s glass and took a swig. “This stuff tastes like paper.”

  “Are you saying you don’t think Alice should move on?”

  “How would I know?” He picked up his cold coffee, but the milky film on top deterred him from drinking it. “I guess, if this place isn’t working for her, she might like somewhere else better.”

  Just the kind of grass-is-greener attitude that drove Rachel nuts. She turned her glass so she wouldn’t drink from the same spot Garrett’s mouth had just touched. “Alice is part of the KBC family. You don’t tell family to go find somewhere else. You help them find a way to stay.”

  Garrett blinked. “KBC is an advertising agency, Rachel. Not a family.”

  “That’s not quite true. We’re an independent agency, one of the few large firms that’s not part of a global conglomerate.”

  “It’s still an advertising agency,” he said.

  “Our partnership structure gives us more of a personal, family feel,” she persisted.

  He snorted. “Doesn’t feel anything like my family.”

  It was hard to imagine him in the bosom of a nurturing family. Easier to picture Garrett Calder arriving in the world fully grown, complete with cool, dark eyes, hard-planed cheeks and toned physique. People-repelling shields firmly in place. Rachel took a swig from her glass, finding the room suddenly stifling.

  “If this is family, it must really bug you that Papa Tony is willing to fire you,” Garrett observed.

  She sputtered on her paper-flavored water. “That’s not personal.”

  “My point exactly.”

  She felt as if she’d swum out of her depth.

  “You should have been nicer to Adam, too.” She found firmer ground and dug her toes in. “You didn’t need to make him feel bad about your mother’s death.”

  Garrett glared. “I don’t see the need to pander to his curiosity.”

  “People ask because they care,” she said.

  He groaned. “Not more of this family crap. My mother’s death is no one’s business but mine.”

  “Are any of the versions I’ve heard true?” she asked. “The cancer, the plane crash, the malaria?”

  “What part of none of your business don’t you understand?” Garrett growled. What was wrong with her, that she ignored the don’t-go-there signs that worked with everyone else? He’d never met a woman who needled him so much. And so effectively. She was like a terrier with a bone, and the bone was his innermost thoughts. Which like all good bones should stay buried.

  “Oh, no.” Rachel had frozen in place, eyes wide, fingers pressed to her lips.

  Somehow, irritatingly, Garrett knew what she was thinking. He was tempted to let her jump to wild conclusions, to make her feel bad, but doubtless it would backfire on him, as things tended, weirdly, to do with her. “Rein in that imagination, Rachel,” he ordered. “There was nothing sinister about my mom’s death.” No violence, no suicide.

  She let out a breath. “Really? You’re not just being nice?”

  Surely she knew him better than that. He said solemnly, “I swear. On your amazing legs.”

  “Stupid question,” she scolded herself. “Garrett, the thing about juniors like Alice and Adam…” She leaned forward to make her own point, and the movement shifted her chair on its castors, causing her knee to brush momentarily against his.

  Garrett edged his chair back a little.

  “Will you stop doing that?” she snapped. “Do you really think getting within two feet of another person will kill you?”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded. She was well within two feet, near enough for him to see individual lashes above brown eyes that sparked with annoyance. Lips that, close up, were fuller than he’d realized.

  “Every time I get within your privacy shield, you retreat,” she said.

  “Do I?” He thought about it, and decided she was exaggerating. “No, I don’t.”

  To his shock, she grabbed his hand where it rested on the table.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “It’s not so bad, connecting with other people, is it?” She curled her fingers into his palm; automatically, he splayed his fingers rigid in resistance. “It doesn’t hurt a bit.”

  “Are you nuts?” He pulled back, but she hung on with sudden, she-devil strength. “You realize this is sexual harassment.” He tried her own tactic on her.

  “Let’s call it therapy,” she said.

  His hand in hers felt so strange, he wondered if maybe she hadn’t been exaggerating after all. His muscles tensed—all of them, it seemed—and the urge to get away, to get out of here, bordered on a physical ache. What was wrong with him?

  “Let go,” he bit out, struggling to stay calm. Then he realized… “But you can’t do that, can you? You don’t know how to let go of a dud boyfriend, or a firm that doesn’t give a damn about you.”

  She hissed. “Better than not knowing how to hold on to something good. Like one of your many excellent jobs, or the people on your team. Is there anything you hold on to, Garrett? I’d bet money you don’t have any kind of relationship with your family.”

  Dammit, she did not get to do this. He chose who got to talk to him about personal stuff and she wasn’t on the list.

  No one was.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IF GARRETT WASN’T CAREFUL, he’d end up yelling. He didn’t want Rachel to know she had that much power over him.

  Deliberately, he reerected the barrier she’d somehow broken through when she’d grabbed his hand.

  “This is childish,” he said calmly. “I suggest you end this game now.”

  “Certainly.” She matched him for calm. “Just as soon as you promise to apologize to Alice and Adam and to try harder with them from now on.”

  He snorted.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she said. “You need to, if you want to win the partnership.”

  “Only one thing will win the partnership—” an experimental tug of his hand failed to dislodge her grip “—no matter what Tony’s saying right now. And that’s brilliant creative.”

  “That’s not true.” But she licked her lips. Those full lips.

  “Worried you’re not brilliant enough?” he taunted.

  Her fingers twitched around his hand. “Nope. What’s more, I know creative isn’t the only consideration. This firm values its people…and therefore my team-management skills.”

  “If you’re right,” he said, “apologizing to Alice and Adam would score me points with the partners. And that would hurt your chances.”

  “The thought of you out empathizing me is the least of my worries,” she said. “What matters is, those guys are your team. Some of them have been my team in the past. We’re all a part of this firm.”

  “Until we’re not,” he said. “Those kids are replaceable, just like everyone else. And in a few weeks’ time, two of us will get fired. I hate to say it, Rach, but your loyalty is misguided.”

  “Rachel,” she corrected. “And I don’t agree that people are replaceable— What are you doing?”

  He’d flipped his hand
within her grip, his fingers now curled around hers. Her fingers were slender, fine-boned…but surprisingly strong. The nails were painted a pale pink, a misleading suggestion of demureness.

  “I’m showing you I can hold on,” Garrett said. “Now you need to show me you can let go.”

  She pffed. “As soon as you promise to take a gentler approach with Alice. And be nice to Adam. He’s trying his hardest.”

  He scraped his index finger across her palm. She gasped. And tightened her grip.

  “Careful, Rach. Are you sure you’re brave enough to play chicken with me?” he asked.

  She squared her shoulders. “I am if you are.”

  “That’s generally how chicken works,” he said drily.

  Who would have thought he’d be having such a bizarre battle of wits with Rachel Frye? And enjoying it so much?

  They stood like that, holding hands, for maybe another half minute.

  “You have sexy fingers,” he said in an attempt to creep her out.

  “You have a sexy butt,” she returned.

  He was pretty sure she hadn’t been looking. “Thanks,” he said. “Good to know.”

  Clive stuck his head around the door. “Hey, Garrett—” He registered their clasped hands and stopped.

  Rachel groaned inwardly. Why hadn’t she pulled away when she had the chance? Somehow, it had felt important to rise to Garrett’s challenge. Now it just felt stupid.

  Garrett squeezed her hand hard enough to not quite hurt. She gritted her teeth and stayed put.

  Clive chuckled. “Three’s a crowd, right?”

  “Sorry,” Garrett said with no regret.

  “I’ll catch you later.” Clive waved in farewell as he left.

  “Why does he want to talk to you?” Rachel asked.

  “No idea.” Garrett’s thumb traced a circle on the back of her hand. Something clenched deep inside Rachel. Her hand must have tensed, because his gaze sharpened on hers. Slowly, holding her gaze, he traced the circle again. She put every ounce of willpower into not blinking, into suppressing that response.

  I am not attracted to Garrett Calder.