by Julia London
She suddenly darted out of Jeff Bower’s cubicle just in front of him. Ian dove for her, making contact with her arm. With a squeal, Chelsea managed to dance beyond his reach and then ran down the aisle.
She was fast, but she wasn’t as fast as Ian. He caught up to her at the end of the aisle and launched himself at her, crashing with her into the glass wall of the conference room. But when Chelsea cried out as if he’d hurt her, he instantly let go. She jumped again, turned around, and laughed. “Ha!”
“You don’t play fair,” he said, and with his back to the glass wall, he slid down to the floor.
“Neither do you,” Chelsea said and stood over him, her legs braced apart. “You want to see this chart? Tell me what Jason told you and I’ll give it to you.”
He couldn’t believe either her incredible perception or her lucky, but accurate, read of him. Not to mention her audacity for using a salary chart like this. He pretended to roll onto his hands and knees, but in the last moment, he grabbed her ankle. He didn’t mean to topple her over, but down she went, landing on her bum. Ian scrambled, pinning her firmly on the floor, holding her arm and the paper she gripped above her head.
“You are…” Ian’s voice trailed off. Her eyes were shining with ire, her chest rising and falling with each furious breath. She was close enough to kiss. This was twice in the space of about fifteen minutes, and in that moment, on a floor that smelled faintly of solvent, with her dark hair spilling around her, he wanted to kiss her. This was not a general, kiss-a-girl desire but a burning one. Red hot. Consuming.
“You knocked me down,” she said, as if he was unaware of what he’d just done.
“You brought it on yourself,” he said. His gaze slid to her mouth again.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded. She kicked him, managing to connect with his ankle.
“Ow, ow, ow,” he said, grimacing.
“Let me up!”
Ian grabbed her hand, yanked the salary chart from it, and shifted off of her. He pulled her up, and as Chelsea rearranged her skirt, he looked at the paper. “Wait,” he said, his brow knitting with confusion. “There are no salaries on here.”
“Nope,” she said as she pushed her hair from her face. “What kind of person do you take me for?”
A clever one. The chart was titled, and the employee names were listed in alphabetical order. Next to them were their cube numbers and phone numbers. But the column for the salary information had been left blank.
“I can’t believe this,” he said, holding the paper up. “I can’t believe you just used this chart to trick me.”
“Can’t you?” Chelsea’s hands found her waist. “Are you going to tell me now?” she asked, poking him.
“I’ve told you. I don’t know anything.”
“Liar.” Chelsea cocked her head to one side and brushed something from his cheek. “Not a very good one, either. I would have thought you’d be really good at it. How about that drink?”
“Yes,” he said.
She smiled. “Follow me.”
She led him through the cubes to one that had a sign hanging on the outside that said, Think Tank: Shark-Infested Waters.
“You’d have to know Marian,” Chelsea said. “She comes off as really strange. But she’s brilliant with advertising.” She disappeared inside, and Ian followed her, hesitating only once when he saw the mess in Marian’s cube. It made his cube look neat and organized. The level of chaos was ridiculous—papers were stacked high on the desk, with only a small space cleared for working. There were used plates and cups, dusty holiday tinsel, and sacks marked with the H&M logo from which protruded clothes with tags on them. There were Post-its with a scrawling handwriting on them, pictures of people, lots of people, and a calendar that was two years old. There were three potted plants on the floor—all dead—and a pile of shoes that looked as if someone had been gathering them up to give to charity.
But on the wall behind the desk were several framed commendations and employee awards.
“This person has keys? Because the last thing this person needs are keys to the liquor cabinet.”
Chelsea laughed. “I can’t disagree.” She stepped gingerly over the trash on the floor, leaning over the bags so far that her most excellent derriere was presented to him. She reached the keys and then popped up and around, holding another set of keys. “Here they are!” she said brightly. And then she frowned, having caught Ian in the act of admiring her bottom.
He smiled guiltily and nervously dragged his fingers through his hair.
“Really?” Chelsea said impatiently.
“Hey,” he said, throwing his hands up. “I can’t help but admire an excellent figure. I won’t say more than that because I don’t want anyone in this cubicle to call me a lech,” he said, pointing at her.
“Wise move.” She walked past him, carelessly bumping into him as she hopped over some things on the floor.
Chelsea did possess a very nice ass, Ian thought as he followed her back to the conference room. One he would like to put his hands on.
Ian watched as she opened the door to the conference room. “Ta-da!” she said, and she jingled the keys at him before sticking them back in the door. She went in ahead of him, crossed the room, and threw open floor-to-ceiling cabinet doors. At least Ian had assumed they were cabinet doors all this time. They actually opened to reveal a full bar, complete with a sink. There were glasses of various sizes, and there, on a glass shelf, was an assortment of liquor. Good liquor too.
Chelsea walked around behind the bar. “They use this room for client appreciation days and Christmas parties. I guess we haven’t had one since you’ve been here. So what’s your pleasure, vodka, tequila, or gin?”
“All of the above. Is there any tonic?” he asked.
Chelsea stooped down behind the cabinetry and then stood back up and held out a bottle of tonic water.
“Excellent. Give me the tonic and the vodka, and I’ll make you a drink. I used to be a bartender.”
“When?” she asked, handing him the vodka and tonic as he came behind the bar.
“College. It paid the bills.”
“So that’s where you got the skills for the wad of cash they are paying you,” she said, and she dipped down again, reemerging with two highball glasses.
Ian slanted her a look as he poured some vodka into two glasses. “How long are you going to be mad about that?”
“For a while,” she said with an easy smile.
She was a funny woman. “Chelsea, look—”
“Ah!” she said, instantly putting up her hand. “I would strongly advise that you not feed me some meaningless platitudes,” she quickly interjected. “It’s not right or fair, and you know it.”
He really couldn’t play devil’s advocate on this one. She was right; it wasn’t fair. If they weren’t paying her as much as him, that was bad enough. But they were going to have her pitch on an account she’d worked hard to get, even after deciding who they’d give the account to. It wasn’t right, and it made him angry and uncomfortable. Frankly, he didn’t get it—Chelsea was smart and clever and she did good work.
“What?” she said.
Ian realized he’d stopped mixing the drinks.
“I was just thinking…I hope you don’t hate me for it, because I like you, Chelsea. And you’re right, it’s not fair.”
She smiled with surprise. “Wow. Thank you, Ian. And for what it’s worth, I don’t hate you.” She paused as if rethinking that and then shrugged a little. “Okay, maybe I hated you a bit when you started getting the accounts that should have been mine,” she said, holding up a thumb and finger to show him just how little. “But really? I hate Jason. I hate him passionately right now.” She took a bigger sip of her drink. “If he were here right now, I’d have to kill him, and it would be very messy. A lot of stomping and kicking.”
With her glass in hand, she began to walk around the conference room. “But you know what I really hate?” she said over her shoulder. “That it’s my own fault. That’s what makes me so mad, you know? I have let Jason use me and I know it. I’ve let him take my best ideas without thinking twice about what they were worth.”
That, Ian knew, was a hard lesson to learn. Creative thinking was so hard to assign a value to, and yet it was one of the hardest jobs there was. Chelsea wasn’t the first person to have misjudged the value of her ideas. Ian could guess that there had been times she should have asked for raises and didn’t. Times she should have made Jason spell out her worth to this company and didn’t do that, either.
He was starting to feel sick about how she would take the news when she found out that they had given him the Tesla account, and he downed his drink to push that away.
“You know my problem?” she asked rhetorically. “I am too trusting of men. It affects all my relationships.” She laughed at that. “But you know how men are,” she added with a sigh.
“Careful,” Ian said. “No broad swipes at the entire male race, Crawford.”
“Don’t take it personally,” she said cheerfully.
“How does your boyfriend take it?” he asked, suddenly very curious if she had one. He was even a bit surprised by how much he was hoping she did not.
“Anh,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “We’ve kind of called it off. Wasn’t working out.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, very curious now. “What’s his name?”
“Brody.”
Ian scowled. “Sounds like an actor.”
Chelsea grinned. “Worse—he’s a senator’s aide.”
“Wow,” Ian said. “My sincerest condolences.”
Chelsea laughed, unoffended. He realized that was something else about her he really liked—she was not easily offended.
“Well, that’s why we’re off. He’s in DC all the time, and he says I work too many hours. He wants me to drop everything when he comes up from Washington, which, you know, he hasn’t done in a while. I think because the last time he was here, I told him that he seemed to think his job was more important than mine. Apparently, I was right.” She winked at Ian as she sipped from her glass. “You make a great vodka martini, by the way.”
“It’s a vodka tonic,” he said.
“Whatever. I’m not really much of a drinker. I don’t really even know if it’s good or not. Okay, your turn, Rafferty. Girlfriend?”
Ian considered how best to answer that question. He didn’t think the truth was going to do him any favors, the truth being that he was basically a dog, preferring to play the field rather than settle down with one woman. And then again, what difference did it make? It wasn’t like he was trying to impress Chelsea. Was it?
“I am between girlfriends,” he said, making quote marks with his fingers.
“Interesting. I think Nadia thinks it is more than that.”
He’d forgotten about Nadia, a short, curly-blond-haired woman who worked in production. He’d run into her twice outside of work, and both times they had “hung out” in a very adult and ill-advised way at her apartment. “You’re keeping up with me. I’m flattered,” he said.
“I can’t help but keep up with you. People talk. A lot. Especially about you.”
“Why?” he asked curiously.
“Why? Because you’re good at your job, and you’re a flirt, and you’re super cute.”
He was surprisingly flattered that she’d said he was cute.
Chelsea sat on the conference table and leaned across it, sliding her glass to him. “But a friendly word of advice? Steer clear of Nadia. The last guy she dated broke it off and she started following him around town.”
That startled Ian; Chelsea laughed at his expression, clearly enjoying the strike of fear.
“Thanks for the warning,” he said. He picked up her glass and started back to the bar. “I don’t have anything going on with Nadia, by the way. Never did. I hung out with her a couple of times, but I can spot crazy a mile away. We had a mutual understanding that it was just a friendly sort of thing.”
“Famous last words,” Chelsea said. “Funny thing about those mutual understandings,” she continued as Ian poured them another round. “They’re rarely truly mutual. Like this thing with Tesla. I thought Jason and I had a mutual understanding.”
Ian was sure that was true. Jason was pretty good about making things sound definite when they weren’t. He brought the drinks out and sat on the conference table next to Chelsea. When she took the glass from him, her fingers grazed his, and he felt a dozen little sparks fire in his skin. Which, for some inexplicable reason, made him think of how her mouth would taste.
Ian shifted his attention to the window and away from temptation.
A long moment passed in which they remained sitting next to each other, staring out at a silent snowy night, each with their own thoughts. Ian was thinking about Chelsea and how she had surprised him tonight. She wasn’t as uptight as he’d believed her to be. She was actually a lot of fun. He could honestly say that if he was ever stuck in a snowstorm, he would like to have her along. Actually, he wouldn’t mind having her along on other adventures. Whoa…was he really thinking that?
But he looked at Chelsea now, and he could picture it. The two of them, on a beach, in the mountains, sitting at a little table for two in a diner and arguing about the Knicks or the meaning of the movie they’d just seen. Strolling arm in arm around Central Park.
Chelsea, however, was apparently thinking of tomorrow, because she said wistfully, “My new office is going to have this same view.”
That effectively ruined the pleasant vignettes, because Chelsea would probably never speak to him again after tomorrow.
Chelsea playfully nudged him with her shoulder when he didn’t respond. “The office goes with the Tesla account. Didn’t Jason tell you?”
“Yes, he told me.” He hid the twinge of guilt he felt beneath a sip of his drink.
“Hey…” Chelsea put her glass aside. “Listen, I feel like I should tell you something while we’re here, and, you know, being friends.”
“Tell me what?”
“Just that Jason told me up front this was my account to lose. I mean, yes, he’s a douchebag for the most part. But I don’t think he’d lie about this.” She nervously chewed her bottom lip. “Do you?”
Ian could feel the guilt, the regret, all of it, sliding over him like a blanket, weighing him down. He hadn’t even done anything but take a phone call, and yet, he felt as if what he was doing right now was technically lying to her. He debated what he should do in this moment, and in his hesitation, she leaned forward to peer at him. “There it is again. That look—like you’re a big fat cat who just ate the canary. Come on, Ian. I know Jason told you something. Did he tell you the same thing? Because that would not surprise me.”
“No,” he said quickly, and as Chelsea’s gaze narrowed suspiciously, he said, “I promise you, Jason Sung has not said anything to me about you. Nor did he tell me this was my account to lose.”
“Hmm,” she said skeptically.
Damn it, this woman had a way of looking at him that made him feel as if she could see every thought in his head. “Why Tesla, Chelsea?” he blurted. “I mean, do you like cars?”
“What a weird question, coming from an ad man,” she said with a wry smile. “Do I have to like cars? Tesla is a huge account. It’s the natural progression of my work.”
“Car accounts are the natural progression of your portfolio?”
“Big accounts are the natural progression of my portfolio.”
“But I mean, do you like cars?”
Chelsea laughed. “I don’t know. I’ve never owned one.”
Ian put his drink aside. He had the crazy thought that if he made her see she didn’t care that much
about cars anyway, somehow she’d be all right when the truth came down. He realized he was grasping at ideas, but it was the only one he had. He didn’t want to ruin this thing between them. He’d told Brad he wouldn’t say a word. What was he supposed to do? He needed more than a few moments to think it through and decide. So he kept babbling. “So why not a big food account? Or pharmaceuticals? Or insurance?”
Chelsea looked at him as if he were talking gibberish. “Why not cars?” She smiled and swayed into him a little, almost as if the force of her smile had made her teeter off balance. “I believe in my abilities, in what it takes to reach an American audience. The product doesn’t matter, because I will learn it and I will figure out what consumers want from it.”
Ian nodded and polished off his drink. He knew what she was saying; he felt the same way. That’s what made him good at advertising, and it was the same thing that made her good. Which meant there was no way to soften the blow of what was coming.
“What’s the matter now, Rafferty?” she teased him. “You’re not worried about the competition, are you?”
He smiled and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
She held out her hand to him. “Okay, I won’t tease you. May the best man win.”
Ian looked at her hand. He wove his fingers in through hers. He felt like a jerk. He wished there wasn’t a Tesla account. He wished Grabber-Paulson had never come to him, because he did not want to be the guy who was going to crush her.
Chelsea squeezed his fingers lightly. “You’re still holding my hand.”
“I am, aren’t I?” he said absently.
“So…what are we doing?” Chelsea asked, her voice softer.
“I don’t know,” Ian admitted. He didn’t know anything other than he was feeling a strangely intoxicating mix of guilt and desire and affection. He felt off center, out of control.
“I’m not an office hookup, you know,” she said, her fingers still curling around his.
He arched a brow at her. “Did I make a pass?”
“No.” She smiled sheepishly. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I misjudged you.”