Accordingly, she was armed with some initial thoughts when she made her way to the meeting room at six. Zach hadn’t arrived yet, so she set herself up at one end of the long table, spreading printouts and past reports in front of her.
Makers had three major rivals—two corporate “big box” type retailers and a group of smaller independents that had banded together. While Makers kept a keen eye on all players, the company hadn’t commissioned a comprehensive competitor analysis for more than four years. A major oversight, in Audrey’s opinion, and she wasn’t surprised Whitman had made it one of his first priorities.
She worked her way through the last report, highlighting figures that would need updating in fluorescent pink.
“Sorry. We had a bad connection and the call went over.” Zach dropped into the chair next to her, sighing heavily. He considered all the printouts she’d laid out. “You’ve been busy.”
“I pulled some old reports. Most of them are irrelevant now, the market has moved on so much. But there’s good background information in some of them we might be able to use.”
“Good plan.”
He leaned across to grab one of the reports and a spicy, mellow scent drifted her way. She recognized it as the aftershave he had stashed in his desk and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t want to notice his aftershave. Even if it was really delicious.
“We need to pull in a lot of data,” she said. “I’ll put out a shout to the state marketing coordinators tomorrow to get them started on some figures.”
She was aware of Zach looking at her, but rather than make eye contact she turned another page and lifted her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.
“If we’re going to divide this up, how do you want to do it?” she asked.
When he didn’t answer immediately, she lifted her gaze. He was watching her, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Clearly amused by something. As always.
“I could take on Mathesons, and you could do Handy Hardware. Which leaves us with Home Savings—we can split that last one,” she suggested.
“Sounds good. Gary mentioned a consulting firm we can call on for industry data?”
They talked over the details of the project for half an hour, making notes and plans. Every now and then she glanced up and caught him smiling that small, amused smile, but he didn’t offer to share the joke and she wasn’t about to ask. The cup of tea she’d had before joining him was starting to make its presence felt.
“Won’t be a moment,” she said as she stood.
He was busy making a notation in the margin of one of the older reports as she left the room. She rolled her shoulders as she made her way to the ladies’. She really needed to learn to loosen up around him; her shoulders felt like they were set in concrete.
She saw the mark on her face the moment she entered the bathroom—a big fluorescent pink streak from the middle of her cheek up into her hairline.
“What the—?”
Then she remembered pushing back her hair with the highlighter in her hand. D’oh.
No wonder he’d been smirking at her.
“Thanks for the heads-up, buddy,” she muttered to herself as she scrubbed her face clean. She took care of business, then returned to the meeting room, aware that she was, yet again, at a disadvantage where he was concerned. Just once it would be nice if he was the one who looked like a dick.
She waited for him to say something about her face—finally—when she entered the room, but he simply gave another one of those small almost-smiles and pushed a printout her way.
“There’s some good stuff in here about projected revenues. We can springboard off historical predictions and talk about how the entry of the second big-box retailer into the market has changed the environment.”
“I’ll make a note of it.”
She tried to concentrate on what she was doing, but she couldn’t let go of the fact that he’d sat next to her for more than half an hour, laughing privately at her striped face, amusing himself at her expense.
The more she thought about it, the more steamed she got, and finally she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“You could have said something.”
“Sorry?” He looked up from the page he was reading, his expression distracted.
“The highlighter on my face. You could have said something.”
His gaze went to her cheek. “Could I?”
“Yes, you could have.”
“But then we would have gotten into the whole ‘where is it?’ and ‘have I got it all?’ thing. Next thing you know, I’d be spitting on my hanky and wiping your face.” He smiled, inviting her to share the joke.
At last.
“You enjoy laughing at me, don’t you?” The words popped out of their own accord.
He frowned. “Do I?”
“You know you do.”
“Actually, I don’t. Why would I want to laugh at you?”
Because he thought he was better than her. Because it was the way of handsome, entitled, arrogant men to be amused by lesser beings.
But she wasn’t about to say either of those things out loud. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“We don’t have time for this.” She made a big deal out of sorting through the papers in front of her.
“You brought it up, not me.”
“Forget I said anything.”
“You can’t throw an accusation like that out there and then shut down the conversation. Why on earth would you think I was laughing at you?” He looked and sounded genuinely perplexed.
“Because you always smile when you see me, for starters.”
His eyebrows shot up, as though she’d astonished him. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe—crazy idea—I might actually enjoy your company?”
It was her turn to be astonished. “No.”
“Wow. Okay.” He shook his head as though she’d confused the hell out of him.
“You want the next category manager’s role. Don’t pretend you don’t. And you know I’m your toughest competition.”
“So, what, we can’t be friends?”
She didn’t even need to think about it. “No. My career is too important for me to screw it up by allowing other considerations to enter into the equation.”
“That’s uncanny. You sounded exactly like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street when you said that.”
“I’m not ashamed of being ambitious. I’m the only person in the world I can rely on, and if I don’t make things happen, they don’t happen. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Suddenly he looked very serious. “You think I don’t understand that?”
She caught herself before she scoffed out loud. He had to be kidding. He was a walking advertisement for indulgence, from the luxury watch to his silk-and-wool suit to his Italian leather shoes. His pen alone represented a mortgage payment on her tiny place. As the daughter of two hardworking GPs, she’d grown up in a house where money had never really been an issue, but Zach reeked of a whole different level of privilege. The kind where houses were “estates” and children had numerals after their names to differentiate them from their noble forebears.
“There’s a difference between wanting something and needing it. For example, I’m sure you want your polo pony, but I need to pay my electricity bill.”
He blinked. Then he sat back in his chair. He looked...stunned was the only word she could come up with. As though she’d sneaked up and goosed him.
“You think I have a polo pony?”
She had no idea how the other half lived—or, more accurately, the one percent—but her point still stood. No way would he ever be as hungry as she was.
“If you’ve got it, flaunt it, right?” she said.
When he continued to look baffled, she pointed to his shoes. “Hugo Boss.” She glanced at his wrist, where the gleam of his slim, elegant rose-gold watch peeked out beneath the cuff of his jacket. “Patek Philippe.” She indicated his suit. “Armani.”
�
�Okay. I like nice things. Your point is?”
“That you and I come from very different places in the world.”
He stared at her. Up close, his eyes appeared almost gray instead of dark blue. The gunmetal color of the ocean before a storm.
“Look. Maybe we should just concentrate on getting this project sorted and we can both get on with our lives,” she said.
He still didn’t say anything and she shook her head slightly. She didn’t get why he was looking so gobsmacked. Did he really think people hadn’t noticed he was different?
“I’ll take this stuff home and draw up an outline for my sections. If you do the same, we can meet again tomorrow after work and finalize our brief before diving in. How does that sound?”
His frown was gone now, his expression impenetrable. “Whatever suits.”
“Good. Same time tomorrow?”
“That works for me.”
He stood and scooped up his things.
“Hang on, I think you’ve got my phone...” she said, frowning.
He flipped up the protective cover and checked. “You’re right, sorry,” he said, his tone clipped as they swapped handsets.
She was about to tell him that it was an easy enough mistake since they all had the same company-issued handsets and covers, but before she could say another word he was gone. She stared at the empty doorway. She felt uncomfortable about what had just happened. She should have bitten her tongue and swallowed her impulsive words, for the sake of the project if nothing else. If she hadn’t been feeling so dumb after the highlighter incident, maybe she would have, but she’d hated the thought of him being amused at her expense. Sitting there laughing at her up his sleeve while she’d been doing her best to make this project fly.
She made a growling noise in her throat.
Why did she always wind up second-guessing herself where Zach was concerned? No one else in her world made her feel so self-conscious and uneasy.
She didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t like it. The sooner this project was over, the better.
CHAPTER FOUR
APPARENTLY, HE WAS an elitist snob, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
How ’bout that.
Zach threw another folder into his briefcase, trying to work out if he was flattered by Audrey’s insanely inaccurate take on who he was or if he was, in fact, supremely pissed at being dismissed as a trust-fund playboy dabbling in a career for fun.
He’d grown up with nothing, in both material and spiritual senses. Any money that came into the household had gone straight up his mother’s arm, and the only reason he was still alive today was because of the people in his mother’s life—various hangers-on and fellow addicts and the few persistent, stubborn family members who had persevered in maintaining contact with his mother over the years, despite her many, many abuses of their trust.
His school uniforms had been secondhand; his textbooks, too. He worked after school and earned himself scholarships and held down two part-time jobs to support himself while at university. No one had handed him anything, ever.
Yet, according to Audrey, he came across as a snotty-nosed rich kid. Someone who’d had every good thing in life gifted to him on a silver platter.
How...bizarre.
It had never occurred to him that anyone might take him for anything other than what he was—a poor kid who’d made good. He liked nice things, but he hadn’t bought his car or his watch or his suit because he wanted other people to look at him and think he was something he wasn’t. He’d bought them because he could. Because he’d admired and wanted them, and he’d had more than enough of missing out in his life. Seeing something beautiful and fine and knowing he could make it his own was a power he would never, ever take for granted and never, ever tire of exercising.
Screw it. Who cares what she thinks? Let her believe what she wants to believe.
An excellent notion, except for one small problem: he did care what Audrey thought of him. And not only because he wanted to get her naked.
She was smart. She was determined. She was funny. There was something about her, a tilt to her chin or a light in her eye or...something that spoke to him. He wanted to know more about her. Where she came from, who her parents were, what her school years had been like, if she was all about chocolate or if vanilla was her poison of choice. He wanted more of her.
I’m the only person in the world I can rely on, and if I don’t make things happen, they don’t happen. I’m not going to apologize for that.
They were her words, but the huge irony was that he could just as well have spoken them himself. Certainly they reflected his philosophy in life.
Audrey might not recognize it, but they had a lot in common.
He mulled over the other things she’d said as he drove home, especially the stuff about him laughing at her. Did he really always smile when he saw her? He thought back over their recent interactions, but couldn’t remember what he’d been doing with his face when he’d been talking to her. Certainly, he always relished the opportunity to be in the same room as her. Was it possible his enjoyment manifested itself in the form of a gormless grin?
He shook his head in self-disgust. He really, truly needed to get a grip on himself if that was the case, for his own personal dignity if not for sound business reasons. The last thing he wanted was to be cast as the unrequited desperado in their little office drama.
Not a look he’d ever been keen to cultivate.
By the time he got home he’d decided the best thing he could do—the smartest thing—was to get through this project as quickly and painlessly as possible. Do his bit, keep to himself, keep things purely professional. And make sure he was aware of what his mouth was doing when he was around her.
Simple.
Which didn’t explain why he woke at two in the morning and spent twenty minutes rummaging through dusty old boxes in the back of his closet until he’d found what he was looking for: the official grade two school photograph from Footscray Primary, circa 1989. The corners were curled, but there was no missing his scrawny, scrape-kneed seven-year-old self in the front row. He stared at the image for a long moment. The thin, unsmiling kid in the photo had been grappling with both his mother’s and his father’s destructive lifestyles at the time the picture was taken, learning that the things other kids in his class took for granted—meals, loving supervision, care—were only ever going to be sporadic features in his own life.
Happy times. Thank God he’d survived them.
Pushing the carton back into the depths of the closet, he crossed to his briefcase and slipped the photograph into a pocket.
The thought of it burned in the back of his mind the whole of the next day as he debated the wisdom behind the urge that had driven him out of bed in the early hours.
He didn’t want Audrey to mistake who he was. He didn’t want her to misunderstand him. Probably a futile, dangerous wish, given their work situation and the pressures they were both currently facing, but her misconception of him was eating away at his gut and he was almost certain he couldn’t simply suck it up and move on.
Probably that made him an idiot, but so be it. He’d been called worse things in his time.
Still, he was undecided about what he was going to do with the photograph right up until the moment he joined Audrey in the meeting room. She’d beaten him to the punch—again—and was writing something in her notebook when he entered, a small frown wrinkling her brow, her glasses balanced on the end of her nose. Her head was propped on one hand, the chestnut silk of her hair spilling over her shoulder. She looked studious and serious and shiny and good, and something tightened in his chest as he looked at her.
Then she registered his presence and her expression became wary and stiff. She slid off her glasses. “Oh, hi. I was about to grab a coffee. Do you want one?”
In that second he made his decision, for good or for ill. Placing his briefcase on the table, he flicked it open and pulled the photograph from the inside
pocket.
“Thanks. But there’s something I want to show you first.”
Then, even though he knew it was dumb and that it would serve no purpose whatsoever, he slid the photograph across the table toward her.
* * *
AUDREY STARED AT the photograph Zach had pushed in front of her. Why on earth was he giving her a tatty old class photo?
“Is this something to do with the analysis?” she asked stupidly.
Then her gaze fell on the small, dark-haired boy in the front row and she understood what this was and who she was looking at. Zach was smaller than the other children. He was also the only one who wasn’t smiling. Both his knees were dark with gravel rash, and his hair very badly needed a cut. Her gaze shifted to the plaque one of the children was holding: Footscray Primary School, Grade Two, 1989.
Slowly she lifted her gaze to his.
“You went to Footscray Primary?” She could hear the incredulity in her own voice. She felt incredulous—there was no way that this polished, perfect man could have emerged from one of Melbourne’s most problematic inner-city suburbs. It didn’t seem possible to her. Although Footscray had enjoyed a renaissance in recent years thanks to the real estate boom and its proximity to the city, for many, many years the inner western suburb had been about stolen cars and drug deals and people doing it tough.
“Footscray Secondary College, too,” Zach confirmed.
She blinked as the full import of what he was saying hit home. All the assumptions she’d made about him and all of the niggling little resentments and moments of self-conscious inadequacy that had sprung from those assumptions... All wrong.
All of it.
Oh, boy.
She’d judged him from day one, slotting him neatly into a tidy little box that accorded with her view of the world. All because she’d looked at his expensive suits and smooth good looks and fancy car and decided he was one of God’s gifted people. But it hadn’t only been about him—about her perception of him, anyway. It had also been about her, about the chip she carried on her shoulder because no matter how hard she worked and how far up the food chain she climbed and how carefully she colored in between the lines, there was a part of her that would always feel like an impostor thanks to the lessons of her childhood and the mistakes of her teenage years.
Her Favorite Rival Page 5