CHAPTER TWO
G
RATITUDE
WAS
NOT
R
ACHEL
’
S
primary sentiment as she waited for the elevator in the Key Bowen Crane building lobby at seven o’clock the next morning.
Exhaustion and frustration, on the other hand, were flourishing.
She’d lost a perfectly good boyfriend—okay, maybe not perfect, but who was?—thanks to Garrett. After the way Piers had almost sprinted out of the bar, she didn’t believe for a moment that he was only “taking a rain check.” When she’d phoned him later, he hadn’t picked up.
She and Piers could have made it work, dammit, if not for Garrett’s stupid accusation that she was using sex to stop Piers from dumping her.
Kind of hard to get past that. Unfortunately, it had taken Rachel a few hours of tossing and turning to conclude the relationship was beyond salvage.
As she yawned, a ding signaled the arrival of an elevator. It would take at least another twenty seconds before the doors opened. This building was one of the earliest Manhattan skyscrapers and it still had the original elevator cars. Gorgeous…so long as you weren’t in a hurry.
The elevator doors wheezed open, and Rachel stepped into the wood-paneled interior. She pressed for the fifty-sixth floor, hit the door-close button and stepped back to enjoy the rare experience of having the space to herself.
Only to have a laptop bag wedged unceremoniously between the almost-closed doors, forcing them to rumble open again.
To her horror, Garrett Calder followed the bag into the elevator.
“You!” she blurted.
A grunt and a jerk of Garrett’s chin acknowledged her as he set his laptop on the floor. He jabbed the button to close the doors.
Charming.
Rachel resigned herself to a long ascent. Not that she wanted social chitchat with Garrett, not after last night. She stared straight ahead, focusing vaguely on the safety certificate which, from numerous rides spent avoiding eye contact with other New Yorkers, she knew expired in November.
Garrett leaned against the wall to her left, facing Rachel.
No idea of elevator etiquette.
Mind you, most of her female colleagues would be delighted to have such an excellent view of him. No question he was good-looking, if you liked your men tall, dark and brooding. And with a thick head of hair, damn him.
She’d noticed before that he took up more than his fair share of space. How did he do that? He was tall, but there was no excess bulk to him. Nor could Rachel attribute it to his larger-than-life personality—last night was the chattiest she’d ever seen him. Unfortunately.
The recollection had her shifting in her high heels. She realized he hadn’t selected a floor destination, and stretched a hand toward the panel. “Fifty-four?” That was the floor they both worked on.
He winced and pressed his fingers to his right temple. “Could you please stop shouting?”
His deep voice held a faint croak, suggesting he might actually have finished that second bottle of bubbly. There was no sign of mockery in his dark eyes. In which case…maybe he’d forgotten their conversation. Maybe it was lost in the depths of his hopefully agonizing hangover. She was torn between relief at the thought, and annoyance that he could destroy her relationship without remembering a thing about it.
“Which floor?” she asked, louder.
His eyes, dark as coal, narrowed. “Same as you.”
Rachel’s hand dropped. “You’re going to fifty-six?” To the partners’ floor?
Garrett ignored her.
She registered that he was wearing a tie—charcoal gray, an elegant contrast with his dark shirt and perfectly cut black suit. Something shifted, as if the elevator had jolted in its slow, straight course.
No way.
She knew exactly how this morning was supposed to pan out. She would attend the partners’ breakfast along with the other candidate, schmoozing her heart out with the Key Bowen Crane partners. At the end of breakfast, she would be named partner designate, poised to cement her place in Madison Avenue’s largest independent ad agency. The other candidate would also be named partner designate, though only one of them could ultimately win the partnership, along with the coveted role of chief creative officer.
Rachel knew it would be her. Just yesterday morning, Jonathan Key, chairman of KBC, had said with a no-need-to-worry wink that he was sure she could guess who her competition was.
It wasn’t—
couldn’t be
—Garrett Calder. He’d been at KBC for mere months, and was renowned for moving on the minute he got bored. Not partner material.
Surely there weren’t
two
other candidates? The walls of the elevator seemed to close in. Rachel sucked in a sharp breath—
better
—and checked the illuminated number above the door. Tenth floor.
Hurry up.
“So, Garrett, when were you invited to the breakfast?” she asked, trying to sound relaxed.
A glint in his eyes suggested she’d fallen somewhere short of the mark. Landed somewhere right around tense. “A couple of weeks ago. I told Tony I wasn’t interested, but last night I decided I might as well come along.”
Mention of last night made her pause. But this was too important not to pursue.
“What, uh, changed your mind?”
“You did.” That glint turned diabolical. Telling her that, hangover or no, he remembered every word.
“I suspect that second bottle of champagne dulled your memory,” Rachel said briskly, trying not to blush. “I did
not
encourage you to attend this meeting.”
“‘Do it on your own terms,’” he quoted.
She racked her memory for when she would have said something so self-absorbed. “
You
said that.”
“Did I? Damn, I’m good.”
Rachel gritted her teeth. “The whole idea of partnership is working with others—it’s not about your own terms.”
He didn’t reply, but one dark eyebrow rose lazily.
Garrett
was
lazy. He arrived around nine most mornings, when other people had been there since seven-thirty. Outrageous that he should think he could turn up to the partners’ breakfast on a drunken whim, and snap up the job she’d been working toward for so long.
“Has your boyfriend cashed in that rain check yet?” he asked.
She clamped her lips together. Then, unable to resist, muttered, “What made you think we were talking about…what you said?” Not that she was about to tell him he was right.
“Been there, done that,” Garrett said. “By which I mean, I’ve been the offer
ee
before. I’ve never begged someone to stay, but I recognize the body language.” He shook his head, all phony sympathy. “Like I told you, begging doesn’t work.”
Rachel’s eyes smarted. She blinked hard, twice. “Here’s some advice right back at you. What happens in the bar stays in the bar.” Switching gears, she said crisply, “So, Garrett, you’ve been at KBC, what, six months?” But she was well aware it was longer than that that she’d been subjected to his suspiciously bland expression whenever others acclaimed her work.
“Eleven,” he said wearily, as if he was already bored with the topic. Or maybe a three-syllable word was too much effort this morning.
“That’s got to be a record for you. Come on, Garrett, you don’t want to be a partner.” He was renowned for his refusal to settle in one firm.
Her insistence had a shrill edge, and he winced. “If I agree I don’t want to be a partner, will you shut up?”
As if he would be so agreeable. He hadn’t earned his nickname—The Shark—by backing down from a fight. No, that moniker was born of his reputed killer instinct for winning pitches. It had become one of those self-fulfilling prophecies—Rachel suspected he had an advantage over rivals intimidated by being up against The Shark.
Not today. She wasn’t about to be intimidated.
He probably made the name up himself.
Which was good marketing, she’d admit. Perhaps she should start calling herself…The Terrier.
Didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
A glance at the numbers above the elevator door revealed they were at the twenty-fourth floor.
“I guess Tony had his reasons for inviting you to attend this morning,” she said, “but, Garrett, you won’t win. Why put yourself through that?” Perhaps she could convince him to get out on fifty-four.
He didn’t say anything. Tension flattened his lips and he obviously had a pounding headache. Drawing his dark eyebrows together in that thunderous way wouldn’t help the pain. He must realize, in his heart, that she was right. He was an outsider, and everyone knew that outsiders seldom won. Rachel’s shoulders relaxed. She could almost feel sorry for him.
Maybe that’s why he was drinking alone last night. Out of a sense of inadequacy.
She ignored the fact that the word didn’t gel with anything about him.
“It’s not about you,” she assured him. “I’ve been at KBC eight years. Around here that counts for something.”
His expression lightened, as if he’d heard her entirely reasonable explanation and discounted it. Rachel shifted uneasily as he scanned her, top to toe, lightning fast.
“You must have joined when you were twelve.” His tone was chatty.
Garrett Calder didn’t make idle conversation.
“I was eighteen,” she said warily. “I started in the mail room.”
“She Worked Her Way to the Top,” he intoned.
“You bet I did.” Her response was clipped—he didn’t get to mock her achievement.
“So, it’s your eight years versus my eight gold CLIO awards,” he mused, sounding a whole lot more cheerful. “Think they might
count for something?
”
Eight gold CLIOs! It was practically obscene, how successful he’d been in the advertising industry’s equivalent of the Oscars.
But those awards came while he was working at five different companies. And he’s made more enemies than friends.
Making partner was about loyalty and long term.
Rachel
was about loyalty and long term.
She dismissed his awards with a
pff.
“Style over substance.”
The Shark bared his teeth. It might have been a smile. Then again, he might have been anticipating dragging her beneath the surface and chomping on her drowned body.
Rachel folded her arms across her chest, realized she looked defensive and dropped her hands to her sides.
Surely we must be nearly
—nope, only the thirty-sixth floor.
“I have an excellent track record, and that’s how I’ll get the partnership,” she assured him.
“Right,” he said encouragingly.
He clearly meant
Wrong.
“Do you know something?” she demanded.
He closed his eyes. “You’re shouting again. And I’m having a bad week. Bad enough that I might take off this stupid tie and gag you with it.”
He was a jerk. Jerks didn’t make partner at KBC. It was different at some other agencies, but not here.
He’s a jerk with eight gold CLIOs.
She shouldn’t bother explaining, but the urge to convince him he was wasting his time was overwhelming. “It’s not just the eight years. I’ve put in more hours than anyone, I’ve won more pitches…”
“You’ve won a bunch of clients too scared to do anything interesting,” he said. “Your work is tame.”
Rachel clenched her jaw to hold back her outrage. Tame! She prided herself on her ability to take clients beyond their expectations.
“Do you want to know what your weakness is?” Garrett asked.
“No.”
“It’s those eight years,” he said. “You’re relying on past experience, but everything can change in a heartbeat around here.” He folded his arms, and on him it didn’t look defensive. “In a New York minute, you could say.”
She’d never liked the song “New York Minute,” with its suggestion that everything—business, family, life—could be turned on its head any moment.
“Your weakness is that you don’t think on your feet,” Garrett said. “Reacting to those moments of insight, freeing yourself from reliance on what others have told you, is what drives creative power.”
As if she would trust the impulse of a moment over a carefully crafted solution. Her hands fisted at her sides. “You don’t get to waltz in here with your Dom Pérignon hangover and your eight CLIOs and your custom-made suits and your fancy cologne—”
“I don’t wear cologne.” He spread his hands, palm out, as if declaring himself innocent of some heinous crime.
Wow, The Shark sure knew how to zero in on the main issue.
“Uh-huh. So you just happened to sleep on a bed of—” she sniffed “—pine needles and citrus peel.”
Ever so slowly, one corner of his mouth kicked up.
The effect was more potent than any full-throated laugh. It was that stupid Shark thing, Rachel thought crossly. It gave him an aura of power.
“Whatever it is you’re smelling, Rach, it’s all me,” he said. “Cologne is for sissies.”