by Abby Gaines
His handling had opened a gap in the Saran, and the tantalizing smell of pastrami and tomato and onion wafted out. Dammit, Stephanie was doing exactly the same thing as Rachel. More subtly, perhaps, but she was latching on to him and trying to make him care.
Never going to happen.
He sealed the sandwich firmly up again, cutting off that aroma, then dropped it into the nearest trash can.
“Wow,” Rachel said, “she’s really not your girlfriend.”
“I would have eaten that,” Clive protested.
“You’re welcome to it,” Garrett said.
Clive glanced back at the trash can with a disturbing degree of interest. Then he shrugged. “It’s okay. They have burgers up ahead.”
Garrett quashed the thought that he’d rather have eaten the pastrami sandwich.
They found a table near the exit. As they ate, Garrett was unreasonably aware of Rachel, sipping at her soup, occasionally dabbing those lips with a napkin.
Clive went to refill his bottomless soda, and since those two had been doing all the talking, silence fell.
“Have you got what you need out of this visit, Garrett?” Rachel asked.
“Yep,” he lied. Because it was none of her business if the initial ideas he’d had for Brightwater’s creative no longer excited him, and nothing else had popped up in their place. Something would come to him. It always did.
“I’ve found it quite inspiring,” she said. “This is going to be my best pitch ever.”
He knew bravado when he heard it. She was worried. Some of his own anxiety, which he hadn’t quite acknowledged, lifted.
“Do you think your Brightwater campaign will be better than the Lexus one?” she asked.
“The best is yet to come,” he assured her.
She looked a little sick. “So, you’re taking it seriously?”
“Of course.” They both knew there was no of course about it.
She broke a piece off the roll that had come with her soup and spread butter on it. “Why did you leave all those other agencies, Garrett?”
He ran a hand around the back of his neck. “Different reasons at different times.”
“So, what are you generally looking for when you join a new firm?” A few crumbs had flaked off her roll and she pressed her finger into them to pick them up.
He wondered if she was considering applying for new jobs now. Smart idea. Or maybe she was just trying to work out his plans. “As far as possible, to be my own boss,” he said.
“Wouldn’t you be better off starting your own agency?” she asked. “You wouldn’t have to answer to anyone at all.”
“Tempting as that sounds, big firms have more resources,” he said. “I’m not interested in running on a shoestring.”
“So your ideal agency is big, but gives you plenty of autonomy,” she mused.
“I guess,” he said impatiently. He realized she was frowning. “What’s wrong now?”
“Do you realize KBC is your ideal firm?” she asked.
“No, it’s not.”
“Lots of autonomous units, the partnership structure, no head office driving us mad. No wonder you haven’t quit in disgust,” she said. “You love that place.”
“I don’t.”
But her words struck a chord. He did like it at KBC. More than anywhere else he’d been.
He didn’t want to leave yet.
Which meant the partnership was no longer just about proving something to his father, or beating Rachel or telling KBC where it could put its promotion.
All these years he’d stayed detached from anything he couldn’t control, always able to walk away, and now Rachel Frye had come along with her constant questions and her insistence on making things matter… And dammit, suddenly he cared.
Hell. What a mess.
* * *
ON FRIDAY, RACHEL retreated to a place that offered guaranteed peace of mind: the New York Public Library. For a century, the Beaux Arts building had dominated 42nd Street at 5th Avenue. Its marble halls were as solid and permanent as you could wish a building to be.
She needed solid. The past few days she’d felt horribly unsettled. Worried by Garrett’s insistence that whoever had the best creative would win, that team skills would count for nothing. Alarmed at the realization that KBC wasn’t just another advertising agency to him. Wasn’t as replaceable as he claimed everything was.
Walking down the marble hallway with its carved wooden ceiling didn’t produce the usual sense of calm. Maybe the Periodicals Room would do it, she thought, as she stepped through the deep doorway.
More than any other, this room inspired her, with its dark paneled walls, historic murals and brass lamps. Some of her best ideas had come while she was immersed in the sense of something so much more timeless than an advertising campaign.
And right now, she needed to go back to what she knew worked, rather than letting Garrett spook her. She’d exaggerated slightly when she’d told him her creative was her best ever. It was a good start, but it needed more…something.
Research was the antidote to an ideas shortage, and the Periodicals Room, empty at nine o’clock on a Friday morning, was the repository of every kind of magazine and journal. At the service window, Rachel asked the librarian for copies of Higher Education Monthly, along with student reviews from various colleges. She set up her laptop computer on one of the long, polished tables and settled in to read and make notes.
She was so immersed in her reading, she wasn’t aware of Garrett’s arrival until she heard his voice right behind her. “Are you following me?”
She jumped, knocking a couple of sheets of paper to the floor. “How could I be following you, when I got here first?” She bent to retrieve her pages. “Go away.” It was bad enough having to deal with him in the office.
“You heard me mention in the meeting the other day that I planned to come here,” he said.
“I thought you meant the library at KBC.”
“Why would I waste my time with past campaigns that have already come and gone?” He loomed over her. “I’ve had enough, Rachel. This is my space. Give it up.”
“You can’t call dibs on the New York Public Library,” she said, outraged. “This is my favorite place in all of New York.” He jolted. What was that about? “Go on, ask that librarian—” She pointed to the woman pushing a cart piled with magazines. “She’s seen me here before.”
As Rachel spoke, the woman noticed them, and obviously realized they were talking about her. She smiled widely and left her cart to come say hello.
Which was way more recognition than Rachel had expected. “Uh, hi,” she said, flattered. “How are you?”
Only to discover the smile wasn’t for her.
“Garrett, my dear.” The librarian grabbed his hand—the same one Rachel had recently become acquainted with. “How nice to see you.”
“Hi, Mrs. G.” Garrett kissed her cheek. “I came in a couple of weeks ago, but you weren’t around.”
“Vacation,” she said with a grimace Rachel recognized. That of a person who feels cut adrift when forced to take a vacation.
“I think you know Rachel Frye,” Garrett said.
Mrs. G. lifted her spectacles and scrutinized her. “I do believe I’ve seen you in here.”
“Often,” Rachel said firmly.
Garrett gave her a pitying look.
“What can I bring you to look at, Garrett?” Mrs. G. asked.
Good grief, he was getting table service.
“The usual, thanks.” He propped himself against the table, facing Rachel, legs stretched in front of him. Rachel suspected anyone else would have been told to use a chair. “And do you have any Spiderman comics?”
She figured that was the same kind of question as, What kind of fruit are you? A joke.
“No Spiderman.” The librarian’s smile was indulgent. “I’ll be right back with your MAD magazines.”
“You come here to read MAD?” Rachel asked as the woman retur
ned to her trolley.
“Pithy satire on all the essential issues. Much more useful than—” Garrett flipped the cover of Rachel’s periodical “—Higher Education Monthly.”
Surely MAD magazine was a joke, too. But it couldn’t be, because the librarian had known what magazine he wanted. It would never have occurred to Rachel to read MAD. Was that the secret to Garrett’s creative genius?
Garrett unzipped his laptop bag. “I know why you’re here, Rachel. But you won’t achieve anything with this.”
He knew she was panicking about her creative?
“I’m the first to admit I’m not a great team player,” he said, “but you keep overstepping the boundary.”
What was he talking about?
He set a notepad and pencil on the table. “No matter what you’d like to believe, nothing at KBC matters to me as much as you think it should, so don’t drag me into your little attachment disorder.”
“Excuse me?” she said.
“You’re latching on,” he said, “and you need to stop.”
“Latching on to what?”
“To me,” he said, as if she was stupid. “You think that because I don’t feel the way you do about KBC, I’m the one with the problem. So you want to fix me…turn me into a codependent person like yourself.”
“Garrett,” she said, “you’ve been watching too much Dr. Phil. Drop the therapy-speak and try to interact like a normal human being.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “You think you get to define normal. I have a perfectly healthy interaction system—it just doesn’t happen to involve bonding with every person on the planet. So leave me out of your game of office Happy Families.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Let me get this straight. You think I came to the library to bond with you.” She couldn’t decide whether to be insulted or to laugh.
“You can’t help yourself,” he said. “I’ve seen you giving gum to the janitor. But you’re wasting your time with me.”
Once she’d given gum to the janitor, for his kids. Probably everyone did things like that, except Garrett. Rachel glanced around the room. Still deserted—if she slapped him now no one would see.
Other than Mrs. G., returning with a small bundle of MAD magazines.
“I can’t find the latest issue.” The librarian set them on the table next to Garrett’s butt. Still no admonition to sit down. “I’ll keep looking.”
“Thanks, Mrs. G.” He picked up a magazine and flicked through it, ignoring Rachel.
The librarian regarded him with something like fondness. As if she’d like to go up on tiptoe and ruffle his hair. “Your mother would laugh to see you still reading MAD magazine in here,” she said.
His mother? Rachel stiffened.
“Yeah,” he muttered reluctantly to Mrs. G.
The librarian moved away. Rachel kept staring at Garrett.
He ignored her for a full ten seconds. Then, without looking up, he said belligerently, “I’m not going to talk about it, so don’t even try.”
“Every time I think you’re a jerk, I come back to this thing with your mother,” she said, “and it seems there must be more to you.”
“You are out of line on so many counts,” he said. “First up, you don’t know anything about me or my mother, and you have no right to even think about us. Second, there’s nothing more to me, and third, if there was, it would be none of your damned business.”
She ignored that rant. “And then there’s the interesting fact that you couldn’t bring yourself to be rude to a sweet old librarian, even when she mentioned your mom.”
“I could have been rude if I wanted,” he growled.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” She made a zipping motion across her mouth. “So, Mrs. G. knew your mom?”
He scowled. “Didn’t you just zip that up?”
“Broken zipper.” Rachel pushed Higher Education Monthly away. “Is she a friend of your family? Or did your mom work here? Or—”
“I told you, I’m not talking to you.”
“Or is she a relative? Godmother? Fourth cousin twice removed?”
“Let it go, Rachel.” His favorite line, this time spoken without his usual bored intonation. This time, he was angry.
Oddly, she enjoyed seeing him angry. She wondered what Dr. Phil would say about that.
“Is she your neighbor?” Rachel asked.
“She’s a librarian, dammit,” he snapped. “This library was my mom’s favorite place in all of New York,” he said. “And she loved this room the most.”
Rachel crumpled a piece of paper and threw it at him. For once, he wasn’t prepared and it bounced off his forehead.
“What was that for?” he demanded.
“That’s what I just told you about me. You think I don’t recognize my own story? Must try harder, Garrett.”
“I don’t have to try anything at all,” he retorted. “But for the record, it’s true. Mom did love this place. This room.”
She had believed him before and been fooled. But at that stage she’d had no reason to suspect a lie, and hadn’t looked for any signs of it. Now she studied his face. Didn’t help. Garrett Calder gave nothing away unless he chose to.
He picked up his pencil. “Now go,” he said. “I have work to do.”
“Was your mom really a missionary?” she asked.
He groaned. “No.”
Rachel didn’t bother asking if she’d had malaria. Or died in a plane crash or of cancer.
“Did she like Doris Day movies?”
His gaze wandered the room as if he was picturing his mom in this space. His face softened. “She loved them.”
Rachel swallowed over a lump in her throat. “Did she—”
“No more questions,” he said, snapping back into that irritating aloofness.
“Do you tell so many different stories about your mom just to make other people feel bad?” she asked.
“You heard me say, ‘No more questions,’ right?”
“Because that’s what it seems like,” she persisted.
“Do you think the reason your ad campaigns are so boring is because you read dull magazines?” he flashed back.
Ouch! Rachel put a protective hand on her stack of Higher Education Monthly. “Did your mom really die on your birthday?”
“Yes,” he said tightly. “Did I ever tell you that campaign you did for Finegold Butter totally sucked?”
She gasped. The Finegold campaign hadn’t sucked, but nor had it been her finest piece of work. “How old were you when your mom died?”
“Remind me how many CLIOs you’ve been nominated for?” he countered.
“I’m hopeful that Aunt Betty will swing it for me this year,” she said. And wished she’d just admitted “none.” She truly was hoping the Aunt Betty campaign would garner her first nomination, but now she’d left herself vulnerable. The announcement was only a week away. No way would Garrett forget this conversation before then. “I think your mom died recently,” she suggested.
They were playing chicken again, only this felt like far higher stakes than holding his hand. Right now, that hand was curled into a fist around his pencil.
“She didn’t,” Garrett said, clearly torn between reluctance to tell her anything more and a desire to prove her wrong. “Hey, I have an idea. Since you’re so uncreative, have you ever considered sleeping your way to the top? I’ve seen Tony watching your legs.”
She raised her eyebrows to acknowledge a good shot. “What would your mom think of the stories you fabricate about her death?” She felt a bizarre exhilaration that she was still standing, metaphorically speaking. Still in the battle.
Tension pulsed between them. When Garrett spoke, his calm was almost scary. “She doesn’t think about them. She’s dead.”
An evasion, if ever she’d heard one. “Do you even remember her?”
CHAPTER TEN
TOO FAR.
In the silence, the pencil in Garrett’s hand
snapped.
He leaned right into her, letting her see the fury he knew would be in his eyes.
“I remember her,” he snarled. “My father took all of five minutes to get over her death and find himself a new wife. And my brother is so cozy with his stepmother, I doubt he even remembers he had another mom. But I remember everything.”
Garrett was so livid, he was literally seeing red spots before his eyes. His long-simmering resentment of his father, Stephanie and his brother had erupted into fresh, hot anger fueled by Rachel.
Who was the most provoking woman he’d ever met. He couldn’t believe he’d let her goad him into saying this much.
He was about to tear a strip off her, library quiet be damned, when she started blinking, and her mouth went all soft and—and quivery.
He groaned, knowing exactly why she was reacting this way. Her thing about families. About holding on.
Garrett cursed. “Stop it, Rachel.”
“Stop what?” She blinked harder, faster.
He tossed the pieces of broken pencil onto the table. To his annoyance, the softness of her mouth was doing a number on his anger, taking the edge off. “Wipe that pitiful, pitying look off your face.” He liked that she’d shown a marked lack of sympathy for him until now.
“It’s not pity.” She sniffed. “I’m just…honored that you told me all that.”
“I didn’t tell you. You badgered it out of me.”
Her smile was watery. “It can’t have been easy for you.”
“Rachel,” he warned. “Back off. So I told you a few things about my mother. That doesn’t make us friends.”
“We’re not strangers,” she said, blinking again.
“We’re colleagues.” But they both knew that he hadn’t told any other colleague what he’d just told her. Garrett had only himself to blame if she got the wrong idea. He’d come to the library to get away from other people—Rachel in particular. He should have walked out the moment he saw her here.
At least her mouth was no longer quivering; he wasn’t sure how much more he could take of that. Unfortunately, in their natural state, her lips were full and nicely shaped and more tempting than he could believe.
