by Julia London
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Chelsea said instantly. “I don’t buy into that whole work together theory. We are in competition for a job. Plus, you’re pals with Zimmerman, so naturally, I can’t but help call your character into question.” She arched a dark brow, challenging him to disagree. She meant it sincerely—there wasn’t a greasier person than Zach Zimmerman in all of New York.
Ian laughed. “I stand by my earlier statement. You don’t have to take this competition so seriously. But I will concede that you have a valid point about Zimmerman. I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the kitchen again. Chelsea looked at her Tuscan chicken and smiled. If he could agree with her that Zimmerman was sleazy, maybe he wasn’t all bad.
Ian returned a moment later with a scented candle, the type that usually sat on the back of a toilet. “It’s a little dark,” he explained and set it on the table.
“Romantic,” Chelsea said with an approving nod. “Pine mist too. I can almost believe we’re in the middle of a forest.”
“You know what they say, presentation is ninety percent of the battle.” He picked up his fork and began to eat.
Chelsea watched him a minute. Did Ian have to be so damned good-looking on top of being so good at advertising and, apparently, at interpersonal relationships?
She looked down at her container, wishing she’d think of something else. “I can’t believe we are sitting here dining by candlelight on the food we stole from the managing partners’ fridge. If we ever get the Lean Cuisine account, I am totally using this in an ad,” she said. “Lean Cuisine—perfect in a disaster.”
Ian cast another gorgeous smile in her direction. “That’s good. I’d bite,” he said. “So…have you always been in advertising?”
“Yes—first job out of college. I applied on a lark and got the job. I was shocked.”
“Did you get a degree in marketing?” he asked.
Chelsea laughed. “Nope. My degree is in English. I wanted to be a writer. I used to fill up notebooks with stories I thought I’d publish someday.”
“Oh yeah? Have you published anything?”
Chelsea laughed again. “No. I want to write a book. But I haven’t managed more than about twenty pages of a novel. It’s not as easy as it looks, you know.” She paused for a moment. “I still want to be a writer someday.”
“It’s hard to make a living as a writer,” Ian pointed out.
“So I hear,” Chelsea agreed.
“I like writing too.”
“You do? You don’t seem the type.”
“Now who is being annoying?” he asked cheerfully.
Chelsea smiled. “Touché.” She was beginning to see past God’s gift to advertising. Ian was seeming more and more a very likable man. “So why did you come here, really?” she asked curiously.
“Where?”
“To Grabber-Paulson. I heard you were the best thing going at Huntson-Jones.”
“Be still my heart,” Ian said. “Chelsea Crawford just paid me a compliment.”
“Don’t blow it,” she teased him. “I’m only starting to warm up to you.”
“No way am I going to blow it,” Ian said. “We might be stuck in here a while and the way you’re attacking that Lean Cuisine, we could be fighting for them later.”
“So?” she prodded, swirling her fork at him. “Why’d you come?”
“Well, for whatever reason, Grabber-Paulson came knocking. Jason called me and invited me to drinks. He and Brad said they had some great talent in-house but wanted more.”
This, Chelsea noticed, he said while looking at his little tray of food.
“They talked to me about a fast track to partner, and they offered me a lot of money.” He glanced up at her as he ate a bite of lasagna. “It was almost a no-brainer.”
Chelsea could feel the blood rushing from her face. A fast track to partner? A lot of money? Why had Jason even called him? He’d told her they were so happy with her work. She could suddenly see Jason Sung’s smiling face dancing before her eyes, and she really wanted to kick something. Hard. Instead she dropped her fork, gaining Ian’s attention again. “Are you just saying that to rattle me? Is this some sort of game day strategy?”
“Not at all,” he said, smiling curiously at her. “You asked. I told you.”
Chelsea couldn’t work it out. She couldn’t understand why Brad and Jason would bring in someone new.
“What?” he asked, and she realized she was still staring at him.
“A lot of money,” she repeated. “Do you mean a lot a lot or just a lot?”
He chuckled with bewilderment. “I don’t know exactly what you mean, but I guess it’s relative. It was a lot of money to me.”
She was dying to ask him how much, but not only was that incredibly rude, she feared it might cause her to fling herself out a thirty-first-floor window. She sagged against her chair. How could they betray her like this? “I don’t get it. I have worked my ass off for this firm and they haven’t offered me a lot of money. They told me this account was mine, that I was due, and then the next thing I know, they’re bringing in some hotshot from another firm,” she said, gesturing at him.
“Thank you. I think.”
“What is it?” she asked, casting her arms wide. “Is it because I’m a woman? It’s because I’m a woman, isn’t it? You said it, Ian; this is a good ol’ boys club—”
“Hey, I did not say that—”
But Chelsea wasn’t listening to him. She knew exactly what was going on here. She’d seen it with Candice Fletcher. Candice had worked at this firm for years and had done some of the best work Chelsea had seen. And she’d left last year, tired of bumping up against the glass ceiling, tired of working circles around men only to be passed over time and again. “It’s the good ol’ boys club, and they can’t deal with a woman who might be smart or capable. They want us all to wear tight skirts and say yes sir, no sir, do you take cream with that coffee?”
“Hey,” Ian said, and he put his hand on her arm. “I think you’re overreacting—”
“Then explain to me why Jason would tell me this gig was mine and then offer you a lot of money and not me? There has to be some reason, right? I don’t think it’s my work because everyone says my work is great. It’s not my work, is it? So what else can it be, Ian? I think it’s because I’m a woman, and I’m not in here eating Lean Cuisine and talking about the Knicks!”
“Chelsea.” Ian squeezed her arm. “It had nothing to do with the fact that you’re a woman.”
“What?” Her gaze suddenly riveted on him. The way he said it gave her the impression that he knew what it was, that he had discussed her with someone. It has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a woman…almost as if he knew exactly what it had to do with.
It seemed as if Ian realized he’d said something, too, because he withdrew his hand and looked a little guilty.
“What do you know?” she asked him.
“Who, me?” He looked startled. He looked down at his plate and then at the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He was lying. Chelsea could plainly see it. “Yes you do!” she cried. “You know something! What is it, Ian? Has Jason said something about me?”
“No,” he scoffed. But he stood up and picked up his plate. “I wish Brad had beer.”
She jumped up to follow him. “Why won’t you tell me? It can’t be that bad.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Ian said.
“I don’t believe you. Does it have to do with the Tesla account?”
She saw the hitch in his shoulders, but Ian put his plate in the sink, turned around to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and said, “I am telling you the truth. Jason has not said a word to me about you since I came here.”
Chelsea studied his face a moment, looking
for any sign of deception. He steadily held her gaze. “Okay,” she said, nodding. She didn’t believe him for a minute. She would get it out of him—she was tenacious that way.
Ian seemed to relax then and took her plate from her.
“I’ll just ask Jason myself,” she said, watching him.
“Good. Seems like the way to go.” He began to run water, looking a little keyed up and studiously avoiding eye contact with her.
When they had finished cleaning up what little mess they’d made, Chelsea wandered out of the kitchen and stood at Brad’s windows, looking out onto the sea of white.
Ian joined her, standing close and watching the snow fall. “What time is it?” he asked.
Chelsea glanced at her wristwatch. “Seven thirty.” She peered up at him.
Ian looked at her. He slowly turned toward her, and Chelsea shifted around a bit too. She felt a challenge in his gaze, but it was a different sort of challenge than what she had anticipated. They were standing quite close and Ian’s glittering blue eyes were roaming around her face. His gaze slowly slid down to her mouth. She noticed his lips, too, full and soft and with the permanent hook of a near grin in one corner. In the low light of the generator and the utter quiet in the city, Chelsea could feel something arcing through her. A current of desire with a tail of pure lust.
For Ian Rafferty? Was she insane?
Ian’s gaze went lower, to her chest, and he said, “It’s going to be a long night. Wonder how we’ll amuse ourselves.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked softly. Did it mean what she thought it meant? Or had she completely lost her mind and it was she who wanted it to mean something? Because no matter what she thought of Ian Rafferty when it came to her job, the man was sexy as hell.
“What do you think it means?”
She was losing it. She could really use a drink, and a thought occurred to her. “Have you ever talked about the Knicks in the partners’ conference room?”
“Huh?” he muttered, and he brushed a bit of her hair from her shoulder.
“I know where they keep the booze.”
Ian’s gaze came up at that. “Serious?”
“As a sermon,” she said. “We just need to find a key. But I think I know where one is.”
Ian grinned, and the sight of it was electrifying. He yanked his tie free of his collar. “Let’s do this,” he said and he put an arm around her shoulder, leading her out of Brad’s office.
Chapter 6
Ian had met Mr. Grabber’s assistant, Andrea Slater, only once or twice. But he knew she was the grande dame of the assistants around here, having sat in this seat longer than anyone else at the company.
Ian and Zimmerman liked to joke about what Andrea did. As the senior partner, Grabber was rarely in the office, but Andrea was here every day. Ian had seen Andrea knitting, had seen her with a game of solitaire on her computer, and one day, when he’d seen her with her back to the door, he was convinced she’d been sleeping.
Chelsea walked around behind Andrea’s desk as if it were familiar to her and opened a drawer, lifting up the files there to look underneath.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked uncomfortably.
“Looking for the key.” She closed that drawer and opened another one and moved things around.
Even though there was no one in the office, Ian couldn’t help looking anxiously over his shoulder, waiting for someone to catch them. “Do you really think you should be looking in her desk?”
Chelsea closed that drawer and opened a third.
“Chelsea—”
“Aha!” she cried, and she held up a ring of keys, making them jingle, her smile triumphant.
“Okay, let’s go,” he said, motioning for her to come around from behind Andrea’s desk. He put a hand to the small of her back and hurried her along, forcing her to walk so quickly she had to take a couple of hops, getting them away from the scene of the crime as he scanned the fixtures for any sign of a hidden camera.
“Don’t be so nervous,” Chelsea said, reading him easily. “It’s just a key.”
“It’s her desk.”
“Right. And it was Paulson’s fridge, but I didn’t notice you worrying about that.”
“How can you not see that surviving and snooping are entirely two different things?” he demanded.
“It’s exactly the same thing!” she insisted as they reached the door of the conference room.
“Just open the door,” he said impatiently.
Chelsea tried a key. It wouldn’t turn. Ian would have gone onto the next key, but she withdrew it and tried it again, as if she thought she hadn’t inserted it correctly. “Well, this one doesn’t work.”
Ian tried not to tap his foot as she tested the next one and, again, made several attempts when the key clearly would not turn.
“Here, let me,” he said, reaching for the keys, but Chelsea slapped his hand away. “Stop it. I think I can open a door!”
“Do you think you can do it tonight?”
She stopped what she was doing to level the look of an irked female on him. “Okay, you need to calm down now. Slow and steady always wins the race.”
“Not this one. You’re too slow. No one has this kind of time.”
“Are you kidding? We have nothing but time.” She turned back to the door and tried another key.
Ian groaned and sank against the wall as she tried another one. And another.
She went through at least ten keys before she tossed her head back and sighed to the ceiling. “These aren’t the right keys.”
“Yes they are,” he said and motioned for the keys. “Give ’em.”
“Did you not just see me go through them all?”
“Yes. Every single one of them, turning them this way and that like a little kid. Some keys need to be jiggled and coaxed. Let me,” Ian said, and he grabbed her wrist in one hand, lifted her arm, and pried the keys from her fingers with the other hand.
Chelsea bowed grandly and gestured to the door. “By all means, Mr. Rafferty. Show me your superior door-opening skills.”
Ian began the process again while Chelsea stood by his side, her hands on her hips, muttering a variety of I told you so’s. It wasn’t long before he realized he was going to be forced to concede that these were not the right keys. He groaned. “You’re right,” he forced himself to say.
She smiled with far too much pleasure. “Of course I’m right. I won’t say I told you so again, but we both know I did,” she said smartly and took the keys from him. “This is the wrong set. Which makes no sense, seeing as how we are an office of doorless cubes. How many keys could this office possibly need?”
Ian didn’t care. He only cared that a drink was not in his future. “I guess that’s that.”
“That’s that? You give up too easily!”
“Do you have any bright ideas? Besides riffling through everyone’s desk and personal things?”
Chelsea suddenly gasped, startling him. “I know who has them!” She grabbed his hand, pulling him along now. She dropped his hand in Andrea’s office and darted around the desk to return the keys.
She opened the drawer she’d found them in. “Marian Zarin. Know her?”
“No.”
“Short? Reddish hair?” Chelsea said as she returned the keys to the place where she’d found them. “She’s different but…” Something caught her eye. She picked up a paper from the drawer.
“But what?” Ian asked.
“Different,” she said absently, her gaze on the paper.
“You said that.” He looked at the paper now too. “What do you have?”
Chelsea was not listening to him. She squinted at the paper and then suddenly gasped, her eyes going wide. “Oh my God,” she said disbelievingly.
“Chelsea? What do you have?” He walked arou
nd the desk and looked over her shoulder and saw the title of the paper she held. It was a salary chart. “Hey, put that back,” he said reaching for it.
But Chelsea was too fast for him. She jerked the paper out of his reach and lunged away from him.
“Put it back,” he said more sternly. The last thing he needed was for her to see how much he made, especially now that they seemed to actually be making some progress with each other. But Chelsea ignored him, her gaze on the chart. “That is none of your business,” he said. He couldn’t imagine a worse breach than to see the private salary of everyone in this office.
“Aren’t you the slightest bit curious?”
“Of course I’m curious.” He’d say more than curious. “But you took that without permission from Andrea’s drawer, which is so lacking in integrity that you ought to be fired.”
“Please, like I don’t know that,” she said dismissively, as if knowing what she was doing was wrong somehow absolved her. “But it’s not like I went looking for it, Ian. It just so happens this is what I found when I was looking for keys, which you have already said was a matter of survival.”
“What? I never said—”
“My salary is on here, you know. So is Zimmerman’s.” She arched a brow, silently daring him to order her to put it back now.
And much to Ian’s chagrin, he hesitated. He liked hanging out with Zimmerman, but he wasn’t quite sure what he actually did. He never seemed to have any accounts to work on. And Ian was definitely curious what they were paying Chelsea.
“Probably yours too,” she said slyly.
Ian made a sudden move and tried to snatch it out of her hand. Chelsea jerked it out of his reach again. That was the exact wrong thing to do. Chelsea seemed to know it was, because she suddenly darted out of the office with the chart.
Ian was quickly behind her, hindered only by Andrea’s desk. By the time he reached the door, Chelsea had disappeared into the sea of cubes.
“Do you really think this is going to work?” he called out, moving stealthily down the aisle and checking each cubicle. “What are we, seven years old? Just put the chart back, Chelsea.”
