“Let me take a crack at him,” Matt offered.
“He’s ten,” Stu said as if that might make Matt change his mind. They both knew that was a tough age. If the boy had started in T-ball, he already had five years of bad habits to break. If he was cocky, that meant he was probably better than most and didn’t think he needed the help. And if he was ten, that meant he was heading for middle school and some of the toughest years of a young boy’s life.
Exactly the kind of challenge Matt needed to get his mind off the mess he’d made of his working relationship with Carly.
He flashed Stu a knowing smile. “You’re giving me this kid on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m tired of the whining.”
“Are you talking about me or the kid?”
Snapping a wink, Stu backed away from the cage and headed toward the pro shop. “Yes.”
9
“I NEED THOSE presentation materials. Have you finished up the slide show yet?”
Matt’s smooth, quiet voice slid over Carly’s shoulders like raw silk. It seemed no matter how angry she wanted to be with him, her body kept responding to the slightest of gestures. Even with her back to him and her eyes on some very gnarly looking HTML code, the mere sound of his voice slipped down around her waist and tingled at the apex of her thighs.
And the vivid memory of his hard, naked body plunging her into euphoria wasn’t helping one bit.
Shaking the scene from her thoughts for the umpteenth time, she replied, “I e-mailed it to you a half hour ago.”
She hadn’t intended the clipped tone. It had simply become her normal voice around him since their interlude in the lab and that lame apology he’d attempted in the hall later that day.
The apology you didn’t deserve.
Now there was another thing keeping her nerves on edge. That stupid voice in her head, the one that kept trying to tell her she’d overreacted and that she should be the one offering him apologies. She really didn’t need it. She’d gone over and over the incident more times than she wanted to admit and she always came to the conclusion she’d had every right to be mad. So mad she would stay, voices or no voices.
“Aren’t you being a little hard on him?”
Okay, now the voices are just getting creepy.
Blinking, she looked up and saw Bev hanging over her cubicle wall.
“Huh?” She glanced back and saw that Matt had walked off.
“I said, weren’t you being a little harsh? You practically bit his head off.”
Carly frowned. “He needs to learn to check his e-mail.” That way he’d stop having reason to come by her desk and ask her questions in that sultry tone while wafting that darned aftershave around her cubicle, where it seemed to linger all day. At least this time she hadn’t had to look at him. He was probably wearing those worn, rugged boots today, the ones with the buckles at the ankles that made him look all sexy, like a young Clint Eastwood in one of those spaghetti Westerns.
Bev lowered her voice. “He doesn’t deserve the treatment you’re giving him. From what you told me, all he did was ask you not to spread it around.”
“That was offensive. I wouldn’t have told a soul.”
“You told me within minutes of leaving the room.”
“You’re different. You don’t count.”
“You’ve told a half dozen other people what a jerk he is.”
“But I never said why.”
“It doesn’t matter. People are still beginning to talk.”
Carly’s frown deepened into a pout. She hated logic when she felt like being illogical. It was the party pooper crashing her misery gala, and she’d been having a good time wallowing in her self-inflicted pain.
Bev held up her wallet. “I’m going for coffee. Come on.”
Carly let out a long breath and rose from her seat, knowing she was about to get a block-long lecture from Bev and, worse, knowing she deserved it. She was being irrationally testy, punishing Matt from the moment he’d climaxed and failed to look dreamily into her eyes and profess his everlasting love for her.
Of course, that wasn’t what she’d consciously expected him to do, but after she’d considered that awkward postsex moment, she’d surmised that was about the only thing he could have done to avoid the reaction he got. Because when he’d gotten up and started gathering his clothes, Carly had discovered something very important about herself.
She was not a just-for-fun-fling kinda gal.
She’d been trying to deny it for days, telling herself that Matt’s insensitivity was the cause of the wrangling nerves nestled in her stomach. She’d hoped to convince herself that she could be free and loose, a cosmopolitan woman having wild, flippant sex square in the middle of her office and not expect anything more from a man.
But when she shoveled her own garbage away, she realized it was all a lie. Truth was, as much as she craved a hot sexual thrill, she craved loving affection more, and as the two women stepped through the double glass doors and out into the late-afternoon sun, Carly tried not to groan. Apparently, she did belong with nice, steady men who bored her to tears in bed. At least she’d never stormed out on any of them, and when the act was done, none of them had felt compelled to tell her to keep her mouth shut.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said, holding up a hand before Bev could open her mouth. “I went over the deep end.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. What did he say? You get around? Not exactly the words of a prince.”
“He’s never been very graceful with words. I should have figured that out by now.”
And honestly, it wasn’t how he’d said it but that he’d seen through her so easily that touched a hot nerve. When she’d sat basking in the aftermath of the two best orgasms of her life, she had wanted to run out and scream it to the world, and Matt’s comment had made it painfully evident he hadn’t felt the same way.
He’d made the truth between them obvious. To a girl like Carly, sex was intimate and special. To a guy like Matt, sex was sex. She couldn’t deny who she really was. Sally Sunshine. Mary Quite Contrary. The little good girl who’d tried to take a walk on the wild side but couldn’t even round the first lap. She was a fake, a fraud and, worse than anything else, Matt had called her bluff before he’d even pulled his pants on.
Yes, she was definitely that pathetic. Contrary to the wild sex puppet she’d envisioned she could be, reality proved she was completely inept at carrying out a casual tryst, and when Matt had pointed that out in his offhanded way, she’d lashed out by making him the bad guy.
The two women stood at the corner next to the Happy Lantern restaurant, waiting for the light to change.
“Listen, be mad at him all you want,” Bev said. “And unless you want to get him back in the sack, I wouldn’t lose sleep over what’s come down between you two. I’m only saying you’ve got to lighten up on the I-hate-Matt campaign. Like I said, people are starting to talk. And, in case you’ve forgotten, thanks to your own scheme, you two are supposed to be the ideal couple.”
“According to a stupid survey.”
“According to our biggest client that you need to impress if you want that promotion.”
When the signal changed, they stepped across the street on their way down the block to Lone Dog Coffee, and Carly let Bev’s words and the breezy air clear her mind. Bev was right. She really did need to let it go, if for no other reason than to take back the control she’d surrendered that afternoon. Matt wasn’t worth the energy she’d been pouring into hating him, and Bev’s reminder was exactly the reality check she needed.
Get her head on straight, forget about him and go back to the task of showing management how ideal she was for that team lead position.
“Of course,” Bev added, “given what you told me about your encounter, I wouldn’t rule out trying to get Matt back in the sack.”
Carly huffed and shook her head. “I think I’ve humiliated myself enough for one lifetime, thank you. Besides, I�
��m not cut out for the casual tryst.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course you’re cut out for casual trysts. Have you forgotten Marty Pritchard?”
“I’m trying to.” Marty Pritchard was a corporate event planner down in the peninsula who liked to call her up when business brought him north of San Francisco. Though the man had never given her two cosmic orgasms like those she’d shared with Matt, he was okay—okay being the operative word. Her heart had never ached watching Marty walk out the door, mostly because she wasn’t interested enough and he wasn’t good enough to make her pine for something more. In fact, timing was the best thing Marty had going for him. He always seemed to call when she had nothing to do, and a quick dinner and a romp in the hay sounded better than reruns of Friends.
Matt Jacobs was a different story. He was the type of man she’d yearn for something more with, and even if he were apt to give it to her, she knew without a doubt playing around with him would lead to one heavy heartache. His survey hadn’t lied. It had painted a clear picture of a man wrong for her in every way that counted, and no matter how badly she wanted to ignore that fact and enjoy him for the sex, she simply couldn’t separate her emotions where he was concerned.
The sex was too good, the man was too wrong. It was as simple as that. And if she wanted to keep her career intact and her heart in one piece, she’d need to keep her distance from Matt Jacobs.
MATT CONNECTED his laptop to the wall monitor so he could test the presentation materials before his and Carly’s meeting with Brayton and Andy. With a hum, his CD drive whirred on and the display on his laptop came to life on the flat-screen monitor mounted on the far wall of the company’s main conference room. Clicking through the screens, he took a moment to add final touches to the materials Carly had put together, adjusting an occasional font or modifying a screen transition to give the overall presentation more flair.
Though Carly had brought good insights to the project, her presentation skills tended to be too primitive for his taste, getting the point across but lacking the dazzle Matt had learned impressed clients. It was funny, really, how the most difficult and complicated programming tasks seemed to go unnoticed, but add a dancing bear or dissolve the screen into a shimmer of shooting stars and clients marveled at the results.
And Matt was determined to invoke a lot of marvel when it came to this project. Whatever he had to do to land this management job, he’d do it. If it was impressing Hall with another project well done, then he’d hand it over with all the glitz and chutzpah that satisfied clients. That part was easy. The hard part was getting into Hall’s head to see exactly what kind of plan he was brewing and how likely a candidate Matt really was in taking on this new team.
For days he’d been waiting for the right moment to broach the subject with Hall, but so far the opportunity hadn’t come up. And though Matt could be patient, he didn’t want Hall to sink too far into any decisions without the chance to throw out a few ideas or sway the vote in his favor.
“Setting up early, as usual.”
Matt turned to find Brayton Hall standing in the doorway clad in Friday blue jeans and a pink button-down shirt he couldn’t quite pull off.
“Yes,” Matt said. “I don’t like dealing with surprises while the client’s waiting.”
Brayton stepped across the threshold, pulled back a chair and took a seat. Maybe this would be the opportunity Matt had been waiting for.
“That’s why you’re one of the best,” he said. “You think like a true businessman.”
Matt folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, trying to conjure a comeback that might segue into the topic of this new management job, but Brayton went on. “How are you feeling about this project, by the way? Things coming along as you’d hoped?”
Matt shrugged. “Better, actually. Lucky for us, the Singles Inc. in-house development team wasn’t a hard act to follow. From what I understand, they’re data programmers, not Web designers. Most of them are thrilled to have this taken off their plate. I guess Singles Inc. has been growing faster than anyone expected and they don’t admit to having much Web-design experience or the time to deal with the site maintenance. They’re busy enough with the back-end data.”
Brayton snagged a wayward paper clip from the table and began tapping it against the arm of his chair. “It’s always nice to work without resistance. Outsourcing isn’t always so well received.”
“We don’t have any problems where that’s concerned.”
Brayton looked up at the screen. “I think Andy will like what you’ve done so far. Not only is the image updated, you’ve made quite a few good improvements to the design.”
“The drop-out rate was one of the first things we looked at,” Matt explained. “Far too many people were starting the survey, then not finishing.” He flipped back to one screen in particular. “At the beginning of the registration process we’ve got information letting people know how long to expect the survey to take.” Advancing forward, he added, “Then we’ve got the option on every screen to save the answers and come back another time. We think people don’t realize how comprehensive it is, get halfway through and quit out of the program, not coming back because they don’t want to do the work all over again. With the new design they not only know what to expect from the outset, but if they run out of time, they don’t have to redo the questions they already answered.”
“That’s a great idea. Completely obvious but apparently overlooked in the original design.”
Those had been Carly’s ideas, as well. He hadn’t expected they’d complement each other so well on the job, never having worked on a project with her before. Where he had the eye for art and design and was good at the bells and whistles, Carly focused on human behavior, asking herself who were the users, what did they want, where would they go and what turned them on and off. She had a knack for bringing up all kinds of angles he hadn’t thought of, points that seemed so basic but had completely missed his radar.
A side of him wanted to bring her back to review some of the projects he’d recently worked on just to see what she’d come up with.
If only she’d talk to him.
“And how are things with you and Carly?” Brayton asked. “Everything all right there?”
Matt swallowed and put on a good face. “It’s going fine,” he murmured, hoping his smile helped sell the statement.
“I know Andy and I have been giving you two a little riling over those survey results.”
A little? They’d been making such a deal out of it Matt had expected a minister to walk through the door any minute and marry them on Brayton’s command.
“No one expects you to fall in love,” Hall went on. “But I did find it ironic that Carly ended up matching your survey closer than anyone.” He grinned. “It proves my instincts.”
Matt grinned even though he had no idea where Hall was going with this.
Brayton stopped tapping the paper clip and instead began snapping it under his thumbnail. “If you recall, I hired you with the intent of pairing you two up someday. I always had that feeling you would be dynamite as a team.”
They were explosive all right.
“Which is why I’m somewhat concerned about the tension between you two.”
“Tension?” The word came out two octaves too high.
Brayton shrugged. “I could be wrong. I’m just sensing you might be having trouble working as a team. That could be my fault. I haven’t exactly pushed either of you to do much consulting on your projects. You both do a pretty good job on your own. Maybe it’s hard having to suddenly share the decision-making process instead of running with your own ideas.”
Matt narrowed his eyes. “Has someone expressed concerns?”
“Only my observations, though I don’t have any complaints about this project so far.”
Clearing the nerves from his throat, Matt sat up in his chair and responded with assurance. “Carly and I are getting along fine. Sure, maybe it’s awkward having to run th
ings by someone other than the client, but I think we’re weathering the bumps and will do a superb job for the company.”
“Yes, and I’ve got ideas for expansion and I can’t carry out those ideas if my best designers can’t play well in the sandbox with each other.”
This was the exact segue Matt had been waiting for in his quest to bring up this rumored design team and their need for a new manager. Unfortunately, he was feeling as though he was being scolded, and bucking for a promotion right now suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Obviously, Brayton had concerns that Matt needed to resolve.
“I assure you, Carly and I are fine. She’s a brilliant designer with some fantastic insights. In fact, I’m finding our strengths support each other in ways I hadn’t expected. I doubt even after this project is through I’ll design another Web site without getting her take on it—and I’d like to think she’ll come away from this project feeling similarly. If you’re sensing tension, it’s probably the intensity we’re bringing to the table, wanting to make sure this project goes off without a hitch.”
He took a breath and hoped his assurances had worked. Everything he’d said was true. He had begun to uncover a newfound respect for Carly. All he had to do now was get Brayton to focus on the project they were doing instead of this little rift that had come between them, at least until he made one more concerted effort to square things away with her. It appeared now that his future depended on it.
Brayton tossed the paper clip back on the table and rose from his chair. “That seems fair enough.” Nodding toward the monitor, he added, “You’re definitely doing a good job here. Keep it up.”
Then he walked out the door, leaving Matt feeling as though he’d just dodged a bullet. He had no idea any of his problems with Carly had made their way to Brayton’s office. Apparently, the walls at Hall Technologies were thinner than he’d expected. He’d hoped time would loosen the strain between them, but it now looked as if he didn’t have much. Glancing at his watch, he speculated if he should try to get her to open up before they gave their presentation. Surely, if she knew Hall was expressing concerns, they could at least agree to put up a front for the sake of their careers.
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