One-Click Buy: April Harlequin Blaze
Page 103
“According to Singles Inc.”
“They aren’t the top matchmaking business in the country for nothing.”
No, Matt thought, but their customers didn’t typically cheat on the compatibility tests to get matches, either.
“So the assumption is if I can’t get along with Carly, I can’t get along with anyone,” he mumbled.
“That’s the conclusion I’m coming to.”
Matt’s concern over his job and the spectacle Carly had made gave way to resentment. He was tempted to open his mouth right now and settle that score, knowing if Carly hadn’t tampered with the survey he’d not only be working with the right person, he wouldn’t have just blown another meeting on this project and he wouldn’t be sitting here in front of Hall, getting a lecture about his inability to play nice.
But that would only prove one of Carly’s assumptions that irked him the most. That he was as big a jerk as she thought he was.
“Here’s the deal,” Brayton said. “The cards are officially on the table. Now you know what I want from you and the challenge you’re up against. I don’t know what’s going on between you and Carly and my better judgment says don’t ask. But by Monday morning I want things squared away between you two.” He leaned forward, propped his elbows on the desk and grabbed the pen again. “I want to see two happy people working in harmony on this project. Show me what life would be like having Matt Jacobs in charge of a design team and all his employees thrilled to be part of the job.”
“It might take more time—”
“You’ve got until Monday morning. Fix things with Carly before I see either of you back in this office again.”
Sure. No problem. And after that he’d chase down the Holy Grail, pull Excalibur from the stone and whip up a cure for cancer.
The pen clicking resumed, further nursing Matt’s frustration, and staring at the man, he got the distinct impression this conversation was over.
He cleared his throat. “You sent Carly home,” he said. “I won’t have the chance to see her until Monday, but—”
Brayton held up a hand and turned to his computer. After typing in a few commands, he pulled over a notepad, scratched some information down on a page and handed it to Matt.
It was Carly’s address and phone number.
“Now you’ve got all weekend.”
He stared at the note for a moment, feeling as if that little piece of paper held his career in its hands. And in reality he supposed it did. Though Hall didn’t have to say it, Matt knew he’d officially landed at the fork in the road. Make things right with Carly, and pass that golden threshold into bigger and better things. Or fail, and stare at another dead end he’d created for himself.
The last time he’d come to this point, the decision had already been made for him. The Nationals had released him, and his choice had been a career in baseball mediocrity or nothing at all. This time he’d hit the wall while there was still another chance to scale it, and knowing how shitty life was with no options, he couldn’t consider turning back.
So he rose from his chair, intent to make this work, though he had no idea how. He’d be lucky if Carly even talked to him, much less put on a happy face for work Monday morning. And given he was batting a thousand when it came to making things worse instead of better, he wasn’t holding on to a lot of confidence.
But he had to give it a try, so as he walked to the door he contemplated the best way to get through to Carly in the hopes of making amends.
And as if Brayton had seen the dilemma on his face, he called out just as Matt stepped out of the room, “You might consider giving honesty a shot.”
THIRTY MINUTES later Matt stood in front of a quaint bungalow in northern Marin that looked as if it had been pulled from the pages of a little girl’s coloring book. Painted bright pink with white trim, it stood like a child’s playhouse in the middle of an oversize lot. A pathway lined with red and white rose bushes led up to a bright yellow door, an odd color considering the pulled-taffy look of the rest of the house. Then again, nothing in this picture seemed quite right. The driveway housed a silver Pontiac Grand Prix way too sporty and contemporary for the scene. He would have expected Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage instead or maybe a pink VW Bug with a weathered white silk flower attached to the antenna.
He checked the address in his hand and wondered if Hall had written the number down wrong, but the street name was clear and this was a small court of only a half dozen houses. He supposed if he got the number wrong, the Disney character that lived here would probably know which house was really Carly’s. So, taking a breath, he headed up the path and rapped on the door.
Footsteps on the other side were swift and sharp, and when the door flung open, he didn’t expect to see Carly actually standing there. This is really her house?
The look on her face mirrored his.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she stiffened her lip and slammed the door in his face before he could offer a greeting. Dammit. He wasn’t in the mood for any more games. He’d just had to take it in the backside from Hall and had valiantly kept his mouth shut about Carly and the survey. She owed him five minutes of her time.
Pounding on the door with more vigor, he called out, “Carly, open up. We need to talk.”
The door swung back open. “Who told you where I live?”
“Hall gave me your address.”
“Good. Then after he fires me I can sue him for breach of privacy.”
She moved to slam the door a second time, but he jammed his foot in the threshold and braced it with his hand. “I’m serious. We need to talk this through.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Thanks to you, I’ve probably lost my job. I think we’ve done enough talking for one lifetime, and if you think—”
“If anyone’s losing their job, it’s me, not you.”
That shut her up. She clearly hadn’t expected to hear that, and in response she jutted her chin and said, “Good,” but the sentiment didn’t quite reach her eyes.
He bit down his anger in the hope of appealing to that little soft spot she was trying to hide. “Please, Carly, I need your help.”
She stiffened her spine. “Why should I help you?”
“Because half of this is your fault.”
She scoffed, and Matt used her momentary shock to push his way through the door and into…the strangest-looking pink oasis he’d ever seen. Three steps to the right was a pink kitchen remodeled circa 1985. To the left was a dining room with no table. Looking down, he found himself standing on a path of rose-colored tiles. Did marble come in that shade naturally?
“I didn’t invite you in.”
“I didn’t ask for an invite.”
He heard the door slam behind him and her footsteps at his back.
“I can’t believe you’ve got the gall to show your face here after what you did.”
Now, there was another thing he was officially tired of hearing today. Turning on his heels, he folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me again what it is I did?”
“You conned me into having sex with you, for starters.”
“I didn’t con you into anything. I made a few seductive comments and you took the ball and ran with it.”
She clasped her hands to her hips. “You knew we weren’t the least bit compatible when you seduced me in the lab.”
“And so did you.”
She opened her mouth for a comeback, but nothing came out. Yes, there it was. The slight technicality she’d like to conveniently ignore.
“You knew as much as I did your answers were phony, but you were happy to go along anyway. Hell, I’d barely made the suggestion before you were tonguing my thumb and climbing up my lap.”
She gasped as if she’d just been slapped, yet she was still at a loss for words. What could she say? She knew he had her by the horns.
Closing the distance between them, he took her slack jaw in his hand. “Play the sweet prude at the office, but spare it on me. I’m well familiar with
the hot-blooded sex kitten you’ve buttoned up under that collar.”
She snapped her mouth shut and jerked her chin from his hand, but the tip of her nose had turned red, telling him he’d scored a direct hit.
With slightly less conviction than she’d had a moment ago, she retreated a step and asked, “What do you want from me?”
“I want to clear the air between us so we can go back to work Monday happy as clams.”
“You’re off to a heck of a start.”
“I’m laying it all on the table, your crap, as well as mine.” He stepped in to make up the distance between them. “My job is on the line, and that’s too important to me to ride it all on a simple apology. I could come in here, grovel at your feet and hope you’ll lose the chip on your shoulder, but I’ve got too much at stake to leave this in your hands.” He pointed a finger to her chest. “Here and now, you and I are going to air two years of animosity between us, and I’m not leaving until every last morsel has been thrown on the table.”
She pressed her lips into a slit. “You’re going to have a long wait if you think you can pin your problems on me.”
“Trust me, I’ve got plenty to apologize for. I know I stepped in and walked all over your realm when you’d been sold another story by Hall. And in the two years since, I never went out of my way to make things better between us. I made the fool’s mistake in thinking I didn’t need you or anyone else at the firm to get ahead, and you’ll be happy to know that’s come back to bite me in the ass. I have a talent for putting my foot in my mouth when it comes to you and I won’t even begin to individually list and tabulate every ill-formed comment where that’s concerned.”
Then he stepped close and pinned her against her entryway wall. “But the one thing I won’t cop to is this nonsense about taking advantage of you. And I’m sure as hell not going to apologize for making love to you.”
Her eyes turned to wide blue saucers. The little blush at the tip of her nose spread across her cheeks. She parted those stiff lips and sucked in a breath when he dipped his chin to look her in the eye.
Lowering his voice, he added, “Call me a lot of things, Carly, but I don’t take advantage of women. Say I’ve made some underhanded moves, but don’t tell me I had to trick you into having sex with me. If you want the real story, I’d only been teasing you, with every intention of coming clean about the survey. But I underestimated how damned sexy you are and your ability to drive me three shades of stupid.” He bent closer until his chest almost grazed her breast, and a heavy gulp slid down her throat. Her eyes dipped to his mouth and stayed there, fixated on every word as if she had to watch, as well as hear what he was saying.
The air became humid in the small space. The light from the adjoining rooms seemed to fade. And when he softened his tone, his voice played like a song between them.
“You went willingly into my arms and you know it as well as I do,” he said. “And please don’t tell me you regret what we shared because that was the best sex I can remember and I’d do it all over again if you’d only let me.”
Pressing herself against the wall, she swept her tongue across her bottom lip, then slowly raised her eyes to his, and when their gazes met, he saw the depth of her surprise. She clearly hadn’t expected a word of this, and he had to take pause and wonder just how high a tower he’d managed to build around himself.
Had she really seen none of this coming?
Shaking his head, he asked, “Did you think you were just some notch on my bedpost?”
She lightly shrugged. “I…I don’t…Maybe.”
He backed up a step and brushed a hand over his face. “You underestimate yourself, Carly. You’re light-years from a notch on a bedpost.” Taking another step away, he added, “You’re the kind of woman guys fall for.”
He could see he’d thrown her for a loop. Gone was the defiant stiff chin and pursed angry brow, and in their place was a woman who’d just been plunked upside the head by his admission. And he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“What do you want from me?” she asked again, her voice soft and hesitant.
“Honesty. I want to know what I can do to cure this tension between us. I want to know how we can find a truce and keep it.” Feeling a sudden need for air, he stepped into a living area that, while sparsely furnished, was thankfully devoid of all things pink. Opting for an upholstered blue-and-white-striped chair, he moved through the room and plopped down.
“I wasn’t kidding about my job, Carly. Hall’s pissed—and he’s pissed at me.”
“I’m sure he’s pissed at me, too,” she said. She hadn’t moved from the hallway and was only now taking gradual steps into the room. “I was the one who cheated on the survey.”
“Yeah, well, he doesn’t know about that.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
The level of shock in her voice brought a sour taste to his mouth. She didn’t have to be so stunned that he hadn’t blown the whistle on her, though he shouldn’t have expected more. She’d had a bad impression of him from the start, and in her defense, he’d never made the slightest effort to correct it.
“No, I didn’t tell him,” he said, trying to reassure her. “That’s your business, not mine, and it wouldn’t have mattered to Hall anyway. In his eyes, you get along with everyone and I don’t. If you have a problem, it’s only because you’re dealing with me.”
“He said that?”
“He might as well have.”
She fell silent for a long time before she quietly admitted, “That’s not fair.”
“He’s probably more spot-on than I’d care to confess.” After all, it was Hall who’d told him to give honesty a shot. And—lo and behold—it seemed to work. Matt was sitting here in Carly’s living room, and not only hadn’t she called the police, she wasn’t even yelling at him anymore. Cupping his face in his hands, he rubbed his eyes and considered his situation. At this point he had no problem laying his soul on the line if it would fix things here. The only question was, could Carly be honest with him?
She spoke up then. “I’m sorry I blew up at the office and got you in trouble. Monday morning, I plan to straighten that out with Mr. Hall and—”
He looked up from his hands. “You aren’t apologizing to Hall for any of this.”
She slipped into the chair opposite his. “Storming into the conference room in a conniption fit is most definitely something I need to apologize for. And I don’t care what Mr. Hall thinks, you don’t deserve to take the blame for it all. If anything, he’s the one who should be apologizing for dreaming up this stupid survey in the first place.” That angry stiffness returned to her chin. “I shouldn’t have had to fix a survey to get a spot on that project. I should have been given it based on the work I’ve done for him all these years.”
“Carly, he didn’t put you on the project because he already knows your capabilities. I’m the one being tested here, not you. It’s the reason I’m on the hook for how things have turned out. He already knows he can pair you with anyone and the job will run smoothly. I’m another story.”
She pursed her brow. “What do you mean you’re being tested? Tested for what?”
Did she not know about the new design team or the open management position? He thought everyone had heard that rumor.
For a brief moment he considered holding back, not knowing how she’d react to finding out they were both in line for the same job. But then he remembered Hall’s comment about honesty, how so far it had been working in his favor.
“Did you know there was a management job opening up?” he asked.
The quick change in her expression said she did. “I heard a rumor,” she muttered. “I don’t know how much truth—”
“It’s true. Hall confirmed it for me this afternoon.” The dark turn to her eyes left him fearing he’d just obliterated all the progress they’d made, but he had to come clean. “You and I are both candidates for the job.”
Her eyes widened. “Me?”
For the longest time she simply sat and stared, those violet-blue eyes reflecting his same feelings about the dilemma they faced.
“So we’re competing for the same job, yet he expects us to get along and function as a team,” she finally said.
He nodded.
“And he assumes we can because the survey said we were perfect for each other.”
“Yes.”
She frowned. “Remind me again why you didn’t tell him I fixed the survey? It sounds to me like it would have resolved all of this and landed you that management spot.”
He had to admit he’d asked himself that same question more than a dozen times on his way to her house, but no matter how he turned it over, the result stayed the same. “I’m not a perfect man, Carly, but I won’t stoop to making myself look good by making you look bad.”
A pained look crossed her face before she pushed up from the chair and stormed out of the room.
“Carly?” he asked as he heard her footsteps round the hall into the kitchen. Cupboard doors slammed, drawers rolled open and closed while those sharp steps echoed through the room. “We need to talk about this.” He began to rise from the chair, but before he could, she came back with two bottles of red wine and a pair of tumblers.
“I don’t drink much,” she said. “This was left over from a party. It’s the only alcohol I have.” Handing him a corkscrew, she dropped one of the bottles in his lap. “This is probably a bad idea, but I could really go for a drink right now.”
He stared at the bottle in his hand. “You’re right,” he said. “This is a bad idea.” Then he peeled back the lead cap and twisted the corkscrew into the top. “But it’s the best bad idea I’ve heard in a long time.”
12