Abby Gaines - That New York Minute

Now he looked as if he knew exactly what had just transpired between her and Piers. Knew they were headed to her bed.

She willed the sudden heat in her cheeks to subside. There was no way Garrett could have overheard their conversation. None.

At last, Piers wedged some neatly folded bills beneath the pepper grinder, and they could leave. The bar’s layout and teeming Thursday night crowd meant they had to walk past Garrett. As she drew level with him, she gave him a polite nod.

“Let it go, Rachel,” he said.

She stopped, unsure if she’d heard him correctly over the hubbub of reveling office workers. “Excuse me?”

Piers bumped into her, jolting her toward Garrett. Who leaned back against the bar, as if he didn’t want her in his space.

“Begging never works,” he said, his enunciation careful and unfortunately crystal clear to both her and, she was certain, Piers.

Her heart lurched in her chest. Mortification … and fear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “You’re drunk.”

An exaggeration, maybe, but he sure wasn’t sober. The bottle next to him was empty.

“Who is this guy?” Piers asked.

“No one. A colleague.” She tugged the lapels of her jacket together, because Garrett’s eyes were definitely straying in that direction. Maybe, when she got her promotion, she could fire him.

The delightful fantasy didn’t last more than a moment. Garrett was too good at his job. Which was how he got away with acting like a jerk.

The bartender removed Garrett’s empty Dom Pérignon bottle and began peeling the foil from around the cork of a second bottle.

“Oh, look, Garrett, your date’s arrived,” Rachel said. “Let’s go, honey.”

Piers looked startled at the endearment, but he took her elbow.

“Just so you know,” Garrett said, “offering a guy sex so he won’t break up with you smacks of desperation.”

The bartender paused in his loosening of the wire cage around the champagne cork and looked Rachel up and down. Was it her imagination, or did he register the black bra and give her a knowing look? Piers let go of her.

“Whatever’s driving you to drink alone, Garrett—” her voice shook “—keep it to yourself.” That was the way he usually operated. Could he have picked a worse time to attempt something resembling a conversation?

“Sleep with him, by all means,” Garrett said, with a generous, alcohol-fueled sweep of his arm toward Piers. “Though, personally, I think you could get a guy with more hair.”

Piers’s hand went protectively to his head.

“But whatever you do, do it on your terms,” Garrett said. “Not his.”

“Uh, Rachel, I’m going to take a rain check,” Piers said. “My early meeting …” He kissed her cheek—were his lips always that dry?—and was gone.

“Wait!” she called.

Too late.

The champagne cork popped; the barman poured the first gush of frothing liquid into Garrett’s glass.

Garrett picked up the glass and raised it, once again, to Rachel. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

GRATITUDE WAS NOT RACHEL’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.