Abby Gaines - That New York Minute

Maybe that’s why he was drinking alone last night. Out of a sense of inadequacy.

She ignored the fact that the word didn’t gel with anything about him.

“It’s not about you,” she assured him. “I’ve been at KBC eight years. Around here that counts for something.”

His expression lightened, as if he’d heard her entirely reasonable explanation and discounted it. Rachel shifted uneasily as he scanned her, top to toe, lightning fast.

“You must have joined when you were twelve.” His tone was chatty.

Garrett Calder didn’t make idle conversation.

“I was eighteen,” she said warily. “I started in the mail room.”

“She Worked Her Way to the Top,” he intoned.

“You bet I did.” Her response was clipped—he didn’t get to mock her achievement.

“So, it’s your eight years versus my eight gold CLIO awards,” he mused, sounding a whole lot more cheerful. “Think they might count for something? ”

Eight gold CLIOs! It was practically obscene, how successful he’d been in the advertising industry’s equivalent of the Oscars. But those awards came while he was working at five different companies. And he’s made more enemies than friends . Making partner was about loyalty and long term. Rachel was about loyalty and long term.

She dismissed his awards with a pff . “Style over substance.”

The Shark bared his teeth. It might have been a smile. Then again, he might have been anticipating dragging her beneath the surface and chomping on her drowned body.

Rachel folded her arms across her chest, realized she looked defensive and dropped her hands to her sides. Surely we must be nearly —nope, only the thirty-sixth floor.

“I have an excellent track record, and that’s how I’ll get the partnership,” she assured him.

“Right,” he said encouragingly.

He clearly meant Wrong .

“Do you know something?” she demanded.

He closed his eyes. “You’re shouting again. And I’m having a bad week. Bad enough that I might take off this stupid tie and gag you with it.”

He was a jerk. Jerks didn’t make partner at KBC. It was different at some other agencies, but not here.

He’s a jerk with eight gold CLIOs .

She shouldn’t bother explaining, but the urge to convince him he was wasting his time was overwhelming. “It’s not just the eight years. I’ve put in more hours than anyone, I’ve won more pitches …”

“You’ve won a bunch of clients too scared to do anything interesting,” he said. “Your work is tame.”

Rachel clenched her jaw to hold back her outrage. Tame! She prided herself on her ability to take clients beyond their expectations.

“Do you want to know what your weakness is?” Garrett asked.

“No.”

“It’s those eight years,” he said. “You’re relying on past experience, but everything can change in a heartbeat around here.” He folded his arms, and on him it didn’t look defensive. “In a New York minute, you could say.”

She’d never liked the song “New York Minute,” with its suggestion that everything—business, family, life—could be turned on its head any moment.

“Your weakness is that you don’t think on your feet,” Garrett said. “Reacting to those moments of insight, freeing yourself from reliance on what others have told you, is what drives creative power.”

As if she would trust the impulse of a moment over a carefully crafted solution. Her hands fisted at her sides. “You don’t get to waltz in here with your Dom Pérignon hangover and your eight CLIOs and your custom-made suits and your fancy cologne—”

“I don’t wear cologne.” He spread his hands, palm out, as if declaring himself innocent of some heinous crime.

Wow, The Shark sure knew how to zero in on the main issue.

“Uh-huh. So you just happened to sleep on a bed of—” she sniffed “—pine needles and citrus peel.”

Ever so slowly, one corner of his mouth kicked up.

The effect was more potent than any full-throated laugh. It was that stupid Shark thing, Rachel thought crossly. It gave him an aura of power.

“Whatever it is you’re smelling, Rach, it’s all me,” he said. “Cologne is for sissies.”

No way a man could smell this good without help. “Rach el ,” she corrected. “Strange, I don’t remember that sissies line from your award-winning Calvin Klein Fragrance campaign.”

“That was last year. I believed in cologne last year.”

Typical of his here today, gone tomorrow style. “Whereas I prefer to take a long-term, truth-based approach,” she said. Which did not mean she was tame.

Garrett gave her a pained look through half-closed eyes. “Integrity in advertising,” he said. “Interesting concept. But not, I fear, a partnership-winning one.”

Floor fifty-one. Nearly there, thank goodness.

“Who else do you think will be here this morning?” Garrett asked abruptly.

No thinking required. “Just Clive.”

“That’s what I figured.”

Clive Barnes was the only other executive creative director, the same level as Rachel and Garrett. His seniority meant he had to be on the partnership shortlist. But…

“Clive’s a nice guy,” Rachel said.

“You know what they say about nice guys.” Garrett’s white teeth flashed.

Out of loyalty to Clive, who’d been at KBC almost as long as she had, she sent him a disapproving look. But she didn’t consider Clive a threat, either.

The elevator dinged to indicate they’d reached their destination. Finally. She couldn’t wait to get out of here and spend a few minutes alone, restoring the calm confidence she would need during breakfast. She stepped toward the doors, but they didn’t open.

Garrett pressed the open button. Nothing happened.

“Come on,” Rachel muttered.

Garrett was already stabbing at the intercom. It rang three times—prompting more wincing from the hungover Shark—before an operator answered.

“We’ll have you out of there in a jiffy, sir,” the woman chirped, once she ascertained how many people were in the elevator and that no one needed medical treatment. “Well, when I say a jiffy … hmmm … okay, we have a software glitch, but don’t you folks worry about a thing!” She hung up.

Rachel groaned.

“Just go with the flow,” Garrett advised her. “Live in the moment.”

She turned her nerves on him. “I don’t know why you bothered to come in when you’re so, ahem —” sarcastic, fake throat-clearing “—unwell. Get real, Garrett, and get out of here. You don’t have a serious shot at this partnership.”

He eyed her for a long, silent moment. “You remind me of someone,” he said. “Someone I don’t like.”

Ow . That definitely qualified as a shark-nip. One she deserved, if she was honest—she shouldn’t have let him rile her.

But you should never show weakness to a shark.

“Your opinion won’t matter when I get the partnership,” she said. “I’ll be your boss.”

His hands slid into his pockets and he leaned back against the wall. Instead of being scared off by her splashing about, she had the distinct impression The Shark was beginning to circle.

“Protesting too much, methinks,” he said.

He couldn’t really believe he would beat her, could he?

The intercom buzzed. Rachel lunged for the answer button. Garrett reached it first; her fingers, clammy with sudden anxiety, pressed against his. She whipped her hand away.

“How’re you folks doing?” the operator trilled. “Just wanted to let you know we’re almost done fixing you up. We’ll have you out in that beautiful New York summer day in just a—”

“Jiffy,” Rachel muttered. She pressed the off button. “Thanks a lot, Doris freakin’ Day.”

Garrett said, “My mother used to love Doris Day movies.” Something flashed across his face, maybe shock that he’d told her that much about himself.

“So your mom has bad taste,” Rachel said. “She probably likes you , too … though if she’s ever seen you hungover and surly she might think twice about—”

She stopped. His face had shut down so completely, it was as if he was no longer in the elevator.

Uh-oh . “Um, Garrett, when you said your mother used to love Doris Day, was that past tense because Doris Day retired, or—” she cringed “—because your mom died?”

He stared at the stuck doors as if he could see right through them. Now he rode the elevator like a proper New Yorker. “Both.”

Damn . “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. It felt inadequate, when she’d been sniping at him the last fifty-six floors. “How did she—how long ago …?”

His gaze cut to her. “Today’s my birthday.”

She grabbed the non sequitur gratefully. “Happy birthday! So, that champagne last night …”

“It’s also the anniversary of my mother’s death,” he said. “So, yeah, I’m hungover and surly, as you so delicately phrased it, but I have my reasons.”

His skin looked suddenly pale in the elevator lighting. Rachel opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“And, yeah,” he continued, “maybe Doris Day is too perky and not to your taste, but when my mom was dying of cancer, those movies were the only thing that kept her smiling through months of chemo. Doris Day was the difference between an unbearable day and an okay one.”

Man, she had totally screwed up. “Garrett, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Rachel stretched out a hand, half thinking he might bite her arm off. Half wanting him to because she felt like such a jerk.

Before she could get within prey distance, the elevator doors hissed open.

Garrett shot her one last disgusted look, and left.

RACHEL PULLED THE END OFF her croissant and shredded it into tiny pieces.

She’d far from sparkled throughout breakfast, which should have been an opportunity to impress those partners she didn’t work with. She’d been distracted first by Garrett’s presence, then by her guilt over dissing his mother. On the anniversary of her death. Which happened to be Garrett’s birthday.

She groaned inwardly.

Her one weakness in her work was that she wasn’t good in unexpected situations. Give her a creative briefing and a week, and she could come up with a fabulous pitch. Ask her to spout ideas off the cuff and she was hopeless. This morning’s breakfast … it wasn’t a pitch, but she’d prepared for it in the same way, thinking hard about how she could outshine Clive Barnes, anticipating questions.

She hadn’t imagined Garrett would wreck her relationship last night, then show up like a hungover nemesis this morning. Or that she would say something so tactless as to leave him looking utterly bleak. No wonder she had zero spur-of-the-moment techniques for outclassing him in the eyes of the other partners.

At the far end of the Key Bowen Crane boardroom table, Tony Bowen, chief executive officer, pushed himself out of his maroon leather chair. An immediate hush fell.

“I hope you all enjoyed your breakfast,” he said.

Rachel murmured her appreciation for the shredded croissant on the plate in front of her. Garrett hadn’t eaten, either, probably more from nausea than nerves—he’d drained a couple of cups of black coffee. Only Clive had tucked into his food with gusto.

“It’s time to get down to business,” Tony said. “We don’t call this the partnership shortlist announcement breakfast for nothing.”