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Damn. “You’re twisting my—”
“I’m only the back office details person.” She overrode his protest, G.I. Jane on a roll. “I’m handy with textbook theories, but have no useful practical experience. I couldn’t possibly help you in the real business world. Isn’t that right, boss?”
“No! You’re way off base. I’ve been under a lot of pressure, and I took it out on you. That was my temper talking, not me. C’mon, Lizzy, you know how I get. I’m not proud of lashing out when I get mad, but that’s the way I am.”
“No, Cameron. That’s the way you choose to be.”
The icy contempt in her voice chilled his blood. He suppressed a shiver of premonition. “Okay, you’re right. I should never have blown up in your face. I’m sorry, okay? Tell me what I can do to make you forgive me.”
“Move out of my way.”
He loosened his grip on the chair arms.
“I need to go type my letter of resignation.”
His elbows straightened and locked.
“What’s the matter, Cameron? Are those instructions too detailed for you? Well, here’s a high concept.” She raised her palms and flattened them against his chest, “I quit!” she yelled, and gave him a mighty shove.
He staggered backward and hit the edge of his desk, his rump coming down hard.
She erupted from the chair and crossed the carpet so fast a trail of static snapped in her wake.
Dazed, he blinked at the empty doorway, wondering how the situation had escalated so completely out of his control. He’d had many lively debates with his vice president since founding Malloy Marketing, but never a true fight. An ugly fight, complete with insults and bruised feelings.
His fault. His goddamn temper’s fault. All his life it had spoken before his brain could counsel caution. All his life he’d been forgiven due to a face and abilities he’d been born with, that made others seem to think he was special. A regular Golden Boy. And now, one of Austin’s ten most eligible bachelors to boot.
He raised the heels of both palms to his eye sockets and pressed. Yeah, he was a born winner, all right. Everyone thought so. He’d managed for years to scam them all.
All but the one person whose opinion he trusted and respected most.
Lowering his hands, Cameron conceded he’d pushed the boundaries of his friendship with Lizzy to the breaking point. Wounded pride had demanded her dramatic response. She hadn’t actually quit, of course. They were a team. A one-two punch. His creative campaigns and her marketing plans had knocked many an agency out of the competition for choice accounts.
Despite his mean-spirited reference to “my company,” she knew he appreciated her contributions. Hell, her salary almost matched his, solid proof of how important she was in the food chain. Still, she obviously wanted him to grovel a bit longer.
Cameron slid off the desk, smoothed his trousers and straightened his tie. No problem.
He’d hurt her, and for that, no penance was too harsh. He would give her the pound of flesh she deserved, even though they both knew she had no intention of resigning. Not to be cruel or anything, but…please. Malloy Marketing was her whole life.
Without it, what would she do?
CHAPTER TWO
SHE’D GO TO NEW YORK, that’s what she’d do. Madison Avenue, here I come!
Elizabeth marched down the long hallway, her vision blurred, her heartbeat loud in her ears.
Ten years she’d given to that man and his company. Ten years of blood, sweat and tears to help him fulfill his dream. And for what?
Had he thanked her for offering to help bail him out of this—or any previous crisis?
No.
Had he appreciated her arriving early and staying late day after day, year after year?
Not hardly.
Did he realize why she’d followed him from high school to the University of Texas, why she’d majored in advertising, why she’d chosen to work at a fledgling agency headed by an inexperienced owner fresh out of college?
He didn’t have a clue.
Any more than he knew she’d turned down three lucrative job offers from competing agencies in the past year alone!
“Elizabeth?” a deep voice boomed from an open doorway on her left.
She whizzed past. Tim’s complaint du jour about Mitch could hold. Better yet, Cameron could deal with the fueding account executive and art director. After all, they were his problem now.
“Hey, where’s the fire?” Susan called from the office on Elizabeth’s right.
She sped by without turning her head. One sympathetic look from the agency’s media director would turn on the faucet, and she had to stay tough. She had to stay mean.
She had to stay mad.
Firming her trembling lips, she hit the spacious tiled lobby at a near jog. From behind the curved receptionist counter, perpetual phone pressed to her ear, Rachel smiled her dear smile and motioned Elizabeth to come there.
Instantly her nose burned and her throat thickened. She never slowed.
Entering the second hallway, she focused on the fourth doorway up ahead. Almost safe. Just a few more seconds.
“Yo, Elizabeth!” Pete called from her left.
Not my problem, she told herself sternly. He was a copywriter. Let him write an interoffice e-mail if he couldn’t ask in person. Cameron was a jerk, but he wasn’t a monster. He’d let the man leave early for his son’s T-ball game.
The next two offices were blessedly empty.
She veered inside hers, slammed the door and slumped gratefully back against wood. Hallelujah. Peace and quiet. No curious eyes. She was safe at last.
Hiding from the real world in my nice safe office…
Elizabeth’s eyes slid closed against the sting of fresh tears. Despite Cameron’s intimidating verbal explosions, he wasn’t a violent man. His hot temper burned out quickly, leaving him rational and ready to deal with whatever had set him off. She’d grown proficient at dousing many of his flare-ups before they occurred, and failing that, had learned not to take them personally. His anger was usually about small stuff, not worth sweating over in the scheme of life.
But this stuff was big. A huge hot cauldron of seething emotion. Heaven knows how long this stuff had simmered inside Cameron before boiling over and spilling free. Without the added fuel of tremendous stress, he might have kept the lid on his true feelings forever. But he hadn’t. Intentionally or not, he hadn’t.
Bottom line, she was only another employee to Cameron. One he clearly didn’t consider a partner in any way.
She dragged in a shuddering breath and forced her tempestuous emotions to calm. Could she really abandon the agency—or Cameron—during the most serious crisis to date? No one else knew the company’s infrastructure or its leader half so well.
He’d been her first market-research study. A high school project she’d updated yearly. Once she’d inoculated herself against his physical beauty, she’d been able to observe him objectively. By now she knew his strengths and weaknesses, his habits and quirks, the name of every revolving-door girlfriend, every Malloy family trait—
He called your mother “Marian” an inner voice jeered. He didn’t remember your parents are getting a divorce!
Elizabeth flinched, then opened her eyes.
Financial worries could consume a person’s thoughts to the exclusion of all else. Her father was a prime example, and she’d forgiven him, hadn’t she? Did Cameron deserve any less?
What about you? Don’t you deserve more?
Of course she did! But…never again to walk through those lobby doors?
Always to go home to an empty apartment?
But…never again to be called “Lizzy”? Never again to see Cameron’s irresistible grin?
Never to be the center in a man’s universe? Never to be a wife and mother?
But—
He’ll never love you! Accept that and move on. Do it.
But—
Do it now, before you get the hots and need estrogen therapy more than sex!
Elizabeth’s shoulders sagged. Oh, God, reality sucked.
Pressing a fist between her breasts, she bled for the June wedding that would never be, the golden-haired babies she would never hold, the happily-ever-after she would never live with the man who directed her actions each day, and starred in her dreams more nights than not. When the last fairytale hope drained from her heart, she waited, curiously detached.
Nothing. Not even the tiniest blip of life.
So be it.
She lifted her chin and pushed away from the door. It was past time to get a life. Preferably her own, this time.
At her desk, Elizabeth booted up her sleek Macintosh PowerBook computer and glared at the newspaper folded carefully beside her telephone.
“Don’t scowl at me,” she told bachelor number six. “You’ll land on your feet. You always do.”
Sniffing, she focused on the screen and composed the most difficult letter of her life. Short, but definitely not sweet. Sweet was the old Elizabeth. The good sport, the team player, the referee and cheerleader rolled into one. The new Elizabeth was head coach of her own game, with her own rules. As of now, Cameron would sit on the bench.
She’d just written “Sincerely” when a soft knock sounded on her door.
“Go away,” she ordered, still typing.
Silence, then three sharp raps.
“Not my problem,” she yelled louder, saving the document.
The door rattled open. Elizabeth looked up. Cameron stood hesitantly in the threshold.
Maybe it was knowing she wouldn’t see that timber wolf stare in the future that weakened her immunity now. Whatever the reason, she desperately needed a booster shot.
The former heartthrob of Lake Kimberly High had matured into a major heart attack.
His extraordinary golden eyes gleamed beneath thick sable lashes, the contrast still as unexpected—the impact still as thrilling—as during her first day in Mrs. Connor’s English class. But today he wore expensive designer duds, not hand-me-downs from Travis. Chosen, she suspected, like the agency’s decor to show that its owner wasn’t “small potatoes”…as if anyone would make that mistake. Whether wearing Armani or Salvation Army, Cameron would exude a confidence impossible to miss. That much, at least, hadn’t changed.
But his hair had darkened over the years from sunny blond to antique gold. His jaw had hardened, his shoulders broadened, his legs lengthened, his muscles thickened. He’d reshaped an otherwise classically perfect nose while helping Seth worm a fractious mare. The tiny white scar bisecting one eyebrow was courtesy of Travis. A miscast fishing lure, as she recalled.
Watching him walk to her desk, she admitted the imperfections only enhanced his masculine appeal. The rough edge to his polish turned females of all ages into drooling simpletons.
As he pulled out one of her guest chairs and made himself comfortable, Elizabeth swallowed hard.
I have to stay mad. “What don’t you understand about the words ‘go away’?”
He tilted his head. “What’s ‘not your problem’?”
“Anything to do with you, that’s what,” she lied.
In point of fact, everything about him threatened her future happiness.
His expression shifted into puppy dog contrition. “Aw, Lizzy, don’t stay mad. You’re the one I count on around here to stay rational and calm.”
“A doormat usually does.”
“Doormat?” His brows lifted. “You’re nobody’s doormat. But I did steamroll over you back there in my office. I’m really sorry.”
“Yes, you are. A sorry SOB.”
He looked startled, but recovered quickly. “You’re right. I deserved that, and more. I was a total jerk. A complete ass. A stupid idiot…you name it. In the past ten minutes, I’ve run out of foul things to call myself.”
“Insensitive moron? Immature hothead? Controlling dictator? Let’s not forget compulsive liar—”
“Liar?”
Ah, finally. She couldn’t have held out much longer against humbleness. “What else would you call a business owner who, for months, hides his company’s true financial status from its highest ranking officer?”
“How about ‘thoughtful’?”
She could only gape.
“That’s right, thoughtful. You have a ton of pressure on you to develop SkyHawk’s marketing plan. I didn’t want to add worry to your full plate.”
“Bull. You didn’t think I could handle more stress. After all, I might’ve jumped out the window of my nice safe office.”
He smoothed his tie, a habit signaling either uneasiness or a grope for patience. “Would you please forget the lousy things I said? We’re a team. A pretty damn great one, in case you’ve forgotten what’s really important.”
She reached for her computer keyboard and pressed a button with flourish. “My letter of resignation is printing out now in the copy room. By noon, the whole agency will know I’ve quit.”
“Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy. You’re overreacting.” His sigh fanned the embers of her anger.
“No. I’m simply acting on what my instincts have told me for years. It’s time for me to explore new options and accept new challenges, before I stagnate completely.”
His humoring expression grew strained. “Then help Malloy Marketing climb out of debt. That’s a hell of a new challenge. I promise you won’t be bored.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not in my job description even if I still worked here.”
“Je-e-ez,” he said on a groan, looking away.
Presented with a view of his heartbreaker profile, Elizabeth quickly followed his gaze to the large oil painting he’d purchased for her office. A garden landscape. Peaceful and lovely. So skillfully rendered one could almost smell the lush summer blooms, hear busy insects hum, feel the heat radiate from a wrought iron table and two fan-back chairs in the midday sun. The bucolic scene usually calmed her nerves. Today, it only frayed them more.
Cameron never should’ve bought the painting, good cause be damned!
Last month he’d passed a UT art student beside Town Lake peddling canvases and a hard-luck story, then wound up funding the kid’s books and tuition for the next semester. Thoughtless generosity. Charity should begin at home. Most of his thirty-six loyal employees had families to support, and losing their jobs would be devastating.
“Lizzy?”
She met his gaze and steeled herself when it softened persuasively.
“The last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings. I don’t know what else to say, except that, deep down in your heart, you know I’ve always understood and appreciated how important you are to Malloy Marketing.”
“And how would I know that, Cameron? I’m not telepathic.”
“Telepathic?”
“During the ten years I’ve worked for you, did you ever once tell me I was vital to the agency’s success?”
He stiffened. “Of course I did.”
She could see he believed his claim. Somehow that made her feel worse.
“Besides,” he continued in a wounded tone, “I would think your compensation package speaks for itself.”
God, she’d been such a fool. “I rest my case.”
“Case?”
“That’s right, case. As in, evidence submitted and reviewed.”
“Pardon me if I didn’t realize I was on trial.”
“Actually, the trial is over. I’ve already reached a verdict.” She switched off her computer and leaned back in her chair. “Guilty.”
“Guilty?”
“You heard me.”
His face might’ve been carved from granite, but for the telltale tic of a muscle in one cheek. “Mind if I ask of what charge?”
“False advertising.”
“What?”
The old Elizabeth would’ve scrambled to defuse his rising temper. “You really should get your hearing checked,” the new Elizabeth said.
“Try speaking in English instead of riddles this time.”
“Okay. You aren’t the man you pretend to be. In other words, Cameron, you’re a fraud.”
He turned chalky beneath his tan. A dramatic response to her theatrical pronouncement, but not the one she’d expected. Was that fear clouding his eyes?
She studied him closer.
Good grief, it was fear! Shockingly vulnerable. Desperately defiant. Why on earth did Cameron feel so threatened? Elizabeth wondered, shaken at her lack of knowledge. She’d never seen the wolf backed into a corner before.
His upper lip curled in a near snarl. “You want to translate that into plain English this time?”
She struggled to collect her thoughts. “You’ve purposely deceived me since college, when you talked me into ‘joining’ the start-up of a new business on the ground floor level. When it suits your purpose, you’re big on the concept of teamwork, and delegating responsibility to the employee trained for the task, and rewarding staff through stock options as well as promotions. The sad thing is, I fell for the whole spiel. I even believed I could one day own a piece of the company, like you implied.
“But that won’t ever happen, will it, Cameron? Because in the real world, you can’t tolerate sitting back and giving me, or any other staff member, autonomy to make decisions that might affect the future of Malloy Marketing. My title of vice president is mere window dressing.”
His relief was obvious, dismissive and insulting. “That’s ridiculous. You’re the best analytical marketing mind in the business.”
“Forgive me if I doubt your sincerity, since you won’t let me analyze this company’s financial data.”
“So analyze it! Hell, review the accounting reports until you go cross-eyed, if that’ll make you stop this nonsense about resigning.”
Unbelievable. “It won’t. I’ve made my decision. Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
He eyed her warily for a long, tense moment. “But…you can’t quit.”
“Watch me.”
A thunderous scowl rolled onto his face and gathered force. “Who will finish the SkyHawk marketing plan?”
And there, at long last, was her true net worth to Cameron. “Farm it out,” she said in a dull tone.
“With the final selection meeting four weeks away? Jeez, it would take that long just to get someone else up to speed on the research! You know Ad Ventures will pull out all the stops during their presentation.”
“Just like I know you will, Cameron. And the selection committee will be dazzled.” Unlike some agencies, Malloy Marketing only sent one person to represent the account team in final presentations. Cameron needed no backup. Men responded to his charisma as much as women. It really was true that all the world loved a winner.
“Lizzy, if Malloy Marketing goes in with a half-ass analysis of the airline travel market, we can kiss that account goodbye.”
“What’s this we business? My name’s not on the letterhead, remember?”
“Would you forget what I said, goddamn it, and listen to what I’m saying!”
“You’re the one going deaf, not me. Read…my…lips. You have two weeks to hire my replacement. Unless, of course, you prefer that I leave immediately.”
Feigning indifference, she busied herself with straightening the towering contents of her in box.
“Lizzy, think. It might take you as long as a year to land a comparable position. Are you honestly prepared to give up a VP title, top salary and cush working conditions on the basis of one stupid fight?”
She thought of the headhunters eager for her call. “Yes.”
“Then I hope you’ve got cable TV. That’s a lot of time on your hands to spend alone.”
Her fussy movements stilled. “What makes you think I’ll be alone?”
“No offense, but your social life isn’t exactly active. By choice, I’m sure,” he added hastily and much too late. His expression gentled. “I’d worry about you, honey. I only want what’s best for you. Won’t you please forgive me and stay where you belong?”
Ten years she’d waited for him to call her “honey,” to see his eyes warm with tenderness, to hear his voice soften to a bedroom croon. But not out of pity. Oh, God, she couldn’t bear his pity.
Deep in that place where insecurity and pride waged war in a woman’s soul, the latter raised a mighty sword and sounded a Valkyrie battle cry.
Responding, Elizabeth lifted her chin. “I do forgive you. But you were absolutely right. I have been hiding in my nice safe world—” she lifted a forestalling palm “—no, don’t apologize again. And please don’t worry about me when I leave Malloy Marketing. There’s no need. I won’t be alone with my cable channels. Along with finding a new job, I’ll be starting a second career. The most exciting and challenging career any woman with no previous experience can have.”
“And in plain English that would mean…?”
That I’m through settling for what I can get. That I’m going after what I want. That from this moment on, you’re going to see Elizabeth, the woman—not Lizzy, the girl Friday.
“It means that I’m getting married, Cameron. If you really want what’s best for me, you’ll wish me well.”
AT HER POST behind the lobby reception counter, Rachel Rosenfeld punched the last blinking light on the telephone console. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Richmond, but Elizabeth is still unavailable. Would you like me to interrupt her meeting?”
A long-suffering sigh whuffled in Rachel’s ear.
“No. Just tell her I called again, and that it’s important. You won’t forget, now, will you?” Her tone implied that her messages in the past had never been relayed.
Rachel suppressed a peeved sigh of her own. “No, Mrs. Richmond, I won’t forget. But if you’re worried that I will, she checks her voice mail regularly if you’d like to leave a personal message.” Hint, hint.
“Well…” For an amazing few seconds, Elizabeth’s mother seemed to consider dipping a toe into the current century. “No, I hate using that thing. The beep always cuts me off before I’m halfway finished. It’s so rude.”
Rachel mentally counted to five, a trick she’d found useful when dealing with her twelve-year-old son, Ben. “I’ll see that Elizabeth gets your message the moment she’s free.”
“Thank you. I need to talk to her as soon as possible. Tell her I’ll be waiting for her call.”
Oy! “Yes, I’ll tell her. Goodbye, Mrs. Richmond.” Rachel hung up before the woman could kvetch some more.
Poor Elizabeth. All she needed now was for her father to call, though he usually waited until after lunch. As the divorce settlement battle between Muriel and Jerry Richmond intensified, they sought Elizabeth’s counsel more and more often. The nud-nicks had been draining their daughter’s reserves of strength and patience for weeks. She must have finally run dry about ten minutes ago.
That’s when, according to Tim’s panicked news flash, she’d quit her job. Loudly. As in “She yelled like a fishwife.” Elizabeth. Then she’d stormed past his office, followed minutes later by Cameron, looking meek and worried. Susan and Pete had reported the same Twilight Zone sight.
Talk about role reversal. No wonder they’d freaked!
Elizabeth was not only the driving force behind new business acquisition, the lifeblood of the agency, but also a calm buffer between the boss’s notorious temper and every tochus in the place. Beyond that, she was genuinely loved by everyone, and interested in their personal lives and aspirations…though she shared very little of her own.
Rachel supposed since she’d worked here the longest—seven years and counting—she understood being asked to interpret the high drama. It was no secret she and Elizabeth had become close friends. Rachel’s co-workers had wanted reassurance that all would return to normal. Still, she wasn’t a mind reader.
A schlemiel, yes.
A psychic, no. She couldn’t even predict what her husband of fifteen years would do. So why had she told the trio not to worry, that Cameron would smooth things out? What if her instincts were wrong?
Frowning, she recalled Elizabeth whizzing through the lobby earlier with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. Eyes that had studiously avoided Rachel’s. Eyes that could’ve been bright with unshed tears as well as fury.
Maybe Elizabeth had truly and finally had it with the brilliant mercurial Cameron Malloy. Maybe the way she looked at him when she thought no one watched—the same way Rabbi Levitz looked at the Torah on Shabbat—didn’t mean she secretly loved him. Maybe his gentler temper around her, his use of the pet name “Lizzy” when he thought other employees couldn’t hear, wasn’t a subconscious response to feelings he wouldn’t admit.