Читать книгу Her Favourite Rival - Sarah Mayberry - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

APPARENTLY, HE WAS an elitist snob, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

How ’bout that.

Zach threw another folder into his briefcase, trying to work out if he was flattered by Audrey’s insanely inaccurate take on who he was or if he was, in fact, supremely pissed at being dismissed as a trust-fund playboy dabbling in a career for fun.

He’d grown up with nothing, in both material and spiritual senses. Any money that came into the household had gone straight up his mother’s arm, and the only reason he was still alive today was because of the people in his mother’s life—various hangers-on and fellow addicts and the few persistent, stubborn family members who had persevered in maintaining contact with his mother over the years, despite her many, many abuses of their trust.

His school uniforms had been secondhand; his textbooks, too. He worked after school and earned himself scholarships and held down two part-time jobs to support himself while at university. No one had handed him anything, ever.

Yet, according to Audrey, he came across as a snotty-nosed rich kid. Someone who’d had every good thing in life gifted to him on a silver platter.

How...bizarre.

It had never occurred to him that anyone might take him for anything other than what he was—a poor kid who’d made good. He liked nice things, but he hadn’t bought his car or his watch or his suit because he wanted other people to look at him and think he was something he wasn’t. He’d bought them because he could. Because he’d admired and wanted them, and he’d had more than enough of missing out in his life. Seeing something beautiful and fine and knowing he could make it his own was a power he would never, ever take for granted and never, ever tire of exercising.

Screw it. Who cares what she thinks? Let her believe what she wants to believe.

An excellent notion, except for one small problem: he did care what Audrey thought of him. And not only because he wanted to get her naked.

She was smart. She was determined. She was funny. There was something about her, a tilt to her chin or a light in her eye or...something that spoke to him. He wanted to know more about her. Where she came from, who her parents were, what her school years had been like, if she was all about chocolate or if vanilla was her poison of choice. He wanted more of her.

I’m the only person in the world I can rely on, and if I don’t make things happen, they don’t happen. I’m not going to apologize for that.

They were her words, but the huge irony was that he could just as well have spoken them himself. Certainly they reflected his philosophy in life.

Audrey might not recognize it, but they had a lot in common.

He mulled over the other things she’d said as he drove home, especially the stuff about him laughing at her. Did he really always smile when he saw her? He thought back over their recent interactions, but couldn’t remember what he’d been doing with his face when he’d been talking to her. Certainly, he always relished the opportunity to be in the same room as her. Was it possible his enjoyment manifested itself in the form of a gormless grin?

He shook his head in self-disgust. He really, truly needed to get a grip on himself if that was the case, for his own personal dignity if not for sound business reasons. The last thing he wanted was to be cast as the unrequited desperado in their little office drama.

Not a look he’d ever been keen to cultivate.

By the time he got home he’d decided the best thing he could do—the smartest thing—was to get through this project as quickly and painlessly as possible. Do his bit, keep to himself, keep things purely professional. And make sure he was aware of what his mouth was doing when he was around her.

Simple.

Which didn’t explain why he woke at two in the morning and spent twenty minutes rummaging through dusty old boxes in the back of his closet until he’d found what he was looking for: the official grade two school photograph from Footscray Primary, circa 1989. The corners were curled, but there was no missing his scrawny, scrape-kneed seven-year-old self in the front row. He stared at the image for a long moment. The thin, unsmiling kid in the photo had been grappling with both his mother’s and his father’s destructive lifestyles at the time the picture was taken, learning that the things other kids in his class took for granted—meals, loving supervision, care—were only ever going to be sporadic features in his own life.

Happy times. Thank God he’d survived them.

Pushing the carton back into the depths of the closet, he crossed to his briefcase and slipped the photograph into a pocket.

The thought of it burned in the back of his mind the whole of the next day as he debated the wisdom behind the urge that had driven him out of bed in the early hours.

He didn’t want Audrey to mistake who he was. He didn’t want her to misunderstand him. Probably a futile, dangerous wish, given their work situation and the pressures they were both currently facing, but her misconception of him was eating away at his gut and he was almost certain he couldn’t simply suck it up and move on.

Probably that made him an idiot, but so be it. He’d been called worse things in his time.

Still, he was undecided about what he was going to do with the photograph right up until the moment he joined Audrey in the meeting room. She’d beaten him to the punch—again—and was writing something in her notebook when he entered, a small frown wrinkling her brow, her glasses balanced on the end of her nose. Her head was propped on one hand, the chestnut silk of her hair spilling over her shoulder. She looked studious and serious and shiny and good, and something tightened in his chest as he looked at her.

Then she registered his presence and her expression became wary and stiff. She slid off her glasses. “Oh, hi. I was about to grab a coffee. Do you want one?”

In that second he made his decision, for good or for ill. Placing his briefcase on the table, he flicked it open and pulled the photograph from the inside pocket.

“Thanks. But there’s something I want to show you first.”

Then, even though he knew it was dumb and that it would serve no purpose whatsoever, he slid the photograph across the table toward her.

* * *

AUDREY STARED AT the photograph Zach had pushed in front of her. Why on earth was he giving her a tatty old class photo?

“Is this something to do with the analysis?” she asked stupidly.

Then her gaze fell on the small, dark-haired boy in the front row and she understood what this was and who she was looking at. Zach was smaller than the other children. He was also the only one who wasn’t smiling. Both his knees were dark with gravel rash, and his hair very badly needed a cut. Her gaze shifted to the plaque one of the children was holding: Footscray Primary School, Grade Two, 1989.

Slowly she lifted her gaze to his.

“You went to Footscray Primary?” She could hear the incredulity in her own voice. She felt incredulous—there was no way that this polished, perfect man could have emerged from one of Melbourne’s most problematic inner-city suburbs. It didn’t seem possible to her. Although Footscray had enjoyed a renaissance in recent years thanks to the real estate boom and its proximity to the city, for many, many years the inner western suburb had been about stolen cars and drug deals and people doing it tough.

“Footscray Secondary College, too,” Zach confirmed.

She blinked as the full import of what he was saying hit home. All the assumptions she’d made about him and all of the niggling little resentments and moments of self-conscious inadequacy that had sprung from those assumptions... All wrong.

All of it.

Oh, boy.

She’d judged him from day one, slotting him neatly into a tidy little box that accorded with her view of the world. All because she’d looked at his expensive suits and smooth good looks and fancy car and decided he was one of God’s gifted people. But it hadn’t only been about him—about her perception of him, anyway. It had also been about her, about the chip she carried on her shoulder because no matter how hard she worked and how far up the food chain she climbed and how carefully she colored in between the lines, there was a part of her that would always feel like an impostor thanks to the lessons of her childhood and the mistakes of her teenage years.

“You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you truly stumped for a response,” Zach said.

“Hardly.” It seemed to her that she was all too often speechless and incoherent when he was around. “I’ve made a lot of assumptions about you, haven’t I? I’m sorry. That was...really dumb and rude of me.”

“I didn’t set the record straight because I wanted an apology. I figured if we were working together it would be good if we were on the same page.”

Very decent of him. Not that she deserved it. When she thought of all the different ways she’d misjudged him... It literally made her toes curl inside her shoes. When had she become such a horrible, narrow-minded, threatened person?

“I feel like an enormous idiot, if it’s any consolation to you.” Along with a lot of other things—petty, smug, stupid, to name a few.

“To be fair, I do own a Patek Philippe watch.”

She realized a little dazedly that he was smiling, and she understood that he was very generously letting her off the hook.

“Don’t forget your Hugo Boss shoes,” she said after a short pause.

“And my Armani suit. Although today it’s Ermenegildo Zegna.”

“Pretty impressive.” She meant it, too. Not because she was impressed by luxury brands, but because he’d clearly shaken off a behind-the-eight-ball start in life to get to a point where he could buy himself such beautiful things. That kind of commitment and hard work and determination took gumption and smarts and whole host of other damned fine characteristics.

“The point has never been to impress anyone.”

She believed him. He’d never been ostentatious about his belongings. If anything, he’d been understated—to the point where she’d assumed his nonchalance stemmed from contempt bred from familiarity.

She picked up the photograph, studying seven-year-old Zach again. How she could have gotten it so wrong for so long was a question that was going to keep her awake into the small hours, squirming with discomfort. Which was as it should be.

“It’s not a big deal, Audrey. I just wanted to clear the air.”

She looked at him, studying him through the prism of her new understanding. The bump in his nose took on new significance, as did the breadth of his shoulders and the bright directness of his gaze. It struck her that she’d been right when she’d judged Zach as being different—she’d simply misunderstood the why of it.

The beep of her phone registering an email broke the silence. She blinked and looked away from him, suddenly aware that ninety-five percent of the reasons she’d used to keep him at arm’s length had just dissolved in a puff of smoke.

Instead of being an arrogant, overprivileged pretty boy with cockiness to spare, Zach was suddenly an approachable, high-achieving man with a very hot body and the world’s most delicious aftershave.

And she was stuck in a meeting room with him for the foreseeable future.

“Well. We should probably get stuck into this, or we’ll be here all night,” she said.

They launched into work, reading over each other’s proposals and suggesting areas where more research might be required. Zach was sharp and focused, and her pride demanded that she bring her A-game, too, no matter how off-balance she felt. By seven-thirty they’d agreed to the parameters of the report and identified the data they would require to complete it.

“Right. I guess we need to write up our separate parts and then meet again sometime next week to go over everything,” Zach said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms over his head.

She did her damnedest not to notice the way his shirt pulled across his belly and chest, but wasn’t sure she succeeded.

“What day suits you? I’ve got late meetings Monday and Tuesday.”

“We leave for conference Friday. Will Wednesday be cutting it too fine?” he asked.

She called up the calendar on her phone and checked her schedule. If they had a first draft written by Wednesday night, they’d have Thursday night to finesse things into some kind of coherent presentation. A close call, but not impossible, and maybe they could find some time during the conference itself to do a dry run so they were prepared to present to Whitman when they returned.

“I think it’s doable,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll block out Wednesday and Thursday nights.”

She sighed. Sleep and downtime were obviously going to be scarce commodities in the next week or so.

“It could be worse. Gary could have asked someone else to do it,” Zach said.

She couldn’t help grinning. He was totally on the money—she would be so ticked off if someone else had won this opportunity instead of her.

“True.”

They packed up their things in comfortable silence, the first Audrey could ever remember them sharing. Together they walked back to the merchandising department, both of them loaded down with files and laptops.

“To infinity and beyond,” Zach said when it was time for them to part ways.

It wasn’t until she was back in her office that Audrey recognized his words as a quote from Buzz Lightyear. It made her think of the photograph he’d shown her, of that skinny, raw-kneed boy with the too-long hair and too-serious expression.

It was strange, knowing so much about him. What he looked like as a child. Where he grew up. The fact that he’d earned everything he had with his own efforts.

And yet they weren’t friends. Not by a long shot. She wasn’t sure what they were.

Not enemies anymore. Rivals? Colleagues? Both words didn’t feel quite right.

Audrey gave herself a mental shake. It was late; she was tired and hungry. It was time to go home and pretend she had a life.

* * *

ZACH SPENT THE bulk of his spare time for the rest of the week working on the competitor analysis. He pulled company reports from Mathesons off the internet, paid for a media search, and spoke to various suppliers and industry bodies. He spent Saturday pulling all the information he’d gathered into some kind of shape, staring at his laptop until he was bleary-eyed. The only upside of any of it—apart from the potential payoff at the end when Whitman was blown away by the report—was knowing that Audrey was in the trench with him.

Three o’clock. Sunday morning found him tapping away on his laptop, driven from his bed by restless thoughts. He swore out loud when the email notification pinged loudly in the quiet of the living room, startling him, then shook his head when he saw it was from Audrey. Nice to know he wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping.

What’s wrong, Mathews? Did you wet the bed?

He was tired enough that he’d hit Send before it occurred to him that even though their working relationship had improved since their little cards-on-the-table chat the other night, it might not be up to incontinence jokes just yet.

“Good one, smart-ass,” he told his computer screen, scrubbing his face with his hands.

A second later, another ping.

Had to get up to see Sven and Lars out. Crazy night. Think we might have broken the bed.

He barked out a laugh at her bold response.

That’s the problem with the Swedes: too enthusiastic, he typed back.

He stared at the screen, waiting for her response.

Is there such a thing as being too enthusiastic? I’m not sure. Speaking of...I’ve finished my first draft. Want to correct my grammar?

Thought you’d never ask. Here’s mine, just so you don’t feel left out. In an attempt to preempt any ridicule, I freely admit that spelling is not my forte. Have at it.

Thanks for taking all the fun out of it. I was going to print off your worst offenses and show them to Megan on Monday.

Feel free. I’ve already posted your comments about Whitman’s sausage fingers on Facebook.

I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned Whitman’s freakishly overinflated digits to you before, so I’m not sure what you’ll be posting...oh, wait...

He laughed out loud again and pulled the laptop a little closer to the edge of the coffee table.

Your secrets are safe with me, he typed.

Seriously, though...Those sausage fingers. Megan and I thought we were the only ones who’d noticed.

Dude, you’d have to be hard of seeing not to notice those puppies.

I haven’t been called “dude” since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were big in primary school.

My pleasure.

There was a short pause before the next message appeared.

Hey. I just realized Can’t Stop the Music is on. And they say insomnia is bad.

????

You haven’t seen it? Dude, you are missing out. Let me sketch a few details for you: Steve Guttenberg, roller skates, New York City. And if that doesn’t clinch the deal for you, it was a movie vehicle for the Village People.

Sold.

He grabbed the remote, flicked the TV on and changed the channel. Cheesy music blasted into the room, while the screen filled with a cityscape, complete with a man in white jeans roller-skating down the street, Walkman clutched in one hand.

Wow, he typed.

I know. I’ll leave you to enjoy in peace. My gift to you, fellow workaholic.

He stared at the computer screen, only now registering how much he’d been enjoying their exchange. How engaged he’d been, imagining Audrey sitting up in bed tapping away at her laptop, wearing nothing but one of those tight little tank tops and a pair of lacy panties....

Yeah.

Maybe it was just as well she’d signed off, before he let lack of sleep and the intimacy of the early hour lead him into dangerous territory.

Audrey might be sexy and funny and smart, but she was still his coworker. He had no business thinking about her panties. Especially while he and Audrey were coauthoring the competitor analysis together.

He shut his laptop, in case he was tempted to renew contact, and settled back on the couch to watch what promised to be a spectacularly bad movie.

He liked the idea that somewhere in Melbourne, Audrey was doing the same thing.

In a tight little tank top.

And black—no, red—panties.

He was only human, after all.

* * *

“SO. HOW’S IT GOING?” Megan took a slurp from her milkshake and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that when you say ‘it’ you’re referring to my working relationship with Zach,” Audrey said drily.

It was Thursday, one day before they flew out to Queensland for the conference, and her last day of working hand-in-glove with Zach.

“Quit stalling. Have you had wild monkey sex yet? Have you seen him without his shirt?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed with sex, you know that?”

Although it was very telling that the thought of Zach sans shirt made her heart rate go a little crazy.

“Hello? Trying to get pregnant over here. Sex is my life. Not wild monkey sex, though, sadly. We have slightly dutiful procreational sex. Still fun, but not very spontaneous. I think it’s all the mucous checking.”

“What on earth—” Audrey caught herself and held up a hand. “Actually, you know what? I don’t want to know.”

“I’ll spare you. I’d hate for there to be no surprises for you if you ever decide to have children.”

“Thank you. You’re very generous.”

“So, I’m thinking eight inches, solid girth...?”

“Jesus, Megan.” This time Audrey glanced over her shoulder, even though she was pretty sure no one else from work was currently patronizing the food court at the local shopping mall.

“What?” Megan asked, a devilish glint in her eye.

“I don’t want to think about Zach’s...girth, okay? We’re working together.”

Not that she hadn’t given some consideration to the more intimate aspects of his body over the past week, most notably when she’d been drifting back to sleep at four o’clock Sunday morning, picturing Zach doing the same thing on the other side of town. She was only human, and he was the sexiest man she’d ever spent so much time with.

Hands down.

All he had to do was walk into the room these days and she could feel her body warming. She didn’t even want to imagine what he could do if he put his mind to it.

Okay, she did. But she wasn’t going to, because she loved her job, and she wanted to get ahead, and sleeping with Zach was the best way she could think of to destroy both those things.

She would dearly love to discuss all of the above with Megan, however, because that was what they did best. It would be so good to get her friend’s perspective. But Megan would make a big deal out it, along with encouraging all sorts of reckless fantasies and behavior, and Audrey so did not need that kind of encouragement right now.

It was bad enough dealing with her own inappropriate thoughts and feelings.

Megan sighed heavily. “I knew it. You’re wasting this golden opportunity by squabbling with him, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Not since the night he’d forced her to see him as he really was. Nope, since then they’d been getting on just fine. Chatting in the staff room. Popping into each other’s offices to pass on new pieces of information they’d dug up. Emailing each other in the dead of night and having inappropriate, unprofessional conversations.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

Audrey adopted a more serious expression. “Is that better?”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if you and Zach were doing the dirty?” Megan asked beseechingly.

Audrey suspected her friend was only half kidding.

“You’ll be the first to know. Outside of Zach, of course.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?”

“Stick a needle in my eye,” Audrey promised.

It wasn’t as though it was ever going to be an issue, after all. She might be sexually frustrated, but she wasn’t an idiot.

“Okay, fine.” Megan pointed to the half a sandwich still left on Audrey’s plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

“It’s all yours.”

“Thank you. That sub barely touched the sides. I think I’m having a growth spurt.”

Audrey managed to change the subject then, but Megan’s words popped into her mind as she hit the mall afterward to shop for a present for her sister.

The truth was, she was finding it incredibly difficult to believe that she had ever not liked Zach. He was funny. He was cheeky. He said amazingly clever things that made her brain hurt trying to keep up. And he was also one hundred percent male.

Hot, firm, hard male.

Yesterday, they’d shared a pizza and worked into the night as they pasted their separate sections of the analysis into one coherent report and massaged it into shape. At some point he’d loosened his tie and she’d kicked off her shoes. She’d been tired after days of doing her normal job as well as working every spare minute on the project, but Zach had made it fun.

Be honest. He made it more than fun.

Okay, he’d made it exciting. Sitting in the same room with him when the rest of the building was dark and silent had created a special sort of intimacy. They’d laughed and told jokes in between bouts of intense productivity. And they were doing it all over again tonight.

There was no denying the frisson of excitement that fizzed through her belly at the thought. There was also no denying that she’d dressed with particular care this morning, choosing a black pencil skirt and fitted latte-colored silk blouse that made her feel like a heroine in a forties movie. And yes, she’d even spritzed on perfume, something she didn’t usually bother with for the office.

“He’s your coworker,” she murmured to herself, in case that rather important fact had slipped her mind.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Can I help you?”

Audrey lifted her gaze from the scarf display she’d been eyeing and realized that the sales assistant had overheard her talking to herself. Such a good look.

“I’m just browsing, thanks,” she said with a sheepish smile.

“For yourself or are you looking for a gift?” the young woman asked.

“It’s a gift, for my sister. Her thirtieth, actually.”

“Something special, then? Were you thinking a scarf? We have some lovely French silk scarves....”

Audrey blinked at the display. She had no idea, really, why she’d stopped in front of it.

“I was thinking maybe a watch, actually. Or a piece of jewelry.”

“Lovely. Jeannie is over in the watch department. She’ll be sure to help you out,” the saleswoman said, already drifting away to serve another customer.

Audrey made her way to the shiny glass display cabinets in the jewelry department, finally locating the watches. She did a slow circuit of the cabinets, running her eye over the range, hoping something would jump out at her as being perfect for Leah.

Her gaze moved from watch to watch, doubt and indecision gnawing at her. Despite the fact that there were only four years separating them, she and Leah had never really been close. She had no idea whether her sister would be all over a watch loaded with shiny bling, or if she would prefer a more conservative, traditional model.

Funny, because she could still remember how excited she’d been when she’d learned her parents would be bringing home a little sister for her from the hospital. She’d mistakenly believed that it would be her and Leah against the world.

She did a slower circuit, this time stopping when she saw a small-faced gold watch with a leather band and distinctive art deco styling. She thought it was beautiful, but there was no telling whether Leah would. For a moment Audrey was filled with a piercing, ineffable sadness that she knew so little about her own sister’s likes and dislikes.

“Excuse me. Could I take a closer look at this one, please?” Audrey called out to the saleswoman.

“Of course, let me grab my key.”

Half a minute later, Audrey was wrapping the thin leather band around her wrist. It really was gorgeous. Maybe she should take a punt on it, go with her gut and hope for the best. She flipped the dangling price tag over and blinked in shock when she saw the price.

Twelve hundred dollars.

Whoa.

She did a mental check of her savings account, but she already knew the watch was beyond her budget.

“So, what do you think?” the saleswoman asked.

“It’s lovely, but I might look around a little more before I make my final decision,” Audrey said.

She smiled politely and handed the watch back before resuming her slow cruise of the display. Nothing else caught her eye, and after five minutes she left the store and headed for her car. Her thoughts kept returning to the watch as she drove back to Makers, however. If she extended the limit on her credit card, she could swing it, barely. It would take a bite out of her savings and make life a little less fun for a few months, but she could do it.

It was her little sister’s thirtieth, after all. She wanted to mark the occasion.

What you really mean is that you want to try to buy your way into her favor.

It was a sobering realization, so profound that she didn’t notice the traffic light change and had to be honked to awareness by the driver behind her.

Amazing, the way the past could keep coming back to bite her on the ass, even when she was sure that she’d dealt with it and reconciled herself and gotten on with things. Because she’d thought she was done with trying to make amends, in the same way that she’d thought she was beyond feeling hurt by her outsider status in her own family.

She drove into the garage and parked in her allocated spot. She didn’t immediately get out of her car. She needed a moment to get herself together.

If she could go back in time, if she could change one decision, undo one choice, she would return to the moment when her angry, resentful, achingly lonely sixteen-year-old self had stuffed a handful of clothes into a duffel bag and climbed out the window and into the waiting car of her boyfriend.

But she couldn’t, just as she couldn’t undo any of the foolish, dangerous things she’d done in the eighteen months following that night. Stealing from her parents and her sister. Endless rounds of binge drinking. The way she’d allowed herself to be treated by Johnny and his friends for fear that she’d lose the one person who had ever really seen her and believed in her and loved her. Or so she’d thought at the time.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest. God, she’d been so young and so hungry for approval and attention. The great irony was that the two people she’d most wanted to sit up and take notice—her parents—were the two people who had never quite forgiven her for the months of worry and heartache and shame she’d inflicted on them as they searched and fretted over their runaway daughter.

They pretended they had. Everyone was perfectly civil and polite to one another once she’d moved home and embarked on the never-ending mission of redeeming herself. But the truth was that that rash, reckless dash into the night when she was sixteen had permanently cemented her black sheep status, and she’d never been able to claw her way back.

Not with good behavior. Not with heartfelt words. And not with gifts.

And certainly not by buying her sister a very expensive watch for her birthday.

She breathed in through her nose, held her breath for a handful of heartbeats, then released it fully. Then she opened the door and climbed out.

How did that L.P. Hartley quote go? “The past is a foreign country.” And she didn’t have the time or the energy to go there.

Not today, anyway.