Deceiving Derek (5 page)

Which left him with one option to pursue.

He needed a woman to replace Tina for the
weekend.

And he had to find her fast.

~*~

Magee Sinclair glanced at her watch: 11:20.
“Time to suck up to the client,” she mumbled, tapping the papers
for CycleMania’s preliminary advertising plan on her desk. Usually,
she didn’t think of these touch-base lunches in frank terms.
However, Justin Kane’s account, with its phenomenal opportunity for
growth, could singlehandedly pull Sinclair Advertising out of the
red. Plus give her father necessary peace of mind. For that, Mr.
Kane merited a bit of fawning over.

“He’s not too bad to look at, either,” she
murmured.

“Excuse me?” a condescending voice asked.

Jumping in her chair, Magee swiveled around.
Her elbow bumped the CycleMania file folder. She grabbed, but
before she could stop the folder’s momentum, it skated across the
desk, careened off her smartphone, and plopped into the wire mesh
wastebasket.

Patti Slotnik, with her ever-ready smirk,
leaned into the cubicle. “What did you say, Maggie?”

Magee clutched the papers.
Why must the woman continually mangle
my name?

And
sneak up on her? She was lucky she hadn’t lost
her grip on the hard copy Justin Kane had re-quested.

“Nothing. Thinking out loud.” She tried to
sound breezy and unconcerned. “The name’s Magee, as you know. Short
A, hard G. Like the surname. My mother’s birth name.”
So get it right
. “If
it’s too hard to remember, I could write it phonetically.” She
pasted on a sweet smile.

“Ah,” Patti replied. “My bad.” Her mud-brown
eyebrows rose. “Sure you don’t need help? I thought you’d left for
your meeting already. I was about to drop you a note. I’m happy to
lend a hand if you’re feeling stressed.”

“No, thank you. I know you’re more than
willing to help, but I have everything under control.” Magee
possessed enough of Patti’s let-me-ease-your-burden messages to
wallpaper the ad agency’s break room. She certainly didn’t require
another.

“Just offering,” Patti sing-songed before
moving on.

That’s it. Be gone. Good riddance
. Magee realized
her fellow account executive didn’t respect her, and, in some ways,
she couldn’t blame Patti. Magee hadn’t worked for the ad agency as
long as Patti had. Yet, as the owner’s daughter, Magee stood to
inherit the account director position her father planned to create,
effectively making her Patti’s boss. The woman’s resentment was
only natural, al-though irritating up the wazoo. And the mix-up
with the billboards in January—an event of mega-embarrassing
proportions that had fallen on Magee’s shoulders—had supplied Patti
with additional reason to smirk.

At this rate, Magee would have the respect of
a flea by the time she assumed the new post.
If
she assumed it. At the
moment, she didn’t feel too deserving. In her current role as one
of four AEs, her responsibilities included overseeing the campaigns
Creative Services produced for her clients. If she’d done her job
properly the last several months, her father’s advertising agency
wouldn’t be out three major accounts. And she wouldn’t feel trapped
in an endless game of Pick Up Sticks.

She placed the papers on her desk and bent to
retrieve the folder from the trash. Her fingers jammed on a snag in
the mesh. A nail caught and ripped.
Ouch
.

Squeezing shut her eyes, she lifted her
hand.

Be okay. Please be okay
.

She peeked at her hand, and her stomach
dropped.
Oh my
God
. She’d ruined her beautiful spa manicure! The expensive
exfoliating scrub and paraffin dip mani-pedi she’d indulged in this
morning to wow Mr. Hottie Pants Kane. A huge crescent of missing
raspberry polish mocked her from the ragged nail of her middle
finger.

Not her pinky. Not her thumb. Not any finger
that might escape notice.

But her freaking screw-you-buddy finger.

Magee, how could you?
When would she stop messing
up? Hadn’t her parents hammered into her that client meetings
required a professional image? For a future account director—the
agency’s first ever account director—that included a skirt, heels,
and ten flawless, skillfully polished nails.

Not nine perfect nails and one screw-you torn
to the quick.
Ten
.

She collated the papers and returned them to
the folder, then stuffed the preliminary plan and her tablet into
her briefcase. From a desk drawer, she grabbed nail clippers, her
best crystal file, and the bottle of raspberry polish she’d bought
on a whim before leaving the spa. Hey, maybe she
was
learning, after all.

She hurried to the ladies room for
repairs.

~*~

“More ice water, miss?”

“Please.” As the waiter refilled her goblet,
Magee stared at her plate and sighed. Whatever had possessed her to
order an enormous Caesar salad laced with enough garlic to do in a
mob boss? And the anchovies… She hated the salty devils. Detested
them. Why, then, had those words of doom, “Heavy on the anchovies,”
escaped her mouth?

As if you don’t know the answer, Magee
.

Justin Kane. He of the lustrous coal-black
hair and piercing slate-blue eyes, which, at the moment, remained
fixed on the hard copy of her preliminary advertising plan. The man
confused her some-thing fierce.

She picked up her fork. Even with the bread
basket and bottle of balsamic vinegar separating them across the
restaurant table, Justin Kane made her nervous. He always had, from
the instant they’d met four months ago in her ultimately successful
bid to woo the CycleMania account from a rival agency. However,
today Justin’s troubling effect on her had mushroomed. Despite the
unexpected adjustments to her manicure, she’d arrived at the
restaurant her standard fifteen minutes early to discover him
already seated, a predatory glint in his eyes.

Almost as if…as if he
knew
her little secret behind
snaring his account and was biding his time be-fore ambushing
her.

But he couldn’t know. How would he have found
out? It had just been one teensy, tiny white lie.

Not a stark white, either. More of a subtle
cream.

Strangely, the distinction didn’t comfort
her. If anything, she felt worse.

She jabbed her fork at a gargantuan crouton.
Instead of piercing the tidbit, the tines bounced it off her plate.
Glancing sidelong at Justin, she crept a hand toward the crouton.
He looked up. She pinky-kicked the crouton beneath the cloth napkin
and flashed an overeager smile.

Fortunately, he didn’t notice the crouton’s
acrobatics. His gaze lowered to her salad.

“You’re not eating. Is something wrong with
the Caesar?” He smoothed the triple-striped tie he wore with a
conservative gray tweed blazer.

“Oh no,” she answered too brightly. “I had a
huge breakfast. I should have ordered the half-size salad.”

His eyes narrowed, and the predatory glint
she’d noticed upon her arrival returned. He glanced at the
preliminary plan, then back up. He rubbed a thumb along his strong,
square jaw.

Magee’s heart thundered against her ribs.
This is it. The
jig’s up
.

She waited for the guillotine blade to
drop.

He opened his mouth. She sucked in a
breath.

His mouth snapped shut. Her breath whooshed
out.

“What?” Her voice squeaked. If the guillotine
didn’t get her, the suspense surely would.

“You’ve done your homework. I like that.”

Her homework?
Phew
. He didn’t know her secret, after
all.

Good on ya, girl. Stay cool
.

Placing aside the hard copy, Justin retrieved
her tablet from the empty third place setting and browsed through
the presentation again. “Your idea to use magazines like
Mountain Bike
Frenzy
sounds expensive, but worth it. I’m impressed.”

Magee tucked a lock of hair behind one ear.
Leaning forward, she bracketed her hands—with their ten flawless
short
raspberry nails—around her salad plate. The fishy scent of
anchovies assailed her nostrils, but she ignored it.

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Justin,
because the market research clearly indicates two distinct
audiences for CycleMania’s advertising purposes. The first is the
recreational cyclist your stores currently target through local
Internet, radio, and newspaper spots. That approach is working
well. Aside from updating the ads, I see no reason to change it.
Streamlining the website and increasing the company’s social
networking efforts will make a difference, too.” Her finger bumped
the crouton out from beneath the napkin, exposing it to Justin’s
line of vision. Discreetly, she curled her pinky around the crouton
and nudged it toward the table edge. Another nudge…

Tik-plop
.

The crouton ricocheted off her chair arm,
landing on her lap.

“The second target audience,” she continued
with as much professionalism as she could muster, given the crouton
on her skirt, “is the cycling enthusiast. Specifically, the
hard-core mountain biker. Young. Hip. Radical. Intense. Serious
about the sport and willing to pay top dollar for the latest
innovations. For this particular audience, we need a medium with a
concentrated focus.
Mountain Bike Frenzy
is an excellent example.”

Justin nodded, and she released a breath.
She’d sold him. She could sense it.

“This is where Willoughby Bikes comes in,” he
said, returning her tablet to the table. He dipped his spoon into
his minestrone.

“Exactly.” Taking her cue from her client,
Magee dug into her salad. She really did love garlic. Too bad her
breath preferred mints. “With the manufacturer picking up half the
cost to have their bikes featured in your ads, it’s a win-win.
Plus, the similarity between store and product names lends to great
short copy ideas. Picture a glossy spread in
Mountain Bike Frenzy
ending
with something snappy like, ‘The Cyclone. Available exclusively at
CycleMania.’ It has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Provided I sign the deal with Nathan
Willoughby.”

“You will.”

“Yeah? I don’t know anymore.”

Magee’s scalp tingled. She’d never before
heard Justin Kane speak of the CycleMania–Willoughby Bikes deal
with less than absolute confidence. “Why do you say that?”

He didn’t answer, just eyed her, his
ring-less ring finger tapping staccato time on the table.

She moistened her lips. “Uh, Justin?”

“Something’s happened.”

“What?”
Please don’t say this ‘something’ could affect the
deal
.

“It’s personal, but…it could affect the
deal.”

Argh
. Magee held her breath. The substantial
advertising revenue inherent in Justin’s deal with Willoughby Bikes
would help repair the financial damage she’d caused her father’s
advertising agency these last several months. If Justin lost the
deal, his expansion plans for the CycleMania chain of bike
stores—an additional source of revenue for the agency—would be
postponed. He’d said so during one of their many conversations
leading to the development of the preliminary advertising plan. He
needed the deal with Willoughby Bikes to make his expansion fly,
and she needed him to get it.

“Something personal?” She shook her head. “I
don’t understand.”

His gaze drifted over her. Abruptly, his
finger stopped tapping. “You will. You see, I need your help.”

“Not an issue,” she said without missing a
beat. “What can I do?”

“Come with me to Whistler.”

Her pulse fluttered. “What?” She put down her
romaine-laden fork.

Justin regarded her with his deep-set,
thickly lashed eyes. “Nathan Willoughby wants to spend a few days
in Whistler and Vancouver checking out my stores and the mountain
biking trails in the area before we sign the deal. Right now he’s
in California with his wife, doing the same with the new U.S.
distributor. He arrives in Vancouver tomorrow.”

“With his wife?”

“Kathryn. Yes.”

Oookay
. Magee rubbed her neck. She must be suffering
from an anchovy-induced stupor, because she still couldn’t make the
connection. “And you need me…why?”

“It’s a couples thing. You know, relaxation
before business. At any rate, Tina, my girlfriend—” Jus-tin
practically ground out the word “—let me know an hour ago that
she’s not coming.”

“Oh.” Magee gazed at him. “Is she sick?”

“No. She dumped me.”

“D-dumped you?” In Magee’s world, that meant
he didn’t
have
a girlfriend.

“Yes,” he said without cracking a smile. “And
that presents me with a problem. I can’t go to Whistler alone. I
need you to come with me, as a replacement, of sorts, for
Tina.”

Magee blinked instead of insulting her client
by bursting out laughing. The man’s girlfriend had cut him loose
an hour ago
and he was already cruising for a replacement to accommodate a
deal?

Her opinion of Justin Kane slipped several
notches.

“It’s business, you understand,” he
continued. “Willoughby Bikes is grounded in the long-standing
English traditions of loyalty, family honor, and trust. Stability
in business and relationships is important to both Nathan
Willoughby and his father. That’s why the company invested so many
years building a reputation overseas before entering the North
American market. That’s also why I can’t tell Na-than that Tina
turfed me.”

“Because then he wouldn’t find you
desirable?” Magee asked before she could stop herself.