Getting It Right This Time (8 page)

The doors re-opened and he sauntered inside. His smile abruptly dissolved when he realized it was possible to actually feel yourself pale. Marcia and Kate stood side by side, their bodies rigid like sentries, their expressions entirely different. Marcia looked as though she barely held back tears whereas Kate wore a scowl akin to a Victorian school marm. The clutch bag she tapped against her palm may as well have been a cane across his bare ass.

He pulled back his shoulders and marched forward with the confidence of the reigning champion into a Roman amphitheatre.

“What a bunch of animals, eh?” he said, throwing his arms out wide. “Are you both all right?”

Mark stood tall beneath their unwavering stares even though he felt as though he was about to be speared in the eye by the force of venom shooting from Kate’s. A long moment passed before she spoke.

“I’m absolutely fine,” she said, pulling a mobile phone from her bag. “But I’ll be even better when I call a taxi to take me home.”

He stepped in front of her. “Kate…”

“What?” she snapped, glaring at him.

“Please, just wait.”

“No. I’m going home. Now.” She paused, tilted her head in Marcia’s direction, her eyes softening. “Don’t you think your client needs you right now?”

He held her gaze. “Of course. But we haven’t finished our date yet.”

Her eyes widened. “Date? Who said tonight was a date?”

Unwelcome heat seared his cheeks and deep in his chest. “Come on, you know as well as I do--”

She held up her hand. “I’m out of here.”

She moved to brush past him. Without thinking, he reached out and wrapped his fingers deftly around her wrist. Their eyes locked, their breathing seeming to synchronize. He couldn’t let her go. He willed her to understand by looking into his eyes. He hoped she saw something there that would make her give him at least another fifteen minutes. Her throat shifted, her face flushed, but she didn’t speak.

Encouraged she hadn’t slapped him so far, he turned to Marcia with his hand still holding Kate’s wrist, albeit, gentler. “Are you okay?”

38

Getting It Right This Time

Marcia rushed forward and flung her arms around his neck with such force, Mark’s hand slipped from Kate’s wrist. He met her gaze over Marcia’s shoulder and saw Kate’s mouth drop open to form a wide “O,” the phone seemingly forgotten in her hand. A burst of male pride shot through his veins. She looked astonished--no, peeved. As though Marcia had dug her stiletto into Kate’s foot and trod all over her personal territory. Knowing if Kate caught even a whiff of his smugness, she’d cut his balls off with mere words alone, Mark stepped back and gently eased Marcia away.

“What are you even doing here?” he asked her. “More to the point, how the hell did the press know you’d be here?”

Dabbing at her moist cheeks, she threw a hasty glance in Kate’s direction before turning back to face him. “Can we go upstairs?”

A wave of inexplicable foreboding swept over Mark’s senses when he caught a glimmer of something far from the helplessness he’d seen in Marcia’s eyes when she’d been standing outside.

“It’s Saturday night, Marcia,” he said, carefully. “Why are you at my office?”

Her jaw tightened and a flash of something disconcerting showed in her eyes before they glazed with unshed tears. Mark cursed his inability to ignore female distress--even if it was Marcia’s distress. The woman who was in real danger of being the reason for his ruined night.

He reached out and touched his hand gently to her elbow. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, it’s just you being here makes no sense.”

“I’m so sorry to disturb your evening.” She paused and swept her fingers under her eyes, offering Kate a small smile. Mark bit back a laugh when Kate gave back a grimace. “But I needed to see you,” Marcia finished, oblivious.

“Why? What is so important you couldn’t ring me on Monday?”

She fluttered her hand toward the door. “Well, them of course.”

He threw a glance toward the now empty pavement outside. “The press? What about them?”

She dug into her bag and produced a tabloid paper with a flourish. “Here.”

Mark took the paper, looked at the headline and photo--and promptly whipped it to his side.

The picture of him and Kate told a thousand secrets. He was looking at her in the picture as though she was Venus, the goddess of love, and she looked at him with her eyes wide with what could only be described as terror.

“And this has worried you, why?” Mark demanded. “You’re not in the picture.”

Kate stepped forward, cleared her throat. “So who is?”

Ignoring her, Mark kept his gaze on Marcia’s. He couldn’t help but notice her tears had dried and an altogether different gleam shone in her eyes beneath the lobby’s fluorescent lights.

“I asked you a question, Marcia,” he pressed. “Why does this worry you?”

She reached forward and clutched his forearm. “Because they’re saying things.”

“The press? Well, of course they are. So what? You’ve dealt with them for the last two years.

Enjoyed them even. What’s changed?”

Rachel Brimble

39

Another glance at Kate. “Couldn’t we talk privately?” she asked, looking at him beneath lowered lashes.

Mark looked at Kate. Her shoulders were pulled back and her chin tilted. Her glare bore into the back of Marcia’s head through narrowed eyes. She was fabulous. And there was no way in hell she was leaving.

“Kate?”

A moment passed before she dragged her eyes from Marcia to meet his. “What?”

“Would you wait for me upstairs?”

Her beautiful emerald eyes widened, and her eyebrows lifted. “Please tell me you’re joking?”

Mark felt his jaw tightened. “I’m serious. Come on, you and I both know we have things to talk about. Let’s talk. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

She looked down at the paper in his hand. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m on the front of that paper, aren’t I?”

Heat seared his face. She didn’t ask for this, and he didn’t want her to experience what it was like being a tabloid plaything. “Yes.”

Another long moment passed as she looked first at him, then at Marcia and back again. She stuffed her phone back into her bag, her eyes never leaving his. “I’ll stay, Mark. I’ll stay because I’ve got a lot to say to you. So much, your ears will be ringing by the time I’ve finished.”

He managed a small smile. “Thank you.”

Affront flashed in her eyes, and her mouth opened to say something before she snapped it shut. Knowing he now had two pissed off women on his hands he thought it best if he separated them as soon as possible. He had a horrible feeling the night was going to go from bad to worse, the longer it went on. Placing his hand at the base of Kate’s spine, he steered her toward the lift.

He punched in the ninth floor.

“The lift opens directly to my offices. Go along the corridor, mine’s at the end. I’ll be ten minutes max.”

Her eyes lingered on his and then moved slowly to his lips. “I’m doing this for me. Not you.

I want whatever you think is going to happen between us to stop. The woman you knew five years ago is no longer here. And the new me is clearly more than you can handle.”

She brushed past him into the lift, her body humming with suppressed anger. When she turned around to face him, Mark’s eyes languidly took in every delicious, sexy inch of her. He met her eyes. “Believe me, Kate,” he said quietly, “I can handle anything, anything at all.”

She sniffed, opened her mouth to say more, but the doors swished closed. Mark squeezed his eyes shut and prayed this wasn’t the final curtain on any chance of a relationship with her.

He couldn’t understand it. Why would the press turn up here, tonight of all nights? In the entire two years of representing Marcia and the five years of having his own agency, not once had the paparazzi turned up on his doorstep. Restaurants, openings, personal dates even, but never the 40

Getting It Right This Time

office because who wants a picture of a building? Or even Mark leaving a building. Not exactly the stuff of a scandal, was it? Something weird was going on and he was determined to find out what. He marched back through the tiled lobby.

Marcia sat perched on the edge of one of the sofas, her eyes locked on his as he sat down beside her. She immediately clutched his arm, her bright red nails pinching the flesh.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked.

Mark stared at her. “Why? Should I be?”

Her gaze darted over his face. “Well, your date…”

“Why did you bring the paps here, Marcia? What did you want them to see? You? Me?

Kate? All of us?”

“You’re angry. Why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I--”

“I don’t know what to think.” He pulled his arm from her grip. “All I know is, they’ve never come here before, so why tonight?”

She swiveled toward the plate glass window beside them. The street was deserted. The paparazzi having either been sent on their way or more likely, come to the conclusion nothing of any substance was going to happen for the rest of the night. Mark waited. He refused to fill the silence. If Marcia brought the press to his office knowing full well he was spending the evening with Kate…

At last, she turned. Her eyes bored into his. This was the real Marcia. The tears were no more than a smokescreen; the real Marcia was staunchly determined and ferociously ambitious. It would take more than a few photographers to faze her, and Mark’s gut told him that tonight was a publicity endeavor, orchestrated by Marcia herself.

“They were here when I arrived. I received a phone call.”

He leaned back on the sofa, carefully watching her. “A phone call?”

She nodded. “They threw a load of questions at me. Asking what it felt like to be replaced so easily. How did I feel now you have a new number one client?”

“A new client? What are they talking about? Do they mean Kate?” He laughed. “They’re fishing, Marcia. Surely you knew that as soon as they started asking the questions. Tell me you didn’t fall for their crap after everything I’ve taught you about the press?”

Her gaze hardened. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Then why ring me asking me to come here instead of staying in your own apartment out of their way?”

“If you have to ask that question, they are absolutely right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Kate, Mark.”

“What about her? She doesn’t affect you.”

Rachel Brimble

41

She shook her head, looked to the ceiling. “Of course she does. How much time have you spent with me since she turned up, huh? How many times have we been pictured together? You didn’t even come to that restaurant opening with me last night.”

Heat burned low in Mark’s abdomen as he took in the set of her jaw, the cold determination in her eyes. “Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf,” he said slowly. “Maybe I’ve decided I want a bit of a personal life instead of running around after my clients twenty-four seven.”

“But--”

Abruptly, he stood, flung his arm out toward the doors, cutting her off. “Go home, Marcia.

I’ll ring you in the morning.”

She stared at him. In the back of his mind, Mark knew he risked upsetting a potential fortune in the making, but the woman waiting upstairs was worth more than any amount of money--there was zero competition between Kate and Marcia, and nothing Marcia could say or do would make him falter.

“Fine.” She leapt to her feet and hitched her bag roughly onto her shoulder. “Let’s hope when you’ve scratched whatever itch it is with Kate, you’ll be better able to focus on your job.”

“Good night, Marcia.” He bowed toward the door once more.

“I’ll leave, Mark, but I’m telling you right now, this is not the last you’ve heard from the press. They want to know who Kate is and why she’s so important to you.”

Mark kept his face impassive, even though the knowing way she said those words made the hairs at the back of his neck rise. “Do they?”

“Of course they do! Underwood was snapping his camera like a man possessed when Kate got out of the car. You know what he’s like as far as you’re concerned, he wants you dragged down. I’d put a fifty pound bet on it being him who took those pictures splashed all over the front of the paper.”

Mark dropped his gaze to the paper in his hand. “You leave the likes of Underwood to me and concentrate on being the best actress you can. Everything else is my job, not yours.”

She looked at him, her gaze softening. “He’s obsessed, Mark. He’ll ruin whatever you think is going to happen with Kate. It is worth it?”

Feeling the tension abating, he stepped forward and placed his hand on her elbow. They slowly walked toward the door. “Kate is important to me. I feel as though I’ve been given a second chance and I am determined nothing will mess it up.” They stopped at the door. Mark looked at her as she stared up at him. He forced a smile. “Listen, whatever happens between Kate and me, you are my client, okay? Your career is important to me and always will be.”

She stared at him before giving a wobbly smile. “Okay, fine. I believe you.”

He grinned. “Good. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

Lifting onto her toes, Marcia kissed him on the cheek before wrapping her coat tightly around her and heading out the door. She’d barely stepped more than four feet along the pavement before Mark turned and hurried toward the lift and Kate.

42

Getting It Right This Time

Outside his office door, Mark tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, and walked inside. She sat on the sofa with an opened bottle of wine in front of her and a half-filled glass in her hand. He bit back the smile threatening to erupt. Her leg was bouncing up and down on the carpet with gusto.

Clearly, she’d found his mini-bar.

“Are you okay?” he asked, walking toward her.

Her green eyes darkened over the rim of her glass. She took a drink, swallowed. “What do you think?”

He stopped in front of her. “Marcia’s gone. The paps have gone. Unfortunately, both of them are part of my job. I’m sorry it interrupted our dinner but--”