One Night Standards (11 page)

His momma had raised him better than to call a woman names, but he still thought some vile adjectives about Carol, even as he smiled politely. “Thanks,” he repeated, keeping his voice light.

She returned the smile, probably thinking he was too dumb to figure out what she'd just done to him. “Absolutely no problem.”

So now he was in his room, desperately trying not only to salvage the hope of a promotion, but to save his own ass.

There was a knock on his door, and he frowned. Had he ordered room service? He'd meant to, twice, but he'd gotten sidetracked by Internet research—trying to figure out Trimera's next plan of attack. Now, he couldn't remember if he'd made a call downstairs or not. He got up, wincing at the stiffness of his legs from sitting at the small desk for several hours, and then opened the door.

Sophie was standing there. She was still wearing the same suit she'd been wearing at the Marion & Co. presentation, looking a little tired and rumpled, but otherwise looking the same as always.

In other words, tempting.

He took a deep breath. “You shouldn't be here,” he forced himself to say.

She was glancing up and down the hallway. “I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “Can I come in?”

He knew he shouldn't. Hadn't he already determined that she was part of the problem? But at the same time, he wanted to hear what she had to say—and he couldn't very well have a conversation out there, in the hallway. They'd be spotted for sure, by somebody in the industry. This was a fairly large convention, after all.

“All right,” he said.
But just for a minute,
he assured himself.

Even if he didn't believe it.

He closed the door behind her, and she turned. Before he realized what she was up to, she had looped her arms around his neck, getting up on her tiptoes and kissing him tenderly. His first reaction was surprise—he'd always been the aggressor, up to this point. She'd always been the reticent one, the careful one.

What's going on here?

But after that thought, he felt most rational thinking slip away as he reveled in the taste of her, the feel of her heated, compact body against his. He clutched at her hips, pulling her closer to him, and she made a soft moan of contentment.

They finally broke apart, their breathing ragged. “I've been missing that,” Sophie admitted in a soft voice.

So had he, he realized. Then rationality set back in. “Where's the rest of your family?”

“They're flying home to L.A. today,” she said. “I decided to stay behind for another night.”

“Oh?” He tamped down the immediate thought:
She's here by herself for the night. She can spend the night with you.
“Did you have other work to do? Meetings?”

“Nope,” she said, her fingertips stroking over the planes of his chest, the ticklish sensation torturing him beneath his French shirt. “I thought I just needed a break. And I thought you might need one, too.”

“You're not usually…like this,” he said.

She blushed, and she was more like the Sophie he remembered. “Is it bothering you?”

“No. Not exactly,” he amended.

“Do you…” She paused, then cleared her throat. “I thought we were on the same page.” She looked at him, her indigo eyes wide and vulnerable. “Don't you want me?”

He sighed roughly. “Of course I want you,” he said. “Sometimes I think I can't remember what it was like to not want you.”

She leaned against him, her head tucked against his chest, under his chin. “I know how you feel.”

“But we said it would be for one night,” he said.

“We've said that before,” she teased, with a shaky voice. “I figured…”

“One more time wouldn't hurt?” Mark forced himself to take a crucial step away from her, even though his body was now throbbing with need. Just the smell of her perfume was enough to trigger his desire. “Sophie, things have changed.”

She stared at him, then frowned. “Why? Because Trimera didn't do well today?”

“Didn't do well. That's putting it mildly,” he said, more sharply than he'd intended. “We tanked. You guys ran off with that presentation like we handed it to you on a platter.”

“That's not my fault,” Sophie protested. “I thought you said that what we do—together—didn't have anything to do with the business, or the competition!”

“I didn't think it did,” he said, crossing his arms.

“But now,” she said, studying his face intently, “you do.”

He let out a frustrated exhalation. “I don't know.”

“That's not fair, Mark,” she said, her voice low and angry. “You're the one who set the terms of this. I thought it was about…enjoyment. We enjoy each other.
That's it.
”

“So you're here because you were looking for some fun?” he said, his voice caustic.

Her eyes rounded in surprise. “I'm here because I want you.”

“I've always had to persuade you,” he said. “I've felt
guilty
because I thought I was putting you in an uncomfortable position!”

“But it didn't stop you,” she pointed out, and guilt hit him again like a hatchet.

He plowed forward. “Well, it's stopping me now.”

“No, it isn't,” she said, her voice as sharp as his was. “You think that sleeping with me is somehow jeopardizing your chances at winning this. That's why you're not pressing me, saying we can ‘keep it separate.' You don't even believe it anymore!”

“And you do?” he said, feeling angry—and feeling even more guilty, since that was exactly how he was feeling. “Why are you really here, Sophie?”

“Well, it's definitely not to ruin your chances at the Marion account!” Her eyes blazed. “I came here because I wanted you. Because when I'm with you, I feel better than I can remember feeling in months. Hell,
years.
Because you're tender, and amazing, and I have never wanted anybody like this.”

Remorse clawed at him. He'd felt that way, too. He still felt that way.

“But there are bigger things than sex involved right now.” He couldn't believe he was taking the stance, but there it was.

“This isn't just sex,” she said. “I would never put my family's well-being at risk for just
sex.
” Her voice was dismissive, making it sound as if he should have known that.

As if he were
stupid.

He felt his temper, simmering, burst into a full boil. “So what are you putting your family's business at risk for? Why is this so important to you? This isn't even a relationship. I don't know
what
this is!”

She winced, and he only briefly felt a pang, but his temper was a runaway train and there was no stopping it. “You like sex, specifically with me. You're willing to put up with a clandestine affair with me as long as nobody finds out.”

“You
know
why nobody can find out!”

“Would you be willing to wait for me?” Mark snapped. “You want me. This Marion & Co. crap isn't going to last forever. Can you just put it on pause for a few months?”

“You couldn't!” Her hands balled into fists. “You
didn't!
I can't believe you're putting me on the defensive because I'm doing what you were doing!”

“What I was doing,” he said, “was giving in to lust. What you're doing is using me to blow off steam.”

All color drained out of her face.

“You don't want anything more from me than a lay,” he said, needlessly cruel. He didn't know why he said it. Maybe because he'd been in this position before. Maybe…“You haven't said you want anything more permanent than that. I figure, you either like the challenge—the forbidden-fruit thing. Or, like you said when we first met—you hadn't had sex in a long time, and work was your life. So I'm just
convenient.
”

“Nothing about you is convenient,” she spat out. “And at the moment, I don't want you at all.”

He still wanted her—that was the damnable thing. But he had to focus. They didn't have a relationship. She wasn't spouting her undying love, and even if she did, what could they do about it? All she'd admitted to was they were having an affair. He wasn't about to live his life for that. He was worthwhile, damn it. He was intelligent, hardworking, a good guy.

He deserved more than this.

“I think you should leave,” he said.

“I'm going,” she said, her expression dark. She paused as his hand rested on the doorknob. “Don't talk to me again. We're going to
destroy
you guys.”

He didn't even dignify it with a response. He just let her out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

He went to the minifridge, pulling out a few of the tiny bottles: vodka, whiskey, scotch. He then proceeded to open and drain each one.

Damn her.
He hadn't even meant those things, had he?

Why couldn't he
think
when it came to Sophie?

And what was he going to do now?

“H
OW
'
S THE WORK COMING
?” Sophie's mother said, peeking her head into the living room.

Sophie gritted her teeth, her grip on her wooden pencil as tight as an iron vise. “Mom…”

Her mother frowned. “I waited a whole hour before I asked.”

“You're not helping,” Sophie said in a low voice. “It's fine. I'm doing everything I can. Please keep working on those prototypes, okay? And tell Lydia I want to talk to her about the packaging mock-ups.”

“You don't have to be so cranky about the whole thing,” her mother responded in a sulky voice.

Sophie sighed, rubbing both hands over her face. Her mother really hadn't done anything to deserve Sophie's ire; Sophie certainly did not have cause to be acting the way she was. The “rejuvenating” weekend her mother had suggested she take had gone completely to hell, thanks to her confrontation with Mark. She'd thrown herself at him.

He'd tossed her back, roughly.

What you're doing is using me to blow off steam. You don't want anything more from me than a lay.

The comments still haunted her—probably because of the element of truth in them.

She wanted more from him than sex, she thought. Admittedly, they couldn't have anything more than sex. Not with the things they wanted, which happened to be in direct competition with each other. She knew it had been crazy, to think they could keep their business and personal lives separate. But he'd felt so damned
good…

And it hadn't just been the sex. When he'd called her on the phone, she'd felt as if they were truly getting to know each other. If it hadn't been for the Marion & Co. nonsense…If it weren't for the fact that he worked for her mother's sworn enemy, a big conglomerate that was huge and soulless and the same as all the other corporations Sophie had ever worked for…

If only. Sophie huffed, mocking herself mentally. Her life was plagued with vague potentials, bright “what-might-have-beens,” and some harsh realities.

Lydia walked in, carrying some cardboard boxes and plastic containers in a small basket. “Here are those mock-ups,” she said, tossing the basket on the coffee table next to Sophie's laptop. She sounded snarky, too. Apparently there was something in the water.

Sophie picked up the first box. “I thought we decided on royal-purple, midnight-blue, with silver lettering. Why is this gold?”

Lydia made a face. “Silver is too old. Gold looks better—classier.”

“Screen goddesses, remember?” Sophie said. “Silver screen.”

“Silver hair,” Lydia countered. “Damn it, why don't you let me do what I do? I'm the designer. You're not.”

Sophie bit her lip. Why was everyone snapping at her lately? “What the hell is your problem, Lydia?” she asked in a quiet voice. “Because I'm really close to the edge, and I don't need this right now.”

“None of us needs it,” Lydia snapped. “You're not the only one under pressure!”

This again. If Lydia kept pushing that point, they wouldn't get anywhere. Sophie couldn't fix the thing with Mark—that was a wash, a devastating disaster that had gone past the point of no return. But she couldn't afford to have her sister hating her, too. Especially not when her sister was also the head graphic designer for their family company and a key part of their future success.

“Come on,” Sophie said, rising from the couch. “We're getting a coffee.”

Lydia looked mutinous for a moment, then nodded. Sophie drove them to the local coffee shop, ordering the two of them some frothy, chocolate-and-caramel latte drinks with plenty of whipped cream. She was gratified to see Lydia smile when she carried the drinks over.

“I figure we could use the rush,” Sophie said, putting Lydia's drink in front of her and settling down at the table. “So why don't you tell me what's wrong? I've never seen you like this. Normally you define unflappable. Lately…”

“I know. Lately, it's been like PMS four weeks a month,” Lydia admitted, using a finger to scoop up some of the whipped cream. “I just wish this wasn't so damned important. I feel like our whole life is on the line every time I go to the office.”

Sophie sighed. “Yeah. I know that one.”

“And it doesn't help that Mom looks at you as the beall, end-all,” Lydia said. “She means well, but she treats me like a flunky, Sophie. It's like I'm not smart enough, or something. I'm barely good enough to be your helper, and I have to take all my cues from you.” Lydia's expression of unhappiness tore at Sophie's heart. “I know you guys might not see it, but I'm a damned fine graphic designer. Even though I haven't been out of school for very long, I could be making a good living if I weren't so committed to helping Mom out.”

“I believe it,” Sophie said.

“But Mom doesn't.” Lydia took a long sip of her coffee. “She thinks I'm merely along for the ride. Do you know how hard it is, to always keep proving yourself—and to always come up short?”

“She doesn't mean it,” Sophie defended. “You know what she's like. She's right-brained. Scientific.”

“Yeah, I do,” Lydia said. “I also know that it's an excuse. But lately, she's gotten so focused on the business and being successful and getting revenge on Trimera, she doesn't take time to notice what it actually
does
to the people around her.”

Sophie grimaced, taking a long sip of her sugary drink to hide her expression of chagrin. Was that what had happened, with her and Mark? Was she so intent on the business side that she'd deliberately chosen to ignore any possibility of a relationship?

Was that what he was so upset about?

“You're getting that way, too,” Lydia pointed out. “I know how hard you've been working on all of this.”

“Thanks,” Sophie said. “It's not easy.”

“Yeah, but you realize you're making it even harder, don't you?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “You're making this a life-or-death struggle. You're making everything much more meaningful and complicated than it needs to be.”

Sophie blinked. “It's not only about the business,” she protested. “It's like you said. I'm committed to the family. I mean, we can't let Mom flounder, can we?”

Lydia looked contemplative. “I'm not saying we leave Mom to fend for herself,” she replied. “But…this is going beyond helping Mom, or being committed to the family company. You're in this for revenge. And you're in this to prove something.”

Sophie didn't know what to say to that.

“I've let Mom down tons,” Lydia said with a wan smile. “So it's not as hard on me. But you've always been perfect. So it's harder on you. It probably never even occurred to you to tell Mom, ‘This is making me crazy. I can only do so much, and at the end of the day, I'll have done the best I can and we'll all have to be okay with that.' Would you say that?”

Sophie winced. “Probably not.”

“I rest my case.” Lydia took a long last sip of her drink, sighing with happiness. “Thanks for this. Not just the sugar and caffeine—although they help—but for talking to me.” She looked at Sophie with some regret. “I was ready to tell Mom, and you, that I was going to walk.”

Sophie cringed. “I'm glad you changed your mind.”

“It takes talking. It's more than getting the work done—it's about building understanding,” Lydia said, more sage than her twenty-eight years would've suggested. “Mom gets so into the science, and you get so into the business, that sometimes you forget what it's really about.”

“Which would be…?” Sophie prompted.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “People,” she answered, as if it were patently obvious. Which, actually, it was, now that Sophie thought about it. “Trimera screwed up by not paying attention to the people portion of the program. They thought it was all numbers. You got it.” She nodded. “Just don't forget that there are other people than clients and customers, okay?”

Sophie nodded, chastised. She thought about Lydia's remark, all the way home.

She and Mark had talked, but it had never been about anything that involved the two of them. They'd covered superficial stuff, their likes and dislikes, their quirks. They'd gone a bit deeper and talked about their dreams. Sophie had always wanted to work for herself, maybe as a marketing consultant. Mark had revealed his past as a model—something that had not surprised her—and then had revealed that he'd always wanted to make it to vice president of marketing. He wanted to show people that he was more than a pretty face.

She'd never made the connection before, that his business goal and their “personal” relationship might intersect. He'd always made sure that she knew that he didn't want her to feel cheap, or used. He cared about her as a person.

She had not taken the same care. She'd gone to him, assumed he'd be reassuring as usual, and then he'd make love to her as he always had. She'd treated him badly—just a pretty face, or a hunky body, a tool. Not a person, with a brain…and more importantly, a heart. He'd then reacted even worse…and then the two of them had stupidly let the whole thing escalate.

She had to apologize to him. She had to make this right.

She walked into her mother's house, with Lydia humming contentedly as she went back to her room/office to work on new mock-ups. Her mother walked in as Sophie was cleaning off the coffee table. “You're not leaving, are you?” her mother asked, aghast.

Sophie frowned, her hands full of papers. “Well, yeah,” she said slowly. “I thought I'd do some more work from my apartment.”

And call Mark,
she added mentally. Once she figured out what she was going to say, and how she'd apologize.

“But…we still have a ton of things to do!”

“Which I can still do from my place, Mom.”

“No,” her mother said, getting that stubborn tilt to her head that Sophie knew—and also knew she couldn't fight against. “I'm finishing the last of the eye-shadow color palettes tonight, and Lydia will have the packaging ready. I want to see what you've come up with for the presentation, with all this stuff put in.”

“Mom, the presentation's two weeks away,” Sophie protested.

“They're going to come at us hard,” her mother said, and despite the coldness of her tone, Sophie reacted to the fear in her mother's eyes. “You said that yourself. I can't afford to lose this, Sophie!”

Sophie winced. This wasn't just about the vendetta, as Lydia had said. This really was her mother's future.

“All right, Mom,” she said. “I'll stay here, we'll go over what I've got tonight, and then I'll work more from home tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” her mother said, grudgingly. “You know, it's better to do some things face-to-face. It'll calm my mind.”

“Okay.” She watched as her mother retreated to her garage lab, and then started putting the papers back on the coffee table, intent on finishing the rough presentation in time to show her mother and sister that evening. Her mother just needed some hand-holding. At least she was letting Sophie and Lydia go on their own to San Francisco, to make the presentation. It did show a level of trust, which Sophie appreciated.

She thought about Mark again. She needed to show
him
a level of trust, she realized. And a phone call might not get it done. Knowing him, he probably wouldn't even answer his phone. He was probably neck-deep in battle strategy, thinking of ways to drive her, and Diva Nation, into the ground.

She couldn't blame him, and she wasn't about to stop working hard. But she was still apologizing and would patch things up. It had never been just business between them sex, either. It was something more. Hopefully, when all of this was over, they'd be able to see exactly what that “something more” was.

In the meantime, she'd wait until San Francisco. And then she'd make her move. As her mother often said, some things were better face-to-face.

A
NOTHER WEEK
,
ANOTHER
hotel room, Mark thought. At least this one was nice, with a view overlooking San Francisco's Bay Bridge. Marion & Co. had booked it for him, and Abigail Marion definitely had champagne tastes. The room itself was large for one person, with a California king-size bed, a cherry desk with a large work surface, modem port and fax, a flat-screened television and vaulted ceilings. The decor itself was sumptuous, all in shades of dark blue and teal with green accents. Even the minifridge had splits of Cristal and small bottles of Courvoisier. It was very, very luxurious.

Too bad I'm not in any shape to enjoy it.

Mark had come in a day early. Simone was arriving in tomorrow, ostensibly to give moral support—which, loosely interpreted, meant making sure he didn't screw up. He'd been working on the damned presentation eighteen hours a day for the past three weeks. He'd worked while eating. He'd damned near worked while showering. He dreamed about this presentation.