Ship of Dreams (Dreams Come True Series Book 2) (20 page)

So much for sportsmanship. Or fatherly affection.

Laura recorded her ace with the pro shop for all posterity and she, Jack, and Nathan headed for the re
staurant and seats on the terrace. The day had grown warm, the sun bright in a perfect, cloudless sky. She removed her light cardigan, enjoying the feel of the sun on her bare arms.

After buying the obligatory round of drinks—hers the martini she’d longed for out on the course—Nathan’s and Jack’s a beer, she closed her eyes and savored the first sip, before looking over the menu.

Nathan sat directly across the table from her, and she could feel his eyes on her. Eyes that had once darkened with desire and longing as she caressed his skin with her hands and mouth.

She gave a mental snort. Nathan thought she and Jack were sleeping together. If only she
could
sleep with someone else, maybe she’d forget Nathan and his spellbinding sex.

He took a pull from his beer and settled back in his chair. “So, how long have you two been, um, dating?”

She slid her gaze to Jack just as he shot her a look. He must have read something in her face because he answered Nathan’s question. “Oh, it’s hard to remember. Right?” He glanced her way again. “We’ve known each other since we were teenagers. Our families go way back.”

“How nice.” Nathan picked up the menu, his expression closed.

But she could just imagine the thoughts running through his brain. Had she and Jack been dating when she’d been on the cruise? Or had she started dating Jack as soon as she returned to sew up her shot at the account?

“But don’t think our relationship”—Jack gestured between the two of them with his beer bottle—“will have any influence on Imperial’s decision on ad agencies. After all, the board members have a vote.”

“I trust your unbiased judgment, Jack,” Nathan said, gazing out at the golf course below. “But you have to admit, it looks bad. If Giddings-Rose gets the account, everyone will say it was a forgone conclusion.”

“Perhaps. But you and I will know it wasn’t.” Jack’s friendly demeanor took a decidedly chilly turn. “I won’t end, or even postpone my relationship with Laura, so this discussion is moot.”

“You do realize I’m sitting here, right?” While Laura appreciated Jack’s defense of her and their . . . relationship, she didn’t like being discussed as if she had no stake in the conversation.

“Of course. Just clearing the air,” Jack said, his friendly tone restored.

They placed their orders with the waiter, and the conversation turned to a recap of the day’s events, with a focus on Laur
a’s ace.

“My dad is going to get such a kick out of your hole-in-one.” Jack shook his head. “As much golf as dad plays, he’s never made one. He’ll be jealous for sure.”

Nathan listened to the conversation with half an ear, more concerned with how to turn the tide in his favor.

He wondered how much influence Milton had over Jackson. To hear him tell it, Jackson relied heavily on him. He also wondered why that was. The reason from Milton’s perspective was clear. He had something to gain. As long as his friend’s business remained successful, he could count on building his ships.

But what did Jackson have to gain? From his meetings with Jackson, he’d found him to be as affable as his son, but with a layer of shrewd businessman underneath all that warmth. Why did he rely on Milton’s advice, and what business acumen could Milton offer that Jackson didn’t already have?

Their food arrived, and as he dug into his BLT, he continued his analysis of the situation.

Jack had said Imperial’s board would vote on the agency, but Nathan wondered how many board members ran in Laura’s social circle. How many were members of this country club, and others that Laura had access to? Then there was her father. Talk about “Old Boys Network.”

Before meeting her father today, he figured Laura was a shoe-in for the account. He builds ships, his best friend buys those ships for his cruise line, and his daughter markets that same cruise line. Seemed a natural progression.

But clearly, there was no love lost between father and daughter. He scrubbed his chin. Took a swallow of his beer. An interesting dynamic, that.

His gaze drifted across the table to Laura, looking cool and reserved in her dark designer sunglasses and hot pink sleeveless polo. She’d had a momentary lapse in that composure when she’d seen her father standing there.

However brief, her body language had said intimidated. An emotion he’d not witnessed in the short time he’d known her. Vulnerability, yes, but intimidation, no. She’d just as quickly regained her equanimity, pulling the bravado mantle tight around her once more. Jack, on the other hand, had shown no intimidation in the face of her father’s rude dismissal of her. In fact, he’d politely come to her rescue.

Jack snagged the pickle from Laura’s plate before winking at her.

And the final nail in his coffin, she was sleeping with Jack.

That they had a history was clear in their mutual comfort level. The questions were what was that history, what was their current relationship, and how would that affect his chances of landing the Imperial account?

Chapter 17

The large glass-enclosed room looked out over the massive indoor dry dock of Great Lakes Shipbuilding where the next member of the Imperial fleet would be constructed. Senior officers of the vast Armstrong empire roamed the room, drinking scotch or champagne, schmoozing the senior officers of Imperial Cruise Lines, including Jackson and Jack Jeffries. Uniformed waitstaff carried trays of canapés and duck-filled turnovers, offering them to guests.

The venerable Milton Armstrong presided over it all like a grand potentate.

He and Hawk were deep in conversation, standing next to the computer graphic of the ship’s exterior.

The train ride from New York’s Penn Station to Philadelphia’s Thirtieth Street Station took a little over an hour, and the whole trip Nathan was trying to figure out why he’d received an invitation to a reception meant to entertain Imperial’s movers and shakers.

But more importantly, he wondered if Laura would be there. Either in her capacity as lead on the account pitch, or as daughter of Milton Armstrong. But he rather doubted she would be there as Milton’s daughter, given their clearly strained relationship.

Even so, if Hawk Media were invited, Giddings-Rose should be invited, too. With no sign of Laura, or anyone from Giddings-Rose, for that matter, his confusion grew. He spotted the ship’s architect that Hawk Media had been consulting with for the pitch.

He’d brought another idea for the campaign to Hawk last week—a video of the shipbuilding process—something to place on the cruise line’s to-be-redesigned website to get the marketing ball rolling. Give potential guests a sneak peek at the latest, greatest ship from the ground, or dry dock, up. Whet the appetite for that exclusive maiden voyage. Hawk liked the idea, and would take it to Milton and Jackson for their approval.

Maybe that was what this was all about.

A stout man with salt-and-pepper hair entered the room, looking as if he’d just come from a back-room deal. He strode over to where Hawk and Milton stood, embracing Hawk with a masculine slap on the back, before shaking Milton’s hand. Hawk waved Nathan over.

“Nathan, I’d like you to meet my father, Senator Mitchell McCutcheon.”

“Senator.” Nathan shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Nathan here will be running the ad campaign for your son,” Milton interjected.

“Well, sir, first we have to land the account.” Nathan laughed, again uncomfortable with Milton’s presumption. “I’m facing off against Mr. Armstrong’s daughter, and I understand I have a worthy opponent.”

Milton muttered a curse. “My daughter,” he scoffed. “Not much competition there, if you ask me.”

“All due respect, sir, your daughter has earned the admiration of every ad agency in the state, and many around the country, and is fast on her way to becoming the youngest person—not just woman—in the history of Giddings-Rose to be named an officer of the agency. I, for one, am not going to discount her abilities.” Nathan didn’t know where that had come from, but he couldn’t stand there and let Milton disparage his daughter. Even if she was a pain in his ass.

When time had permitted, he’d researched some of her work. He needed to know what he was up against, which is what he told himself. But the more he saw of her work, the more impressed he became. And the more his pride in her grew.
Dammit.

In his research, he’d learned the very campaign they discussed their first night at dinner—the perfume campaign featuring Jean Harlow, and the brilliant placement of that ad in
QG
—had been hers. Along with the edgy Fiat advertising campaign that recently shook up the import market. No wonder she had a reputation for smart, innovative marketing strategies.

Oh, yes. She was a worthy opponent.

Hawk and his father moved off to join Jackson and Jack at the artist’s rendering of the ship. Leaning over, Milton placed his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “This account is yours for the taking. Don’t let my upstart daughter get in your way.”

Milton left him pondering that cryptic remark.

“So what’s this news that’s
so big it couldn’t wait? Another bestseller? Another award? What?” Laura asked as soon as she and Darcy were seated at a table in a SoHo restaurant. “Should we order champagne to celebrate?”

Darcy shook her head, mute, but beaming, her smile so wide Laura thought her face might crack.

“What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Stunned, Laura took a moment to answer. “Pregnant! Wow, you two sure work fast. You’ve only been married a couple of months.” How could she feel both elated for her friend, and sick to her stomach at the same time?

Darcy shrugged. “We didn’t want to wait.”

“I’ll say. I bet your parents are fit-to-be-tied.”

“And so is Josh’s mom. She’s thinking of moving here just so she can be close to her grandchild. Josh and I have been checking out real estate in Brooklyn. I have to admit it would be nice having a built in babysitter close by.”

Recovering her composure, Laura said, “I expect to be named godmother.”

“Goes without saying.”

“When will we welcome the little shyster into the world?”

Darcy snorted. “He or she might not be a shyster, er, lawyer. He or she might be a writer like me. Either way, I’ll love the little peanut.” She rubbed her hand over her nonexistent belly. “I’m due in April, right around Josh’s birthday.”

Feeling guilty over her initial selfish reaction, Laura reached across the table, took Darcy’s hand. “I’m happy for you, you know that, right?”

Darcy’s eyes filled. “Yeah.” She squeezed Laura’s hand, swiped at a tear with the other. “Hormones.” She shrugged. “I’m starved.” Picking up the menu, she perused it. “Another byproduct.”

After ordering, Darcy dug into the complimentary hummus and breadsticks. “So, enough about me. What’s new with you? How’s work on the cruise account going?”

“Fine.”

“That didn’t sound convincing. What’s up?”

“Nathan and I had a little run-in last week.”

“A run-in? Do tell.”

“Well, he came to Jack’s fundraising event and things got a little testy.”

“Did you exchange words, what?” Darcy asked, her eyes wide.

Laura told Darcy about the benefit, the golf game, her father. And Jack.

“So Nathan thinks you’re sleeping with Jack.” Darcy sat back, pointed a breadstick at Laura. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“But you told him you weren’t so problem solved.”

Laura hesitated, and Darcy looked up from swirling her breadstick in the hummus. “You told him, right?”

“No.”

“Why not? Why would you want Nathan to think you’d gotten the account by being a slut?”

“First, that’s not what’s going to land me the account,” Laura huffed.

“But that’s what he’s going to think.” She pointed her hummus-covered breadstick at Laura for emphasis. “And who wants that? No one, that’s who.”

“Second, what do I care what he thinks?” Except she did. But she had a feeling that even if she’d said she wasn’t sleeping with Jack, Nathan wouldn’t believe her. He’d made up his mind about what kind of person she was the night he’d read that text message.

Darcy narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to make him jealous?”

“No. Of course not.” She wasn’t
trying
, but if he
was
jealous, so be it.

Digging into her plate of pasta as soon as the waiter set it in front of her, Darcy shoveled a forkful in her mouth.

After swallowing her pesto-covered penne, Darcy continued, “So what do you plan to do about Nathan and Jack?”

“What do you mean? Nothing.” She poked at her salad.

Darcy set her fork down. “You’re still into him, aren’t you?”

“Who? Jack?”

“No, and you know that’s not who I mean.”

“Pfft. Don’t be silly. I think those pregnancy hormones have gone to your brain.”

Darcy eyed her, making her uncomfortable. “Maybe those pregnancy hormones are giving me super powers instead.”

“Something like that.”

“Even if it’s not super powers, I
am
a romance writer you know. I create the moment when the heroine knows she’s in love.”

“Love! Now I know you’ve lost it.”

“Or at the very least, strong like. And that moment is written all over your face.”

Laura carefully molded her features into a mask of stoicism. “What you see is a woman working her ass off †o get the Imperial account and achieve the next step in her Life Plan.”

And then what? a voice asked.

Then she’d be happy, she answered.

Darcy pinned her with a stare. “Remember Samantha in
Her Hearts Desire
?” At Laura’s clearly blank stare, Darcy continued. “She always talked about her sexcapades with her best friend. Until Flynn, you know, the hero.” Darcy waited a beat, her head tilted, reading her like a short story. “You haven’t talked once about your, er, exploits with Nathan. Why is that, do you think?”

“Um, because it’s over?” Laura snarked.