Turnabout's Fair Play (13 page)

With a jumping fade-away shot, Jamie tied the score—and called an end to the game.

“Aw…come on, Boss. You can’t really expect us to work this week.” Ainslee tried to snatch the ball from him.

He hid it behind his back and dodged to keep her from it. “Yes, actually, I do. Remember, there’s always the possibility that Armando will look to hire locally again. Do you really want to leave a bad impression behind?” Ugh. Why did he have to be the mature, responsible one? He desired nothing more than to goof off and ignore all of the paperwork and reports sitting on his desk to do this week.

Ainslee relented and flopped down in her desk chair. “I guess you’re right.”

“Good. Now while I make coffee, since apparently none of you has done it yet because Friday’s leftovers are still sitting in it”—Jamie gave Ainslee a pointed look—“I need a favor from you. I need the contact information for Flannery McNeill at the Lindsley House publishing company here in town.”

“Flannery McNeill? Seriously? Sounds more like the name of an Irish pub or something.”

Her name was a little over-the-top on the Irish heritage. “Yes, seriously.”

Ainslee jotted down the name. “M-a-c-n-e-a-l?”

“Um …” Come to think of it, he’d never seen it written down. “I’m not sure. But there can’t be too many Flannery McNeills working at that publishing company, can there?”

“Phone number, e-mail address, or what?” Ainslee shook her mouse back and forth to wake up her computer.

“Whatever you can find.” Jamie pulled the coffee carafe out and wrinkled his nose at the scummy residue ring left on the inside of the pot as the several-days-old coffee sloshed around.

Darrell perched on the corner of Ainslee’s desk. “Boss, please tell me that this Flannery McNeill is some hot chick you met this weekend and you’re trying to track her down to ask her out. I know. I heard your whole thing about wanting to leave a good impression behind.” Darrell made a derisive raspberry sound. “But you can’t seriously be starting a project you’re just going to have to turn over so the Memphis office can take the credit for all your hard work.”

Jamie couldn’t lie to his teammates—but this thing with Cole Samuels…he could parlay it into at least part-time freelance marketing work, if not something even bigger. He couldn’t let anyone here get wind of it.

So he’d tell Darrell what Darrell wanted to hear. “She’s about five nine, long blond hair, hazel eyes. And when I saw her Saturday night, she was wearing a black dress that would have rendered even you speechless, D.” And speechless would have been much better than yammering like a dork.

“I
knew
it.” Darrell held out his fist, and Jamie bumped it with his as he went past, carrying the coffeepot and filter basket to wash in the break room at the end of the hall.

In the break room, two women rinsing out their coffee cups gave him furtive glances when he bade them good morning, and then they scurried away, not making eye contact with him. Good grief. It wasn’t like getting laid off was contagious.

He’d have to come clean with Cole and Flannery Thursday morning—tell them that as of Friday afternoon, he no longer worked for the Gregg Agency and that he wouldn’t have the kind of resources that he had here. He needed to come up with a full proposal of how he could do this freelance for them to look at and decide if they wanted to work with him or not.

He just hoped he hadn’t sealed his fate with Flannery with the whole Dracula thing. If only life had a D
ELETE
button.

“I’m still not talking to you, Mr. Colby.” Flannery flickered a glance toward the door.

Jack leaned against the jamb, his tie loose, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. He held two white paper coffee cups in his hands. “I brought you something.”

She leaned back in her chair and tapped the end of her pen against her chin. Why couldn’t she have romantic feelings for Jack…which were reciprocated? She and Jack would be perfect together, the whole no-romantic-feelings thing notwithstanding. Maybe if the two of them could come to an understanding—a relationship based on their friendship and mutual respect for one another—she could stop worrying about relationships and love and marriage changing people.

She sighed. “Fine. Come in.”

He set one of the large cups on the desk blotter and then settled into one of the chairs across from her desk—the one not stacked to teetering height with manuscripts and bound-book samples from different printing companies.

“What’s all this?” He leaned forward and flipped through a stack of paper on her desk.

“Cover design options for my spring titles for the catalog meeting this afternoon. I was working on finalizing my frontlist release dates when you interrupted.”

“I brought you coffee. Consider it a peace offering.” Jack leaned back in the chair, slouching down a little, and lifted his cup to his lips. He sipped, frowned, and then pulled a ballpoint pen out of the Lindsley House–logoed cup on her desk and used it to make the vent hole in the plastic lid a little larger.

Flannery sighed again, uncrossed her arms, and picked up the coffee to taste it. She wrinkled her nose and opened her top desk drawer. Three packs of sugar should do it; though if Jack weren’t here, she’d probably have added five.

Jack made a gagging sound as she sweetened the already semisweetened, french-vanilla flavored latte. She shot him a dirty look through narrowed eyes.

“Sorry.” Though he didn’t sound it. “You know I just have your best interests at heart, right?”

She snapped the lid back on her cup and tasted the latte. Yep, could have used two more packets. She’d wait until he left. “About adding what you think is too much sugar to my coffee or about something else?”

“How long have we worked together?” Jack looked totally unfazed by her snarky tone. One thing that annoyed—and pleased—her about Jack was the way he didn’t give in to her moods.

She did a quick mental calculation. “Twelve years, if you don’t count the two summer internships I did before I graduated from college.” Jack had been the senior editor of one of Lindsley House’s imprints back then and had hired Flannery as his editorial assistant. She owed him her career, as he’d mentored her and taught her everything he knew about the publishing industry, leading to her promotion to an assistant editor position eleven months later. “Why do you ask?”

“Flan, you know that I’m not close with my family—that it’s all my brothers and I can do to be in the same room together without the police or paramedics being called after ten minutes.”

She nodded and absently sipped the not-quite-sweet-enough coffee.

“You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a sister, and I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I appreciate you and care for you.” Though he didn’t quite smile, his dimples appeared. “That’s the only reason I give you such a hard time. Because I want to see you happy. And ever since Zarah and Caylor got engaged, I can see that you’re not happy.”

“Jack—”

“I know, I know, it isn’t appropriate for us to talk about these kinds of personal issues at the office. But I felt really bad the whole rest of the weekend for giving you a hard time at the reception and teasing you about Jamie O’Connor. Forgive me?” Jack ducked his chin and stuck out his bottom lip like a five-year-old.

Flannery tried to stop herself from laughing but couldn’t. “‘You know I love you more than my luggage,’” she quoted from
Steel Magnolias
, trying to further diffuse the emotional tension in the room.

“And considering how much you travel”—he winked at her—“I know
just
how much that means.” Reaching across the desk, he picked up her hand and leaned forward to kiss the back of it. He settled back in the chair again. “Now, let’s discuss next year’s spring frontlist.”

Flannery went over the list of new titles already in the works for next spring, letting Jack make a few marketing and prerelease advertising suggestions just so he felt like he was once again in the editorial trenches instead of an administrator who got to focus only on the business end of things now.

Her desk phone rang a couple of times, but she let the calls roll over into voice mail when she didn’t recognize the incoming numbers. She and Jack had just about wrapped up when Brittany Wilmette knocked on the almost-closed door.

“Come in, Britt. We were just finishing up.” Flannery restacked her fact sheets for each of the spring titles and stuck them back in the folder to take to the meeting. “Oh, Jack, don’t forget, I’m working from home Thursday morning because I’m flying out to Chicago that afternoon.”

“Why are you going to Chicago?” Jack paused just inside the now-open door.

“Well, firstly because you asked me to do a few onsite visits with the printers up there. I also scheduled some meetings with a few of my authors in the area. And then I’ll be taking appointments at that writers’ conference next week.”

Jack scowled. “So how long are you going to be gone?”

“I’m here today and tomorrow, and then I’ll be out until a week from Monday.”

Jack pulled out his smartphone and started tapping on the miniature keyboard. “I’m sure Mae already has it in my calendar, but I’ll make a note of it. Just keep your phone turned on at all times.”

Flannery almost snorted. “When do I not?”

He inclined his head to Flannery’s assistant. “Brittany.”

“Mr. Colby.” Brittany stepped back from the doorway to let Jack get past her. He whistled as he walked away, still playing with his phone.

Flannery waved her assistant into the office. “You know you don’t have to call him that.”

“I know.” Only a few weeks past her college graduation, the twenty-two-year-old still let her nerves get the better of her sometimes, even though she’d interned here the last two summers—just like Flannery had done.

“What’s up?” Flannery reached in her drawer for the two packs of sugar her coffee still needed.

Britt handed over a slip of paper. “Some guy named Jamie called. He said he’d left you a voice mail about twenty minutes ago but wanted to make sure you got the message as soon as possible, so he zeroed out and got me.”

Flannery wanted to crumple the note but refrained and finished doctoring her coffee. “Thanks, Britt.” She handed the folder of fact sheets to the girl. “Will you please make ten sets of these for the meeting this afternoon?”

“Sure.” Brittany took the folder back out to her desk.

Flannery stood and pushed the door almost closed again. Back at her desk, she picked up the receiver and dialed the number written on Brittany’s note. It rang three times.

“You’ve reached the office of Jamie O’Connor, senior sports marketing account executive with the Gregg Agency. I’m either on the other line or away from my desk at the moment, so please leave me a detailed message, including your name and phone number, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you need immediate attention, please press zero and ask for Ainslee Urbanik.”

He could read a script pretty well. Before the beep, Flannery hit zero. The line clicked a couple of times and then rang once.

“Sports Marketing, this is Ainslee.”

“Hi, Ainslee. This is Flannery McNeill from Lindsley House Publishing. I’m returning Jamie O’Connor’s phone call, and he made it sound urgent.”

“Oh, hold on a sec…. Yeah, he’s on the other line right now. Do you mind holding? I’m sure it won’t be long.”

“Sure, I’ll hold.”

“May I tell him what the call is regarding?”

If it would make him get off the phone any faster so they could get this over and done with sooner? Sure. “I believe it’s about a meeting he’s setting up for us with Cole Samuels to discuss a marketing plan for Mr. Samuels’s books.”

“Oh.”

Flannery couldn’t be certain, not seeing the woman’s face, but her voice sounded as if this surprised her.

“Okay, let me put you on hold, and I’ll go stick a note under his nose to expedite things.”

“Thanks.” Flannery pulled the receiver away from her ear when the on-hold recording came on in the middle of a spiel for how successful the Gregg Agency’s clients were because of what the agency had done for them.

“Flannery?” Jamie’s voice interrupted the stream of ads.

“Yes. Were you able to get a meeting set with Cole?” She pulled up the calendar on her computer. Of course, every block of time today and tomorrow was accounted for already—between meetings, phone calls, and time scheduled to work on stuff in her office.

“Thursday morning at ten o’clock.”

Of course. “That’s not the best for me. What about two o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” She could get out of the strategic planning meeting that way.

“Sorry, but Thursday morning is the only time he could meet.”

“Great.”

“What?”

“Nothing—I just have to catch a plane to Chicago at one o’clock that afternoon.” And she was supposed to be working from home that morning—which meant in shorts and a tank top on the balcony in the sunshine. So much for that idea.

“Oh. That won’t give us a lot of time, will it?”

“No, it won’t.” She sighed. “Look, why don’t I come over at nine o’clock so that you and I can go ahead and hash some ideas out before Cole gets there.”