So there!
She hit some buttons, pulled some levers, and half expected a gum drop to fall out of the chute. Instead, it was a marred piece of purple paper. She gave a couple more tries, almost figured it out, and then decided she might as well give it a try. Sean would have to forgive her.
Plus, she had it all in soft copy—she’d just hand him the flash drive if this all went pear-shaped.
After an hour and a lot of ruined, expensive paper, she had her first binding done and it looked really good! Totally better than binders! The second binding looked even better, and the third had her owning that machine with a smirk that the art department could draw then frame.
Suck it!
She worked late into that night, trying to get everything done and looking good. It wasn’t just about the material, it was about presentation. She wanted to wow everyone. She wanted them to realize that she deserved a spot on the team, and even though she didn’t have much experience, she learned fast.
She hoped that’s what she would portray anyway. Otherwise she would hand in a pile of useless, expensive garbage that was overkill in the wrong way.
That would really, really ruin her day.
As she made her way out of the dark art department, she noticed a light on from the dark hub. It looked like Marcus was cramming for the meeting tomorrow. At least she wasn’t alone.
Chapter Fourteen
It was Friday morning and a horrid thought struck Krista as she swung her bag under her desk. What if Sean expected me to be through all my steps by now?
In a panic, she called Marcus.
“Geek girl! All set for the big meeting? I hear even Monica is going to be at this one.”
The loudest sound in the quiet office was her gulping. “That’s what I wanted to ask you about. How far along are you on your list from Sean?”
“Geek girl, are you stressed out? You sound stressed out. Just relax, honey.” He drew out “relax” like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
“I know, but it’s just that… what if I misunderstood something? And I only got through step two on the list. I mean, we’ve had a month, so I probably should be further along, you know?”
“I think most everyone else is still on the first couple as well, so you have nothing to worry about. We are just doing preliminary stuff. Hell, we don’t even have the account yet. None of this matters yet. Relax.” Again with the caterpillar.
She forgot about the account part. That was certainly true. She let her muscles ease a fraction.
“Let’s go for a drink, calm you down,” Marcus suggested.
“No way. I need a clear head for all this stuff. Art people think better buzzed, not math people. After maybe.”
“It’s a date. See you at the meeting.”
Click.
Krista took the piece of black plastic away from her ear and looked at it like it was a piece of abstract art.
Did I just agree to meet up with him?
She had. She had just agreed to meet for drinks with the biggest gossip in the company. Granted, he wasn’t a vindictive A-hole like Cindy, but still, he seemed to know everything about everyone. If he was trying to glean information, drinks were a sure way to do so.
Although, if she made friends with him he might help her sabotage Cindy.
Hmmm, that has possibilities.
She would have to disappoint the girls. No way did she want work and personal life merging yet, if ever.
She spent the next few hours making sure she knew every inch of her material. If there were questions, she needed to be ready with a viable and, most importantly, correct answer. Guessing on her own information would make her look dopey.
When she was ready she stacked all her bound information together and headed to Conference Room B. It was time to meet her doom.
As she walked through the door she saw Judy, the Art Manager, first since she was sitting in the middle of the long, oblong table. Ray was on the other side on the left. Krista was the third person to walk in.
Deciding that the Marketing department was too close to the Art department in tasks, and she’d had just about enough of Art department people, she sat on the other side of Ray. He had always made her comfortable, except when he was looking at her worriedly, and after hearing Sean talk about him she had a new respect for him. Plus, he wasn’t from the Art department. Enough said.
She put her materials off to the side, away from the rest of the table, in a thick pile. It was a sizable stack. Nearly an entire rainforest went into making the thing. The amount of rivers that got polluted just to make the pages eggshell white was probably suicide-inspiring for Green people. All Krista knew was that she was left to her own devices, and her stuff looked good. She’d deal with earth karma when the time came.
Next in: none other than the relaxed, and currently strolling, Marcus. He might have stayed late, but if he was nervous about last minute jobs, he didn’t show it. All he carried was a few pieces of paper. He was the idea guy, though, so Krista wasn’t alarmed she’d gone way overboard. Not yet.
He scanned the room when he walked in, winked at Ray and gave Krista a smile as he settled next to Judy. It made her feel marginally better…until she saw Sean approach.
In a fog of sudden fear she wouldn’t live up to his expectations, she watched his graceful walk bring him through the glass doors, his large shoulders swaying opposite his purposeful stride. He was wearing a crisp white shirt with the outline of a wife-beater underneath. His dirty blond hair was in a styled messy look that completely set off his strong jaw. He was in a pair of tan Dockers that showed off his shapely thighs.
It had been a month. One month. How the hell had she forgotten how oh-my-God hot this guy was? How was that possible? How did the bastard look so good?
Just…what the hell? What had she done to God that He had to punish her with eye-candy this hot that she couldn’t touch? And why the hell was God so good at holding a grudge?
As he neared the table he glanced around the room and met Krista’s eyes. It was like a candle left unattended in the Art department. Her body ignited fast and hot, tingling heat through her nerves and limbs, spreading from end-to-end as if the paper was sprinkled with gasoline. Her face flushed and her pupils dilated. She wanted to look away but couldn’t.
She also wanted to scale the table and take a running leap onto his body.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Sean said as he pulled his eyes away from Krista and gave everyone else a scan.
Krista noticed the slight red hue in Sean’s cheeks two seconds before she could see Ray looking at her out of the corner of her eye. It was a quiet glance, but he was trying to read her, and disconcerting her in the process. She sobered immediately.
Krista reeled in her urges as if they were fishing line, strapped on her chastity belt, and finally noticed that Sean had not walked in alone. Not at all. He’d come in, arm brushing arm, with Monica.
Well, if that doesn’t ruin my mood...
Jealousy reared its ugly head, before she turned away and focused on her material. Sean was off-limits, and Monica was welcome to him. Krista did not need boy-drama at work. In fact, she didn’t need boy-drama ever again.
She just wished her body would be in line with her brain on that one!
Sean sat across from Ray. Monica sat next to Sean, angled toward Marcus and Judy, trying to put her back to Krista. Krista was, again, the furthest away from everyone else at the table.
“Thanks for joining us,” Sean started, looking to Ray. “We have some great things in the works.” Ray slid him a leather portfolio, which Sean opened and scanned. It must have had the notes for the meeting.
“First, does everyone remember the team members?” Sean looked around the table, avoiding Krista’s eyes.
“Who is the…ah, Research girl again?” Monica asked in a loud, clear voice. She looked at Krista with a composed face. This call out was girl code for, “I know you, but you aren’t important enough to care about.”
Krista glanced at Marcus, who rolled his eyes and smiled while leaning back and crossing one leg over the other.
“For those who don’t remember our first meeting, when she was a participant,” Sean said, apparently having missed the obvious scorn she’d used, “Krista is handling our research for this project. We haven’t had a chance to see what she’s been able to uncover for us, but I have all the faith she has found some great things. We’ll check into that a little later.”
Fear spread its ugly claws through Krista’s body and started raking across her midsection. She hated this suspense—especially when it really mattered. It was like the time when she had to get a B average in a course just to advance to the next course. There were huge stakes, not to mention money, invested, and she struggled the whole time.
Granted, she’d gotten the highest grade in the class, but that was school. This was work. Work didn’t have an outline and sample tests.
“First let’s talk to Monica,” Sean was saying. “We don’t want to take up too much of her valuable time.” Sean turned his eyes to her, the shade of green so vibrant and pure Krista was sure she’d never seen a pair as stunning. He had a flirty smile playing around those full, luscious lips.
Monica laughed a flirty laugh and looked around the room, avoiding Krista and Ray. “The time spent is worth it.” She gave a quick glance to Sean. Wasn’t hard to catch that double meaning. “We are getting our first chance to mingle with our hopeful client. It will be a fundraiser. I am organizing a dinner party held at a prominent winery in Napa. It will be fancy, though not black tie, and feature food and wine. There will be ample time to mingle so our star salesman has a chance to meet and impress some of the representatives of our target company.”
Krista rolled her eyes at the obvious flattery.
“I’ve been working with Monica on the details, and this party is shaping up to be a stately affair,” Sean said as he looked intently at Monica. Her eyes twinkled and she tried a pretty giggle that didn’t work to her benefit. “Remember, it is a fundraiser, so our executives will be there to represent our company. My team, however, will be there, also. Getting in with the client is goal number one.”
Everyone nodded mutely.
“Ray,” Sean went on, “you are in charge of transportation. We won’t be inviting dates in order to leave ourselves completely open. If someone asks why you didn’t bring someone, make up something reasonable. I don’t care what.
“You’ll be sporadically placed in tables. The seating is assigned at the event, so I’ll go over with each of you who your target is. You are to engage them, but stay friendly and distant. You’ll make an impression, but you will leave it at that. We don’t want to push our luck. We want to stay completely under the radar here.”
Krista couldn’t help but thinking it all sounded like some top-secret mission. Well, it sounded ridiculous was how it sounded. But whatever, Krista was research, they wouldn’t put her with anyone of note, so she could just enjoy the free food and wine. She’d never been to Napa, any reason was a good one as far as she was concerned.
Sean talked longer about things they might bring up, things to shy away from, and on and on. Krista looked at him because he was speaking and he was gorgeous, but she didn’t hear much of the sermon.
I wonder if Ben plans to eat that cream puff? I’m hungry.
Krista belatedly noticed Sean had stopped talking. She realized this because he spared her a glance that begged to know why she was staring at him.
She jumped like a hot poker stabbed her and looked around. Monica was up and talking about decorations or something with Marcus. Ray was talking to a distracted Sean about a limo. Judy was going over some note, probably thinking about her end of the needed material.
Krista nearly stood up, wondering if this was the end of the meeting. It would be prolonging the torture if it was, but avoiding the judgment, too. It was hard to say which was worse.
Monica gave Sean a scorching look across the office, before she said good-bye to everyone but Krista and Ray, and made her way out of the office.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one ignored anymore,” Krista muttered to herself.
She heard Ray, who had regained his seat, snort.
“Alright everyone, let’s move on,” Sean said in a voice that carried across the room. It wasn’t hard, the room was small, but Krista had a feeling that was his theater voice.
She smirked.
He’d unfortunately chosen that moment to glance at her, and seeing her expression, did a double-take. It took him two seconds to place what she thought was funny, then he turned crimson for the second time that afternoon.
“Okay, let’s go over where we are. As you know, the client we have is happy with the art mock-ups, and is going ahead with that. Judy has handled that side of things marvelously.
“As far as we know, their company has been approached with a buy-out, but details are still being worked out. It is looking good, though, so that means the work we do now will set us up effectively. If we do a thorough enough job now, it will greatly minimize the work to come. It will also put us in position for immediate campaign ideas. To that end, I would like to benchmark where we all are now, and provide notes. Then we’ll talk about the next steps. Judy, why don’t you lead us off?”
Judy passed around printed images of art featuring jewelry and sapphires. As they reached Krista, she had the distinct feeling of déjà vu. While these pictures weren’t in her material, she was sure she’d seen them before. It took her a second to realize it had been from Marcus’s desk, which meant either Judy had furnished these to him, or they’d come from the same company catalog of art and marketing information.
As Judy talked about the various pictures and what she was going for, Krista noticed Sean glancing at her. He was obviously wondering where these had come from. He was looking at her because it had been one of the items she had yet to get to!