“I believe this is yours, Miss. Harris,” he said, sounding close to laughing.
Jamie grabbed the tampon and shoved it back into her bag as she quickly got to her feet all while avoiding his gaze. When he tried to help her up she took a step back.
“T-this isn’t the women’s room, is it?” she asked, knowing someone up there was having a heck of a time with her today.
“No, no it’s not,” that deep smooth voice that wreaked havoc on her heart said.
She nodded. “Of course it’s not,” she muttered to herself. Really what else could she expect?
Still avoiding his eyes she said, “Well, ah,” she cleared her throat, “it’s ah, very nice. Spacious, clean and all that.”
He chuckled.
Darn it!
“I’ll ah, I’ll just go see what my desk looks like now. It was nice to see you again, Mr. Quinn.”
“Oh, the pleasure was all mine,” he said in an amused tone.
Another nod and she turned to leave only to have her escape halted.
“Miss. Harris?”
She froze mere inches from freedom. “Yes?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“You have a little something on the back of your skirt.”
Of course she did.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to decide whether she should duck back into one of the stalls or risk further embarrassment by looking for the woman’s room to remove whatever it was when Mr. Quinn took the decision out of her hands for her.
She heard the telltale sound of crinkling paper and gasped. Heat rushed up her neck to her face, leaving her to wonder if she could die from embarrassment.
“Got it,” he said, chuckling.
“Thank you,” she mumbled as she made her mad dash to the bathroom door, wondering what else could go wrong today.
Chapter 2
Nick was still laughing twenty minutes later as he took his seat in the conference room. Who knew hiring the little recluse would make his day? He certainly hadn’t expected this little bonus. She’d certainly made his morning.
Ah, good times……
“What has you in such a good mood?” Beth or Janet or whatever the hell her name was asked as she took the chair next to his.
“Good coffee,” he said, gesturing to his steamy cup of coffee. He wasn’t about to further embarrass the poor recluse. He was an ass**le yes, but a nice ass**le.
The poor thing was going to have a hard enough time here, he could just tell with that shy manner and frumpy clothes. There was no need to add to it. In fact, his plan was to stay away from the poor thing and sit back and watch. Maybe she’d provide him with another good laugh.
“So, Nick, I was wondering what you were doing tonight,” Beth or Janet or was it Marcy? said.
“Washing my hair,” he answered, hoping she’d take the hint and finally move on. For six months she’d been after him and not just for a good reason like hot sweaty sex. No this one had relationship written all over her. She wanted to “change” him.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Even if he didn’t date co-workers or clients he wouldn’t touch this woman with a ten foot pole. She wore too much makeup, too much perfume, ugly ass clothes and was known to plan the perfect wedding ten minutes after some dumb bastard asked her out.
Before she could reply, Rick strolled in, looking pleased as punch with the little recluse following reluctantly after him. Hmm, Rick must have tackled her, because he was pretty sure the woman was going to make a run for it and never come back. Now she was here to keep him entertained.
Excellent.
“Have a seat,” Rick said with a warm smile to the little recluse.
She smiled weakly as she took the chair across from him and looked shyly around, noticeably avoiding him. He took in her thick, too long strawberry blonde hair that was twisted into some horrible knot at the back of her head, her thick framed glasses and ugly baggy suit. Who dressed this woman? As if she sensed his gaze, a deep red blush crept up her neck. He didn’t even bother to bite back a smile.
This was just too good. He liked the idea of a woman leaving him alone and providing him with entertainment. It really didn’t get any better than this.
Rick walked over to the chair at the head of the boardroom table and waited for everyone to sit down and settle in for the meeting.
“Good morning, everyone. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves last night.”
There were several words of agreement before Rick continued. “Everybody did an excellent job. Edward and Dana sent their thanks this morning as well as an insane amount of pastries and muffins. So it would be much appreciated if at some point today all of you would stop by the break room and help us out with some of that food.”
Several people nodded while most of the women murmured about diets and carbs. The only one that was silent was the little recluse who was eying the doorway like it was her new best friend. No doubt she’d make a mad dash for it if she thought she could make it unseen.
“I’ve got more good news. I know we’re still all excited about Dana’s book sales and for good reason. You’ve all worked really hard to help push her books and make it what they are today. I’m hoping we’ll be able to do that with several of the new authors that we’ve recently acquired.”
That caught several people’s attention. A new author, a great author, could mean better pay, new job security and a senior editor position. Nick wasn’t too worried about the promotion since he was already a senior editor, but a great author under his wing could mean more pay and working with only the top authors like Dana Pierce. It meant more perks as well as months in Europe on book tours.
He liked the perks. No, scratch that. He f**king loved the perks.
“Who did we sign?” Jeff, a junior editor asked with a calculating gleam in his eye.
Nick was curious about that. A few weeks ago he knew they were able to sign five of the forty-something clients that were signed with Miss. Harris’ internet company. Out of those five he knew the one he was going to grab. It was the one that he could easily see reaching Dana’s status in five years. J.L. Lewis was going to be his client no matter what. She would be his Dana Pierce. He would take her from her already established e-book fame and set the world on fire. There were several others from her clientele that he wanted, but none of them had the potential J. L.
Lewis had. No, that author was his.
“I have a list here of who we’ve been able to sign and who we’re waiting for.
Miss. Harris,” Rick gestured to the blushing recluse, “was the owner of Harris Publishing House and has been able to convince many of them to take a chance with us and expand into print. Of those who haven’t signed we own their contracts for another book so we have plenty of time to prove that signing with us is in their best interest.”
Several people glanced at Miss. Harris with looks of surprise. The women sent her openly dismissive looks. Not a surprise. Miss. Harris certainly didn’t look like the type who could handle a telemarketer never mind an insanely successful business like Harris Publishing.
“Take one and pass the rest along. Here’s the list of people we’ve signed, contracts we now hold and those holding out,” Rick said as he handed a stack of paper to Jeff who greedily took his. Nick knew the second the younger man saw J.L’s name. His entire face lit up.
Well, tough shit because J.L. was his.
“Rick,” Jeff said, probably trying to grab J.L. before anyone else had a chance to see the list. “Who’s getting who?”
Nick wasn’t too worried. He knew how this would go down. The senior editors would meet. They’d take who they wanted and would leave the rest for the junior editors to fight over. He wasn’t too worried about Rick trying to grab J.L. The man had his hands full with Dana’s new book as well as the new book Dana and Edward just finished together. No, J.L. was as good as his.
“Well,” Rick started. He cleared his throat and pasted a friendly grin on his face. “As part of the agreement between Rerum Publishing and Miss. Harris as well as the clientele’s request, Miss. Harris will continue to oversee their work as our newest senior editor.”
There was a long moment of stunned silence as every set of eyes in the room turned to the squirming woman. Nick felt all his good humor slowly disappear. This was…..this was….. Bullshit!
J.L. was supposed to be his. He had plans. He already put out feelers for promotional events and the response he’d received was astronomical. This was not happening.
He shoved to his feet. “Rick, can I have a word with you?”
Rick sighed, but didn’t look too surprised. The rest of the staff sent him grateful looks. Could they really be that stupid to think that he was upset on their behalf? That was just sad.
“That’s fine. Meeting’s adjourned,” Rick said, grabbing his files and heading for the door. “Miss. Harris?” Rick said to the nervous little recluse who looked like she was about to crawl beneath the table and hide.
“Yes?” she said nervously.
“Why don’t you join us?”
If Rick thought bringing the woman into the meeting was going to keep him on his best behavior then he really didn’t know him at all.
******
This couldn’t be good, Jamie thought as she walked into the large plush office. She followed Rick’s gesture and sat on one of the leather chairs.
“Would you like something to drink?” Rick asked pleasantly.
“No, no thank you.”
No, she wanted to get this over with and retreat to her new office and get to work and forget those hostile looks for a while. She knew from what Rick said that some people would be upset with this agreement, but she hadn’t expected them to become angry like Mr. Quinn obviously was as he paced the office.
“Nick, why don’t you have a seat?” Rick suggested as he sat down across from Jamie.
With a tight nod, Nick took the chair facing both of them. Jamie kept her gaze averted from the man, but knew he was looking, more like glaring at her.
“Look, Rick, this agreement isn’t going to work out,” he announced.
Rick leaned back in his chair, getting more comfortable. “Oh, why not?”
“Well, to be honest she doesn’t have what it takes.”
That surprised her. She’d been doing pretty darn well over the past five years. She started her company from scratch and made a name for not only herself but for her clients as well.
“I would have to argue that,” Rick said, earning her undying gratitude. “She took a bunch of unknown authors and signed them. Under her guidance many of them have outsold printed authors in the same genre. I have no doubt that she’ll be able to do the same here.”
“E-books, Rick. She managed these people by phone and e-mail. She’s never had to deal with promotional issues, venders or a thousand other issues a book in print brings up.”
“She’ll learn.”
It was starting to disturb her that they were talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room, but she kept her mouth shut. She hated confrontation, which could explain the whole ex-almost boyfriend/new brother-in-law thing.
“So, she’s supposed to learn on the job? How is that fair to her clients, our clients now? They’ve signed with us expecting a certain level of professionalism and we’re giving them a trainee? It’s not going to fly. What about J.L. Lewis?” At the mention of that name Jamie cringed. Rick sent her an amused look before giving Nick back his attention.
“J.L. could very well be the next Dana Pierce.” That made her puff up a bit.
She knew J.L. was decent, popular even, but as good as Dana Pierce? That was unexpected.
“If we leave J.L. with a trainee she’ll never go anywhere and we’ll have missed a golden opportunity. Come on, Rick. Don’t do this. It’s not fair to any of the authors or the company.”
“What makes you think she can’t do this?” Rick asked and she had to admit that she wondered the same thing.
“Besides a lack of experience in promoting and handling a book tour, not to mention conventions? Well, I would have to say she’s too shy, quiet, can’t make eye contact, she dresses like a bag lady with jury duty. She needs a haircut and some make-up wouldn’t exactly hurt. Her glasses belong on Erkel. She doesn’t have the killer instinct to get the job done. For Christ sakes’, Rick, she just sitting there meekly while I’m tearing her apart and you think she can handle someone like J.L.
Lewis? She’ll wreck her career in record time.”
Miss. Harris gave him a shocked and hurt look. Damn if he didn’t feel like he just kicked a puppy, but she needed to hear the truth.
“That was uncalled for, Nick,” Rick said, trying to hand Miss. Harris a box of tissues. She shook her head, averting her gaze.
“It was dead on and you know it, Rick. If you want to train her go for it, but don’t leave J.L. in her incapable hands.”
Rick sighed. “I wasn’t going to, but you didn’t exactly give me a chance to discuss it with you.”
“You weren’t?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“No. Some things are going to be changing around here. For you at least.”
Jamie bit her lip to stop herself from protesting. This guy was a…he was….a jerk! Did she really trust him to handle J.L.’s career? No, but she didn’t have a choice anymore.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Quinn demanded.
“What I mean is you will be training Miss. Harris. You will help her get the look she needs as well as the skills.”
“Rick, that’s not-“