truly closed. Audrey was due in her office for a phone hookup with some interstate colleagues. Not that she minded, at all. Megan had saved her sanity more times than she could count, and Audrey would have been happy to hold her friend’s hand all afternoon.
Still, by two-thirty hunger was gnawing a hole in her belly, and she hobbled to the staff room to collect the tub of emergency yogurt she had stashed in the fridge. She did a little air punch when she saw that a generous colleague had left a bunch of bananas on the table with a note taped to them: Help yourself. Banana and yogurt—practically a three-course meal.
She took a seat before pulling the largest and ripest fruit from the bunch and peeling the top off her yogurt. She’d just eased her shoes off and taken a big bite of banana when a tall, gray-haired man in his late fifties appeared in the doorway. She recognized him instantly as Henry Whitman and nearly choked.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where Gary O’Connor’s office is, please?” The man smiled thinly, his gray eyes flicking over her in efficient assessment before taking a quick inventory of the staff room.
Audrey swallowed a mortified moan. She’d dragged herself out of bed at the horrific hour of four-thirty so she could be in a position to make a good first impression on this man, and instead she got to meet him with bulging cheeks and an enormous half-peeled banana in her hand.
She chewed like crazy and tried to force the lump of banana down her suddenly tight throat. The silence seemed to stretch as he waited for her answer, eyebrows slightly raised. She was on the verge of attempting to mime directions to Gary’s office when the banana finally slid down her throat.
Thank. God.
Eyes watering, she summoned what she hoped was a gracious, professional smile. “Sorry about that.” Her voice sounded funny. As though she’d choked down a chunk of banana, in fact. “Gary’s office is the first on your left around the corner. The one with the Father Christmas suit hanging from the coatrack.”
“Father Christmas. Right. Thank you.”
She started to introduce herself, but he was already turning away. A heartbeat later, he was gone.
Audrey swore under her breath and groped under the table with her feet, searching for her shoes. Had he noticed that her feet were bare? God, she hoped not. She so did not want her new boss’s first impression to be of her barefoot and chipmunk-cheeked, holding the world’s most phallic food.
She was sliding her right foot into its shoe when Zach cruised into the room, coffee mug in hand.
“Mathews.” He gave her a casual salute.
She stood. She wasn’t in the mood for his mocking smiles right now. She’d just crashed and burned, big time. Despite her careful plotting and planning, her scary, intimidating new boss now thought she was about as dynamic as a cud-chewing Jersey cow.
“You know, something’s been bugging me, Mathews.” Zach leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, his tone serious but his eyes laughing. “We were the only people here this morning—so where exactly were you headed so urgently with all those important papers?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Not the world’s wittiest comeback, but it was the best she could do at short notice.
“That was the point of me asking, actually.”
She wasn’t sure what devil prompted her next words. Maybe it was the way Zach was laughing at her, or maybe it was because she was disconcertingly aware of the fact that his crossed-arm posture accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles in his biceps.
“So, what do you think of Whitman?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.” Zach’s eyes narrowed. “Why, have you?”
“We had a little chat.”
Very little, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Yeah? What about?”
“This and that. Christmas, that kind of thing.” She waved a hand to suggest a broader conversation.
“What was your impression?”
She thought to the moment when she’d looked into Whitman’s cold, steely eyes.
“Surprisingly approachable, actually.”
Zach would find out soon enough that their new CEO was a cyborg, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep him off-balance in the short term.
“Good to hear,” Zach said. “Makes the range review presentations a little less daunting.”
She’d been turning to leave, wanting to exit on a high, but his words brought her up short.
“The range reviews? What’s he got to do with the range reviews?”
Regularly reviewing and assessing the performance of the products within the various departments under her purview was an integral part of her—and Zach’s—role.
“He’s sitting in on them. Didn’t you hear?”
She blinked rapidly, trying to get her head around his announcement. The range reviews were tomorrow. She’d assumed she’d be presenting to the merchandising manager, Gary, as usual, as well as the panel of store owners who sat on the catalog committee. Since Makers was a cooperative, its 645 member stores liked to have a say in what was stocked and how it was promoted, and the representative store owners on the committee spoke on their behalf. They could be a force to be reckoned with at times, but she was used to dealing with them.
Henry Whitman was a whole other story, though.
“When did you find this out?” Her voice was high with surprise.
“Last week sometime.”
Which meant he’d had days to make his presentation as kick-ass as possible, while she had—she checked her watch—less than twenty-four hours.
Aware of Zach watching her, she forced herself to shrug as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “Should make it a bit more interesting than usual.”
“Absolutely.” He grinned, the epitome of cocky arrogance.
She forced her mouth into what she hoped was an equally confident smile and headed for the door, making an effort not to hobble in her too-tight shoes or show by the flicker of an eyelid that she was battling a panicky wash of adrenaline. Showing any weakness in front of this man was the equivalent of a limping gazelle bathing in gravy and handing out paper plates and serviettes to the waiting lions. She wasn’t about to make it easy for him.
In her office, she dialed her boss.
“Gary, what’s this I’m hearing about Henry Whitman sitting in on our range reviews tomorrow?”
“Oh, yeah. I meant to let you know. He wants to get a feel for our systems, see people in action.”
“Right.” She bit the single word out. Gary was a good guy, but sometimes he forgot to pass on things and this was a classic example.
“Relax, Audrey. You’ll do fine.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She tossed the phone onto her desk and called up the range review file. She’d opted to rationalize the portable heating range and had arranged her points neatly in a slide show presentation, complete with product specifications, images and pricing. It was fine, perfectly adequate, but there were no bells or whistles or extras. She knew without a doubt that Zach’s would have all of the above, and more.
“Crap.”
You can do this. You’ve got all night to make this better. Take a deep breath and think.
She stared at her computer screen, but instead of neat bullet points, she saw her bank statement. She’d stretched herself so she could buy the small one-bedroom apartment she called home. She had car payments to meet, too. If she failed to