someone to replace her if her attitude got out of hand.
Was that a fair assessment of the situation?
As he tapped his pencil on her file, he mulled over the fact that she had avoided their first sit-down appointment. Did she consider that a point for her side? Would she believe she had racked up another point for failing to give him any of the information he had been seeking, or meeting his demands on that Christmas clause head-on?
Was she the type to keep score?
Chaz rubbed the back of his neck where the darn prickle of interest just wouldn’t ease up. Buttoning the collar of his shirt, he firmed up his resolve to get to the bottom of the McKinley mystery. Wonder Woman would be wrong if she thought him a fool. He was a master at compartmentalizing when he had to. He hadn’t gotten to where he was in business by tossing employees on the carpet according to whim, or dumping their sorry backsides in the street without real cause. He was bigger than that, and he always played fair.
He would meet Kim McKinley tonight and set things straight. He’d give her the benefit of the doubt about adhering to his company plan, and get her onboard, whatever it took to do so.
“Your contract. No question marks. Not up for negotiation.”
He practiced those words aloud, repeated them less forcefully and set his mental agenda.
The bar, in three hours.
They’d have a friendly chat and get to the specifics of the deal. McKinley might turn out to be a good ally.
As for the bedroom dreams...
He let out a bark of self-deprecating laughter over the time he was spending on this one issue, a sure sign that truly, and admittedly, he hadn’t been prepared for the likes of this woman.
He really would have to be more cautious in the future, because, man-oh-man, what he needed right that minute, in Kim McKinley’s saucy Southern wake, and in preparation for meeting her again was...
...a very long, very cold shower.
* * *
Kim tumbled into her chair and laid her head down on her desk. She turned just far enough to eye the golden plaque perched next to her pencil sharpener that had been a gift from her friend Brenda.
Kim McKinley, VP of Advertising.
“Some joke.” She backhanded the plaque, sending it sailing. Who had she been kidding, anyway? Vice president? A twenty-four-year-old woman?
There would be no big office with floor-to-ceiling windows in her immediate future. No maple shelving for potted plants, and no opportunity to implement her plans and ideas for the company. So didn’t she feel exactly like that jettisoned plaque—shot into space, only to land with a dismal thud right back in her own six-by-six cubicle?
Could the moisture welling up in her eyes be tears? As in about to cry tears?
Unacceptable.
Twenty-four-year-old professionals didn’t blubber away when they were royally disappointed, or when they were overlooked and underappreciated at the office.
No tears. No way. No how.
She was mad, that’s all, with no way to express how sad she was going to be if she had to leave this building and everything she had built here in the past five years.
“Why does everyone want to push me about the damn contract?” she grumbled, figuring that Brenda, in the next cubicle, would be listening. “Haven’t I worked extremely hard on every other blasted campaign all year long? I’ve all but slept in this cubicle. I keep clothes in my desk drawers. Would it be fair to dock me over one single previously negotiated item?”
Inhaling damp desk blotter and the odor of evergreen that now pervaded the building, Kim reviewed the proverbial question on the table.
Was there another person on earth who could say that Christmas had been their downfall?
Plunking her head again on the desk, she muttered a weak “ouch.” Rustling up some anger didn’t seem to be working at the moment. It was obvious that she needed more work on self-defense.
“You okay?” a voice queried from somewhere behind her. “I heard a squeak.”
Kim blinked.
“Kim? Are you, or are you not okay?”
“Nope. Not okay.” She didn’t bother to sit up.
“Are you in need of medical attention?”
Moving her mouth with difficulty because it was stuck to some paper, Kim said, “Intravenous Success Serum would be helpful. Got any?”
“No, but I’ve got something even better.”
“Valium? Hemlock? A place with cheap rent?”
“An invitation to have drinks with the new boss tonight in the bar just arrived by email.”
Kim muffled a scream. What had Brenda just said? They were both to have drinks with Monroe? The bastard had invited a crowd to witness her third degree and possible dismissal?
“Now’s not a good time, Bren,” she said. Having a coworker for her best friend sometimes had its drawbacks. Like their close proximity when she wanted to pout by herself.
“I think now would be a good time, actually,” Brenda countered. “We can find out what the new guy is like, en masse.”
“I’ll tell you what he’s like in one word. Brutus!”
Brenda stuck her head over the partition separating their cubicles. “I’m guessing your meeting didn’t go well?”
Kim pried her cheek from the desk, narrowed her eyes and turned to face Brenda.
“So not afraid of that look,” Brenda said.
“That’s the problem. Neither was he.”
“Yes, well, didn’t you just know that the damn Christmas clause was going to jump up and bite you again someday? I mean how could they understand when they don’t know....”
Kim held up a hand that suggested if Brenda said one more word along those lines, she might regret it.
“I’ve probably just lost my dream job, Bren. For all intents and purposes, this agency considers me an ancestor of old mister Scrooge. And by the way, aren’t best friends supposed to offer sympathy in times of crisis, without lengthy lectures tacked on?”
Not much taller than the five foot partition in her bare feet, Brenda, who went shoeless in her space, was barely visible. All that showed was a perfectly straight center part halving a swath of shiny black hair, and a pair of kohl-lined, almond-shaped eyes. The eyes were shining merrily. There might have been a piece of tinsel entwined in a few ebony strands near Brenda’s forehead.
What Brenda lacked in stature,
