“Either?” he asked. “What do you mean, ‘either’?”
She chuckled. “I mean that I think the feeling is mutual. I’ve never seen two people more enamored of each other, yet putting on such a front. Who are you trying to kid, anyway? She’s knock-dead gorgeous, she’s generous, she’s sweet … and you were in love with her once. My money says you still are.”
“Yeah, well, your money is weak with anemia. It’s not thinking clearly.”
“Not true. I injected it today with that fat check you gave me.” Giggling, she started out of the room. “We’re heading out to eat. Have fun at the reception.”
“Yeah, big fun,” he said without much hope.
He heard them all milling out of the house, the door closing behind them. He checked his watch. He was running forty-five minutes early, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to get there early, hang around in his new studio for a while, and get his ducks all in a row. He had to admit he was a little nervous. He had never done a press conference/reception before, and he sure didn’t want to look like a bumbling fool around Andi.
He looked for his keys, found them in his jeans pocket lying over a chair, and pulled them out. He checked to see if he’d forgotten anything, then stepped out of the side door.
Absent-mindedly, he unlocked the door to his car and started to get in, when he realized that there were three cars in the driveway behind him, blocking him in. They had all left in the fourth.
“Oh, no!” He walked down the driveway to see if he could catch them.
They were already out of his sight.
He raked both hands through his hair and went back inside, grabbed the phone book, and started trying to decide where they might have gone.
Ten phone calls and half an hour later, he had still not found them, and he realized that he wasn’t going to. He tried calling Andi, but she wasn’t in her office.
Finally, he flipped through the yellow pages to the listing of taxi services, and called the first one on the list. The line was busy.
Banging a fist on the table in frustration, he tried to think. Wes. He could call Wes. Maybe he hadn’t left home yet and could give him a ride.
He punched out Wes’s number and fidgeted through three rings. A woman answered.
“Hello?”
“Is Wes there, please?”
“No, I’m sorry. He left a little while ago for the reception tonight.”
“Laney?”
“No, she went with him. I’m his sister, Sherry.”
“Sherry?” Justin laughed. He hadn’t seen her since Wes’s wedding, and it had been years even before that. “Sherry, this is Justin Pierce. How’s it going?”
“Justin!” she shouted. “It’s great to hear your voice!”
He grinned. “Listen, I’ve got a little problem. Are you busy right now?”
“Amy and Clint and I are just hanging around. We’re baby-sitting.”
He knew Amy was Wes’s seven-year-old daughter. “Who’s Clint?”
“Well … Clint’s a very interesting, good-looking man who happens to be crazy about me.”
Justin heard him laughing in the background.
“I’d invite you over to meet him, but aren’t you supposed to be at that reception?”
“Yes. That’s my problem. My car is sort of blocked in. If I pay you a million dollars, Sherry, would you come and pick me up and take me to Promised Land?”
“A million dollars, huh? I suppose you’d want to use a credit card.”
“Yeah. An expired one.”
She chuckled. “All right. Give me directions and we’ll be right over.”
“Can you hurry? I’m late.”
“For a million dollars on an expired credit card, we can be there in five minutes.”
Feeling like an idiot waiting out beside the curb in his tuxedo, Justin began to wonder if God was trying to teach him something. His own father had often told him he was “too big for his britches,” and maybe this was the Lord’s way of saying the same thing. All dressed up with his loaded bank account and a future that looked brighter than it ever had before, and he didn’t even have a ride to the party in his honor.
True to her word, Sherry and Clint and Wes’s beautiful eight-year-old daughter showed up a few minutes later, and Justin jumped into the backseat. “Thanks, you guys.”
Sherry wrenched her neck around and gave him a once-over. “Who are you and what have you done with Justin Pierce?”
Justin grinned. “It’s me. Really.”
“No,” Sherry said. “The Justin Pierce I remember would never have put on a tux.” She shifted the car into drive and pulled back out on the street. “Justin, this is Clint Jessup.”
Clint reached back over the seat and took his hand. “Good to meet you, Justin. So whose cars are blocking you in?”
“My staff. They’re trying to drive me insane.” He looked at Amy, who sat beside him staring at him with fascination. “Tell me, do I look insane?” he asked.
She grinned. “You look nice. Were you really my daddy’s roommate?”
“Sure was. Where do you think my insanity started?”
He leaned up to the front seat and peered through the windshield. “Can you make this thing go any faster?”
“I’m driving as fast as I can, Justin. But don’t sweat it. You’ll make an entrance. They’ll love you. Besides, you’ve already signed the contract. What are they gonna do? Fire you?”
He smiled and tried to let that reality relax him, but his tension only coiled itself tighter as they reached the grounds of Promised Land. He thanked them and raced inside.
The chatter of the reporters rambling around the room in clothes they’d rented or purchased just for the occasion grew louder as the night wore on. Conjecture about the nature of Andi’s announcement dominated most of the conversations around the room, but those reporters who had been the targets of leaks kept the news to themselves, hoping that only they would be well researched enough to ask the questions that mattered.
Andi Sherman moved from one cluster to another, keeping the conversation at a gossipy pitch. Her perfectly coifed French twist was an elegant contrast to the simple black gown she wore with a regal air. Her smile was a bit too forced, her eyes a bit too distant, but her aloofness was part of her appeal to the media, who kept her as the center of their attention no matter where she stood in the room.
Inwardly, Andi was anything but cool, for her blood seethed through her veins with alarming speed, and it took every ounce of decorum to counter the telltale signs of her fury. Her teeth did not grind together, her knuckles were not white, and the crystal glass in her hand did not crumble in her grasp. But she knew that the moment Justin Pierce came through that door her reserve would come crashing down in rage around her.
She fumed inwardly as she worked her way to the entrance of the plush suite. He had known he was the subject of the announcement. In fact, he knew that the whole function was in his honor! As thanks he had left her to placate these reporters, hungry more for the story of the hour than for the food and punch she kept circulating. Even B.W. Givens, who owned half the town and was determined to keep Promised Land from being part of it, was in attendance, watching and waiting with vulturelike shrewdness for some sign of trouble in Promised Land.
For the thousandth time in a quarter of an hour, Andi doubted the wisdom of her agreement with Justin. She had obviously been too easy. As Wes had pointed out yesterday, she had spent too much time walking on eggshells around him. But that was about to come to an end.
Behind her, Laney Grayson whispered, “Calm down, Andi. He’ll be here.”
Andi still had her smile pasted on as she turned around to Wes’s wife. Laney was seven months pregnant, but still looked as elegant as she had before she’d ever begun to show. “It’s a little embarrassing,” Andi whispered impatiently.
As Wes joined them, Laney said, “Well, if it helps any, it doesn’t show. Does it, Wes?”
“Nope. You look as c
alm and collected as a deodorant model.”
If she hadn’t been so angry, Andi might have appreciated his attempt to make her laugh. “Thanks, Wes. You’re a real prince.”
The elevator smoothed to a stop on the nineteenth floor of the office building, and Justin checked his watch as he lurched out and rushed toward the party that awaited him. “Blazes,” he muttered when he saw how late he was. Sherry Grayson had an authority complex and insisted on driving the speed limit. It beat anything he’d ever seen.
He tugged at his stiff collar and strangling bow tie before jogging toward the noise coming from down the corridor.
Justin had scarcely reached the open double oak doors of the noisy suite when he saw Andi near it, a glacial, untouchable vision of loveliness. She looked up at him and their eyes collided. She was angry. Her frigid eyes riveted scornfully into him as she excused herself from a reporter and pushed out to the hall.
The very look on her face riled him, and he stiffened, deciding not to let those crystal daggers in her eyes get the best of him. If he’d had any plans of apologizing to her, or offering an explanation, he changed his mind now and took on his most defensive facade. He may have merged companies with her, but he would not let her treat him like an inept employee. He met her expression with one equally hard, equally haughty.
She grabbed his elbow and began to pull him toward a secluded wing. “How dare you?” she asked when they were out of earshot of the press.
“How dare I what?”
“How dare you waltz in here fifteen minutes late? I got these people here for you. They’re getting restless, and I don’t think I need to remind you how hostile they can get when they want to!”
“Come off it, Andi,” Justin flung out in a stage whisper. “Who do you think you’re kidding? You got them here for you, not me. Look,” he said, feigning weariness at her attitude. “I’ve had a rough day. This is silly. You wanted me to come; I’m here. Let’s not keep the press waiting any longer.”
Before Andi could reply, he pulled her by her arm—the same way she had guided him earlier—down the hall and into the party. Shaking free of him as soon as they reached the threshold, Andi shot across the room to a cluster of her own employees.
He began to mingle with a drive he didn’t know he had, determined not to let her see him sulking or shying away from the attention. He saw her seek him out in the crowd, then glance quickly away as she seemed to work on the composure she had lost before he’d even walked in.
So much for her swooning, he thought with disdain as he waited for her to signal him that it was time for the press conference.
Reminding herself of the reason for this party, Andi decided it was time to get the announcement over with. Catching Justin’s eyes again, she started to gesture for him to come to her but thought better of it, and made her way to his side instead. His eyes anticipated her through the crowd, the thick webbing of black lashes hooding them with a maddening arrogance. Chagrined, she realized as she approached him that she had never seen him dressed in evening attire, and the sight of the lean lines of his coat and the ruffled contrast of the white shirt against his skin made her wish she hadn’t seen him that way now. But she would die before letting him know it looked good on him.
Their eyes locked intimately when she was face-to-face with him, each acknowledging the temporary standoff that would have to serve as a truce. “Shall we?” Andi asked, not quite able to feign a smile at him yet.
“Of course,” he answered, setting an infuriatingly proprietary hand on her back as she called for the group’s attention. His touch—which gave him the look of control, as if she were a mere puppet-infuriated her. She took a step forward to make him drop his hand.
The announcement was short and straightforward, and once it was made, Andi stepped back to allow the reporters to direct questions at the animator whom she had dubbed “the best in the field and the only one who provided exactly the right elements for Promised Land’s needs.”
When the obvious, expected questions had been answered, Jeanine Calaveras, a shrewd reporter for Given’s television station, stepped forward. “Justin, tell us about your past relationship with Miss Sherman.”
An amused half-grin broke out on his face, spreading maliciously to his eyes, and he glanced askance at Andi, who seemed undaunted. He started to answer, but Andi jumped in instead.
“We’re old college friends,” Andi explained with a dazzling smile. “We haven’t seen each other in eight years, but we’re delighted to be working together now.”
The obvious way she tried to steer Justin from making a public blunder stung him.
“Justin,” Jeanine tried again, rephrasing the question. “I understand that the two of you were more than just friends.”
Justin shrugged and set his hand on the back of Andi’s neck, the pressure of his fingers warning her into silence.
“You’re quite right,” he said, feeling Andi’s muscles knotting with dread. Pencils began to jot wildly.
Andi’s smile did not waiver, but her eyes glassed over with guarded contempt.
“Is that the real reason you chose him as your animator?” someone asked.
“Actually,” Andi cut in again, determined to set the record straight, “Mr. Pierce’s cartoon was one of several my staff brought to my attention. I had no idea he had animated Khaki’s Krewe when I chose it, and if I had, the knowledge might very well have gone against him.”
Justin swallowed back his distaste at her comment and parried it with one of his own. “Miss Sherman was afraid that the extent of our previous involvement may have kept her from maintaining the authority she’s so used to. However, since I don’t actually work for her and since our agreement clearly outlines both of our territories of control, we don’t anticipate any problems with that.” He could almost feel the hairs on her neck bristling.
“Can we expect this relationship to turn romantic again?” another bold reporter asked.
“Absolutely not,” Andi said with amused resolution, taking a step forward to make Justin drop his hand. “There is no chance of that.”
Although he had been about to offer a similar answer, the casual way with which Andi dismissed the possibility irked him. “None at all,” he assured with chuckling certainty.
His laugh, as if the possibility were an absurdity, forced Andi to cast one last cutting remark. “I make it a policy never to date my staff members.”
Staff member? Since there was no way to parry that one without continuing a verbal sparring match, Justin surrendered the last word to her. He silently vowed to confront her later, however, when the last word would be his.
When the questioning died down enough, Andi and Justin went their separate ways, mingling as they answered questions, most of a business nature, though an occasional additional query was cast from time to time about their past relationship. It became increasingly apparent as the night wore on that Andi’s personal life was fascinating to the reporters, and they clung to the tidbits of information like British reporters to stories of Diana.
When the crowd had thinned down to just the Promised Land executives and a few straggling reporters, Andi found Justin leaning against a wall in what seemed to be intimate conversation with Jeanine Calaveras. The sight of his delighted smile and the woman’s obvious attraction to him sent a wave of worry—not to mention jealousy—coursing through Andi. If he said the wrong thing to this woman, anything could happen. Stepping to his side, she touched his arm and smiled. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Justin shrugged. “Jeanine was just asking me about some rumors she’d heard about construction problems at Promised Land. I told her that you were the person to ask.”
“Ask away,” Andi said, knowing from experience with this reporter that she had probably manufactured the rumors herself.
“Well, I heard—”
A big hand landed on the woman’s shoulder to stop her words, and Andi found herself looking into the benign features of B
.W. Givens, the man who had made her life miserable since she’d begun work on Promised Land, the man she had made a point to avoid all evening. “No need to bother Miss Sherman with those little rumors, Jeanine,” he said, his sagging jowls creasing with his false smile. “We got all we needed from her engineers.”
The remark, designed to worry Andi, left her undaunted. “Good,” she said in a saccharine voice. “That’s why I wanted them here.” Glancing back at the woman whose eyes were glued to Justin’s, Andi cleared her throat. “I think it’s been a productive evening,” she said in dismissal of the reporter and her employer.
“Yes,” Givens agreed with smug assurance. “Quite productive.”
With a sigh, Jeanine stuffed her notebook back into her clutch purse and extended a hand to the animator. “I hope we’ll have the pleasure of meeting again, Justin,” she said, the familiar use of his name galling Andi.
“I’m sure we will,” Justin said with a smile. His eyes followed the two out of the room, and then he took Andi by the arm and turned her to face him. “I think we have some unfinished business,” he clipped, glancing at the others in the room. “What do you say we go to your office?”
Accepting the challenge in his eyes, she simply nodded and started toward the door.
Chapter Nine
Justin slammed the office door behind him when they were in Andi’s office, the sound echoing like the crashing masks of civility they had been struggling to wear all evening. When Andi turned to face him, he saw that the look of undisguised anger on her face matched his own. “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he bit out, taking off his coat and tossing it on the sofa beside the wall. “I thought you would have learned a long time ago that I don’t intend to kowtow for anyone, especially you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you on your little pedestal, making me out to be the grantee of your good graces. A lowly staff member.” With a flip of his wrist, he tossed the tie on top of his coat.