“So I get to work with you?”
Elizabeth clapped her hands and threw back her head in laughter. “Lexi, I adore you. Why must my son be a moron?”
“I can come up with a list if you’d like,” Lexi offered, a genuine smile crossing her lips for the first time all day. “In all seriousness, what are you proposing?”
“I want you to be Vincent’s partner on the Stone account. It’s as much yours as it is his, anyway. Everyone in the office knows the two of you worked together on it, and I don’t think anyone will raise an eyebrow if you’re involved with it. There’s another account I will want you in on the planning stages of, once we secure a meeting with the client. Again, you’d be working with Vincent on that one. He knows the job from the bottom up and he has great insights he could share with you. I think the two of you make a dynamite team, and we need to turn our luck around a little. We’ve been turned down by quite a few clients lately.”
The offer was very generous considering Lexi had no qualifications, no experience, and couldn’t compete with the people around her in many ways.
But she did have great ideas and knew how to execute them. No matter how angry she was at him, she had to admit Vincent was a genius when it came to forming an ad campaign. He could teach her so many things, but could they work together? Vincent often made her feel like she was a burden.
“Have you even discussed this with him? I’m not sure he wants to work with me.”
Elizabeth shook her head from side to side in disagreement. “He most definitely wants to work with you, dear. This part was his idea, actually.”
Lexi remembered the latest conversation she’d had with Jade. “Well, he might feel differently now. Jade said—”
“I don’t care what Jade says. She’s not on staff here, last time I checked. Maybe I should remind her of that fact too.” Elizabeth lowered her voice, the edge disappearing and being replaced with stern, motherly suggestion. “I think this is a great idea. It’s great for Hunter and great for you. The chemistry you and Vincent have will lead to great things. Trust me, a mother knows.”
Part of Lexi wanted to scream yes and say the hell with the fallout of working side by side with her heart’s desire, she could handle it. This was a once in a lifetime chance. But another part of her screamed for her to say no, to protect herself from the certain doom that would surely come if she spent more time working that closely with him. She was only human, after all, and he was irresistible.
Elizabeth rose to her feet and went back to her desk. “This is your call, Lexi. You don’t have to tell me now. I think you should discuss this with Vincent before you make up your mind.”
“I’ll let you know by Monday,” Lexi promised. “I cannot thank you enough for this offer, Elizabeth. It was very generous of you.”
“It was all Vincent’s idea,” Elizabeth said emphatically. “He sees something in you too.”
If only Lexi could figure out what that something was.
· 21 ·
V
incent leaned back in his leather desk chair as he looked out the window. The ornate lines of the cityscape entranced him and allowed him to mentally escape from the disastrous day he was having, even if it was only for a short while. He’d never intended to start a fight with Lexi that morning. He’d wanted to apologize for kissing her at Anna’s and make sure she wasn’t still upset with him. The kiss … things weren’t supposed to get so heated between them, but when he felt the softness of her lips, the way her body molded perfectly against his, something snapped. For some inexplicable reason, every cell in his body screamed at him to pull her closer and wrap her in his arms, so he did.
The deep feelings of lust and desire that engulfed him when they kissed had caught him off guard. He knew on some level, even though he didn’t want to admit it, that he was very attracted to Lexi. Even Sean saw it. But how could he not be? She was breathtakingly gorgeous in a shy and unassuming kind of way, but it was what was inside of her that was truly exquisite. For the first time in a long while, Vincent had met someone he wanted to believe in, that he thought was perhaps genuine rather than someone who only told people what they wanted to hear, waiting for the right time to strike. Unfortunately for Vincent, an air of uncertainty remained. His rocky past made him unwilling to let her in, because he knew it could be his undoing.
The rapid exit Lexi had made from Anna’s house took away their chance to talk about the kiss, not that he knew what the hell he would have said. When the topic had come up during their heated conversation that morning, he’d shrugged it off and said it was no big deal. That was a lie, but what made it worse was the devastated look he saw on Lexi’s face as the words escaped his lips. No woman wanted to hear that her kisses were less than memorable, and he immediately regretted having insulted her. So once again, she’d retreated. And now she was hiding in his mother’s office.
Vincent climbed out of his chair and began rifling through his desk drawer, looking for something, anything that would keep his mind off of Lexi White. The longer his thoughts dwelled on her, the more confused he became. What he wanted with his heart and what he wanted with his head were in constant conflict when she was around, and it was driving him crazy.
The file of the Lewis account found its way into Vincent’s hand. He began reading through the meeting notes, trying to spark an idea for a direction for the project. Deep in thought, he was startled when the office door flew open.
“Sorry I was gone so long, baby. This was a really important call.”
Vincent stifled a groan when Jade strode in without knocking for the umpteenth time. He cursed himself for not taking her back to her apartment this morning and just being late for work. He would never get anything done at this rate.
She flopped herself onto his couch, swinging her feet onto the coffee table. When her heel caught on a small bud vase and it crashed to the floor, spilling water and flowers everywhere, Vincent heard Sean’s voice whisper through his head:
Screw Jade.
“What’s with all the damn flowers?” She carelessly scooped the buds up and crammed them haphazardly into the vase before setting it back on the table. She made no effort to clean the large water stain on the carpet. Instead she reached into her bag for her phone so she could check her Email.
“It’s a decoration. My mother thinks they make the room look warmer so she has them brought in fresh every other day.”