She’d never made the connection before, that his business goal and their “personal” relationship might intersect. He’d always made sure that she knew that he didn’t want her to feel cheap, or used. He cared about her as a person.
She had not taken the same care. She’d gone to him, assumed he’d be reassuring as usual, and then he’d make love to her as he always had. She’d treated him badly—just a pretty face, or a hunky body, a tool. Not a person, with a brain…and more importantly, a heart. He’d then reacted even worse…and then the two of them had stupidly let the whole thing escalate.
She had to apologize to him. She had to make this right.
She walked into her mother’s house, with Lydia humming contentedly as she went back to her room/office to work on new mock-ups. Her mother walked in as Sophie was cleaning off the coffee table. “You’re not leaving, are you?” her mother asked, aghast.
Sophie frowned, her hands full of papers. “Well, yeah,” she said slowly. “I thought I’d do some more work from my apartment.”
And call Mark, she added mentally. Once she figured out what she was going to say, and how she’d apologize.
“But…we still have a ton of things to do!”
“Which I can still do from my place, Mom.”
“No,” her mother said, getting that stubborn tilt to her head that Sophie knew—and also knew she couldn’t fight against. “I’m finishing the last of the eye-shadow color palettes tonight, and Lydia will have the packaging ready. I want to see what you’ve come up with for the presentation, with all this stuff put in.”
“Mom, the presentation’s two weeks away,” Sophie protested.
“They’re going to come at us hard,” her mother said, and despite the coldness of her tone, Sophie reacted to the fear in her mother’s eyes. “You said that yourself. I can’t afford to lose this, Sophie!”
Sophie winced. This wasn’t just about the vendetta, as Lydia had said. This really was her mother’s future.
“All right, Mom,” she said. “I’ll stay here, we’ll go over what I’ve got tonight, and then I’ll work more from home tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” her mother said, grudgingly. “You know, it’s better to do some things face-to-face. It’ll calm my mind.”
“Okay.” She watched as her mother retreated to her garage lab, and then started putting the papers back on the coffee table, intent on finishing the rough presentation in time to show her mother and sister that evening. Her mother just needed some hand-holding. At least she was letting Sophie and Lydia go on their own to San Francisco, to make the presentation. It did show a level of trust, which Sophie appreciated.
She thought about Mark again. She needed to show him a level of trust, she realized. And a phone call might not get it done. Knowing him, he probably wouldn’t even answer his phone. He was probably neck-deep in battle strategy, thinking of ways to drive her, and Diva Nation, into the ground.
She couldn’t blame him, and she wasn’t about to stop working hard. But she was still apologizing and would patch things up. It had never been just business between them sex, either. It was something more. Hopefully, when all of this was over, they’d be able to see exactly what that “something more” was.
In the meantime, she’d wait until San Francisco. And then she’d make her move. As her mother often said, some things were better face-to-face.
ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER hotel room, Mark thought. At least this one was nice, with a view overlooking San Francisco’s Bay Bridge. Marion & Co. had booked it for him, and Abigail Marion definitely had champagne tastes. The room itself was large for one person, with a California king-size bed, a cherry desk with a large work surface, modem port and fax, a flat-screened television and vaulted ceilings. The decor itself was sumptuous, all in shades of dark blue and teal with green accents. Even the minifridge had splits of Cristal and small bottles of Courvoisier. It was very, very luxurious.
Too bad I’m not in any shape to enjoy it.
Mark had come in a day early. Simone was arriving in tomorrow, ostensibly to give moral support—which, loosely interpreted, meant making sure he didn’t screw up. He’d been working on the damned presentation eighteen hours a day for the past three weeks. He’d worked while eating. He’d damned near worked while showering. He dreamed about this presentation.
That was, when he wasn’t dreaming about Sophie.
He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms. No. He wasn’t thinking about Sophie until he absolutely had to, which would be tomorrow at four o’clock, when they faced off again in front of Abigail Marion. When he saw if he had what it took to win the second “challenge.”
It would be an uphill battle without question. He hadn’t had a lot of help from Trimera. Carol, bitch that she was, had quickly spread around the rumor mill that the reason Trimera had performed poorly in the first challenge was that she’d been handicapped by having Mark as a teammate. Because no one else had been at the presentation, and everyone knew what a sales barracuda she was compared to Mark’s easygoing style, they all assumed that she was telling the truth. Now, everyone in sight refused to have anything to do with what they were calling the “Marion Disaster.” Mark had fought to get information he needed for his report, and to get mock-ups ready, but he’d gotten static at every turn. He’d kicked butt around the office, something he rarely did in order to get his work done. Of course, in his current snarling state of mind, it hadn’t been hard to kick some butt. He wasn’t some pretty-boy model who had made it on just his looks—or by screwing his way to the top sales position.
He frowned. Which brought him right back to his problem with Sophie.
He didn’t know who he was more mad at: Sophie or himself. She had valid points. It wasn’t as if he’d ever promised her a relationship when they’d slept together, images of which were burned indelibly in his memory. It wasn’t even as if she were evil for wanting some sex to get rid of stress. He was currently in an insane pressure cooker of stress, and if sex would relieve it, then he would probably do the same thing.
But Sophie was different, damn it.
It was unfair of him to get angry with her. He was trying to make her pay for the fact that almost everyone in his life—from his modeling days, to business school, to Trimera itself—had always looked at him as someone they could use for superficial purposes, not someone who made a valuable contribution. He wanted to feel valued. And with Sophie, he supposed he’d been starting to feel that way. Then he’d lashed out at her, because of the Carol fiasco, because he could see his professional future circling the drain. Because Sophie couldn’t seem to see how important everything was to him, and only focused on the physical.
And why shouldn’t she? She’s not your wife. She’s not your girlfriend. She’s just somebody you slept with.
There was a knock on his door, and he sighed, thinking about the last time there had been a knock on his hotel-room door. But after the way his last exchange with Sophie had ended, he couldn’t imagine she’d be back. He certainly wouldn’t be.
He peered out through the peephole.
Sophie stood there, yet again.
He opened the door, feeling numb. He couldn’t say anything for a long moment. Her hair was down, tumbling loosely around her shoulders, looking like ribbons of caramel, luscious and rich. Her eyes were luminous. She wasn’t wearing much makeup. What she was wearing, he noticed, was an expression of hesitance.
“Hi,” he finally said, feeling unsure himself.
“I won’t blame you if you don’t want to let me in,” she said, her voice speeding up a little. “But I hope you will.”
He moved away from the door frame, letting her walk past him, and then shut the door behind her, still at a loss for words.
She turned, wringing her hands slightly. “I came to apologize.”
Now she’d really caught him flat-footed. “Okay.”
“I’m not sorry I wanted to have sex with you,” she clarified.
“Uh, that’s good.” Because at the moment, his body was going into full alert, the way it always did around her. The scent of her tickled his nose, and his body tensed pleasurably.
“I’m sorry that I made it seem like I saw you as a body.” Her eyes were sorrowful. “That I was using you.”
It was like being splashed with cold water. He turned away from her, getting his bearings. “I should probably say it’s fine,” he said slowly. “I mean, we didn’t have any kind of understanding. Hell, every other time, I was the one convincing you.”
“I know,” she answered. “I took that for granted. I took you for granted.” She walked over to him, stroking her hands over his shoulders and back. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It hurt,” he admitted, surprising himself. “I’m used to being underestimated and written off because of the way I look. I just wasn’t expecting it from you.”
She tugged at him, turning him to face her. “I’m so sorry, Mark,” she said simply.