The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.
—Josh Billings
ERIC BIT DOWN on the inside of his cheek and tasted the tang of badly chosen words as he waited for a new pot of coffee to dispense. Apparently Kate Randall hadn’t lost her figure, or her ability to catch him off guard, although her tongue was sharper than he remembered. Woods had already scampered off to the meeting, afraid of further offending the new boss. He, on the other hand, needed strong black coffee to get through the next couple of hours of bureaucratic bull.
He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, wishing he were anywhere but here, fighting a hangover and the inexplicable image of Kate’s face superimposed over the face of the woman he’d taken home last night. As much as he enjoyed sales, he hated the rah-rah team-spirit propaganda that most companies spouted. He had carved out a nice corner of independence at Handley Toys—he worked their major and national accounts, bringing huge deals to fruition, and his superiors left him the hell alone. The last thing he needed was a green boss looking over his shoulder.
He grimaced. A green boss with green eyes that could make a man forget to breathe.
He curled his hand around a Handley coffee mug. Damn it, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about crossing paths—and maybe sharing a bed—with Kate Randall again. But working for her? What had John Handley been thinking when he’d promoted her to VP? She didn’t have a clue about what made sales people tick.
She certainly didn’t have a clue about what made him tick.
Eric frowned as he filled his coffee cup. John had offered him the VP position, but he’d turned it down because he’d never thought of himself as the home-office type. But the news that he would be working for Kate Randall had been enough to sever the loyalty he felt toward John and the company. Last night he’d called his former boss who now worked for Mixxo and told him he’d changed his mind about their offer. Two weeks from now, on April 5, he would have a new job.
He drank from the cup and swore under his breath as the searing liquid scalded his tongue. Then he made his way to the boardroom where the meeting was already in progress. He entered, not bothering to try to be quiet as he closed the door and leaned against the wall opposite from where Kate sat, addressing the seated group of about two dozen. Everyone glanced in his direction and he was filled with the satisfaction of knowing he was regarded as the leader of the pack.
“—pleasure to be working with all of you,” Kate was saying. “My background with the company is product-and brand-management, so I have a good grasp of sales as seen from inside the business, but I’m committed to learning everything about external sales as quickly as possible.” Then she stopped and leveled her green gaze on him. “Eric, there’s an empty chair,” she said, pointing.
He lifted his coffee mug. “I’d rather stand, thanks. This isn’t going to last too long, is it?”
Her mouth tightened and the color rose becomingly in her cheeks—reason enough to keep goading her, in his estimation. In fact, if he kept pushing, maybe she’d fire him and then he wouldn’t feel so guilty when he told John Handley he was leaving the company.
“That depends,” she said evenly, “on how quickly we get through introductions and objectives for the quarter.”
“Objectives?” he asked, then glanced at his watch. “My objective is to get out of here and back to the account I was pulled away from to attend this meeting.”
The silence in the room stretched taut and for a split second, he felt bad about wielding his informal power. Until a taunting memory rose in his mind. A conversation that he had overheard the morning after their one-night stand.
Kate, a young woman had said in a panicky voice, your reputation will be ruined if anyone knows you’re involved with Eric McDaniels.
Involved? Kate had responded in a scathing tone. I slept with him, but trust me—I have absolutely no intention of becoming involved with the likes of Eric McDaniels.
Though exact details about that moment may have escaped his memory, he could still hear the stinging derision in her voice—as if she were referring to an invertebrate. And suddenly, he didn’t feel bad at all about usurping her bogus authority.
The silence loomed larger in the room. His ears began to buzz and it seemed as if everyone else in the room fell away, leaving a channel of electricity running from him to Kate. He realized with a sinking stomach that the chemistry between them remained intact. Her gaze was full of defiance, and he suspected his expression was no different.
Finally, she wet her lips. “I might be new to this position, Eric, but I’m aware that your accounts are the single largest contributor to the company’s revenue.”
His backbone eased a fraction.
“So,” she continued, lifting her hands, “educate me. Tell me about this account and what you’ve done to get to this point.” Her smile was congenial, but didn’t reach her cool eyes. “I’m sure we can all learn something from the company’s top salesman.”
Was it his imagination, or had she added a mocking inflection on those last words?
Eric shrugged and maintained his position on the wall. “The client is Lexan Electronics in Pensacola, Florida. They have two hundred and forty locations in thirty-five states, and the product is our line of handheld electronic games.”
“What size order are we talking about?”
He gave her a dry smile. “The size order that would mean adding an extra shift at our Huntsville factory.”
Kate nodded curtly. “Whose line of games do they currently carry?” she asked, making notes on a clean pad of paper. That pad of paper irritated him beyond reason, probably because it seemed to symbolize Kate’s squeaky-clean desk presence. He contrasted it to his home office, where his desk was buried in spreadsheets, product-fact sheets, and expense reports.
“Travister Games,” he said.
“And where are you in the process of closing the deal?”
Stalled, although he wasn’t about to admit that. “I was supposed to follow up with the entertainment buyer today,” he fibbed. “But now it looks like it’ll be next week before I can get back there.” Actually, the buyer was hedging, and he was hoping to wrangle an appointment on the tail end of his trip through Georgia and northern Florida.
“Are you trying to convince Lexan to expand or to replace their current line?”
He hated answering questions. “Replace.”
She made a rueful noise in her throat and scribbled another note. Eric pushed away from the wall and managed a fake little laugh. “You don’t approve of my sales tactics?”
Kate looked up, her winged eyebrows raised. “It’s not for me to approve or disapprove.”
“But?”
She stopped writing and shrugged. “But if the customer isn’t inclined to replace their entire line, why not start small and let them expand with our products?”
His blood pressure spiked, and he enunciated slowly. “Because…I…don’t…do…things…small.”
Her mouth parted and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. A sliver of satisfaction drilled through him because he knew she was remembering something else about him that wasn’t so small.
She averted her gaze, then seemed to collect herself and looked back. “I assume you’re shooting to close the deal by next Wednesday, the last day of March?”
“Sales people live and die by the quarter’s end,” he said. “But then you probably know that, being VP of sales and all.”
Her jaw hardened. “I do know that. But this deal is big enough to swing profits from one quarter to the next. Are you sure you can make things happen next week?”
“Plenty of time,” he said with confidence to spare.
“Just keep me posted, okay?”
She might as well have swatted him on the behind. He conceded that he could take a hit from anyone other than Kate, but after the way she’d dismissed him years ago, he had the perverse desire to take her down a notch.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
She looked up, her expression wary. “What do you mean?”
“Go on the road with me for a few days,” he challenged. “I can’t think of a better way to learn the external sales side of the business.”
She shifted in her chair under the gaze of everyone in the room. “I don’t—”
“Maybe you can even help me close the Lexan deal,” then he smiled and added, “boss.”
Kate wet her lips, glancing all around the room. When the silence became uncomfortable, she gave a little laugh and shrugged. “Sure—in fact, I think it’s a great idea.”
Everyone in the room exhaled and nodded their approval, some chuckling and making remarks about what a good sport she was. Eric wanted to chuckle himself because the glint in her eyes when she looked up at him had nothing to do with sportsmanship and everything to do with retaliation. He sipped his coffee and half listened as she returned to her agenda, discussing individual territories and objectives for the quarter to begin April 1. Her plans didn’t matter to him because he’d be gone shortly. Instead, he observed the precise way she moved her head and her hands, wondering from where she had acquired such reserve, such detachment, and remembering it was her aloofness that had first attracted him.
They’d been in Vegas at a trade show—he was a top salesman striking deals with clients, and she was one of the newbies who’d come to help work the company booth. Kate had confounded him from the beginning because she wasn’t the type of woman he normally was attracted to. Other than her spectacular coloring, there was nothing flamboyant about Kate—her manner and her clothing were understated, and she’d seemed more irritated than flattered when he’d flirted with her.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Eric had pursued her relentlessly over the next few days of the trade show, and because he’d had to work to draw her out, he’d found out more about her than almost any woman he’d ever…bedded. Strange, the details he remembered after all this time—that she was an only child and her parents lived in Florida, that she disliked olives and traveling by plane, and that she had the most beautiful shoulders he’d ever seen. He had worn down her defenses, but by the time they had wound up in bed, he was the one seduced by the dichotomy of her cool air and her fiery beauty. Her disregard of him the next morning had injured his pride more than he or anyone else would have thought possible. He was, after all, happy-go-lucky Eric, salesman extraordinaire, ladies’ man, practical joker.
He was suddenly distracted by the idea of having Kate Randall in close proximity for an extended period of time, and started thinking about all the wonderful ways in which he could plague her before he left the company. A smile tugged at his mouth. This occasion called for the practical joke of all practical jokes. A public humiliation, a personal vindication.
Kate looked up and caught him staring at her. Lasers flashed from her green eyes, and then she checked her watch and addressed the room. “I think it’s time for a break. Let’s meet back in twenty minutes.”
Eric maintained his lean on the wall and waited until all the other sales reps had filed past him before pushing off to approach Kate. She walked up and glanced toward the hall to make sure they were alone, then crossed her arms. “What was that all about?”
He lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. “What?”
Her mouth pursed into a cinnamon-colored bow. “You know exactly what—that bit about me going on the road with you.”
He assumed an indignant stance. “I try to help ease your transition into your new position, and you think I’m up to something?”
“Yes.”
He grinned. “Well, I’m not.”
She glanced around again to ensure they were alone. “Good, because I wouldn’t want you to confuse anything in the past with something that might happen again.”
His gut clenched. “Past?” he asked lightly. “What past?”
She was a tall woman, but still a head shorter than he, so her chin was lifted. Her eyes glittered like jewels and the barest hint of a smile skimmed her mouth. “I’m glad we understand each other. I expect you to treat me like anyone else in this position. And while I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about external sales, I want to you know, Eric, that I’m nobody’s fool.”
Eric maintained a neutral expression until she walked out of the room, leaving behind a disturbance of spice-scented air. He closed his eyes briefly against the stir of desire in his belly, then watched her stride away from him. Nobody’s fool?
A smile curved his mouth and he murmured, “We’ll see about that.”