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shoulders—had supplied Patti
with additional reason to smirk.
    At this rate, Magee would have the respect of
a flea by the time she assumed the new post. If she assumed it. At the
moment, she didn’t feel too deserving. In her current role as one
of four AEs, her responsibilities included overseeing the campaigns
Creative Services produced for her clients. If she’d done her job
properly the last several months, her father’s advertising agency
wouldn’t be out three major accounts. And she wouldn’t feel trapped
in an endless game of Pick Up Sticks.
    She placed the papers on her desk and bent to
retrieve the folder from the trash. Her fingers jammed on a snag in
the mesh. A nail caught and ripped. Ouch .
    Squeezing shut her eyes, she lifted her
hand.
    Be okay. Please be okay .
    She peeked at her hand, and her stomach
dropped. Oh my
God . She’d ruined her beautiful spa manicure! The expensive
exfoliating scrub and paraffin dip mani-pedi she’d indulged in this
morning to wow Mr. Hottie Pants Kane. A huge crescent of missing
raspberry polish mocked her from the ragged nail of her middle
finger.
    Not her pinky. Not her thumb. Not any finger
that might escape notice.
    But her freaking screw-you-buddy finger.
    Magee, how could you? When would she stop messing
up? Hadn’t her parents hammered into her that client meetings
required a professional image? For a future account director—the
agency’s first ever account director—that included a skirt, heels,
and ten flawless, skillfully polished nails.
    Not nine perfect nails and one screw-you torn
to the quick. Ten .
    She collated the papers and returned them to
the folder, then stuffed the preliminary plan and her tablet into
her briefcase. From a desk drawer, she grabbed nail clippers, her
best crystal file, and the bottle of raspberry polish she’d bought
on a whim before leaving the spa. Hey, maybe she was learning, after all.
    She hurried to the ladies room for
repairs.
     
    ~*~
     
    “More ice water, miss?”
    “Please.” As the waiter refilled her goblet,
Magee stared at her plate and sighed. Whatever had possessed her to
order an enormous Caesar salad laced with enough garlic to do in a
mob boss? And the anchovies… She hated the salty devils. Detested
them. Why, then, had those words of doom, “Heavy on the anchovies,”
escaped her mouth?
    As if you don’t know the answer, Magee .
    Justin Kane. He of the lustrous coal-black
hair and piercing slate-blue eyes, which, at the moment, remained
fixed on the hard copy of her preliminary advertising plan. The man
confused her some-thing fierce.
    She picked up her fork. Even with the bread
basket and bottle of balsamic vinegar separating them across the
restaurant table, Justin Kane made her nervous. He always had, from
the instant they’d met four months ago in her ultimately successful
bid to woo the CycleMania account from a rival agency. However,
today Justin’s troubling effect on her had mushroomed. Despite the
unexpected adjustments to her manicure, she’d arrived at the
restaurant her standard fifteen minutes early to discover him
already seated, a predatory glint in his eyes.
    Almost as if…as if he knew her little secret behind
snaring his account and was biding his time be-fore ambushing
her.
    But he couldn’t know. How would he have found
out? It had just been one teensy, tiny white lie.
    Not a stark white, either. More of a subtle
cream.
    Strangely, the distinction didn’t comfort
her. If anything, she felt worse.
    She jabbed her fork at a gargantuan crouton.
Instead of piercing the tidbit, the tines bounced it off her plate.
Glancing sidelong at Justin, she crept a hand toward the crouton.
He looked up. She pinky-kicked the crouton beneath the cloth napkin
and flashed an overeager smile.
    Fortunately, he didn’t notice the crouton’s
acrobatics. His gaze lowered to her salad.
    “You’re not eating. Is something wrong with
the Caesar?” He smoothed the triple-striped tie he wore with