Indecent Suggestion - By Elizabeth Bevarly Page 0,44

and very little thought. She honestly couldn’t remember now what had made her change her mind.

“Yes,” she told Turner. “That’s what happened Wednesday, too.”

“So what brought it on in the first place?” he asked.

She took a deep breath, sorted through her thoughts, then told him about everything she had decided upon waking a little while ago. Stress and pressure, pressure and stress, blah blah blah blah blah. And although she knew neither one of them was buying any of it anymore, Turner had the decency to nod when she was done.

“I’m sorry, Turner,” she repeated lamely when she’d finished. “I really can’t explain it any better than that. And I’m sorry if I led you to believe one thing and then pulled back and acted differently. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Next time you get the urge,” he said, “just light up a cigarette, for God’s sake, okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t feel good about the way they’d resolved things. Probably because they hadn’t come close to resolving things. There was still a strange awkwardness between them that hadn’t been there before, and she hoped she hadn’t done irreparable damage to their friendship. Deep down, she didn’t think she had. She just had to be careful not to send Turner any mixed signals in the future, even in jest. Their friendship was too precious for her to screw—ah, she meant mess—around with it.

He sighed again, uncrossed his arms and legs and pushed himself away from the counter. “Then I guess tonight we’ll have dinner together as friends, if that’s okay with you.”

Becca smiled, relief winding through her. “That would be great,” she said. “I’d like that a lot.”

As he reached into one of the bags, he added, “Oh, I almost forgot. Englund has invited you and me to a party at his house next weekend. Though he didn’t say so, I imagine it’s part of our reward for landing the Bluestocking account.”

“Then it’s official?” Becca asked. She’d been reasonably sure, judging by Donetta Prizzi’s face when they concluded the pitch, that the woman had been extremely impressed by the campaign. But no one had made a formal commitment by the time Becca left.

Turner shook his head back and forth. “Well, it’s not quite official, but Donetta Prizzi made it pretty clear. We should know something for sure by midweek. She promised Englund a definitive answer by Wednesday. And, hey, Englund is confident enough that we’ve won the account to invite us two peasants to the castle next weekend.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Becca said. Robert Englund wasn’t the type to take things for granted.

A party at the boss’s mansion, she thought as she joined Turner in removing their meal from the bags. They were definitely coming up in the advertising world. It was just too bad they were doing it at a firm whose vision wasn’t exactly their own. Still, she’d take what she could get at this point.

And hey, a party at the big house. How cool was that? Now all she had to do was figure out what to wear….

8

ROBERT ENGLUND’S SWEEPING estate in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel was an exuberant Tudor mansion situated atop a high, regal hill, its unseasonably green lawn rolling down before it like a carpet of cold, hard cash. The house itself was a stunning bit of real estate, three stories of beautifully formed fieldstone and diamond-paned windows topped by a gray-blue slate roof. There was even a turret at one end. The double front doors, painted a rich patrician blue, formed a perfect arc at the house’s center, and were outlined by beveled glass that glittered with the light shining from within.

As Turner rolled his Saturn to a halt in front of the valet—both behind and in front of expensive European sedans, Becca couldn’t help noticing—she tried to quell the butterflies in her stomach. She’d visited her boss’s home only one time before, and on that occasion, she’d been not a guest but a messenger girl, dropping off some work for her employer when he’d been at home feeling under the weather. She hadn’t made it past the foyer that day, but even that small glimpse of the house had told her everything she needed to know. Specifically, that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Englund were rolling in dough. Of course, she’d already known that.

At any rate, it was a sure bet that tonight’s glittering affair would be populated by the city’s uppermost and crustiest upper crust, and Becca was more than