Pride and Papercuts (The Austens #5) - Staci Hart Page 0,48
you’ll never know.”
Recognition flashed behind her eyes, and I saw her instant shift into levity to close the door when I’d gotten to too close to the point. “Pardon me, but are you trying to talk me into quitting?”
“Could I convince you of anything you didn’t want to do?”
“Probably not,” she answered with a smile, turning back to her computer and effectively ending that line of conversation.
“Do you have your presentation in slides yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she answered, digging through her files. “One of my people are working on it today.”
“Your people?” I gave her an amused, sidelong look.
“You gave them to me, didn’t you?” she challenged. “I think they like me better, if I’m being honest.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. But my job isn’t to make them like me—it’s to get results. Who says we have to be friends to do that? Seems that would only blur the lines, not motivate them.”
“So personal relationships don’t matter with your team?”
The question was posed as a trap I only had a glimpse of.
I frowned. “Why would it?”
“You don’t believe they need any investment beyond the directive of their jobs?”
“What’s your point?”
Smiling, she shrugged. “Consider your sister. Don’t you work harder for her—and vice versa—because of your personal investment?”
My frown deepened. “That’s different.”
One of her brows rose. “Is it? Our personal investment drove us to this.” She gestured to our laptop screens. “Even if that investment was largely spite.”
A chuckle. “I’m more likely to motivate my team from spite than love. But really all I ask for is respect.”
“That’s fair. But it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“What do you suggest? Parcheesi nights?”
“I was thinking Charades. Pictionary, maybe,” she joked, turning to her screen to pull up composites. She paused and gave me a look. “Are you really going to show me yours, or is this some elaborate scheme to just see mine?”
I brought my fingers to my touchpad to do just that, thankful for an excuse to divert my eyes. “I’m incapable of cheating.”
“Under any circumstance? Regardless of the stakes? I find that hard to believe.”
“Have I ever given you a reason to think me dishonest?”
She was silent long enough that I chanced a look at her.
“I suppose you haven’t. But under the right kind of pressure, everyone is capable. Like when someone you love is on the line.”
Georgie. She’s talking about Georgie and Wickham. Did he tell her what he did? Or did he lie?
“So you admit that you’d cheat?” I asked, deflecting. “As brutally honest as you are with your feelings, subterfuge seems out of your skillset.”
She rolled her eyes, but wore a small smile. “Well, Mr. Darcy, you inspire a particular frankness I can’t seem to hold back.”
“Likewise, Miss Bennet.” I stepped back, gesturing for her to take my place at my computer. When she did, I stepped up to hers and paused, surprised.
It was a sweeping campaign with a fill-in-the-blank tagline that was so versatile, it worked for every instance of marketing, including her precious parties. She’d built out campaign sets for each direction in a palette that was both soft and bold—a tonal spread of earthy pinks and creams and oranges, touched with accents of teal for contrast. She’d also built knockout options for the male-directed ads, flipping the palette around to focus on the teals and emerald greens.
It was brilliant.
She was going to win.
Wordlessly, I flipped through her resources, and she did the same.
It was several minutes before she broke the silence.
“You’re going to win.”
A laugh shot out of me at her tone—both resigned and awed, with a side of snark—and her wrongness. And when I looked down at her, I realized we’d drifted closer to each other. Close enough that when she glanced at me, she had to tilt her chin up to meet my eyes, leaving me peering into her face like a wishing well.
Her smile was curious. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking the same thing—you’re going to win.”
Still smiling, her brow quirked. “You’re a walking contradiction. Has anyone ever pointed this out to you?”
“No one’s quicker to point out my faults than you.”
“Not even Georgie?”
“Oh, she does, but not with near the enthusiasm or frequency as you do. Have we ever had a conversation where you haven’t noted my shortcomings?”
She blushed but made light. “You make it so easy.”
A single laugh puffed out of me. I don’t know which of us moved, who shifted, who turned. But our hands brushed, the smooth topography of her knuckles grazing the back of my hand. A