Underfoot. Leanne Banks
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He gave a nod of respect to Alfredo Bellagio and glanced around the room. His gaze lingered on her for a long moment and she suddenly felt self-conscious. She knew what he saw. Her hair had grown past her shoulders and was in dire need of a cut and style. Despite early mornings and nonstop days that sent her crawling to bed by 10:00 p.m., she still hadn’t quite gotten rid of fifteen pounds she’d gained. Feeling his scrutiny, she wondered if he saw the dark circles she tried to hide. Had she put on concealer this morning? Everything had been a blur.
“What is the model wearing underneath her trench coat and how can I get her number?” a guy from marketing cracked, breaking the silence.
Trina felt light-headed. She wondered how long a person could go without breathing. She had to get out of here. Just for a moment. A week would be better. But she would take a moment.
Her oxygen-deprived brain quickly provided an option. She pressed a button on her cell phone, casually placed it on the cherry table and seconds later it vibrated.
She picked it up. “Looks like someone from the Atlanta Constitution,” she whispered to her supervisor, Ben. “I’d better take it. Excuse me,” she said, and darted out of the room.
Heading straight for the restroom, she locked the door behind her and covered her face with her trembling hands. “Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. What am I going to do?”
When Walker had left for Paris and hadn’t returned for over a year, she’d told herself the fairy tale that she would never have to talk with him again.
The memory of what had happened between them the night of his nonwedding bombarded her. Exhausted from handling the press, maximizing exposure opportunities at the same time she performed damage control, she’d slipped into a bar close to her apartment for a mojito.
And that had been the beginning of when her pity had gotten her into mojito trouble, Trina thought as she stared into the ladies’ room mirror. She needed to pull herself out of Memoryville and get back to that meeting. Yanking a towel from the dispenser, she dampened it with cool water and pressed it against her forehead and throat.
She could do this. She could return to this meeting and pretend that she was okay-fine for a maximum of forty-five minutes. She could pretend. Pretending was what PR was all about.
Trina wasn’t pretending, however, that she didn’t want Bellagio to renew the advertising contract with Walker’s company. She’d strongly advocated putting the contract out for bid and the board had decided to give Walker’s group first shot. If they didn’t pan out, then Bellagio would accept other bids.
Reentering the room, she gave a businesslike nod and returned to her seat next to her supervisor.
“I like the sophistication of this campaign,” Walker said. “The models we have in mind will portray wealth and beauty. They’ll be the kind of person your customer wants to be.”
“Anyone mention the bar ads yet?” she whispered to her boss, Ben.
He glanced at her and shook his head. “No. Good point.” He turned toward Walker. “One of the things we want to achieve with this campaign is appealing to a younger demographic. I believe we discussed via e-mail that we wanted to see an ad in a bar featuring a well-dressed woman with men surrounding her offering her drinks. And of course, she would be wearing Bellagio shoes. To target younger men, we also suggested an ad of a man watching a sports game with beautiful women on either side.”
Walker shot a quick glance at perky girl.
Perky girl cleared her throat. “We’d already put together the proposal when we received that memo, but we can have something for you by the end of the week.”
Uh-oh. Busted. Trina saw just a hint of tension in Walker’s jaw, but she’d bet Miss Perky would do well to get her resume ready for some serious faxing.
“We can have it for you later this week,” Walker corrected in a crisp voice. “I’ll take care of it myself.”
“Who’s going to cover for Walker when he’s in Paris?” Trina whispered to her supervisor.
Her supervisor nodded. Ben cleared his throat. “We also need to know who will be covering Bellagio. If you’re handling international accounts in Paris, we need to know who our point person will be.”
Expectant silence descended over the room. Trina glanced at the board members and saw that Ben had asked the question on everyone’s mind. The question that would open the door for Bellagio to work with another advertising agency.
Walker’s answer and subsequent absence from her life would provide her with a peace of mind that money couldn’t buy.
She turned her attention to Walker.
His jaw was set and the expression in his eyes reminded her of a gladiator going into a fight. The expression made her uneasy.
“I’ll be your point man,” he said. “I’m not going back to Paris.”
CHAPTER FOUR
AS SOON AS HE ANNOUNCED himself as the point man, that he wouldn’t be returning to Paris, Walker felt the level of tension in the room drop at least sixty percent. The knowledge boosted his confidence and would ultimately boost earnings for his company.
Brooke Tarantino might have dumped him at the altar on live television. She might have stomped his ego into the ground and made him look like a joke. She might have succeeded in motivating him to leave Atlanta in order to get his mojo back.
But Walker was hell-bent and determined on keeping the Bellagio account. He’d nurtured this account from the beginning and it was growing bigger every year. Atlanta would burn again before he would let another agency raid his account and take the spoils.
“That’s good to know,” Alfredo Bellagio said. “So you’ll give us some more ads on Friday and we’ll think some more.”
Walker nodded, feeling a shot of adrenaline. He would need to hustle to pull it together, but he could do it. He’d done it before. Everyone in the room stood, taking Alfredo’s words as a signal that the meeting was adjourned.
Walker shook hands with Alfredo and one of the VPs sitting next to him. He caught sight of Trina Roberts moving toward the door and he remembered that one hot night….
Her gaze slid away from his. Curious, he thought. They’d parted on good terms. It had been a one-night stand. Damn good one from what he could remember. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember much because he’d been loaded.
He sure didn’t want awkwardness between them now. Not now when he needed every Bellagio insider backing him. He made a mental list of who he should contact personally. Marc Waterson would be inclined to back him. After all, his fiancée, Jenny Prillaman, had been fired as a result of the Brooke wedding debacle. Fortunately she’d been rehired. He made another mental note to contact the marketing VP.
And Trina, he thought. He may as well catch her in her office now. Turning to the assistant that had been assigned to him, he motioned toward the presentation materials. “Please go ahead and pack everything up, Stephanie. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”
He left the conference room and made his way toward Trina’s office, waving at people he hadn’t seen in over a year. With a nonchalance no longer feigned, he’d prepared himself for discomfort, pity, even lame jokes. A year away from Brooke Tarantino had cured him. Hell, a month away from her had cured him.
Truth was, Brooke hadn’t crushed his heart. She’d just blasted his ego and temporarily disrupted some of his business plans. After a year spent developing the European market and enjoying the attention of more than one creative, attentive mademoiselle, he was as good as new.
He punched the elevator button and nodded at the receptionist. “How’s it going, Thelma? I meant to ask, are your kids doing okay?”
The woman blinked. “Oh. I wouldn’t have expected you to remember. It’s