Read the book: «Her Favourite Rival»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS STILL dark when Audrey Mathews used her swipe card to enter Makers Hardware Cooperative’s headquarters on the southern outskirts of Melbourne. Her new shoes pinched her feet as she made her way to her office, but she figured the pain was worth it. The new CEO, Henry Whitman, started today, and she wanted to look sleek and professional and sharp when she met him. She wanted him to take one look at her and know she was up for anything he might throw at her—including a promotion.

Hence her best suit and new shoes and sleek updo.

Her stomach did a slow roll as she remembered the profile on Whitman she’d read over the weekend. She was a big believer in being prepared, and she’d dug up a bunch of old Business Review Weekly articles on her new boss. To an article, they described him as ruthless, hard-nosed and utterly unsentimental; a man who habitually cut companies to the bone to produce results. One article had even reported that his employees referred to him as the Executioner.

Formidable stuff. But she figured if he was so focused on results, he would appreciate someone who was goal-oriented and hardworking and ambitious.

And nervous. Don’t forget nervous.

Because even though she was prepared to do her damnedest to prove herself—including waking up at the crack of dawn to make a positive first impression—if Whitman ran true to form, there were going to be a lot of retrenchments in the next weeks and months, and there was a chance she might be one of them. Which was why she’d updated her résumé this weekend, too.

She might be an optimist, but she wasn’t stupid.

She checked her watch. One of the articles she’d read claimed Henry Whitman started work at six-thirty every day, without fail. Which meant he should be arriving any second now.

She gathered an armful of papers and strode toward reception. No matter where he entered, Whitman had to pass through the foyer to get to the executive offices, and she planned on being very visible when he did so.

She felt more than a little foolish as she took up a position to the rear of the foyer. For all she knew, Henry Whitman might not even register her when he arrived. Or maybe he’d see right through her ploy and mark her down as a horrible little suck-up.

She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if she should give up on this crazy idea, go back to her desk and use her early start to put a dent in her workload instead of trying to manipulate events.

She wavered for a moment, but something inside wouldn’t let her back away from her plan to be noticed. Probably it was the same something that kept her at her desk many nights when most of her colleagues had gone home. If she had to try to distill it down to its component parts, she guessed it would be one part making up for lost time and two parts sheer grit and determination to carve out a useful, productive niche for herself in the world.

She might not be a doctor or a lawyer, but she was damned good at what she did, and that counted for something. Well, it did with her, anyway.

The sound of the door from the underground parking garage opening and closing echoed up the corridor. Lifting her chin, Audrey tightened her grip on her papers and stepped briskly into the foyer, trying to look as though she was on her way somewhere vital and important and urgent.

She pulled up short when she caught sight of the tall, broad-shouldered man striding toward her.

Not Henry Whitman, but Zach Black, fellow buyer and all-around thorn in her side. Why was she not surprised he was here ready to grease up to the new head honcho? The man oozed ambition; it was a miracle he hadn’t set up camp outside Whitman’s office in order to get a jump on everyone else.

She ignored the little voice that pointed out she was here to do exactly the same thing and cocked an eyebrow. There was the smallest of hitches in Zach’s stride as he saw her, then his mouth settled into the familiar, amused curve he always wore around her. As usual, he looked ridiculously, almost offensively handsome in a charcoal pinstriped suit, his pink-and-white checked shirt and pale gray tie managing to somehow straddle the fine line between professional and stylish.

“Mathews. You pulling an all-nighter or something?” he asked as he joined her.

Funny. Not.

“You read the Business Review Weekly article, didn’t you?” she guessed.

“Of course.” His dark blue eyes scanned her body. “New shoes. Nice touch.”

She fought the urge to squirm. So what if she’d put her best foot forward—literally—today of all days? It wasn’t a crime to be keen to impress your new boss.

“You had your hair cut,” she pointed out.

“It was due.”

She arched an eyebrow again. Who was he kidding? Like her, he’d clearly come prepared to smooch maximum butt this morning.

“Is he here yet?” he asked, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the CEO’s office.

“Not yet.”

“Hmm.” He frowned and checked his watch. “Maybe he’s taking meetings off-site today.”

“Maybe.”

“Talking to some of the key suppliers.”

“Could be.”

A lock of almost-black hair flopped over his forehead, lending his good looks a more approachable, boyish appeal. An illusion, of course. Zach was a shark in a suit. He’d been recruited to Makers six months ago, bringing with him a reputation as a wunderkind who’d gone to the right schools and rocketed his way up the corporate ladder at light speed. She’d recognized him as her only real competition for the next category manager’s job that came up the moment she laid eyes on him, and time had done nothing to prove her instincts wrong.

Zach checked his watch again. “Might as well get some work done, I guess.”

She watched as he walked away, her gaze gravitating to the firm muscles of his backside. She had a running bet with her friend Megan that he had his suits specially tailored to flatter his rear. That was the only explanation for how good his butt looked and why he was universally known as the Man With the Golden Ass among the women in the building.

Good thing she was more of a leg woman.

She returned to her own office, frustrated that her grand plan had gone astray—and that she wasn’t the only one who’d had the genius idea of ambushing the new CEO.

Bloody Zach Black.

It took her a moment to get past the prickliness he always seemed to inspire in her to see the humor in the situation: the two of them getting up before sunrise to race into work to impress each other. If it was anyone else, she’d be laughing with them in the staff room over a cup of terrible instant coffee.

But it wasn’t anyone else; it was Zach. It didn’t help that he was three years younger than her with many years less experience in the industry, yet thanks to impressive academic qualifications and a short but stellar CV, had walked into a job on the same level and was probably getting paid more than her. She knew that was the way the world worked—that women, on average, earned 78 percent of what their male colleagues did in equivalent roles, and that the business community tended to value academic qualifications over working-your-way-up-the-ladder, hands-on experience—but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Nor did his fancy suits and sleek European car and general air of swanky-well-groomed-well-bred-ness. The way he spoke, the way he dressed, even the car he drove seemed designed to let the world know he was that little bit better than everyone else.

Even if it was true, she didn’t need her face rubbed in it.

She also didn’t need to sit at her desk brooding over him. A few hours from now, the office would be buzzing with people who all wanted a piece of her busy schedule. In the meantime, she had a full in-tray to work her way through. More than enough to keep her mind off her pesky colleague.

* * *

ZACH TRIED TO concentrate on the spreadsheet on his computer screen. He was developing a new store-brand power-tool range with one of Makers’s big suppliers, and the information in front of him was important. Unfortunately, all he could think about was Audrey Mathews in her navy suit and new shoes.

She’d beaten him in. If he’d taken the time to think about it, he might have guessed she would do her homework on Whitman, that she’d note the man’s six-thirty start time, and that she’d be here early to impress the man, the same as him. As a general rule, though, he tried not to think about Audrey too much. Not only because he preferred to run his own race. There was something disturbingly distracting about her shiny brown hair and warm golden-brown eyes. Then there was the way she looked in her neat little suits. He shook his head and refocused on his computer. There were too many offerings in the cordless battery range at the budget end of the market. It was crazy to waste shelf space on what was essentially the same product with some minor tweaks.

Maybe he was being paranoid, but he got the distinct impression that he wasn’t Audrey’s favorite person. Which was fine. He’d allocated himself two years at Makers to win a promotion to category manager. He didn’t have time for distractions.

There were ten buyers in the merchandising department, but he’d worked out early on that Audrey was the only competition he needed to worry about. She was one of a handful of female executives, but she never played the gender card to get what she wanted. She was thorough, smart, calm in a crisis and determined. She also had a long history with the company and was well respected. In short, a serious contender for the next category manager opening.

Pity he was going to be the one who got it.

Registering that he was once again thinking about Audrey, he swung away from his computer. Coffee was clearly needed to jump-start his brain. He’d had to forgo his usual morning run to get in early, so caffeine would have to act as a substitute for fresh air and endorphins.

As luck would have it, he had to pass Audrey’s office on the way to the small staff room situated between the marketing and merchandising departments. Her dark head was bent over her desk as she wrote something on a notepad. He wasn’t sure he approved of her new hairstyle. It was too severe for her round face. Made her look like a repressed librarian or school principal.

Still, there was something to be said for repressed librarians. All that pent-up passion...

As if she’d sensed his errant thoughts, Audrey glanced up from her work. She was wearing a pair of dark-framed, rectangular reading glasses, and her gaze met his briefly over the top of the frames, accentuating the schoolmarmish vibe.

She wasn’t schoolmarmish, though. He’d seen her at the office Christmas party, laughing and dancing and enjoying herself. She was fun, when she let her hair down. Fun and more than a little sexy.

Okay, definitely time for coffee.

He made a point of keeping his gaze dead ahead on the return journey and lost himself in his work once he was at his desk. Over the next two hours, the office slowly came to life as the rest of the staff trickled in. He looked up a couple of times as people called out greetings to him, but otherwise he was undisturbed, and he managed to finalize his notes to the supplier.

As nine drew closer, a familiar tension settled into the back of his neck. He waited until nine-thirty before picking up the phone. It was a Monday, after all, and he always checked in with Vera on Mondays.

“Hi, Zach,” she said when she picked up.

“Vera. How are things? Did your daughter have her baby yet?”

“She’s due next week. Although from the size of her I’m beginning to think she’s having twins.” Vera laughed, years of smoking giving the sound a husky roughness.

“This’ll be your third grandchild, right?”

“You’ve got a sharp memory.”

He did. For lots of things, good and bad.

“How’s Mum doing?” he finally asked.

Might as well cut to the chase, since neither Vera nor he was under the illusion that he was calling to talk about the imminent arrival of her grandchild.

“All quiet on the western front at the moment. There might be a new boyfriend on the scene. It’s hard to tell sometimes.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. A new boyfriend. Great. His mother had disastrous taste in men.

“But otherwise everything is good?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Thanks, Vera. I appreciate it.” Next time he visited his mother, he’d drop by next door, too, and give Vera a box of the Scottish shortbreads she loved and some passes for the movies. She refused to take anything more from him, even though he’d done his best to convince her otherwise over the years.

“You look after yourself, sweetheart,” she said warmly, then he was listening to the dial tone.

He couldn’t stop his mind from racing ahead to what the future would almost inevitably hold if what Vera had said was true. None of it was good. If his mother had a new boyfriend and he ran true to type, there would be hospital visits in the near future. Police visits, too. Then the inevitable binge as his mother drowned her sorrows post-breakup.

Acid burned in his belly. He’d been looking out for his mother one way or another for more than twenty years, and the cycle of ups and downs was always the same. Never-ending. Relentless. And it was always going to be that way, until the day she died.

Suddenly he felt infinitely weary. As though gravity had doubled, dragging him down. He stared at his desk blotter, lost in a world of worry.

The ping of an email arriving cut through his thoughts. His gaze shifted to the screen.

There was work to do—there was always work to do. Reaching for his keyboard, he pushed his troubles aside and concentrated on the matter at hand.

* * *

THE NEW SHOES had been a mistake. By the time midmorning rolled around, Audrey’s feet were throbbing so much she wanted to sob with every step she took. Every time she was safely behind her desk she toed them off, which only made squeezing her now-swollen feet back into the shoes every time she needed to leave her office even more painful.

A lesson learned. Next time she bought new shoes, she would run a marathon in them before she so much as considered wearing them to work.

The “best” thing was that Henry Whitman still hadn’t set foot in the building. The steam off the office street was that Zach’s guess had been right—Henry had taken breakfast meetings with the company’s top five suppliers. Which meant her early start and painful shoes had all been for nothing.

Awesome.

She had a slew of phone calls leading up to lunch and was about to rush out to a sandwich shop to grab a bite when she saw her fellow buyer and friend Megan hustling past her office with her head down. Spider senses tingling, Audrey followed her to the ladies’ room. She entered in time to see her friend’s face crumple with misery. She didn’t hesitate, opening her arms and pulling Megan close for a hug.

“Is this what I think it is?” Audrey asked.

“Yes.”

“Megsy, it’ll happen,” she said quietly. “By hook or by crook, it’ll happen.”

Megan and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for a while now, having suffered a miscarriage early in their relationship.

“I’m so sick of this. Why won’t my body work? What’s wrong with me?” Megan’s voice was thick with tears, her small-featured face flushed.

Audrey pressed a kiss to her temple and squeezed her a little tighter. Megan was going to make a great mum, and Audrey didn’t doubt for a moment that somehow she would get there, whether through the old-fashioned way or IVF or adoption, but it was a long, exhausting row to hoe.

“Hang in there. It’ll happen. And if it doesn’t, you’ll find a way to make it happen.”

“I know. It’s just...hard.” Megan sniffed loudly and Audrey released her, leaning across to pluck a handful of tissues from the box next to the washbasin.

“Thanks.” Megan blew her nose, then took a big, shuddery breath. “Do I look like a panda?”

They both turned to consider her reflection in the mirror—smudged eyes, sad mouth, wavy blonde hair down to her shoulders.

“I’m thinking raccoon. Or Lady Gaga the morning after,” Audrey said.

Megan gave an almost-smile. “I wish.”

“Want me to go get your handbag?”

“Would you?”

Audrey gave her a gentle punch on the arm. “Even though it’s a feat on a par with landing a man on the moon, I will. Because it’s you, and because I’m that kind of girl.”

By the time she’d returned and helped Megan repair her makeup and talked some more about her friend’s recalcitrant ovaries and uncooperative uterus, the window for sandwich-grabbing had well and truly closed. Audrey was due in her office for a phone hookup with some interstate colleagues. Not that she minded, at all. Megan had saved her sanity more times than she could count, and Audrey would have been happy to hold her friend’s hand all afternoon.

Still, by two-thirty hunger was gnawing a hole in her belly, and she hobbled to the staff room to collect the tub of emergency yogurt she had stashed in the fridge. She did a little air punch when she saw that a generous colleague had left a bunch of bananas on the table with a note taped to them: Help yourself. Banana and yogurt—practically a three-course meal.

She took a seat before pulling the largest and ripest fruit from the bunch and peeling the top off her yogurt. She’d just eased her shoes off and taken a big bite of banana when a tall, gray-haired man in his late fifties appeared in the doorway. She recognized him instantly as Henry Whitman and nearly choked.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where Gary O’Connor’s office is, please?” The man smiled thinly, his gray eyes flicking over her in efficient assessment before taking a quick inventory of the staff room.

Audrey swallowed a mortified moan. She’d dragged herself out of bed at the horrific hour of four-thirty so she could be in a position to make a good first impression on this man, and instead she got to meet him with bulging cheeks and an enormous half-peeled banana in her hand.

She chewed like crazy and tried to force the lump of banana down her suddenly tight throat. The silence seemed to stretch as he waited for her answer, eyebrows slightly raised. She was on the verge of attempting to mime directions to Gary’s office when the banana finally slid down her throat.

Thank. God.

Eyes watering, she summoned what she hoped was a gracious, professional smile. “Sorry about that.” Her voice sounded funny. As though she’d choked down a chunk of banana, in fact. “Gary’s office is the first on your left around the corner. The one with the Father Christmas suit hanging from the coatrack.”

“Father Christmas. Right. Thank you.”

She started to introduce herself, but he was already turning away. A heartbeat later, he was gone.

Audrey swore under her breath and groped under the table with her feet, searching for her shoes. Had he noticed that her feet were bare? God, she hoped not. She so did not want her new boss’s first impression to be of her barefoot and chipmunk-cheeked, holding the world’s most phallic food.

She was sliding her right foot into its shoe when Zach cruised into the room, coffee mug in hand.

“Mathews.” He gave her a casual salute.

She stood. She wasn’t in the mood for his mocking smiles right now. She’d just crashed and burned, big time. Despite her careful plotting and planning, her scary, intimidating new boss now thought she was about as dynamic as a cud-chewing Jersey cow.

“You know, something’s been bugging me, Mathews.” Zach leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, his tone serious but his eyes laughing. “We were the only people here this morning—so where exactly were you headed so urgently with all those important papers?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Not the world’s wittiest comeback, but it was the best she could do at short notice.

“That was the point of me asking, actually.”

She wasn’t sure what devil prompted her next words. Maybe it was the way Zach was laughing at her, or maybe it was because she was disconcertingly aware of the fact that his crossed-arm posture accentuated the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles in his biceps.

“So, what do you think of Whitman?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.” Zach’s eyes narrowed. “Why, have you?”

“We had a little chat.”

Very little, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Yeah? What about?”

“This and that. Christmas, that kind of thing.” She waved a hand to suggest a broader conversation.

“What was your impression?”

She thought to the moment when she’d looked into Whitman’s cold, steely eyes.

“Surprisingly approachable, actually.”

Zach would find out soon enough that their new CEO was a cyborg, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep him off-balance in the short term.

“Good to hear,” Zach said. “Makes the range review presentations a little less daunting.”

She’d been turning to leave, wanting to exit on a high, but his words brought her up short.

“The range reviews? What’s he got to do with the range reviews?”

Regularly reviewing and assessing the performance of the products within the various departments under her purview was an integral part of her—and Zach’s—role.

“He’s sitting in on them. Didn’t you hear?”

She blinked rapidly, trying to get her head around his announcement. The range reviews were tomorrow. She’d assumed she’d be presenting to the merchandising manager, Gary, as usual, as well as the panel of store owners who sat on the catalog committee. Since Makers was a cooperative, its 645 member stores liked to have a say in what was stocked and how it was promoted, and the representative store owners on the committee spoke on their behalf. They could be a force to be reckoned with at times, but she was used to dealing with them.

Henry Whitman was a whole other story, though.

“When did you find this out?” Her voice was high with surprise.

“Last week sometime.”

Which meant he’d had days to make his presentation as kick-ass as possible, while she had—she checked her watch—less than twenty-four hours.

Aware of Zach watching her, she forced herself to shrug as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “Should make it a bit more interesting than usual.”

“Absolutely.” He grinned, the epitome of cocky arrogance.

She forced her mouth into what she hoped was an equally confident smile and headed for the door, making an effort not to hobble in her too-tight shoes or show by the flicker of an eyelid that she was battling a panicky wash of adrenaline. Showing any weakness in front of this man was the equivalent of a limping gazelle bathing in gravy and handing out paper plates and serviettes to the waiting lions. She wasn’t about to make it easy for him.

In her office, she dialed her boss.

“Gary, what’s this I’m hearing about Henry Whitman sitting in on our range reviews tomorrow?”

“Oh, yeah. I meant to let you know. He wants to get a feel for our systems, see people in action.”

“Right.” She bit the single word out. Gary was a good guy, but sometimes he forgot to pass on things and this was a classic example.

“Relax, Audrey. You’ll do fine.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

She tossed the phone onto her desk and called up the range review file. She’d opted to rationalize the portable heating range and had arranged her points neatly in a slide show presentation, complete with product specifications, images and pricing. It was fine, perfectly adequate, but there were no bells or whistles or extras. She knew without a doubt that Zach’s would have all of the above, and more.

“Crap.”

You can do this. You’ve got all night to make this better. Take a deep breath and think.

She stared at her computer screen, but instead of neat bullet points, she saw her bank statement. She’d stretched herself so she could buy the small one-bedroom apartment she called home. She had car payments to meet, too. If she failed to impress tomorrow and the Executioner put her head on the chopping block, it wouldn’t take long before her life unraveled at the seams.

She shook her head in instinctive rejection of the scenario. She had all night. It would be enough.

She would make it enough, if it killed her.