Mr. Perfect (Page 35)

He was also an asshole.

Some people come by it naturally. Others work very hard at it. Ashford de Wynter did both.

He didn’t ask Jaine to be seated. She sat anyway, earning a frown for her presumption. She suspected the reason for this little conference and wanted to be comfortable while he chewed her out.

"Ms. Bright," he began, looking as if he smelled something distasteful.

"Mr. de Wynter," she replied.

Another frown, from which she deduced it hadn’t been her turn to speak.

"The situation at the gate has become untenable."

"I agree. Perhaps if you tried a court order…" She let the suggestion trail off, knowing he didn’t have the authority to obtain one even if there was a basis for it, which she doubted. The "situation" wasn’t endangering anyone, nor were the news people hindering the employees. The frown became a glare. "Your facetiousness is unappreciated. You know very well this situation is your doing. It’s unseemly and distracting, and people are becoming unhappy."

For "people," she thought, read "his superiors."

"How is it my doing?" she asked mildly.

"That vulgar List of yours…"

Maybe he and Leah Street had been separated at birth, she mused. "The List isn’t mine, any more than it’s Marci Dean’s. It was a collaborative effort." What was it with everyone, holding her solely responsible for the List? Was it that mysterious "authority" again? If she had that kind of power, maybe she should start wielding it more often. She could make shoppers let her go to the head of the line, or have her street plowed first when it snowed. "Ms. Bright," Ashford de Wynter said in quelling tones. "Please."

Meaning, please don’t take him for an idiot. He was too late; she already did.

"Your brand of humor is very recognizable," he added. "Perhaps you weren’t the only one involved, but you were undeniably the chief instigator. Therefore it falls to you to rectify the situation."

Jaine might gripe about Dawna to her friends, but she wasn’t about to mention anyone else’s name to de Wynter. He already knew the other three names. If he chose to believe the majority of the fault was hers, nothing she could say would change his mind.

"Okay," she said. "I’ll go to the gate at lunch and tell them you don’t appreciate all this publicity and you want them to get off Hammerstead property or you’ll have them arrested."

He looked as if he had swallowed a mackerel. "Ah… I don’t think that would be the best way to handle things."

"What do you suggest?"

Now, there was a question. His expression went absolutely blank.

She hid her relief. It would have shredded her ego if de Wynter had been able to think of a workable solution when she hadn’t been able to come up with even an unworkable one.

"A staffer from Good Morning America has called," she continued. "I’ll blow her off. People magazine is supposed to call, too, but I just won’t take the call. All that free publicity can’t be good for the company…"

"Television? National television?" he asked weakly. He stretched his neck like a turkey. "Ah… it would be a wonderful opportunity, wouldn’t it?"

She shrugged. She didn’t know if it was wonderful or not, but it was undeniably an opportunity. Of course, she had just talked herself into a corner; publicity was exactly what she didn’t want. She undoubtedly had a serious character defect, since she couldn’t bear to let Ashford de Wynter get the best of her in anything.

"Maybe you should run the idea by the powers that be," she suggested, getting to her feet. If she was lucky, someone in the upper echelons would veto the idea. He was torn between excitement and a reluctance to let her know that he had to ask anyone at all – as if she didn’t know exactly what his position was and how much authority it entailed. He was in the middle of middle management, and that was as high as his cream was going to rise.

As soon as she got back to her desk, Jaine called a war council. Luna, Marci, and T.J. all agreed to meet for lunch in Marci’s office.

She explained the current status to Gina and spent the rest of the morning, with Gina’s aid, dodging calls. At lunch the four of them, fortified with a selection of crackers and diet sodas, gathered in Marci’s office. "I think we can declare the situation officially out of control," Jaine said gloomily, and filled them in on Gina’s sister and the calls that had come in that morning from NBC and People magazine, just as Gina had predicted. They all looked at T.J.

T.J. shrugged. "I don’t see any point in trying to put out the fire now. Galan knows. He didn’t come home last night."

"Oh, honey," Marci said sympathetically, reaching out to touch T.J.’s arm. "I’m so sorry."

T.J.’s eyes looked bruised, as if she had spent the night crying, but she seemed calm. "I’m not," she said. "This just brought things out in the open. He either loves me or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, then he should get the hell out of my life and quit wasting my time."

"Wow," Luna said, blinking her lovely eyes at T.J. "You go, girl."

"What about you?" Jaine asked Marci. "Any trouble with Brick?"

Marci gave her wry, seen-everything-tried-most-of-it grin. "There’s always trouble with Brick. Let’s just say he reacted in typical Brick fashion, with a lot of yelling and a lot of beer drinking. He was still asleep when I left this morning."

They all looked at Luna.

"I haven’t heard from him," she said, and grinned at Jaine. "You were right about all the measurement offers and jokes. I’m just telling all the guys that my vote was for twelve inches, but the rest of you wanted to downsize. That generally stops them cold."