Jacquie D’Alessandro - A Sure Thing?

"Augh!" She plunged her fingers into her hair-her loose, sexy hair-and fisted her hands. She squeezed her eyes tight, hoping to ward off the sound of her excruciatingly honest inner voice, but it tapped her on the shoulder.

Hey, Jilly , her inner voice said. Let's be honest here, okay?

You did wear a skirt and heels and your hair down and red lips with the thought of enticing a man-but that man wasn't Jack Witherspoon.

She blew out a long sigh filled with resignation and frustration. As much as she'd like to lie to herself, what was the point? While she wouldn't compromise herself by dressing sexy for a client, deep down she knew she'd tried to look more alluring than she normally would, hoping that Matt would notice. And obviously he had. And obviously he thought she was playing the sexy card to win Jack's favor.

And yes, while that was insulting, she couldn't really blame him. After all, he didn't know her. He had no way of knowing that she would never stoop to something like that. That her sense of fair play and her integrity balked at such underhanded tactics. That she'd rather lose fairly than win unfairly. All he really knew about her through their frequent head-butting was that she was highly competitive, extremely ambitious, and wanted very much to land the ARC account. That, coupled with the fact that many women-and men-in their industry did use sex to get ahead… well, it really wasn't unreasonable or unthinkable that such an assumption would cross his mind. If their situations were reversed, she would have thought the same thing.

She rose and paced to the window. The thick green drapes were pushed back, allowing daylight to flood the room. Drawing aside the sheer, cream curtain panel, she looked out at the snow-covered vineyards. Row upon row of bare vines, held in place by thick wooden stakes and a trio of horizontal cables, stood at attention like a battalion of soldiers. With the harvest season over, the vines resembled thick stems with gnarled fingers pointing upward toward the gray, snow-leaden sky.

Fat white snowflakes drifted downward, beckoning Jilly to come out and play in the winter wonderland. Since she wasn't meeting Jack until three, and she had no desire to remain in this room where the tantalizing fragrance of Matt's musky cologne still lingered, she gave in to the beckoning. She crossed to the closet and pulled out her favorite pair of jeans and a thick, cable-knit sweater, ignoring how disturbingly intimate Matt's clothes looked hung next to hers.

She changed in quick order, slipped her suit onto a hanger, and was just preparing to lace up her sturdy snow boots when she heard the door lock click. She looked up just as Matt, laptop case in hand, strode into the room.

He halted at the sight of her, and for several seconds silence swelled as they stared at each other. Annoyance at his earlier assumption mingled with a tingling awareness of his dark good looks and masculinity. Whew. He might be a pain in the butt, but there was no getting away from the fact that he was a damn fine-looking pain in the butt.

Finally she glanced pointedly at her watch. "It's barely nine-fifteen. Your breakfast meeting didn't take very long."

"Jack sent a message that he was delayed and rescheduled our appointment for ten. Thought I'd come back up here where it's quiet and review my presentation."

She raised her brows. "Are you sure you didn't come back up here to check on my whereabouts? To see if maybe I was what had delayed Jack?"

He hesitated a moment, then said, "I have to admit, I'm relieved to discover you here."

A humorless laugh escaped her. "Don't you mean surprised?"

"No. I mean relieved." He shrugged. "With maybe a little surprise thrown in."

Humph. For an answer, she returned her attention to lacing up her boots. "I'll be out of here in just a minute."

"Fine." Without another word, he crossed to the desk, set his laptop on the polished oak surface, then flicked the On button. Peeking at him from under her lashes, she watched him settle himself in the chintz-covered wing chair, then pull a disk from his laptop case and insert it into the computer. Seconds later a frown pulled down his brows. His gaze scanned the screen, and his frown turned into a scowl.

She heard his fingers tapping away on the keyboard, then a muffled curse. She pressed her lips together and kept lacing. Clearly something was wrong. Well, too bad. It wasn't her problem. Whatever disaster had befallen Matt Davidson, he most likely deserved it.

Done with her lacing, she looked up, and her gaze involuntarily flicked over to him. His face was pale, his lips flattened into a thin line, and a muscle ticked in his jaw.

Before she could clamp a hand over her mouth, she found herself asking, "Problem?"

With his gaze still glued to the screen, he dragged his hands down his face. "Ever have the day from hell?"

"Frequently. Today, for instance, is a front-runner, thanks to you."

He shot her a glare. "Ha ha. You're a real laugh a minute."

"Thank ya, thank ya verra much," she said in her best Elvis impersonation. "I'll be here all weekend. So what's wrong?"

"Well, yesterday was my latest day from hell. Everything that could go wrong, did." His gaze returned to the screen, and his fingers resumed typing. "And I've just discovered that the day from hell simply keeps on giving and giving."

"Meaning what?"

"My laptop crashed yesterday. Got infected with the Missionary Position virus that's wreaking havoc everywhere."

Sympathy instantly overrode Jilly's annoyance and she winced. "Ouch. I've heard that virus is especially bad."

"You're not kidding. I turned on the computer and this little dancing naked guy appeared, then pffft ," he snapped his fingers, "little dancing naked guy gave an evil chuckle, said, 'You're screwed,' then proceeded to hump his way across the screen and delete all my files."

Her eyes widened. "Yikes. That is bad-and undignified to boot."

He shot her a glare. "Don't you dare laugh."

"I wouldn't dream of it. My computer got fried by the Lollipop virus last year, so I know how awful it is. Did you bring the laptop to Maxximum's IT department? I took my machine to them when it was infected, and they were able to recover most of my files."

"I left it with them yesterday afternoon and filled out an emergency requisition for a new laptop." He nodded toward the machine in front of him. "This is it."

"And I gather that there's something wrong with it?"

"You could say that. It appears that whoever loaded the software onto this particular set neglected to load any of the standard word processing programs."

"You're kidding." She crossed to the desk, then looked at the screen over his shoulder.

"I wish I was. Look." He pointed to the icons. "Not there."

"Did you search through the program files?"

"Twice. Not there." He tunneled his fingers through his hair and groaned. "I should have suspected something would go wrong since the guy in IT yesterday was a temp. Obviously the temp from hell. A perfect match for the day from hell." A very unamused sounding laugh erupted from him. "Well, that's going to delay my presentation for Jack-at least until I can get to a computer store and buy the software I need and install it. God knows where the nearest computer store is. This area isn't exactly a booming metropolis." He glanced over his shoulder at the heavy snowfall visible through the window. "And with all this snow, the roads are most likely a mess."

"The last forecast I heard predicted from one to a hundred and twenty-five inches of snow," she said with a half smile.

"Well, at least the weatherman has a chance of being right by covering his bases that way."

"Can't you give Jack a hard copy of your presentation?"