Ally Blake - Blind Dates and Other Disasters - The Wedding Wish

‘Look, Holly—’ his voice seemed to lose all patience ‘—this is just the beginning of what I am proposing here. If I like what you do with this gig, I will be offering you the entire Lincoln Holdings event management account.’

Holly blinked. Slowly. If she had had the strength, she would have pinched herself.

‘The entire Lincoln Holdings account?’ she repeated.

‘Yes. We have been able to handle the workload internally until now but the company is leaping ahead internationally and the job is getting too big.’

Holly desperately tried to rein in her imagination, which was running riot with wild ideas.

‘What’s the catch?’ she asked, hoping there was a great big one so she would have a sane reason to refuse.

‘The catch is I don’t want anyone else in charge of my account. I want you.’

Be careful what you wish for, Holly, for you just might get it. Those words echoed through her head as she sat in stunned silence.

He was offering her an account that her firm, amongst dozens of others, had been wooing without success for years. There was no way she could seriously convince herself or anyone else that she should turn this opportunity down. She had to do this party and it had to be perfect.

She sighed aloud. ‘All right. I’ll do it.’

‘Don’t sound so eager, please.’ He laughed.

‘I am, don’t get me wrong. This is a huge opportunity. Though I can’t help but wonder why.’

‘Why not?’ Jacob asked.

‘Well, you’ve seen my work. And we both know I don’t have the same tastes as you.’ And we all but had a fight the other night. And I had thought I might not ever hear that divine voice of yours again.

Jacob laughed again and Holly grimaced, aware that she was fast finding the sound addictive.

‘You really know how to sell yourself, don’t you? I’m beginning to change my mind about the whole deal.’

Holly could not help but laugh as well. ‘Look, I will happily take on your sister’s engagement party and don’t get me wrong, I will knock your socks off, it will be that fabulous. But I have a counter proposal.’

‘Okay, let’s hear it.’

She took a deep breath and went for it. ‘I will deal with your sister alone for this party and when you give me the Lincoln Holdings account, which I am sure you will, I will deal with your promotions division, and not with you.’

‘Well, now, that was more like it,’ Jacob said, ‘I was not sure that you had that self-protective spirit in you.’

His voice had reached her a little softer and definitely sexier, which was not what Holly had been hoping to bring out in him. She had merely been establishing professional boundaries. Not something she had previously thought sexy, but with Jacob involved …

‘Thank you, I think,’ she said, her own voice huskily mirroring his own. She cleared her throat. ‘If you could pass on your sister’s number we can get started right away.’

Jacob gave her Ana’s contact details. ‘And whatever Ana wants, Ana gets. The result of my being away so long. I am trying to buy back her affection.’

Holly knew from the warmth of his voice that this statement could not be farther from the truth. And again she wondered what sort of woman could secure such staunch and palpable affection from this man.

‘So long as I don’t have to help Ana choose between bronze and pewter candleholders. I’ve been there and done that and it wasn’t pretty.’

‘Pewter,’ Holly answered without pause as she continued scribbling burgeoning ideas onto her notepad.

‘See, that’s just what she eventually chose. I think you two were made for each other.’

‘I think if you promised to stay for ever she would prefer that to a party any day.’

Where on earth had that come from? Holly clamped a hand to her mouth to stop any further recriminating rubbish from slipping out.

‘Would she now?’ His voice whispered down the phone line silky smooth. The insinuation in his question clear.

Holly rubbed her suddenly throbbing temples. ‘Ask her, Jacob,’ she said, pretending she had no idea what he had implied, ‘and see what she says.’

‘I am sure you are right,’ he said, his voice mercifully back to normal. ‘I guess I’ll wait to hear from Ana, then, to see how it’s all going.’

‘I would appreciate that. And Jacob?’

‘Yes, Holly.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he warned her before hanging up the phone.

Holly put the phone down more slowly. Lydia was peering through the glass door with a big expectant grin on her face. Holly waved her into the room.

‘So?’ Lydia asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

‘It may soon be safe to dummy up a press release saying we’ve landed the Lincoln Holdings account.’

‘Yippee!’ Lydia spun around in glee before slumping down on the chair she had been standing on earlier, the important swathes of fabric temporarily forgotten.

‘You had no plans day or night for the next few weeks, did you?’ Holly asked.

Lydia waved a ‘no worries’ hand. ‘The Klingon can wait.’

Holly thought it better not to ask. ‘The sooner we ready our other projects, the sooner we can reel in Jacob Lincoln.’

‘You mean Lincoln Holdings, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’ Holly swiftly changed the subject. ‘Now, up you get, back on the chair so we can sort out these fabrics before lunch.’

Lydia grumbled as she stood back up on the chair and stretched out her aching arms, ‘Sometimes I feel highly unappreciated.’

‘I can’t believe you just did that,’ Ben said from Jacob’s office doorway.

Jacob knew from Ben’s smug expression he had been listening for long enough. ‘Believe it, Benny boy. It’s become too big for me and I’ve been contemplating outsourcing for some time.’ For three whole days, in fact.

‘This is the first I had heard of it.’

‘This is the first you needed to hear of it. That’s why the company is my namesake and not yours.’

Ben sauntered into the room, and then lay back on a lounge chair against the far wall. He nonchalantly flipped through a magazine on Jacob’s coffee-table. ‘She didn’t go on any dates this weekend, you know. I had a couple of men lined up, including the new Accounts guy, Matt Riley, the one who tried chatting her up at the greyhound track. But she baulked.’

There is no reason why that should concern me , Jacob thought, then realised he had stopped breathing.

‘And young Matt’s quite the looker, I am told by the girls in Accounts,’ Ben continued. ‘Babeliscious I think was the most common turn of phrase. Modelled his way through college, you know? But … still she said no.’

Ben’s eyes left the magazine and zeroed in on Jacob, who hoped his face showed none of the curiosity he felt.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know why she has suddenly backed off, would you?’ Ben asked.

Jacob merely shook his head, uncertain what state his voice would be in considering his suddenly dry throat. Maybe she had given up the hunt and had decided to become a normal single woman, capable of organising her own social life. Now that would be an interesting turn of events.

Then Ben said, ‘Maybe she just needed to recharge her batteries. Ready herself for next week’s multitude of contenders.’

‘Maybe,’ Jacob conceded, thumping briskly back to earth.

‘Well, it’s been easier than I thought it would be. She really made an impression on the bunch at your welcome home thing at the track. Once word got around she was open to being set up, I’ve hardly had to do a thing.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Yep. I’ve met all sorts of great guys this last week. I had to cancel one guy’s date but we got on so well I booked him in for a conciliatory lunchtime squash game.’