He raised an eyebrow. “And you think the next one’s going to come from you, Allison Bartlett.”
I looked him right in the eye. “Well, why not?”
There was silence again as we stared at each other, challenging, but this time taut as a pulled-tight rope, a balance beam that we might fall off of if we looked away.
A distant part of my brain noticed that both our faces were flushed, and we were both leaning forward. Our hands almost touching on the table.
Then Hunter leaned back in his chair, and the distance yawned between us again, wide and insurmountable.
“Well, you’re certainly doing a good job advertising the advertising industry,” he said with a light laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything different. What did you do before that?”
Well, at least he was asking questions. We could probably have a conversation if he kept that up. And that was all I wanted, wasn’t it? I didn’t need his approval. Well, not for my life choices, anyway. I only needed it for my final pitch.
“What did I do before I joined the forces of evil?” I said. “I interned with them. Before that, I was in college. Before that, I studied the complex art of disappointing my mother in every way possible.”
I hadn’t meant to say that, but my sass reflex had popped up to block anything more emotional. I could tell it startled him, because his gaze swung up to meet mine again, and didn’t immediately pull away.
It was an uncomfortably intimate moment, nothing like his revelation earlier this evening. I had wanted to know more about him then, about whatever it was in his past that had shaped and hurt him.
Now, I just wanted to crawl under the table and disappear.
“So, what did you do before you took over Knox whiskey?” I said quickly, tossing the conversational ball back to him and hoping that he would pursue it instead of my revelation.
And bam, there was that tension again, tightening his shoulders until they were nearly up around his ears. His voice was much too carefully casual as he replied, “Oh, nothing much. Wasted a lot of time and money, according to Chuck.”
Why did that defensive posture make my heart hurt so much? Why did I want so badly to touch his cheek, to tell him everything would be okay?
“I wouldn’t take anything that asshole says too seriously,” I said instead.
“I kind of have to.” The admission seemed to jump almost involuntarily out of his mouth, and this time my gaze was the one startled up to his. His eyes were as fierce as a hawk’s, and as intent. “You said your ideas were coming along?”
“Yes.” Like I was going to share them now, after he’d ripped my whole profession apart. They were going to be untouchably, unquestionably, 100% perfect before I let them go before his judgment now. “I’m still brainstorming, but they’ll be ready soon.”
“Better not take too long.” Did I say his shoulders were tense before? He had practically been lounging compared to the stressed posture he assumed as he looked away, out over the setting sun, almost drowned in the lake. His profile was dark, cast in shadow by the meager lanterns strung around the porch. He let out a long sigh. “Chuck is ready to launch a takeover. I’ve only managed to retain forty-nine percent of the shares.”
I couldn’t help it; I gasped. “Chuck has the rest?”
“Only twenty-five percent,” Hunter admitted. “But that’s a lot. And he can influence the other shareholders. He…knows things, about a lot of them. Things they’d want to protect, that they wouldn’t want other people to know. So. They’ll follow his lead.”
I felt like the weight of the world had suddenly been dropped on my shoulders. What was I doing, sitting around mooning over this man? He clearly had bigger things on his mind, and so should I.
“I—I should go.” I stood. “Thank you for a lovely dinner, but I—should get back to work.”
“I suppose I should as well.”
Hunter stood quickly, trying to push in his chair; it bumped against mine, which whacked into my leg, and I stumbled, cursing my decision to wear heels to dinner—
Hunter caught me.
“Are you all right?”
His voice was so deep, and it rumbled through me—I could feel his chest rising and falling with each breath, I could feel his heartbeat through his skin—he smelled like bourbon and cedar and oh, his hands were so strong and warm—
His eyes, gazing down at me in concern, his eyes were like molten gold—
“I’m fine,” I whispered, breathless.
And then the moment passed. Hunter released my arm, stepped away. “Good.”
I took a step backward too. I seemed like the only thing to do. “Well, I’ll be going.”
And yet I didn’t move.
“So will I.” Hunter turned, and then turned back. For a second, my heart filled with ridiculous hope.
“Thank you,” he said. “For all that you do.”
“We soulless minions aren’t so bad after all, eh?” I tried to joke.
But his smile was perfunctory and far away, and he was unreachable once more as he turned and walked away from me.
SEVEN
I was hitting a brick wall. No. A brick wall was practically a feather pillow compared to the wall that I was hitting. This was a marble wall, no, a diamond wall, hell, this was a wall made of some super hard experimental carbon fiber. And I was running into it again and again.
I knew the social responsibility angle was the way to go, but I just couldn’t make the copy sing. I had to make the customers fall in love with the company, not bog them down in a history lesson.
Knox has a long proud history of—
No, no, it was crap, it was all crap, everything I had ever written was crap.
I couldn’t let Hunter down like this.
Hey, bro, you hear about Knox? They’re pretty dope, ‘cause—
Even worse. Fucking terrible. I sounded like a ‘Don’t Do Drugs’ video written by a fifty-year-old man.
Maybe statistics would save me.