Her Favorite Rival by Sarah Mayberry

say. She’d had precious few face-to-face encounters with him to date—the banana incident, obviously, and the range-review inquisition, along with a handful of smile-and-nod pass-bys in the corridors at work. She’d noticed he wasn’t exactly the master of small talk. Or perhaps he simply preferred not to get too close to the people he would soon squash like bugs.
    Either way, it was clearly going to be up to her to initiate conversation.
    “Have you had a chance to—”
    The lift pinged to a halt, the doors gliding open. Whitman exited after offering them a terse nod.
    She and Megan remained silent until the doors closed again.
    “That went well,” Audrey said.
    “Yes, I thought so. I particularly liked your haiku.”
    “Thank you. Have you ever considered TV weather girl as an alternate career?”
    They both cracked up laughing.
    “Is it just me, or is he super-scary?” Megan asked.
    “He’s scary. I think he likes it, too.”
    They parted ways at Audrey’s door and Audrey went inside to brush her teeth and make some final preparations for the day ahead. Her gaze fell on the bright Makers-blue of the cover of the analysis as she prepared to leave the room again. Zach would get a kick out of her encounter with the Great Man. She could almost see his mouth curling up into an appreciative smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He’d probably tell her—
    So we’re both on the same page here, you know what you’re doing, right? Standing in your hotel room, grinning like a doltish loon over an imaginary conversation with a man who is never going to be more than a friend?
    She pressed her lips together and left the room. She was here to work. It would be a good idea if she focused on that fact. Instead of...other things.
    * * *
    S HE DID HER best to avoid Zach for the rest of the day and night, but as fate would have it, he was the first person she saw the next morning when she arrived in the foyer. Hard not to notice him when he was standing in the middle of the lobby, talking to Henry Whitman. Shaking his hand and handing over a thick, spiral-bound document with a bright blue cover.
    Time literally stuttered to a halt as neurons fired and connected in her brain. The smile on Zach’s face. The manly handshake. The fact that Whitman was walking away with her freaking analysis in his hand.
    No. No, Zach wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t. Not after all the hard work we put into that thing.
    They’d written it together. They’d rehearsed their presentation together. She couldn’t believe that Zach would shaft her so spectacularly by robbing her of her share of the kudos. Not now that they knew each other. Not now that they were friends.
    Zach turned away, heading across the foyer toward the restaurant, clearly unaware that she’d witnessed his little confab with Whitman. She scuttled after him, her heels clicking and skidding on the tiled floor.
    “Zach. Zach .”
    He paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Audrey. Hey.” He smiled the kind of smile that would normally make her lose her train of thought.
    Not today.
    “Was that our analysis I just saw you hand to Whitman?” She tried to keep her voice calm.
    Because she needed to confirm his perfidy before she gouged his eyes out. Maybe he’d given Whitman a different report and the blue cover was a coincidence. Maybe she was on the verge of lunging for his jugular for no reason at all.
    Please let that be the case. Please, please let him not have betrayed me like this.
    “Yeah. I bumped into him when I was running this morning and mentioned I had it with me and he asked for it.” He shrugged as though it wasn’t a big deal.
    “So you gave it to him. Even though we’re scheduled to present it together in a couple of days?”
    He frowned, clearly picking up on her tone. “I’m getting the feeling that if I say yes you’re going to have a problem with that.”
    “Oddly, Zach, yes, I will.” Her voice rose to a sharp peak and a group of