N MONDAY MORNING, I came into the office full of my usual sunshine and butterflies (or so I liked to think). I pretty much had the corner on the market for sunshine and butterflies… Pete and Leila were so wrapped up in each other, they almost had their own language, like children raised by wolves or whatnot. Karen was best left alone until after ten…it was only safe to go past her office if you were planning to toss in a hunk of raw meat or a double-shot cappuccino. Damien, of course, felt it was beneath his dignity to be cheerful. Fleur preferred to burst into the office, always ten minutes late, talking about hangovers and weekends in New York City and needing a smoke before she could reasonably be expected to function.

“Right,” she said now, barreling down the hall. “Cheerio, old bean. What’s the news?”

“Not much,” I said. Fleur was much friendlier when Muriel wasn’t around, something I’d noted and filed away. Mark and Muriel hadn’t arrived yet, hence the “old bean” bit. “How was your weekend?”

“Went out with a total wanker, Callie, you’d simply die if I told you.” She then proceeded to slay me by launching into a story about a man, a largemouth bass and a thong, but between her colloquialisms and nicotine buzz, I couldn’t quite keep up. Still, I nodded cheerfully when I guessed it was appropriate.

“So, Callie, it must be hard, seeing them together all the time. They’re really in love, aren’t they?” Fleur asked. Before I could find a way to answer that, she went on. “Anyway, I’ve been meaning for us to have a chat. You ever see that bloke? The vet?”

“Um, yes, actually. My niece had a field trip to his office. I might be doing a little work for him on the side.”

“Really? Oh.” Fleur flashed a quick smile, then began reapplying her lipstick, and mussed her short hair. “Right. Seems like a sweetie, yeah?”

“Sure,” I said, though sweetie felt a bit left of center when I thought of Ian. Which I seemed to be doing a lot. Over the weekend, in between sanding a canoe for Noah, trying out some new hip-hop moves while Bronte howled with horrified laughter, babysitting for Seamus and taking Josephine for a kayak ride, I’d started work on Ian’s Web site. E-mailed him a request for a picture of him and Angie and was still waiting for an answer. Called a bunch of people for the pet fair, which would be held in two weeks.

“I saw him as well,” Fleur said. “Down at Toasted & Roasted, yeah? Had ourselves a coffee. He was sending out signals, yeah?”

“Really? He told me…uh, never mind.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “he said he wasn’t looking for a relationship right now. But of course, he may be feeling differently with you.”

She smirked. “Differently, is it? Could be. Well, I’d best get on. Cheerio!”

I definitely could not see Ian and Fleur as a couple. Wondered just what that coffee meant. Knowing Fleur, they could’ve just passed each other on the street—God knew the woman exaggerated her love life. But on a real date? No way. Not the way she talked a mile a minute, always with the crazy stories and… Now, now, Callie, said my inner Michelle. Don’t be catty.

Right. Besides, I had work to do. I set down my coffee and turned on my computer, staring into space as it warmed up. Well, not space, exactly. At a picture of Mark and me at the Clios. My dress had been absolutely adorable…this plum-colored A-line number with lighter purple flowers sewn on the bodice. Lots of great cleavage. I looked so happy. Mark did, too. We had been happy…

Might want to toss that one, Mrs. Obama offered. She was, as usual, right. But not just yet.

I forced my attention away from the photo and smiled. Fake smiling can lead to real smiling, I once read, and real smiling is good for a person. Still, my heart sighed.

Around ten, there was a ruckus in the hallway. “Give me ten minutes, Damien!” Mark snapped. Uh-oh. He rarely lost his cool in the office. Trouble in paradise? Betty Boop perked up.

Mark strode right into my office, which seemed to shrink instantly.

“Hey, Mark,” I said, giving him a big smile.

He didn’t smile back. Instead, he closed the door and put his hands on his hips. “What’s this I hear about you doing some freelance work for some vet?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered easily. “A little PR for the guy who came on the BTR hike. Not big enough for the agency. Web site, stuff like that. I’ll probably charge him two hundred bucks.” I paused. “I e-mailed you about this over the weekend.”

“I’ll be the judge of whether it’s big enough for the agency, Callie,” he growled.

I blinked in surprise. “You never minded me doing little jobs before, Mark,” I pointed out. “The seniors’ center, the nursery school…”

“Right,” he said. “But…well, you should’ve asked.”

“I did, Mark. I e-mailed you.”

“Right,” he said again. He took a deep breath, then sighed and sat down on my couch, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Are you two seeing each other?”

I nearly choked. “Um…no! No, Mark.”

He looked at me for a long minute. “Are you seeing anybody these days?” His voice was velvety soft. The same voice he’d used in Santa Fe.

I took a quick breath. “It’s…I…it’s not really your business, is it?” My heart rolled.

Mark glanced through the wavy glass wall toward Fleur, who was clicking on her computer and probably straining to overhear us. “No, I guess not,” he said, dropping his eyes to the floor. “It’s just…I’m sorry, Callie. Didn’t mean to be a prick.”

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice cracking a little. My stomach felt hot, my knees tingled.

I heard Muriel’s voice then, and the sound of her office door closing. Swallowing, I took a breath—seemed like I’d forgotten to for a few minutes. “Anything else, Mark?” I asked in a normal tone.

“Actually, yes.” He looked down at the floor. “I just took a look at your idea for Hammill Farms. I have some problems with it. You need a new concept.”

My mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You need to rethink it.”

“I…I… Really?”

“Yes, Callie,” he said in a harder tone. “Really.”

Hammill Farms was one of our biggest accounts, second only to BTR. They’d made syrup here in Vermont for 150 years and wanted to do for syrup what Grey Goose had done for vodka—have people appreciate the good stuff, basically. They were also willing to fork out the cash to do so. The owner, John, was obsessed with syrup—he’d nearly gotten Mark and me drunk on the stuff when we’d visited. That was the week before Muriel came. The week before my birthday.

We were showing John the concept this week, and honestly, I thought it was one of my best campaigns. In the television spots, we’d hear the narrator say: John Hammill is a man obsessed. Then we’d show John, like a master winemaker, holding up a glass of syrup to the light as he waxed poetic, extolling the thickness, the clarity, the grade, the subtleties of flavor. Then we’d go to footage of John in action, tramping through the woods, kissing his maples, talking about ideal conditions and the tradition of syrup-making as he checked the sap lines and boiler, talking nonstop. We’d end with him pouring syrup onto a stack of pancakes, taking a bite of pancakes and, as he did when we visited, practically falling out of his chair in near-orgasmic pleasure. The voice-over would say: It takes a guy like that to make syrup like this. Fade out to a picture of the farm in winter, the newly designed label and the words Hammill Farms Maple Syrup: Six generations of perfection. The print and Internet ads would echo that theme, as would the radio spots.

The pièce de résistance and my huge home run was the narrator—Terry Francona, the manager of the Boston Red Sox. When we first visited the farm, I’d seen a picture of Mr. Francona in John’s office. Apparently, he’d visited with his family last fall just before the post-season. So I wrote to Mr. Francona’s agent, sent a huge basket of Hammill Farms goodies…maple syrup, maple sugar, gourmet pancake mix, T-shirts—the whole shebang—and said what an honor Terry had bestowed upon the farm with his visit, expressed the importance of family farming here in Red Sox Nation, yadda yadda, and the upshot was that Terry said yes. Every Red Sox fan in New England would recognize that voice.

The concept was fantastic.

“It’s just not what we’re after,” Mark said in the face of my stunned silence.

“Well, what…what are you looking for, Mark?” I asked. This was the first time ever that Mark had disagreed with a concept of mine. He’d tweaked, made suggestions, sure…but he’d never rejected anything of mine before. Well. Any of my work, that is. He’d rejected me just fine.

“I think we’re looking for something a little more…whimsical,” Mark said now.

“Whimsical?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t meet my eyes.

My heart raced sickly. There was another word he used that gave me pause. “And who’s ‘we,’ Mark?”

His expression hardened just a little. “Well, Muriel pointed out that…she thought it was a little… It just wasn’t what we wanted.”

Muriel. “Well, I stand by it. I think it’s a really good idea.”

“That’s fine, Callie, you’re welcome to think that.” His mouth tightened. “But I want something else. We have a meeting with John on Friday morning.”

“And did you and Muriel have anything specific in mind?” I asked.

“Look!” Mark barked. I jumped. “You’re not infallible, okay? You do great work, Callie—we all agree on that—but could you just give us another concept? I need something by Thursday afternoon, if it’s not too much of a problem, okay?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, of course, Mark. I just…I’m on it.” I paused. “What time’s the meeting on Friday?”

“You don’t need to come,” he said harshly, and with that, he left my office, the door gaping open so I could see straight into Muriel’s black-and-white splendor across the hall. She was on the phone, but she gave me a nasty smile.

My computer chimed with an instant message. He’s jealous! Fleur wrote. I didn’t even know what she was talking about.

My hands were shaking, and my heart stuttered in my chest. So Muriel was weighing in on my work, huh? And Mark was listening. There was nothing wrong with the Hammill Farms ad. Not a damn thing. I’d be hard-pressed to come up with something better than that.

And I wasn’t going to the meeting. That was a first. A very bad first.

For the next three and a half days, I worked furiously. Pete and Leila stayed late, laying out the storyboards for the television spots, finessing the PowerPoint presentations, designing new print ads. For three nights in a row, I worked at both the office and at home, staying up past 1:00 a.m., setting my alarm for 6:00 a.m. I kept my door closed at work, and everyone pretended things were normal. Mark said hello, Muriel pretended to smile, Fleur sent me encouraging e-mails and schmoozed with my nemesis, playing both sides.

By Thursday, I had two more ad campaigns. Neither was as good as the original, but both were still pretty solid. At one o’clock (because Mark had said afternoon, right?), I knocked on the open door to his office. He waved me in, though he was on the phone.

“Okay, Mom. I should go. See you for dinner Sunday, right? Oh, great, I’m glad you liked them. Love you, too.” He smiled and hung up. “Hey, Callie.” As if he hadn’t chewed me out the other day. As if things were peachy keen.

“How’s your mom?” I asked.

“She’s great, Callie. Thanks for asking. What’s up?”

“Is now a good time to go over the new Hammill concepts?”

His mouth fell open. “Oh,” he said. “Well, actually, I…um…I’m glad you’re here.” He got up and closed the door, then turned to me, his hands clasped behind his back. “I’ll take a look at those later, but…actually, we came up with something else.”

I blinked.

“Yeah, and we’ll show it to John tomorrow. But leave those there, just in case.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at me, his expression sheepish.

“What do you mean, you came up with something else?” I asked faintly.

He winced. “Well, Mure and I were kicking it around at home and—”

That was the last straw. “Really, Mark? I just spent three days on these. And so did Pete and Leila—your employees, in case you forgot. We’ve been busting our asses on this, while you and Mure…” My voice broke. “Here. Keep them.” Tossing the comps and CDs on his coffee table, I turned to leave. My hands were icy, and I was dangerously close to tears.

“Callie, wait. Wait, honey. Don’t go.”

He was using that voice. That low, smoky, intimate voice and I felt a flash of anger so hot and sharp, it was like a razor left in the sun. I hated him in that moment. Wanted to punch him in the teeth.

But more than that, I hated myself, because that voice still had an effect, dammit all to hell.

He came a little closer. “Callie, come on,” he whispered.

“What?” I snapped.

“Callie, look. Turn around. Please.”

I took a slow breath and obeyed.

Mark tilted his head and looked into my eyes. “Muriel is not a threat to you. She’s just cutting her teeth. She’s got some talent, she really does.”

Right, I thought. I’ll just bet she does.

“Please don’t be upset. I’ll be taking your ideas, too.”

“Whatever, Mark. You own the company.”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.” There was a warning in his voice. “But, Callie, you’re an important part of this place, you know that.”

“Yes,” I answered, my fists clenching. “I do know that. And I just spent three and a half days coming up with two new campaigns, pulling the art department off everything else, just to replace a perfectly good ad campaign because your girlfriend wants to play creative director.”

Good for you, Mrs. Obama cheered. I didn’t feel so triumphant. Christ, what if he fired me right now? I never talked like this! I never had to.

Mark stepped closer to me. Unlike the rest of us, he didn’t have glass walls. My heart rate kicked up, and I felt my cheeks prickle with heat. “You’re right,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry. About a lot of things, Callie.”

My throat tightened in helpless anger…and other things. Sorrow. Heartache. Memories of feeling so stupid for so long. Don’t cave now, the First Lady urged. You’re doing great.

“Look at me, Callie,” Mark said softly.

Ah, shit, Michelle sighed. Here we go again.

Mark’s eyes were ridiculously appealing. Dark, dark brown with thick, long lashes. It wasn’t fair. I totally understood the old expression, damn your eyes. As if reading my mind, Mark smiled, just a little bit, and that was what broke me. For a flash, it felt like we were back in that closet in Gwen Hardy’s basement, and a hot wave of longing surged over me. It just wasn’t fair.

“No one can replace you, Callie,” he said quietly. “No one.”

I took a shaky breath. Confusion and anger and, yes, hope—dopey, immortal hope—churned around in my heart. “I appreciate that,” I whispered, blinking back tears. “But I’m not sure this is going to work for me, Mark.”

“Don’t you even think about it,” Mark said, taking my hands. “Trust me. Things will settle down. Muriel will find her place. Be patient, okay? Please?” His thumbs rubbed the backs of my hands—gently, slowly, before he let go. “Now I’ve made my best girl cry,” he murmured, going over to his desk. “Let me find you a tissue or something.”

He’s using you, Michelle told me.

The thing was, I already knew.

MARK AND MURIEL LEFT FOR their meeting with Hammill Farms at 9:00 on Friday morning. Damien went, too, to help set up the presentation and take notes. The morning seemed to last forever. I fussed, I did busywork, I e-mailed clients and subcontractors, I deleted old files. I could barely sit still.

Finally, around two, they returned. The rest of us fell silent, waiting for the verdict while pretending to work. Our first indicator was Muriel, who stomped down the hall in her tight black skirt and slammed the door to her office. She didn’t spare me a glance. Mark and Damien came along next and went straight to Mark’s office, closing the door behind them.

A half hour later, Damien crept out of Mark’s office. A few minutes later, he sent me an e-mail. Callie shoots, Callie scores. Hammill went with your original idea. Damien.