Page 38 of Knocked Up by my Rival

“Johnson just postponed the meeting to next month without a set date,” I said.

“I didn’t get the call,” Mackenzie said, and I could imagine her frowning. She had such an expressive face. A cute one. A hot one.

It made me think of her lips, which made me think of kissing her.

I shook off the thought.

Be professional.

“He said he couldn’t get through, so he asked me to tell you.”

“Oh,” she said. “Stupid service is still struggling. I don’t know how you got through.”

“Must be my sophisticated charm,” I said with a grin.

“And your modesty,” she added with a laugh. “I think the storm damage was much bigger than we thought. This helps me, though. I can go see Rachel at the time the meeting would have been.”

“That sounds good,” I said. “Let me know how she’s doing.”

“I will. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Oh, Mackenzie,” I started, ready to tell her about the changes.

“Yeah?”

I hesitated, reading over the points on the screen that came through in the email. They weren’t drastic changes, small enough that if I didn’t say something, no one would be the wiser. If she planned billboards and advertisements that were still what we’d been working on, her angle would just look wrong. It wouldn’t look like she’d never gotten the memo. Mackenzie would be just a tiny bit off—enough that Johnson wouldn’t take her, but not so much that it looked like I’d sabotaged her on purpose. If she knew about the changes, she wouldno doubtget the contract.

She was better than I was at what she did.

That pissed me off, and the ugly head of my competitive nature surfaced.

I’d worked my ass off to build my company and to be upstaged by a person from Griffin Solutions, of all people…

“I hope she’s okay,” I said, not touching on the rest of the facts.

“Thanks,” Mackenzie said before we ended the call.

Right away, I felt like an ass. What the fuck was I doing? It wasn’t fair of me not to tell her what Johnson was asking for. We were both on this project for a reason.

I tried to call her again, but the call rolled over to voice mail. I decided not to leave a message.

Instead, I retyped her email address in the bar to forward the email.

If it goes through, I’d have done the right thing. If it doesn’t, well… is that my fault?

I sent the email and waited.

A moment later, another message dropped into my inbox.

Message returned to sender.

I closed my laptop and took a deep breath, turning away to take a much-needed shower and get into some clean clothes.

Just the idea made my stomach twist, but I told myself this was in the name of business. All is fair in love and war.

Except this wasn’t love, and if it came out, it would be war. Was that what I wanted? Not with Mackenzie, but in business…

Hell, yeah.

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