He cleared his throat. ‘Jennifer, this is Gary, my Head of Product Development, and his close second, Dan.’
The two men stood as she placed her coffee at the table they occupied and her hand reached out to shake each of theirs in turn. Her smile was that soul-crushingly gorgeous one that had his brain departing. And probably his team’s now too.
For fuck’s sake, stick to work. Not a day in and you’ve almost thrown your assurances out of the window. So much for keeping yourself in bloody check...
But then, she’d been the one to push first, the one to put—
‘Marcus?’
They all looked at him expectantly, especially Jennifer, who’d been the one to say his name, her brow raised as she said it.
‘Care to fill me in on where you’re at?’
The spark to her eyes said she knew exactly where his head was at, and it wasn’t at work.
This just kept getting better and better.
He gave a brisk nod, forcing himself to get with it. ‘Maxine was just summing up the impact of my proposal on your product stream.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I assume we’re talking about using some of our resources to get Tech-Incorp’s product out of the door ahead of schedule?’
She’d hit the nail on the head and, to her credit, there had been no emotion in her supposition.
‘That’s right,’ Maxine said, stepping forward to give Jennifer a copy of the project plans she’d scribbled her amendments on. ‘The impact shouldn’t be too great, but it will mean pushing back on Projects Azure and Topaz.’
Jennifer nodded, placing her laptop and the papers upon the table, her eyes scanning the pages. ‘Do you have time to give me a brief breakdown of this Tech-Incorp product?’
She looked to Marcus and he immediately looked to Gary. ‘Do the honours?’
‘Sure.’
That was him out of her sight for a spell. He settled back into the chair behind his desk, letting Jennifer join the others at the table while Gary sold the product to the room.
He could see Jennifer liked it. But if he’d thought her eyes being off him would reduce her hold over him, he’d been wrong. Watching her unhindered had just given him an added opportunity to appreciate her further—the professional Jennifer, asking the right questions, listening carefully and offering her own insightful input. And all in a beautifully captivating package.
Could she be any more perfect?
‘I assume Maxine has told you we have something similar in development?’ She directed the question to them all, pulling Marcus back to the conversation at hand.
Maxine nodded. ‘I have.’
‘And I assume you have debated which product should get the weight of the combined team behind it?’
‘We have.’
It was Gary who gave the confirmation, but Jennifer looked to Maxine, wanting her affirmation.
‘We have,’ she said tentatively, her gaze flitting over the other attendees as a hint of colour crept into her cheeks. ‘And I did suggest we incorporate some of our features.’
‘But we decided that would take too long,’ Dan argued.
Jennifer pinned him with a look. ‘What kind of timescales are we talking?’
‘A few weeks,’ Marcus confirmed over Dan’s reply. ‘At least I’m hoping so. My conference call this afternoon will confirm it.’
‘Then I think we should put time into ensuring the product is the best it can be, in the timescale permitted, and if that means merging specifications then so be it.’
‘But we’re practically at the finish line,’ Gary pitched in.