He narrowed his eyes at his boss, not sure what he was missing, but certain that he was missing something.

Cassidy answered Cole’s silent question with his usual professional businessman smile. “Cole, this is Penelope Pope.”

“We’ve met,” Cole said slowly.

“Excellent. So then you know that Penelope is our late-stage applicant for the sports editor role at Oxford?”

Very slowly, Cole turned toward Tiny Brunette. Took in her friendly smile even as he took in the sorry-not-sorry glint in her eyes.

This was his competition. This was the person standing between Cole and the job he so desperately wanted.

“I suppose I should have been more thorough when I introduced myself,” she said sweetly. “Penelope Pope. Sports editor.”

Plus side? At least now Cole knew what was in her damn notebook.

The downside? Everything else.

Chapter 2

It wasn’t that Penelope never wore high heels.

She did. Sometimes.

Say, like…her best friend’s wedding, or her grandmother’s funeral. Oh, and then there’d been that date with the investment banker at one of Chicago’s premier steak houses.

And…well, okay, those three occurrences were just about the only times in recent memory.

The problem: not one of those events had occurred in the past year.

The bigger problem? The lack of practice walking in stilettos had caused just the tiniest stumble, which had in turn caused a not so tiny coffee splotch all over her white blouse.

The biggest problem of all?

The only reason she was wearing a white blouse and the damn high heels in the first place was because she needed to be at the biggest interview of her career in—

Penelope glanced at her watch.

Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes until she had to convince the editor in chief of Oxford magazine that she was the best possible candidate to take over the new sports section.

Thirty minutes to figure out how she was going to outdo Cole Sharpe on his turf, all with a big coffee stain between her boobs.

Ordinarily, half an hour would have been plenty of buffer for an interview, but it certainly wasn’t enough time to run back home and change her clothes. And seeing as she’d been a resident of New York City for all of two weeks, she didn’t have a single friend to call upon to help bail her out.

“Crud. Crud, crud, crud,” Penelope whispered quietly to herself, glancing around the massive and fancy lobby of the building that housed Oxford magazine.

It didn’t help that the place looked like a palace, at least to someone who’d spent the past two years working from her tiny home office at a wobbly desk on beat-up hardwood floors.

Penelope was suddenly acutely aware that she didn’t belong here. She didn’t fit in with the glamorous women striding across the floor in stilettos far higher than hers without so much as a stumble.

Penelope stubbornly pushed the thought out of her head as she wiped futilely at the stain.

So the Manhattan office building was a touch more glamorous than her Wicker Park apartment. So she had coffee on her shirt. So she would have sold a small part of her soul for a pair of tennis shoes.

None of that was important.

What was important was that Penelope was a darn good sportswriter. What was important was that she could convince Alex Cassidy of it, regardless of the big old stain on her shirt.

What was important was that…

Ah, screw it.

Penelope could absolutely not go into the most important interview of her life with a giant brown stain between her boobs.

She looked up again, her eyes locking on the discreet LADIES’ ROOM sign on the far side of the lobby. She didn’t know what she’d do once she got there, but maybe someone would have a Tide pen. Or twelve.

Penelope began walking—okay, teetering—in that direction when she heard her name.

“Penelope?”

She froze. The masculine voice was familiar. Penelope pivoted slowly.

There, staring down at her with a bemused expression, was one very gorgeous, very well-dressed, very non-coffee-stained Cole Sharpe.

Dear God. Are you freaking kidding me with this?

“Hi Cole!” Penelope kept her voice cheerful even though he was quite possibly the very last person on earth she wanted to see right now.

Why, of all the people to witness her coffee snafu, did it have to be the very man who was standing between Penelope and her dream job?

“Morning,” he said, returning her easy tone.

His eyes dropped to the coffee stain, but she had to give the man credit, because he returned his gaze to hers almost immediately. Of course, that could have been due to the fact that her flat-as-a-board 32A chest was hardly worth a lingering look.

Still, she appreciated that he managed to withhold a smirk, even though he had to be doing a mental victory fist pump at her unfortunate clumsiness.

“It’s nice to see you again,” she said, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other.

“Here for your interview?” Cole asked.

“It’s in a few minutes,” she replied. “You? Just wrapping up?”

“Mine’s not until two.”

Penelope glanced at her watch. It was ten to eleven. “Wow. That brings a whole new meaning to showing up early.”

Cole looked away for the briefest of seconds. “Actually…”

“Ah,” she said. “You’re not just here for the interview, are you? This is your place. These are your people.”

“I come in a few days a week. As a freelancer.”

There wasn’t any gloating in his voice, which she appreciated, but there was a fierce warrior light in his eyes all the same. Penelope slumped, just a little.

The subtext of his statement was coming through loud and clear: You’re on my turf, sweetheart.

What she wouldn’t give to go back to the charming man who’d chatted her up at the baseball game. Back before he’d known that she was the competition.

It wasn’t that he’d turned unfriendly upon learning that she was his main opposition. After Alex Cassidy had introduced them last night, Cole had stuck around long enough to be polite, making small talk.

But the teasing—dare she say flirting—Cole had vanished.

She didn’t blame him. If he wanted this job half as badly as she did, he had every reason to think of her as the enemy.

Which was a shame. She liked him. Not just because he was pretty to look at, but oh my goodness, was he pretty to look at. And exactly her type. He had the lean athleticism of a shortstop. Sandy blond hair long enough to run hands through. Dark brown eyes that promised a good time.

And that smile…Cole Sharpe’s smile was a hell of a thing, slow and sexy, and she was pretty sure it had robbed more than one woman of her ability to think about anything other than getting him naked.

But looks aside, he also seemed like the type of guy she’d like to grab a beer with. Someone with whom she could talk shop and joke.

Cole Sharpe was out of her league—way out of her league—on the relationship front, but as a friend? Instinct told her he’d make a good one if he weren’t currently giving her the side-eye like she was standing between him and a juicy prize.

Which, of course, she was.

Just like he was standing in her way.

It was an uncomfortable sensation. Despite her love of all things sports, Penelope herself wasn’t particularly competitive. Not that she was a total pushover, she just never got off on winning for winning’s sake.

But she wanted to win this Oxford position.

No, needed to win it, not only for the fresh start it represented but to remind her that there were more important things to win than Evan Barstow’s fickle heart.