Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals

‘OK, OK, give it a rest, would you?’ he grumbled. ‘You’re starting to sound like Sasha.’

‘Good,’ said Lottie. ‘You know, I’ve always defended you to Sasha. I’ve always said you weren’t as black as she paints you. But I guess I was wrong.’

‘Oh really? So you hate me now too, do you?’ Instinctively, without thinking, Jackson grabbed Lottie and kissed her. It was so unexpected, her brain found it hard to make the switch from anger to pleasure. Certainly it was nothing like the kiss that she’d dreamed of every night for the last four years, since the day she started work at Wrexall. When he finally released her, Lottie burst into tears, overwhelmed with emotion.

‘Oh, God, don’t. Please don’t cry,’ said Jackson, hugging her. ‘I’m an ass, I’m a giant ass. I was jealous and I … I didn’t handle it very well.’

‘Jealous?’ Lottie dried her tears. ‘I thought you weren’t attracted to me.’

Jackson gave her a rueful smile. ‘I’m a sighted, adult male, Lottie. In what possible alternate universe would I not be attracted to you?’

‘Then why do you keep ignoring me?’ sniffed Lottie. ‘At work. Even here, this whole trip, you’ve looked right through me. I feel like a ghost around you.’

He kissed her again, more gently this time, his fingers lightly brushing the back of her neck as his lips pressed against hers. Suddenly Lottie wanted him more than ever. But then, just as suddenly, he stopped.

‘You’re not a ghost. I see you, Lottie. You don’t need to do shit like this,’ he touched her hair, ‘to get my attention.’ Lottie blushed but did not deny it. ‘You have my attention. But you also have my respect. My friendship. I don’t want to ruin that.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Lottie began, but Jackson cut her off.

‘I would. You know, Sasha is right about me, on one level anyway. I’m not exactly the steady boyfriend type. I admire it in others, you know? My parents have been married forty years. But I think it’s important to know your own limits. I’d make a lousy husband, Lottie. And with you, I wouldn’t want to be anything less than perfect.’

Lottie stared at him, not sure whether to feel happy or sad. Jackson cared about her. Maybe even loved her. Move a few words around and that could have been a proposal. But they weren’t going to be together. ‘So what happens now?’ she said glumly. ‘I mean, what happens tomorrow? Do we just forget any of this ever happened?’

‘Yes,’ Jackson kissed her cheek. ‘I think that’s exactly what we do.’

‘You’ll have to apologize to Francis.’

That brought Jackson up short. ‘Apologize? Uh uh, no way. I’m not apologizing. I never apologize.’

‘Yes you are.’ The shock of the last hour’s events had sobered Lottie up completely. ‘And you can prove you mean it by bringing him in to the new resort team.’ Jackson opened his mouth to protest but Lottie stopped him. ‘You owe me one, Jackson. In fact you owe me about twelve. If it weren’t for me we’d still be stuck in never-ending planning and you know it. I want Francis on the team.’ Her cute, pixie-like chin jutted forward defiantly as she drew herself up to her full five feet one inch. Jackson wondered how anyone ever refused her anything.

‘Fine,’ he said grumpily. ‘You can have Francis stupid O’Donnell. But I want something in return.’

Lottie felt hope surge up within her. ‘You do?’ she trembled.

‘Yes. I want you to keep Sasha Miller off my back and as far away from this project as humanly possible.’

Lottie flew back to New York the following evening. After everything that had happened, it felt too awkward to stay. Jackson stayed on in Utah for four more days. Officially he was tied up in a whirlwind of on-site meetings. Unofficially, he was taking his old friend Piers Dellal up on his ski-bunnies offer, ricocheting from party to party and bed to bed like a sex-crazed boomerang. By the time he’d worked off his sexual frustration over Lottie sufficiently to catch a plane home, it was Friday afternoon. He’d called a special meeting of the board, to discuss his triumphant new hotel deal, and stepped off the plane feeling more energized and alive than he had in months.

The feeling didn’t last.

Jackson’s first thought, on walking into Wrexall Dupree’s offices, was that there must have been a fire. That or some sort of terror attack. On the street outside, crowds of people were milling around. On close inspection Jackson saw that well over half of them were press. When they saw him, they turned as one like a swarm of bees, jabbing microphones and cameras in his face and shouting questions that made no sense to him.

‘What will the repercussions be for the new firm?’

‘Will Wrexall do business with them?’

‘Lucius Monroe this afternoon called the poaching of your clients “ theft ” . Do you agree with that? Will you be making a statement?’

Pushing past the reporters into the lobby, Jackson ignored the receptionist’s frantic arm waving, hopped into the nearest elevator and marched straight into his office.

‘Would someone like to tell me what on earth is going on? It’s pandemonium down there.’

Lise, his secretary, looked at her shoes. Even Bob Massey, not usually the shrinking-violet type, developed a sudden, burning interest in his cuticles. Standing next to Dan Peters, like Oliver Hardy to Peters’ tall, lean Stan Laurel, Bob looked positively embarrassed.

Dan Peters was the first to speak. ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you. All day. Where were you?’

‘What do you mean, where was I?’ said Jackson, irritated. ‘I was on a plane, as you well know.’

‘We tried you first thing this morning, hours before your flight. And yesterday.’

‘Jesus, Dan, what is this, the inquisition?’ snapped Jackson, defensive because he knew he was in the wrong. ‘I was in meetings half way up a fucking mountain, OK? No phone reception.’ From the look on Peters’ face, the lie sounded as unconvincing to him as at did to Jackson. Deciding that attack was probably the best form of defence, Jackson squared his shoulders belligerently. ‘Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me what the hell’s going on?’

At that moment an ashen-faced Lucius Monroe and most of the rest of the board filed in. Suddenly Jackson’s palatial corner office was starting to feel like a sardine can.

‘It’s Sasha Miller,’ said Lucius.

Jackson felt his heart tighten. ‘Of course it is. Don’t tell me. She’s gone to one of our competitors and taken a bunch of the retail group with her? I hate to say “ I told you so ” .’ He looked at the shifty glances being exchanged between his fellow board members. ‘What? It’s worse than that? Don’t tell me she’s gotten McKinley to go with her?’

‘No,’ said Lucius cautiously. ‘Wrexall retains eighty-five per cent ownership in the McKinley partnership. That was part of the deal.’

Jackson’s eyes narrowed. ‘What deal?’

‘She left us with no choice,’ said Bob Massey. ‘It’s an MBO.’

‘A management buyout? Of what?’

‘Of the entire retail division.’

Jackson laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! That’s the core of our business. It has been for almost a century.’

‘They raised twenty per cent of the money themselves,’ said Bob. ‘McKinley fronted the rest. Evidently Sasha’s become very tight with Joe Foman, their CEO. Very tight indeed.’

Jackson paused, trying to process this information. He knew Joe Foman socially, though not well. An aging roué, once extremely handsome but now a paunchy caricature of his young self, complete with slicked-back, receding hair and open-necked, wing-collar shirts, the idea of Joe Foman and Sasha being ‘tight’ made Jackson physically sick. Forcing it out of his mind, he turned back to business.

‘It doesn’t matter. So Sasha found the money and enough willing bodies to go with her. So what? She can’t effect a buyout without unanimous board consent.’ The shoe shuffling and awkward glances intensified.

‘It’s like Bob said,’ muttered Lucius Monroe weakly. ‘We had no choice. If we didn’t agree to the deal, McKinley would have nixed the joint venture altogether. This way we get eighty-five per cent of the biggest transaction in our history. As opposed zero per cent of nothing.’

‘And for what?’ added Bob Massey. ‘We’d still have lost the heart of our retail division. Sasha had a back-up offer from Jones Lang LaSalle and another from CB Richard Ellis Group, to take the team in whole or in part. They were out the door, Jackson.’

Jackson couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘So? So what if they were out the door? That’s human capital. It’s renewable! We could have rehired, we could have recruited. Instead you traded the living, beating heart of this company for a stake – a stake – in one deal! You must be out of your minds, all of you. Where’s your backbone? Where are your fucking balls?’ He waved an accusing arm around the room. ‘Well, it’s not going to happen. You know the statutes better than anyone.’ He turned to look at Bob Massey, who blushed. ‘I think you’ll find they’re very clear on this point. The board decision on any MBO must be unanimous and it must include the family vote. The family vote is me. And I vote no. Now where the hell is Lottie Grainger? I need to make a statement to those locusts outside, come to feast on Wrexall’s remains.’

‘It’s too late for that, Jackson,’ Dan Peters said stiffly. Dan had expected Jackson to take the news badly. They all had. But he for one was getting tired of being lectured by a long-haired upstart who couldn’t keep it in his pants. If Jackson felt so damn strongly about the company’s wellbeing, he shouldn’t have spent the last three days screwing his way around a ski resort like a dog in heat. ‘No phone reception’ my ass. Sasha Miller had put them in a unique position, both dangerous and potentially profitable. Yes, there were risks involved, on all sides. That was business. But the board had acted in Wrexall Dupree’s best interests, and that was all there was to it.

‘The deal was already signed, an hour ago. The board’s decision was unanimous. And we did secure the family vote.’

‘That’s impossible!’