Best Laid Plans - Robyn Kelly (red white and royal blue hardcover .txt) 📗

of turning away, he just keeps staring, and there’s something in his eyes.

His words make me feel like a child, but that look makes me feel like a sex goddess.

His car is parked in front, and Jackson holds the door for me. Ron watches me in the rearview mirror, and I give him a quick smile before he looks away.

I reach into my coat pocket. “I have your invoice with me.” I hand Jackson the slip of paper and the check.

He is momentarily confused, and then realizes what it is. “Oh, that.” He slips it into his jacket pocket without even looking at it. “I wanted to talk to you about the church. The numbers don’t work unless I can make it generate some income. Then I remembered your advice. You said Bryan would make a good club manager. When I asked if he was interested, he said yes. Jumped at the chance, actually. He would have given me another damn hug if I had been anywhere near him.”

“You bought your brother a church for his birthday?”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I haven’t bought it yet. That’s where you come in.”

I suspect Jackson has a soft spot for his family that he likes to keep hidden, and I would say something if he wasn’t making a phone call right now. I think it’s a little rude to be calling someone while he’s with me, but he is a mogul and I’m the crazy woman who lives on the fifth floor of one building in his real estate empire.

“The space could be a great event venue. My brother is energetic but inexperienced. I need someone to guide him. I thought you did an excellent job and would be the perfect person. I’m not going to buy it unless you agree to work with Bryan.” He puts the phone up to his ear. “Hi, Bryan. I’ve got Jillian here and told her the deal. I’ll let her give you her answer.”

He holds the phone out but I refuse to take it. He presses the speakerphone button, and Bryan’s voice fills the car. “Hi, Jillian. I hope you’re going to say yes.”

“Actually, this is the first I’ve heard of it. I’m not sure what I’m saying yes to.”

“Oh.” I can hear his disappointment. “Maybe you should take this off speakerphone and we can talk privately.”

Jackson’s manipulating me again, and all the gratitude I felt toward him for putting up with my little breakdown disappears. When he reaches to press the button, I grab the phone out of his hand. “I know how to work a smartphone.” I turn the speaker off and put the phone to my ear. “Don’t assume this is any more private. I suspect your brother taps his own phone.”

“Look, I bet you’re feeling used right now. That’s not uncommon when working for Jackson…but don’t let that make the decision for you. I’m nothing like him. I respect you, I think we communicate well, and this could be really fun. Just give it a try. The worst that can happen is that you don’t like it and quit.”

Of course. I can quit. “Well, we are going to dinner right now. Let me find out exactly what the offer is.”

He decides to go for one more sales push. “My brother knows how to fit the right people to the right job.”

“That’s not what you were saying in Italy.”

“This isn’t Italy. This is San Fran-friggin-cisco. Please, Jillian, say yes.” He’s pleading now, half in jest—but only half.

“Good night, Bryan.”

“He’ll send me back to Italy. I know he will.” He sighs in mock desperation.

“Good night, Bryan,” I repeat, chuckling to myself.

“Hunter Enterprises will look great on your resume,” he adds in his Jackson voice.

“Bryan, I’m hanging up now.”

He tries one more guilt trip. “I won’t sleep until one of you calls me!”

I hang up and hand the phone back to Jackson. “I may have a grin on my face but that was manipulative, and we had just agreed not to do that.”

“No. That was time management.” He looks out the window. “See. We’re here.”

The here he’s speaking of is the House of Prime Rib. It’s right out of Mad Men. Solid, traditional, and lots of prime beef. Much like Jackson. I chuckle at my private joke and he raises an eyebrow at me. “Is there something I should know about the kitchen here, also?”

“No. They’re very fastidious. But I’m noticing you do like your old school San Francisco restaurants.”

“Can you see me in a trendy restaurant? They’re too loud, too crowded, and too rude. I prefer someplace less hectic when I’m discussing business.”

No, I can’t see him in a trendy restaurant. I’m sure he can pronounce every word on a sushi menu, and tell the difference between antipasto and charcuterie, but I bet he’s most at home with a well-prepared steak. Despite a line of people waiting to be seated, we are shown to a private corner table immediately.

With Bryan’s appeal still ringing in my ear, I get right to business. “So, what’s your offer?”

“What do you want?”

The first one to blink loses. “Six-month non-exclusive contract, $10,000 a month retainer, plus ten percent of all event billables.”

“No.”

I didn’t expect him to say yes, and now it’s his turn to blink.

“I hire you as an employee. You’re paid a salary, and bonuses depend on how quickly you can make the club profitable.”

I can see this negotiation is going to be harder than I thought. “I can’t just shut down my business.”

“You have any contracted jobs this year?” My face is all the answer he needs. “Jillian, you are a terrible businesswoman. The only presence you have on social media is what your clients create, I don’t see any marketing plan, and you didn’t even know who I was the first time we met.”

I am about to respond sarcastically, when the waiter approaches. Jackson dismisses him with a wave of his hand.

I take a breath and calm myself. “Why do I need to know who you are to be a good businesswoman?”

“I am constantly in the social pages. My face is plastered on every magazine and local Internet site. I run one of the biggest corporations in San Francisco. Any serious event planner knows who’s who in their market. They don’t wait until I take them to dinner to Google all the dirty little facts about my past.”

“Well, I must be even worse than you thought because I still haven’t Googled you.”

The waiter returns with water and a basket of bread. Dinner with Jackson—bread and water. Just like in prison, and the uniform is a little black dress. My mind pictures him dressed as a guard with a big nightstick and…I need to stop daydreaming. I look from the bread back to Jackson and his expression is less prison guard and more executioner.

“You truly haven’t done any research on me?”

“Sadly, no. Are you going to scold me for that, too?”

“I should.” He breaks off a piece of bread, and butters it. “But I can’t remember the last date I had where I was still a mystery to someone.”

He’s doing that thing with his voice. Where it starts in my ears and somehow moves down my body and makes everything tingle. I’m sure the serpent in the Garden of Eden had the same sensual purr.

But the sting of his criticism helps me ward off his charm. “This isn’t a date. It’s a business meeting, as I remember. And I’m sure you’re a mystery to a lot of people. The mystery to me is why you want to hire a terrible businesswoman.”

He offers me the buttered bread slice. “Eat this.” I shake my head while he stares me down. “You’re getting a little cranky.”

“And you think it’s my blood sugar?”

“So eat the bread and prove me wrong.”

“You answer my question, and I’ll eat that butter-soaked bread.”

“All right. I said you were a terrible businesswoman, but I think you’re a remarkable event planner. I still can’t believe what you pulled off in only one week. Especially after I saw the church in the daylight. I almost overbid for it. You take this job and you’ll be able to do what you love and delegate the business end to my team. You’ll have a steady income, you’ll have benefits, and you’ll have security.”

I take a bite from the bread. Chewing it will give me a chance to think. He’s a better salesman than his brother, or maybe he just knows me better. He got me to eat the bread, and he’ll get me to join his team. And maybe join him in bed. Or maybe not, if he’s offering me a job.

“I’ve got an employee.”

“Robert? I’ll hire him.”

Maybe I am cranky, but I can’t resist poking the bear. “You do remember he called you an asshole?”

“Most people have called me that at some time.”

He signals the waiter, so I hurriedly scan the menu. I consider ordering the fish but—when in Rome—I order the prime rib. I’m about to ask him how he expects this plan to work, when our waiter returns and dresses our salad at our table with theatrical flourish.

Jackson picks up his salad fork. “So, are you ready to become an employee?” He stabs at the lettuce with the force of a jackhammer.

“We haven’t discussed salary,” I say before I take a bite of the salad. I’m going to have to remember to do dinner meetings with this man. I can buy a lot