Saving the CEO (49th Floor #1)(57)
She schooled her face into what she hoped was a neutral expression. “Will you please not block the sale of your father’s company to Winter Enterprises?”
“Ask me again, but say my name.”
Gross. This was worse, in a way, than all his lurching come-ons. He was lording his power over her, probably because he knew he couldn’t have her. It was humiliating. She was tempted to just turn and climb down the tree, but, then, she was in a tree! It was all so absurd anyway, and there was a lot at stake. For Jack, but also for her. She wanted this deal to go through as much as he did, and not just because of the money. Even though she could never publicly take credit, it would be something to hold on to, in her heart, once Jack was gone.
“Brian, will you please not block the sale of your father’s company to Winter Enterprises?” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, ignoring the adrenaline rush that accompanied the task.
More silence as the scratch of his stick on the snow resumed. After a full minute he said, once again, “I’m really more of a city person.” Turning serious, his face changed for an instant so he looked nothing like the usual freewheeling skater-dude she’d come to know. Her heart sped up. If he was saying what she thought he was saying, they’d won.
But then he grinned at her, and the frat boy was back. “You sure you don’t want a tour of the sleeping platform?”
“No thanks,” she said softly, once again feeling inexplicably sorry for him.
He just nodded. “That Jack is a lucky bastard.”
She didn’t bother correcting him.
Chapter Seventeen
“I think Junior is going to agree,” Cassie whispered in Jack’s ear as she came into the great room for cocktails. Relief washed over him. Not at what she said, but at her presence. He’d spent the balance of the afternoon after she departed wracked with worry. He’d invented a million reasons to be roaming the halls of the house, hoping to see or hear her, to find evidence that she’d returned from her time with Brian unscathed. But since he could hardly set up camp outside her bedroom, she must have slipped in without him noticing.
The thought of Brian Wexler with Cassie, even just walking with her, made him crazy. It made him want to get this deal done not just because he wanted to buy Wexler’s company, but because he didn’t want Brian to have it. He was fully aware that this made him no better than a kid who doesn’t want a toy for himself but also won’t share it, but he didn’t give a f*ck. Cassie was too good to spend another minute in that jackass’s presence.
“What do you mean?” he asked, forcing his mind back to what she’d actually said.
“Junior may not be as bad as he seems,” she whispered, but was interrupted by the arrival of both Wexlers and Tania.
“I have a crazy idea!” boomed David.
“You’re going to love it!” said Tania.
“We have a room on the lower level that faces the back,” said David. “A kind of family room we sometimes use for garden parties in the summer because the back wall is all windows. There’s a big grill outside. Let’s have a winter picnic. We’ll grill steaks. We can eat inside and watch the stars come out.”
“Or we can be hardy,” said Tania, “and bundle up and go outside for a stargazing party. I understand Cassie can show us a few constellations. And I make a wicked Irish coffee.”
“What about the projections you wanted to go through?” Jack asked David. They’d been led to expect a working dinner.
“This sounds like more fun,” said Senior, waving a hand dismissively. “What do you say?”
Jack looked at Cassie. She was beaming, lit up like a big copper sun. “All right,” he agreed.
As they tromped outside in boots, parkas, and hats, he wondered if it could really be this easy. Every time he tried to turn the conversation back to business, Wexler deflected him. “If I have any questions about that, I’ll call you after New Year’s,” he’d say. Or, “Why spoil a gorgeous clear night like this with business?”
What the hell had shifted Wexler’s mood so dramatically? He had an unsettling feeling it had something to do with what had happened between Cassie and Junior. Junior himself gave no clues. He’d eaten dinner with them but had been uncharacteristically subdued. Then he’d begged off, but not before saying a polite good night to everyone. It didn’t escape Jack’s notice that his eyes lingered on Cassie for a long time as she graced him with a wide, genuine smile.
Cassie. While he and Tania sat on lawn chairs near the house sipping booze-laced coffee, Cassie and David stood twenty feet away, heads tilted back to look at what was, he had to admit, a pretty spectacular night sky.
He marveled anew at how Cassie managed to look so beautiful when nearly every inch of her skin was covered by wool and Gore-Tex. Even from this distance, even in the dark, she radiated a kind of energy. There was a luminescence about her that was like a drug. He pushed to his feet. Why resist? Maybe he could drive off Senior and find out what the hell was going on.
They were talking in low tones when he approached.
“Stargazing parties,” said Senior. “You’ll have to make him do them. In fact, I’ll make it a clause in the contract.”
Holy crap. Wexler was going to sell. She’d done it. He didn’t know how, but somehow Cassidy James, bartender-slash-math student, had brokered Winter Enterprises’ biggest deal of the year.