“she’s important somehow” feeling or the way her physical appearance kept tempting him, she was smart and ambitious. She was also totally inexperienced, but that might be why she was such a curiosity. She wasn’t a shark. She wasn’t a schmoozer. She was too naïve, clearly too green to be either of those. She was just a woman trying to do a job. If the royal family had an agenda in sending her, he didn’t think she knew it.
“If you’re asking if I want to take her out, the answer is no.” He might be attracted to her, but he didn’t date. And she was too naïve to fit the role as his lover. “I told her I’d listen to her pitch in the car, but got caught up in a phone conversation with Stella. So I told her I’d listen on the plane. When we land in New York, the plane will turn around and take her home.”
Jason said, “Okay, fine,” as the jet taxied. “As long as this mess with investors comes first.”
“Of course.”
When they were in the air, climbing to cruising altitude, he and Jason began a discussion of how to combat the Tech Junkie article. But in hours and hours of studying schematics, employee reports and his own damned business plan—which was shot to hell because the schedule was now almost two years behind—all they could come up with was a stopgap measure: contact the most influential brokerage firms and ask them to delay advising their clients to sell to give Suminski Stuff time to get the games to one more set of beta testers.
They made a list of firms to call when they got to New York, and created a script of what they would say, but Dean knew brokers were right to be concerned. The games they’d been working on had had one setback after another because the series was too ambitious. No one really knew how far away it was from rollout. The staff had gotten tired, worn down, and everything was now taking longer than it should.
He’d been warned. But he’d gotten arrogant. His staff could do anything...
Or so he’d thought. And now they were in trouble because he couldn’t even give a hard date for when it would be ready for another round of beta testing, let alone a hard date for when it would be for sale.
When the script was ready, Jason scrubbed his hand across his mouth. “So this is what we say?”
Dean shrugged, then leaned back in his comfortable chair. “Yes. If the brokers listen to us, I think we’ll buy about six weeks. But we’re going to have to do some hand-holding. And at the end of that six weeks, we have to have something—even if it’s only a date for when it can go into beta testing again.”
“Christmas is smack-dab in the middle of those six weeks. Then New Year’s.”
“So we’ll cancel Christmas.”
Jason laughed. “We can’t cancel a holiday.”
“No, but we can cancel vacations and leave.”
“They’ll hate you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy toward them right now, either. Three years they’ve been working on this. If anybody’s got a right to be disappointed, it’s me.”
The pilot announced that it was time to buckle in for landing and Dean wasn’t surprised. The flight to New York had felt like the shortest of his life because he’d spent it figuring out how to keep investors from dumping his stock, when, really, if he was one of them he’d drop his stock like a hot rock.
He and Jason buckled in. The jet landed and taxied to his private hangar. They unbuckled their seat belts and stepped into the aisle only to find Kristen Anderson facing them, looking furious.
He squeezed his eyes shut. This was why he didn’t deal with people. He wasn’t considerate. He had a one-track mind. Right now his company was in danger of total failure. He didn’t have time to listen to a pitch for something he neither needed nor wanted.
“Sorry. I’d say you could have the limo ride to my office to chat, but then you wouldn’t be able to turn around and fly home.”
Her pretty face softened a bit. “I’m okay with that. Just have your plane take me back to Grennady instead of Paris and I’ll be fine.”
Dean started to say, “Okay,” but Jason caught his arm. “She can’t have the limo ride. You have to start making those calls the minute we step off this plane. I’m guessing you’ll be spending the entire day talking. After that there’s the Christmas gala.”
“I can miss that.”
Jason sniffed a laugh. “Really? After you spend an entire day convincing brokers that the company’s solvent and you’re fine, not some prima donna genius who doesn’t understand real life, you think you can miss an event where you actually mingle like a normal person? The one that opens the season? The one that everybody goes to?”
Damn it. Jason was right. The speculation of why he hadn’t attended the party of the year could undo all the hours he’d spend making those telephone calls.
He unhappily caught Kristen’s gaze. He hated messing up the way he had with her. He didn’t make mistakes. And even when he did, somehow or another, the situation turned out okay, as if his instincts could see the future and know there was a reason he’d done whatever unusual thing he’d done.
But not this time.
There was no “reason” that he’d strung her along except that he had an odd feeling in his gut every time he looked at her. And now he had to brush her off.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Anderson. It appears I really don’t have time to talk to you. It’s best you take the plane back.”
“Seriously? I just sat patiently for hours and you won’t even listen for fifteen minutes?”
The word sorry was on the tip of his tongue again but he swallowed it. Technically this wasn’t his fault. “You orchestrated this. I told you I was a busy man. You took a risk and it didn’t work out.”
Jason caught his arm, but he addressed Kristen. “Just hold on for one second.” Then he faced Dean. “Can I talk to you in the back?”
Dean reluctantly followed Jason to the aisle in front of the office.
“We sort of have a weird opportunity here.”
Not following how or why, Dean said nothing.
“We want to counteract that article. We want brokers and big investors to see you as a normal guy, and be comfortable that you’re not worried about the situation with the new games.”
Dean quietly said, “Yes.”
Jason nudged his head toward the front of the plane. “So why not take her to the party tonight?”
Dean laughed. “What?”
“No one’s ever seen you date. You keep your relationships private. The press has been dying to catch you with a woman. But more than that, a date makes you look normal. Happy even. Who knows? The next article might come out speculating that the rollout is late because you’re preoccupied with your new girlfriend. It’s a chance to totally spin this mess in our favor.”
Dean glanced up at Kristen. His heartbeat slowed. The sweet tingle of attraction rolled
