man finds time for what he wants. And I no longer actually race fast cars, at least not competitively, so there’s that.”
“Why do I feel like you want me to see the worst in you?” She could see the question startled him, but she sensed it was getting closer to the truth.
“I don’t. I’m trying to be honest here.”
“Hmm,” she murmured. Again, she didn’t think so. Instinctively she felt like he was hiding something. It should have signaled her warning bells. After all, she hadn’t verbally committed to the job so it wasn’t too late to decline his offer. Instead she found herself desperately curious about him.
“If you won’t tell me about the man you are today, tell me about who you were. Many have retold your success story. Kid from the wrong side of 8 Mile Road makes it big. How did that happen? How did you turn it around? You were a kid from a poor neighborhood…”
“I was a poor kid,” he interrupted.
“Isn’t that what I said?”
“No. There is a big difference. There were kids who grew up in the same neighborhood I did who didn’t think they were poor. They had a mom, sometimes a dad, too. They had siblings and family meals. They ate three times a day and they went to school and did their homework. Yeah, maybe they wore shoes long after they outgrew them or pants that were too tight. They never got an extra helping at dinner, but they weren’t poor.”
“You were different from them.”
“In every way. It was just me and my mom. Don’t ask me about my father, I have no idea who he is.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. He could have made things worse. As for my mother, it feels weird calling her that, mostly I called her Jackie. She was an addict. Big deal, right? So are lots of mothers on that side of town. Jackie was strung out most days doing whatever it took to get her next fix, while I survived on what the state gave us. I lived on Kraft Dinner and the dollar menu at the local fast-food place. We never talked from as far back as I could remember. It was like we didn’t even know each other. We were two people sharing the same apartment.”
“Did you go to school?”
“I tried for a while. I had this thought that I could use school to get out, but it was too much time spent sitting around talking and not enough doing. So I was done with that by seventeen. The only thing I cared about were cars and driving them fast. It’s how I got hooked up with Nick. He lived on the block and would see me screeching around town in my mother’s POS. He showed me how to fix cars, and my mother’s POS always needed fixing. Eventually he brought me into the game.”
“Auto theft?”
“Yeah, yeah. At first I just broke down the cars for parts. Then one day Nick takes me out and shows me how to jack them. I’m not going to lie—it was a pretty big high. My adrenaline would pump, but you had to make your fingers move and you had to remember how each car was different and how to shut down an alarm in seconds. In hindsight it was a blessing and a curse.”
“A blessing?”
“Kept me off the drugs. Nick didn’t tolerate that. Bad for business. No drinking, no drugs. When you jacked you needed full control of your senses.”
“The hard drinking came later, then?”
“Huh? Oh…yeah, yeah. Later.”
Exactly. He was no more a hard-drinking man than she was a hard-drinking woman. Yes, he was definitely hiding something and it was only one of the reasons she was cautious about taking him on as a project.
For one, he was a man in the media spotlight, which meant working with him was going to present some risk. Plus, while she didn’t exactly believe he was the scoundrel he presented himself to be, there were all those pictures of him at various parties with so many different women. Men, she found, didn’t easily give up the things they wanted—especially when they were told by someone else not to indulge.
But what she had to concern herself with most of all was that she liked the way he looked in his suit. She liked it even better when he rolled up his sleeves. As an employee she should have no physical attraction to her employer. Certainly no emotional attachment.
If it was too late to prevent the physical attraction, she should back out now. It was the only sensible decision.
“What do you say?”
“I’ll do it.”
The words were out before she could stop them. She couldn’t help herself. She felt caught up in his infectiousness. She wanted to stand up and give everyone a new car. More than that she wanted to show everyone what a person who was committed to something could accomplish, no matter what the odds.
An inner voice told her she’d tried that before. Look at where it led you.
But that was seven years ago. Maybe it was time she started counting, after all.
“That’s great. That’s very cool. I’m…pleased.”
Madeleine nodded. She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a contract. “This is a standard contract from the Tyler Group. It breaks down my rates, services and expenses. You should have your attorneys look it over.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He signed and dismissed the paper without even looking at it.
“I hate to be blunt, but you really should consider going over the contract first. The Tyler Group isn’t cheap and my rider, while not diva level, is still extensive.”
“I don’t want cheap. I want the best. I’ll pay whatever you’re asking. It’s done.”
Madeleine smiled. “That will make Ben happy. Okay, then we should establish a time to start.”
“Right now.”
“Now? Surely you have other matters to attend to and will need to rearrange your calendar, Mr. Langdon.”
“It’s Michael. And I don’t. This is the most important thing to me. I know this is going to take time. You don’t change your image overnight. The sooner we get started, the sooner I get what I want. The CEOs I’m trying to convince aren’t easy pushovers. I’m talking about Carter, Blakely, Rodgers and Smithfield.”
The current leaders of the four largest car companies in America. He was right, convincing one of those men to take a risk would be hard enough, convincing one of them to take a risk with him was something altogether difficult. Maybe impossible. But he had her on his side.
Madeleine pulled out her laptop and powered it up. “Well, we need to begin with my parameters. As I said, I don’t intend to have anything to do with your spotlight. I will not do PR from the front line. I will not do direct media interviews or issue press releases in my name. I will, however, work my media contacts and connect you with the people I think can help, but I will do so discreetly.”
“Yeah, yeah. But hear me out. I know the whole big scandal and everything.”
That was one way to describe it.
“Before
