at least,” he added with a smile.
“You’re missing out on a gold mine, Mr. King,” the short, balding man said hurriedly. “And if you’ll just give me one more moment of your time, I could show you what I mean.”
Dave Michaels was the head buyer for King Beach and was constantly trying to push Jesse into expansion. But Jesse had a firm policy. He only sold products he knew and used personally. Products he believed in. Growing up as a King, he’d learned early on that success meant loving what you did. Knowing your business better than anyone else.
But he realized that Dave wouldn’t give up until he’d had his chance to make a pitch.
“Fine, let’s hear it.” Jesse stood up, though, hating the feeling of being trapped behind a desk. Even though his desk was a sleek combination of chrome and glass, it always called up memories of his dad behind a mahogany desk the size of an aircraft carrier, waving at his sons, telling them to go and play, that he was too busy to join them.
Irritated at the memory, he turned his back on Dave to wander the perimeter of his office. Absently, he noticed the shelves filled with the trophies he’d won over the years. On the dark blue walls, there were framed photos of him in competitions, seascapes of some of his favorite beaches and assorted shots of his family. His lucky surfboard was propped up in one corner and the windows behind his desk offered a view of Main Street and the ocean beyond.
As if he needed that connection with the ocean he loved, Jesse moved to the windows and fixed his gaze on the water. Sunlight glinted off the surface of the sea and seemed to spotlight the lucky bastards waiting for the next ride atop their boards. That’s where he should be, he thought wryly. How had he come to this, he wondered, not for the first time. How had he ended up exactly in his father’s place?
His brothers were probably laughing their asses off just thinking about it.
“There’s a store here in town with the kind of products we should be carrying,” Dave was saying.
Jesse hardly heard the man. He was willing to do the job that he’d created for himself, but that didn’t mean it would ever be his life’s blood. Unlike the rest of his family, Jesse considered himself the anti-King, he thought with a half smile. He liked the money, liked the way he lived his life, liked the perks that being successful gave him. So he did the job, but it wasn’t who he was. The job was simply that.
Work.
He did what he had to do so that he could do what he wanted to do. Enjoy life. Surf. Date gorgeous women. He wasn’t going to end up like his dad—a man who’d devoted everything to the King family dynasty and never really lived.
“If you’ll only look at these photos, I’m sure you’ll see that her products would be a perfect fit to King Beach’s apparel line.”
“Her products?”
“I know, I know,” Dave countered quickly, holding up one hand to forestall Jesse’s objections. “You don’t want to add women’s sportswear to the line, but if you’ll just look…”
Jesse laughed shortly. “You just don’t give up, do you Dave?”
“Not when I’m right.”
“You should have been born a King,” Jesse told him and reluctantly took the photos Dave was holding out to him. The sooner he finished work, the sooner he was out there in the sunlight.
“What am I looking at here?” Jesse asked, flipping through the stack of color photos. Bikinis. Sarongs. Beach cover-ups. All pretty, he supposed, but he didn’t understand Dave’s excitement. Nice enough swimsuits, Jesse thought, though he preferred his bikinis wrapped around gorgeous blondes.
“These suits,” Dave said, “are growing in popularity. They’re custom-designed, handcrafted with all ‘green’ fabrics, and the women who buy them swear there’s nothing else like them.”
Jesse suddenly had a bad feeling.
“There was a write-up in the Sunday magazine section of the newspaper last month and from the reports I’m getting, her sales are going through the roof.”
Oh, yeah. That bad feeling kept getting…worse.
Jesse studied the photos more carefully. Some of them looked familiar. As in, he’d seen one of them just yesterday, tacked up to a wall in a crumbling shop on Main Street. “Bella’s Beachwear?”
“Yes!” Dave grinned, pointed at one of the photos and said, “That one?” A cherry-red bikini. “My wife bought that one last week. Said it’s the most flattering, comfortable suit she’s ever owned and she wondered why we didn’t offer something like it.”
“It’s nice that your wife’s happy with her purchase,” Jesse started.
“It’s not just my wife, Mr. King,” Dave interrupted, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. “Since we moved the business to Morgan Beach, all we’ve heard about is Bella’s. She’s got women coming in from all over the state to buy her suits.”
Dave kept talking. “One of our guys in accounting did a projection. If we added her line to ours, the sky would literally be the limit on how well she’d do. That’s not even saying how her line would influence King Beach sales.”
Jesse shook his head. Though he was King enough to appreciate the thought of higher profit margins and headier success, he had his own plan for his business and when he branded women’s wear, he would do it his way.
Dave told him flatly, “She’s carved out a slice of the consumer pie that no one had really touched on before. We’ve checked into her and she’s had other offers from major sportswear companies to buy her out, but she’s turned them all down.”
Intrigued in spite of himself, Jesse leaned back against the edge of his desk, folded his arms over his chest and said simply, “Explain.”
Warming to his theme, Dave did. “Most swimsuits in this country and, hell, everywhere else, are designed and created for the so-called ‘ideal’ woman. A skinny one.”
Jesse smiled. Skinny women in bikinis. What’s not to smile about? Although he usually preferred a little more meat on his women.
As if he could read Jesse’s mind, Dave said, “The majority of American women don’t meet that standard. And thank God for it. Most women are curvy. They eat more than a lettuce leaf. And thanks to most designers, their needs are overlooked.”
“You know, Dave, I like curves on a woman as much as the next guy,” Jesse told him, “but not all women should wear a bikini. If Bella wants to sell to women who probably shouldn’t be wearing suits anyway, let her do it. It’s not for us.”
Dave grimaced, then reached into his pocket for another photo. “I thought that would be your reaction,” he said tightly. “So I came prepared. Look at this.”
Jesse took the photo and his eyebrows lifted. “This is your wife.”
“Yeah,” Dave said, grinning now. “Normally Connie bans all cameras when we go swimming. Since she bought this suit, I couldn’t get her to stop posing.”
Jesse could understand why. Connie Michaels had given birth
