She, personally, might not have breeding, but she works for a royal family. She’s on the periphery of the jet-set crowd, good-looking enough to attract someone like you. The connection is logical. We’ll send her out with Stella to get something for the party. Shoes, dress, whatever the hell she needs. Then she’s on your arm tonight.”
“I’ll have to listen to her pitch. Right now,” Dean said emphatically. “I’m not stringing her along and I’m not going to let her think I’m using her.”
Jason shook his head. “Your honesty is going to bite you in the butt one of these days.”
“Yeah, but my arrogance will save me.”
Jason slapped his back. “Whatever.”
Dean led Jason to the front of the plane. “I’m going to listen to your pitch right now.”
Her eyes widened. “You are?”
“Yes. But then I’d like to hire you to do something for me.”
“Hire me?”
“Yes.” Though he and Jason hadn’t discussed paying her, with all the strange feelings tumbling through him when he was around her, he needed to make sure they kept this “date” in perspective. He also wouldn’t ask Kristen Anderson to go to the party with him as a favor. Favors implied that he’d be indebted to her. He was indebted to no one. “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars to go to a party with me tonight.”
She laughed.
He waited until she realized he was serious.
Wide-eyed, she asked, “Why would you do that?”
“You heard a bit of the discussion about my company hitting a bumpy patch?”
She inclined her head in acknowledgment.
“Well, I believe it will make me look a little more—” He wouldn’t say “normal.” Refused. Being a genius took him out of the normal column, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand kids. Especially lonely kids. He had been one. He knew how to entertain them. “—approachable if I go to tonight’s gala happy. Having a date will make it appear that everything’s fine.”
She just looked at him.
“Stocks are funny things,” Jason said. “They sometimes rise and fall on rumors. How a company’s leader is perceived dictates how much money people are willing to risk.”
Dean frowned at Jason. “She has a degree in economics. I’m pretty sure she knows that.” He faced Kristen. “What I really need to counteract that article is for people to perceive me as a regular guy. Dating is something a regular guy does.”
“And if I say no, you won’t listen to my pitch?”
The odd feeling rolled through him again. The feeling that something about her was significant. Holding the gaze of her pretty eyes, which were serious this time, he knew he had to be fair with her.
“No. Regardless of whether you go to the party with me or not, I’ll listen to your pitch. But if you decide to come with me, we’ll make arrangements to get you something suitable to wear, and we’ll put you up in a hotel suite. Party’s not until eight. You can get some sleep so you’ll be fresh and happy for tonight. Then tomorrow you’re back on this plane, on your way home.”
“For a hundred thousand dollars?”
“I’m not paying you more than a hundred thousand dollars for a date.”
“I don’t want more. In fact, I, personally, do not want the money. But I am in the beginning stages of setting up a charity that will build schools in third world countries. I think what I’d really like is a commitment from you to put computers in those schools.”
Disappointment flooded him. Just like everybody else, she wanted something from him. She might be on an assignment from Princess Eva and Prince Alex, but she had an agenda too. There was nothing special about her.
Still, he was accustomed to people wanting something. Everybody in his life wanted money or a favor or a recommendation of some sort. So what if she was no different? He didn’t know why something about her had caught his attention. Maybe hormones mixing with jet lag? Disappointed or not, he was accustomed to this.
“When will the schools be built?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I’m in the planning stages of the charity itself. I don’t really know when I’ll have an actual school.”
Jason touched Dean’s arm to prevent him from replying. “So what you want is a promise in writing—”
“An agreement. I want this to be a normal charitable contribution. Not money given to me personally. But a charitable contribution.”
Dean nodded. “Okay, we’ll write an agreement that states I will put the first three hundred computers in your soon-to-be-developed schools.”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand to shake hers. “Deal.”
She took his hand. “Deal.”
STELLA TURNED OUT to be a thirtysomething hipster with short hair and big glasses, a long sweater over black leggings and tall boots. Standing in the middle of a huge dressing room in an exclusive boutique, Kristen watched Dean’s assistant frown at the red dress she’d asked the shop manager to bring in her size.
“Sweetie,” she said, then took a sip of her designer coffee. “If I were you, I’d get a black gown. Something I could wear again and again. When you’ve got a rich man footing the bill, you shop smart.”
The boutique manager rolled her eyes.
Kristen winced. “I just want something acceptable. I don’t want to break the bank.”
Stella sniffed. “Dean Suminski’s bank can’t be broken.” She motioned Kristen back into the curtained-off section of the dressing room. “Try the black one I picked out.”
Kristen stepped between the two colorful strips of fabric that blocked off the changing area. When the boutique manager arrived with the black dress, she shrugged out of the cute red gown and into the elegant black one.
“Oh.”
She hadn’t meant to comment, but the tiny squeak had slipped out. Black satin, sleeveless and formfitting from her chin to her hip bones, the dress flared out from thigh to floor and made a beautiful swishing sound when she moved.
The boutique manager, Jennifer, sighed. “I hate to call that little twit out there right, but this dress is perfect.”
They found black shoes of an appropriate height, so the dress wouldn’t need to be hemmed, and stunning white-gold earrings and necklace that sparkled against the simplicity of the dress. Then Stella had Dean’s driver take them to a hotel on Broadway, where she was led to a suite.
