Next to You (16 page)

Damn
. If there was anything hotter than a woman in a perfectly tailored suit talking manufacturing and inventory, Jared couldn’t come up with it at the moment.
I want this woman.
That’s all he could think of as Phlox and the interviewer sparred back and forth some more.
I would do anything to have her.

“One final question, Ms. Miller. Will any of your customers be permanently injured by this tampering incident?”

Jared held his breath. This was the money question.

“We don’t believe so, no. The tampering was intended to hurt Phlox Beauty more so than our customers—”

“So the culprit had some sort of heart then?”

Phlox lifted her graceful winged eyebrows in a gesture that was wonderfully haughty. A woman who could speak volumes with just her eyebrows. Jared loved it.

“The contaminated product will result in what is essentially a deep chemical peel. Dermatologists do these all the time, under supervision of course. The skin will heal but the recovery period can be rough, especially if you hadn’t planned for it.”

The show cut to another commercial break. She did well. It wasn’t a real hardball interview but she had come across as composed and cool, in control but compassionate. She had stuck to her talking points. He called Jake.

“Now what?” his brother answered.

“I want to invest in her company.”

The costs Phlox and her partner were taking on to manage this product tampering incident were not minor. Medical expenses. Not to mention, sales of their other products were going to take a hit because of this. No way to avoid that. He was surprised that question didn’t come up in the interview.

“Should I pretend I don’t know whose company you’re referring to?” Jake mused.

“We gave them the young entrepreneur grant through the foundation, right?”

“Yes.”

“So funnel this through the Maria Group,” Jared said.

“The Maria Group hasn’t made an investment in over a year.”

“So? You haven’t embezzled the money, have you?”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“I don’t want her knowing it’s from me. Not yet.”

Jake’s laugh was thin and disbelieving. “You’re digging yourself in deeper.”

“Now isn’t the right time. Not with what’s going on in her life.” Jared paused, not wanting to say the words. But he did. “And not with what’s going on in ours. After that, then I can figure it out.”

R
ye’s office
was the most masculine space in Phlox Beauty’s headquarters. Most of the offices were light and modern with abstract prints on the wall. Rye’s, on the other hand, looked like a gentleman’s library or smoking room. He had furnished it with leather chairs and a big old mahogany desk. An accountant’s green-shaded lamp stood sentry over his desk pad and leather pencil cup.

Phlox collapsed into one of the leather wingchairs. Rye was furiously scrolling through e-mails on his phone while they waited for Zee and Jess, their head of communications, to arrive. Cherise bustled in with sandwiches and sodas from the deli down the street.

“So what’s going on?” she asked her brother. Rye had texted her a meeting request half an hour ago, when she’d been in a cab returning from the television studio.

“I want to wait until Zee and Jess are here,” he replied without looking up from his phone.

“Can you at least tell me whether it’s good news or bad? So I don’t sit here and worry?”

He set his phone down and did look up this time. “It’s good news.”

Phlox let out the breath she’d been holding. "Finally. We need some good news for a change.”

“That we do.”

“Can I run something by you?”

“Shoot.”

“So this whole mess makes the idea of building our own manufacturing facility a little more urgent, wouldn’t you say?” she said.

“Yeah, I would say that. I’m pissed at Zee, obviously, but I’m also pissed at the factory. How the hell could they have allowed someone to contaminate a product? We can’t afford to have the factory be a weak link in the supply chain.”

“Could we build one in Connecticut?”

Rye snorted. “Not in Fairfield County.”

“What about a cheaper part of the state? There’s plenty of land around.” The idea to build in Connecticut had occurred to her in the cab on her way to the television studio that morning. If there was a factory in Connecticut, she’d have the perfect reason to spend more time at her home there. She could build a new lab right in the same building. There were advantages to having both the lab and the manufacturing facility in the same location.

And she could see Jared more often.

“I’ll look into it,” Rye said.

“Look into what?” Zee asked as she swept into the office, with Jess two steps behind.

“Bringing manufacturing in-house by building a plant in Connecticut,” Rye answered, putting his phone away.

Zee shot Phlox a knowing smile. “That’s not a bad idea.”

“Yeah, we’ll look into it but it’s not on the agenda today.”

Rye looked as tired and haggard as the rest of them did.

“Announcing that we’re bringing manufacturing in-house would be a good move,” Jess chimed in. “It would help allay people’s fears.”

“Noted,” Rye said. “I got a call this morning from an investment group.”

The room fell silent.

“They want to invest in us,” he added.

“And why would they want to do that? Now of all times?” Phlox said.

“They like the fundamentals of the company and want to help us get through this crisis.”

“Who is the investor and who did you speak to?” Zee asked. “Sounds suspicious to me.”

“The Maria Group. It was their attorney who called.”

“Their attorney,” Phlox said flatly. “Are you familiar with the Maria Group?”

“No, but—”

Jess was typing on her laptop, each keystroke like a sharp little explosion. “I’m not finding a Maria Group online,” she said.

“Bad sign, number one,” Phlox replied.

“Not all of these groups have web sites,” her brother countered. “They don’t publicize their investments and they don’t want to be solicited. They choose whom they invest in.”

“All right. So what are they offering?”

“Thirty million in exchange for one percent of the company,” he said.

Zee sucked in a loud breath. “One percent? That’s all? This doesn’t sound legit, guys.”

Phlox closed her eyes for a moment to think. She was tired. Deep down bone tired and staying up late talking to Jared last night hadn’t helped her energy level any. “Can we hold off on this until we learn more about them?”

She didn’t want to say it, not in front of Zee, but they’d already been burned by Nicholas. They needed to be more careful about who they partnered with from here on out.

“Maybe Jess can make some calls, see what she can find out,” Zee suggested.

“I’m just worried that people may be thinking we’re vulnerable right now and easy to take advantage of. We need to keep our guard up,” Phlox said. “They say they want one percent but in six months, when the crisis has passed, they’ll want to renegotiate.”

P
hlox was back
in her own office for less than thirty seconds when Cherise popped her head in. “David wants to know if you’ll have dinner with him tonight. He’s been calling all morning.”

“Thanks. I’ll call him back.”

David had been phoning and e-mailing and texting her since she returned to New York two days ago. She was really too tired to go to dinner tonight, but she’d been ignoring all of his efforts to contact her. Maybe if she hadn’t met Jared, she’d be interested again, more inclined to give him a second chance. After all, he was a close friend of her brother’s and her parents already knew and liked him.

But she
had
met Jared.

Still, she felt she owed David a face-to-face conversation to explain things. So at six-thirty she stepped out into the lobby, allowed David to kiss her on the cheek and accompanied him to the elevator. He was as elegantly dressed as she remembered, in a black suit and pale grey linen shirt, his tie rakishly loosened.

“You look beautiful as always,” he said as they waited. “How are you holding up?” He pushed the elevator button several more times.

“As well as can be expected, I guess,” she replied. “It doesn’t make it come any faster, you know.”

“I know. But you know us Type A’s.” He smiled affectionately at her and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “We business owners have that in common.”

Do we?
Phlox wasn’t so sure. She had stopped into the lab for a minutes after lunch to say hello to the staff there. She’d been reminded just how much she enjoyed puttering around there, patiently searching for answers. Sometimes searching for the questions, too.

“I’m not really a Type A. I just play one on tv.”

David chucked her lightly under the chin as the elevator doors opened. “A beautiful woman with brains
and
a sense of humor. What more could I want?”

Chemistry
echoed loudly in Phlox’s beautiful, funny brain. She and David had never had much chemistry together. Before the accident, chemistry hadn’t been at the top of her list of qualities she looked for in a man. She couldn’t be that picky back then.
I was a chem major. I bring enough chemistry for both of us
, she used to joke. But what she felt around Jared was off the charts. He lit all her Bunsen burners just by walking into the room.

Outside, the sidewalk was filled with people leaving work, streaming toward the subway and hailing cabs. She and David walked the four blocks to his newest restaurant, Cook’s Kitchen, specializing in upscale down-home cooking. Potpies, gourmet mac and cheese, meatloaf. As they entered the restaurant, she could see that the place was packed. David led her through the warmly-lit dining room, past tables topped with cheery blue and yellow striped tablecloths. The buzz of conversation filled the high-ceilinged space. It was inviting, comfortable and laid-back—unlike David’s other restaurants, which seemed designed to intimidate.

On paper David Cook was a catch, no question about it. He was a talented restaurateur. A successful businessman. Tall and handsome with glossy dark hair and a broad friendly smile. Her family had already vetted and approved him. If he had changed his mind—and his feelings—about Phlox, well then he was a safe bet for a boyfriend … and maybe more.

Jared Connor was about as risky a bet as Phlox could imagine. He said he loved her, but he didn’t want to be seen in public with her. She couldn’t imagine her mother approving of him—not that Phlox needed her mother’s approval on everything but it would make life difficult to be sure.

She followed him up an ornate metal staircase to the second floor balcony and the only available table up there. Naturally David had his own table, reserved only for him, at each of his restaurants. She could see why he had picked this particular table as his own. It had an almost complete view of the entire first floor dining room, with the exception of the tables tucked neatly away in the corners.

The sommelier, a young woman in a blue and yellow floral sundress that practically matched the tablecloths, appeared at David’s table as if out of thin air.

“Mr. Cook. Lovely to see you this evening.”

David tipped his head toward her. “Simone. How about the Connor Cellars pinot gris?”

“Very well, Mr. Cook.”

Simone disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. “Down home cooking with a sommelier?”

David shrugged and smiled. “Customers still expect a certain level of service, regardless of the cuisine.”

Simone returned quickly and poured their wine. That was one of the perks of ownership, obviously. No waiting for anything—not a table or wine or even a waiter. David slipped his phone from his jacket pocket.

“What would you like?”

Another perk of ownership—David and his guests were never limited to the menu. Nonetheless, Phlox peered down at the first floor tables below, trying to see what other diners were having. She had never understood the point of going to a restaurant and then ignoring what the chef had decided to serve.

“What do you recommend?” she asked. “How can I brag that I got into one of your restaurants if I didn’t experience the menu?” She smiled at David. Flattery might soften what she planned to tell him over dinner.

“Well, the Amish chicken with spiced apple rings and cabbage casserole is popular at the moment.”

“Sounds fattening.”

He shrugged apologetically.

“I’ll try it. Zee tells me I need to gain a little weight anyway.”

David’s eyes dropped to her chest before he could catch himself.

“Probably no way to direct the calories there,” she said. She and David had seen each other only twice—and even then just briefly—since the accident. She doubted that her brother had explained the full extent of her transformation to him.

David blushed. “I ah … didn’t mean that … you look fine, Phlox. Gorgeous.” He fumbled with his phone, texting their orders back to the chef. “Different, that’s all. I guess I wasn’t expecting—”

“Prettier face but the boobs are gone.”

He put the phone away, a look of chagrin on his handsome face. “That’s not what I meant. And you can always get implants, right? Everyone does that these days.”

Apparently, that was exactly what he meant.

“I’m done with surgery for the time being. Sorry.”

He changed the subject to her business and although the last thing she wanted to do was discuss her business problems over dinner, it was preferable to discussing her lack of cleavage.

Her Amish chicken was delicious, as of course it would be. There was a reason why David’s restaurants were so successful. A busboy materialized as discreetly as had Simone and whisked away their plates. Simone herself returned with two coffees.

David swirled cream into his, obviously gathering his thoughts. At last, he looked up at her. “Phlox, I want to apologize for … for not being there for you.” He reached across the table and covered her hand firmly with his. “I was a coward. I didn’t think I could go through all that.”

Coward. Cad. Her mental dictionary was tossing out all sorts of words.

“But I’ve missed you. God, I’ve missed you, Phlox. And I want to make it up to you. I know now is not the best time and you’re busy with—”

“I’ve met someone,” she interrupted what was clearly a carefully-rehearsed speech.

“Who?”

“Just someone. You don’t know him.”

“What’s the lucky guy’s name?”

Phlox hesitated a moment, then answered, swayed by David’s seeming magnanimity. “Jared.”

“Jared what?”

“Jared Connor.”

David’s eyebrows lifted. “Jared Connor? No one’s seen that guy in years.”

“Huh?”

David lifted the now empty bottle of wine from its chiller. “Connor Cellars. See? You didn’t know he owned this? How the hell did you meet Jared Connor? You know what his nickname is?” David chuckled, not waiting for her reply. “Bruce Wayne. Reclusive billionaire and all that.”

“Uh, I think we’re talking about two different people. I’m definitely not dating a billionaire.” She laughed a little nervously, wishing she could end this conversation gracefully. “Not even close.”

David looked disappointed and it occurred to her that maybe he’d been hoping for an introduction to a billionaire. “Ah that’s too bad. But hey, at least I’m not losing out to Batman, right?”