Chapter One
James
“Dad, what is the big emergency? What did Henry screw up this time?” I asked, storming into my father’s office with my assistant running behind me, her heels echoing loudly as they clicked quickly along the marble floors. She closed my father’s office door so we could keep it private. His staff knew the moment I appeared that there was trouble with brewing and I didn’t need them worrying about their jobs just yet.
It was already four in the afternoon, and I had to cancel the end-of-the-day staff meeting that I had specifically scheduled to deal with some company concerns. My gut was telling someone was out to sabotage my networks and dismantle my systems. Still, I didn’t have time for my family’s shenanigans, but none of that ever mattered to them because I’d always been there to clean up their mess.
“The ad campaign for a perfume company. They are furious and are planning to pull their contract and sue us for the losses. I can’t afford another blow to my name or the financial hit. It’s been one thing after another. If this gets out, my agency will be ruined.” He pressed his head into his hands, shaking it back and forth sending his messy gray hair swaying. I didn’t understand what happened to my father, but he really let himself go these past couple of months. His look became severely unkempt, and he actually had a beard coming in, showing his age.
He was too old to be dealing with my brother’s fuckups, but he continued to entertain my brother’s schemes and failures. A part of me still felt sorry for him and that was why I was here giving him one last helping hand.
Henry never had a damn lick of sense or patience to do his job; he was always going around chasing women. That was the reason I wouldn’t allow my brother to work with me. He was essentially useless; in fact, he was worse than useless. My brother was dangerous.
“What is their problem with the campaign?” Knowing my brother, it could be anything, but all I knew was I had to pick up the pieces and work miracles when I had no time or experience with perfume companies.
“We don’t have anything booked for them. Their new perfume is slated to launch for the Valentine’s Day market, and we haven’t got anything to promote it with.”
“Are you serious? This should have started at the end of the Christmas cycle.” I checked the date on my phone. It was already mid-January. Not only were they behind, but they were also almost past the peak of the promotion period. Luckily, the male demographic were last-minute shoppers. “Can’t you rebrand the Christmas ads for the perfume?”
“It’s a new product specifically for Valentine’s Day. We already launched the Christmas perfume.” The exasperated sigh the fell from his mouth already answered my next question, but I had to ask for clarification. I needed to know how big of a hole they were in.
“And how did that go?” He bit his lip and turned his head to his darkened computer screen as if there was something important on it while avoiding my questioning gaze.
“That good, huh?”
“It wasn’t terrible. It just wasn’t the best or what they had expected. This was supposed to be the turnaround we needed to impress them and keep the client.” Every word out of his mouth wasn’t the exact truth; arguing wasn’t worth it.
“Perhaps we can turn this around,” I said after a moment of consideration. It wouldn’t be easy, but I might be able to salvage this. I rubbed my bristly jaw, running through the possible options.
“What is your plan, Son?” he asked, hopefulness in his eyes as he gave me no damn time to fix his monumental fuckup. He was the damn owner of the ad agency. It should be his ideas not mine, but hell if he bothered to throw me a bone. We lived in a world of fast marketing. You could have images and campaigns marketed out in hours by influencers, but I was under the assumption that the perfume brand didn’t come to them to just get some social media bunny out to pimp their scent. Maybe that would come after a great brand run, but at the start it had to be traditional ads.
“What is the name of the perfume?” I asked, wondering how to spin this. As good as I was, I never liked marketing; that’s why I had a small team for that, and my company was tailored to private clientele with money to spend. Dealing with people wasn’t my thing; I worked behind the screen, far away from people as often as possible.
“Sugar Rush. Here it is.” He handed it to me. It came in a slender crystalline pink bottle. I popped off the cap and breathed in the sweet scent. The fragrance was a berry, sugary scent that I almost wanted on my tongue, but I didn’t think of food.
“It’s Valentine’s Day, and we need to market it to men for their wives or lovers, so I think we need a sultry lingerie shoot to go in all ads.”
“Do we have time for a commercial?”
“I’m not sure. We’d need something provocative with the perfect couple. That’s time-consuming and expensive, and you’d have to be able to please the company.” My assistant jotted down notes, knowing this wasn’t the first time we had to comedown and swoop in to save my father’s company from ruin at the hands of my brother. Sometimes, I wondered if the constant sabotage was intentional. However, I could never puzzle out a logical motive.
“Where is Henry right now?” I asked him as my temper grew heated quickly.
“He flew off to meet with the company and ask them to give us a little more time.” That prick wasn’t going to get more time. If anything, they were going to tell us to go to hell in a damn handbasket. Why did my father keep giving him more chances to ruin the company?
“Do you think that was a smart idea?” I questioned. I wondered if my father was getting too damn old to run this business.
“No, but when he gets an idea in his head, there’s no stopping him.” The defeat coated his words, but I couldn’t keep chasing these problems when they went ahead and made more. It was like running after an errant toddler or something.
“Okay. Call your contact at the perfume company. I’d like to speak with them personally.”
“Are you certain?” he asked. I didn’t have time for him to second-guess me. He either wanted me to handle it or not.
“Yes. Get them on the phone and I’ll deal with them myself, or I can leave and manage my own company.” I took a seat in front of his desk and braced myself. I pointed to the chair beside me, and my assistant popped down, ready to record whatever ass-kissing obligations we would have to meet.
He nodded anxiously as if he were afraid of speaking to the client. He left the receiver down and dialed the number. “Hello, Mr. Jaques, this is Darren Keaton. I’d like to have a word with you.”
“As I with you, sir. I had the most interesting conversation with your son. He informed me that you were in the process of a photo shoot with a lovely model and my perfume for the campaign. Unfortunately, there was a snag with the photographer’s schedule and the model falling ill, so you had to delay it.” What a fucking liar. My brother was a professional con-artist.
