She nodded sharply. “Yes, we do.” She stood and stuck out her hand for him to shake.
He rose off the chair and took her hand. His long fingers stroked her skin so very gently. The warmth from his palm blended with hers, and her heart fluttered.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, slowly withdrawing her hand from his, “I’m going to need a few shareholders to help me out. As you well know, this project isn’t a one-person show.”
“Of course. Pick anyone you’d like. Even me if that’s what you wish. In fact, if I remember correctly, you had told me once that we worked well together.”
He was trying to get back on her good graces, evident by his crooked grin and the twinkle in his intriguing eyes. But she didn’t want to take him away from his girlfriend. Nicole had seen howattachedthey’d been in the parking lot this morning. But more importantly, Nicole also didn’t want her heart broken, again. As the saying goes in baseball, three strikes – you’re out.
“Thank you, Mr. Remington. I take my job seriously, so I’ll jump right on my new project.” She motioned toward the door. “If you don’t mind...”
“Fine, I’ll leave. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will, but I don’t think I’ll need anything.”
She waited until he left before she scrambled to find phone numbers on her Rolodex. Determination surged through her. She would show her grandfather thatsheshould have been president. And hopefully, Mick would graciously bow out and turn the company back over to her.
She grabbed a pen and notepad and started making notes of what she would accomplish. During a pause, her mind drifted to Mick. Perhaps she was judging him too harshly. It wasn’t his fault that her grandfather turned the company over to him. Was it? Maybe grandfather was truly thinking of the takeover, which was why he amended the will right before he died.
Nicole frowned. Had she misjudged Mick all this time and blamed him unnecessarily? And if she was wrong about that, maybe she’d been too quick to judge him when she saw him with that clingy woman in the parking lot.
A memory flashed through her head of them embracing by his car and how the woman was all over him. Nicole frowned. So maybe she hadn’t been wrong about him after all.
Pushing her injured heart aside, she quickly made some phone calls to a few of the shareholders she could trust. They set up a meeting at a restaurant. Her treat. She had a few ideas to throw at them. But they needed to accomplish this in one week. It would be hard, but she was confident that she could do it.
Three hours later, she and four of the shareholders sat at a large table in one of Maple Springs’ nice restaurants, poring over her notes. She showed them the revenue spreadsheets she’d made earlier today.
“By lowering the cost of the products by just twenty percent, we’ll bring in more sales, and we won’t take that big of a cut. Also,” she grabbed a few more pages she’d printed from off the internet, “take a look at these. I have a friend who works for Peaking Design in Denver, and she told me about a new product they put out just last year. In just that time, the company nearly quadrupled in sales. Several months ago, she and I discussed how their product could work nicely with ours. I’m not suggesting merging with them, but I’m wondering if we could upgrade some of our products by using theirs, and in return, they’d get a share of our stock, and a percentage of our sales.”
The men’s eyes widened. Two men talked at once, explaining how that idea just might help, and how they could broach the subject with Peaking Design’s president.
“I’ll call them today,” Nicole stated. “There’s no time to drag our feet. This must be done immediately.”
The men agreed and the mood around the table seemed to lighten. Nicole breathed easier and relaxed in her chair. As she sipped her ice water with a slice of lemon, she gazed around the busy restaurant, recognizing a few faces of those who had been good friends with her grandfather.
Out of the corner of her eye, another familiar face caught her attention as he sauntered into the restaurant as if he owned the place. She sucked in a quick breath. Wasn’t that Carl Remington? Mick’s father?
Her gut twisted and the food she’d eaten not too long ago lurched in her stomach. What was he doing in Maple Springs? In a split second, Mick’s promise came back to her that he’d not let his father takeover Adkins Dev-Tech.
She scrunched lower in her seat, hoping he wouldn’t see her. He was with a woman, and they were being led to a table in the back of the room. When Nicole got a good look at the woman, she gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. Wasn’t that... Mick’s girlfriend?
Nicole kept her eyes on them as they sat at their table. The senior Remington was very flirty, but the younger woman didn’t seem to mind. It bothered Nicole that the strawberry-blonde was flirting back, touching Carl’s arm and leaning against him. When he said something, the woman laughed and batted her fake eyelash extensions.
After a few minutes, he took the woman’s hand and held it tenderly as he stared into Mick’s girlfriend’s eyes. Nicole grimaced. What was wrong with that woman? Why was she acting this way toward Carl when she belonged to Mick?
“Nicole? What do you think of giving this pitch to Peaking Design’s president?” Ted slid his notepad in front of her. She glanced at the sentences written on the paper, but her mind wasn’t on what she read. Instead, she wanted to keep watching Carl. She desperately wanted to know why those two were together – and in Maple Springs.
Chuckling, Ted rubbed his shaven pointed chin. “It’s not exactly perfect. I’m sure if we put our heads together, we’ll figure out more to say.”
She nodded to the shareholder, but didn’t reply. Her gaze was glued to the odd pair in the back of the room. They were leaning closer together, and each held a champagne glass while the waiter poured champagne into their drinks.
Nicole quickly excused herself from the table and walked toward Carl’s table, trying her best to stay hidden in some way, but it didn’t matter what she did. The couple seemed that they only had eyes for each other. As Nicole passed their table, she stopped behind a partition that separated their room from where Nicole’s table had been.
She tried her hardest to hear what the two were muttering – and giggling – about. If only they’d talk louder.
Carl held up his champagne glass and smiled at the woman with the model-shaped body. “To our future.”
“To our future,” the woman repeated and clinked her glass against his before taking a sip.
