Can't Buy Me Love (9 page)

“Why did you then?” Cole broke in.

“I couldn’t fight it anymore,” Stan said, and traced the bottom of his brandy glass with his finger. His gaze flitted from his wife to Cole. “There are just some battles a man isn’t meant to win.”

“Seems to me”—Cole lifted his glass and tilted it toward Stan and Allison—“like maybe you won after all.”

Meg couldn’t agree more, but to hear the sentiment from a man who chased women as though it were an Olympic sport, and he competing for the gold, unsettled her.

“And what about you?” Allison directed her gaze at Cole and then Meg. “How long did it take before you couldn’t resist Meg?”

Meg coughed, and her aperitif burned its way down her windpipe. “Excuse me.” She covered her mouth with her white linen napkin.

Allison looked quickly to Stan and then Meg. “I’m sorry…did I misjudge? I assumed that the two of you…since you were traveling together and just seem so…so ideal for each another…that you were a couple?”

Meg cleared her throat. “Well, Cole and I aren’t really—we—”

“Try to be discreet,” Cole placed his hand over the top of hers and intertwined their fingers. “We haven’t told anyone about
us
.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed two of her fingertips.

What was Cole doing? She fought the urge to plant her stiletto into his toes.
Us? Us!
One kiss did not make an
us
.

“Have we, my little apple blossom?” he said.

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. Allison wore the sugary smile of a woman witnessing a couple in love, while Stan, with his eyebrow cocked, had a more amused expression.

“An interoffice romance is a tough thing to hide,” Stan said. “I think we were able to keep it quiet for what? Three weeks?”

“Four,” Allison said. “I finally left a month later after he proposed.”

“You only dated for two months before you got engaged?” Meg asked. She couldn’t hide her shock. “That’s so—”

“—fast,” Allison said, completing Meg’s sentence.

“Impetuous,” Stan continued.

“When you know, you know,” Allison added. “Or at least I did.”

“Best decision I ever made.” Stan’s gaze settled onto his wife. “Plus, once I understood what kind of treasure I had, I was afraid she’d get a much better offer on the open market. I needed to lock up this asset before someone else stole her away.”

Allison laughed, and Stan took his wife’s hand into his.

“Well, congratulations to you both then,” Allison said. “Regardless of who knows. I knew you were meant for each other the moment I met you two on the beach. You absolutely light up when the other speaks. And, oh my goodness”—Allison shook her head in amazement—“can you imagine the beautiful babies they’ll make? Heartbreakers!”

The air rushed from Meg’s lungs and the room seemed to spin. She forced her lungs to inhale and exhale. She plastered a smile onto her face while her insides churned.

Meant for each other? Babies! Heartbreakers!?

“Ah,” Cole said, and brushed Meg’s hand to his lips again. “One can only hope.”

*

“What do you think you’re doing?” Meg hissed.

“Right now? Well, I was going to the bathroom,” Cole said. He stood with his back toward her.

“They think we’re a couple,” Meg whispered. She peeked out the bathroom door. Stan and Allison sat on the couch in the living room chatting, thankfully oblivious to the drama consuming Meg’s life.

“And we don’t want to disappoint Allison, now do we?”

This wasn’t how her deal was supposed to close. This deal was about numbers, and debt ratios, profit and percentages, not about personal relationships and marriages.

In one day with Cole, Meg’s well-ordered TBC deal had gone from a business transaction meant to be closed with a handshake and potentially a bottle of champagne to a soap opera with a fake relationship and a kiss by her boss.

“So
this
is why you kissed me.”

Cole turned on the tap and washed his hands. “I kissed you because I didn’t have a choice.” He reached across her for the hand towel.

Anger bubbled in her chest, and she met his gaze in the bathroom mirror.
No choice?
Of course. The kiss today had been all about business.

“I’m merely a pawn.”

“Right now,” Cole said, replacing the hand towel to its hook, “you’re my employee. And a very valuable one. Allison Morton wants her husband to sell TBC so she can have Stan to herself for the last decade or so of their lives. Stan, well he’s not so sure. But he likes you. And he’s starting to like me. And guess what?” Cole placed his hands on her bare shoulders.

Electricity whizzed through Meg as if she’d stuck her finger into the light socket beside the sink.

Cole leaned forward. “They like us even better as a couple than they do individually.”

The warmth of Cole’s breath on her face, his lips so very close—the very same lips that hours before kissed her and she kissed back.

“Do I need to spell it out for you, Meggy?” His voice, a low rumble, sent pulses up her spine. “We remind Allison and Stan of themselves when they were young.”

Meg pulled away from Cole’s grasp. She had to or else fall into his arms, and in Cole’s arms was not a place of comfort for Meg. This deception seemed so premeditated on Cole’s part—so calculated.

“Allison ran TBC’s entire North American division after they’d been married a couple years. She was the only person Stan trusted,” Cole said.

Meg tilted her head and jutted her chin. “It must be nice to have a relationship like that.”

She’d thought—she’d hoped—that these feelings that they shared were just about business.

“So come on, sweet ‘ums,” Cole said, and slipped his hand into hers. “Let’s go buy a television company.”

Chapter Eleven

“They are very similar, our men,” Allison said, and nodded toward the deck where Cole and Stan stood side by side. They stared at the ocean as if world conquerors on the verge of beginning their next military campaign. Each stood with his feet wide and hands on hips. Neither looked at the other unless one was speaking.

“It took me a decade to get used to just how
male
Stan is.”

“A decade? But you accepted his proposal in less than two months.”

“Well, I knew I loved him. I just didn’t know how to live with him,” Allison said, and sipped her coffee. “He just sees the world so differently, my Stan. You’re either with him or against him. So black and white. Gray isn’t a color he’s familiar with.”

Meg nodded. Cole did business in a similar manner.

 “And you? With Cole? How is it working together? Is it difficult to keep your relationship private when he has such a big job?”

Meg squirmed in her seat. She liked Allison and didn’t want to lie to her. How could she possibly answer this question?

“Well—” Meg looked toward the deck. She chose her words carefully. “Cole is a very private person.”

“But after being his assistant for three years I suppose you know everything about him,” Allison said.

“I used to think so,” Meg said, attempting to scout her way through this unfamiliar territory. She ran her hands over her dress and knit her brows. “He still manages to surprise me.”

“I hope that never goes away. One of the greatest pleasures of my marriage has been Stan’s spontaneity.”

Spontaneity was one tiny step from chaos. And although she liked some surprises, big ones—like kisses and dresses and false relationships—were dangerously close to the edge for Meg.

“Are you okay?” Allison reached out and touched Meg’s hand.

“Did it ever bother you?” Meg whispered, glancing toward the floor before continuing. “Well, the things people say? What they think when—”

“When you fall in love with and then marry your boss?”

Meg nodded.

“I called them the mean-nasties,” Allison said. “That’s the affectionate nickname I gave them. All the nasty little people that wanted to insinuate just exactly why
I
got to head up a division of our company.

“Yes, it bothered me at first,” she continued. “But then I realized, you have to face those kinds of people head-on. If you cower they just grow stronger. If you face them and defeat them by unquestionable success in business, well, their whispers lose all power. I was doing a better job than any one of those mean-nasties ever could. I was smart, prepared, and harder on myself than any other executive in that company because I worked for the man I loved. I wanted to do a better job than anyone. I didn’t just represent myself, I represented
us
. But, from what Stan says, you seem to hold yourself up to a similar standard.”

Meg glanced toward Stan on the deck and then back at Allison.

“You work as hard as Cole, who seems to work harder than any other executive at Comnet,” Allison said.

“It’s important to me that people never think that I didn’t earn my position,” Meg said.

“Oh, sweetheart, but they will.”

A pit opened in Meg’s stomach and her jaw dropped.

“You can’t stop the mean-nasties. All you can do is ignore them and outwork them. Which you will. One of the many hazards of working in the family business. You never quite leave the office behind.”

There wasn’t a day in the last three years that Meg didn’t think of Comnet and Cole.

“But you must at least try to carve out some time for just the two of you. Don’t forget that you are a couple first and work partners second.”

Meg looked into the darkness of the night toward Cole and Stan on the deck. Right now, as far as Cole Jackson was concerned, Meg wasn’t sure what she was.

*

“How do you envision TBC fitting within that monstrosity you call a company?” Stan asked.

A fair question. Both men stood side by side and stared into the pounding surf as though searching for a frigate.

“I envision TBC to be the crown jewel. The final component that would make Comnet the world’s best media company.”

“You’re already world-class. You don’t need our little company to be complete.”

“Perhaps not. But TBC is the best and I always want the best.”

Cole had set his sights on TBC years ago, and now he was one conversation away from achieving his goal.

“Who’ll run it?” Stan asked. “
If
we sell.”

Cole realized what Stan wanted to hear. Stan needed to know that the person who he trusted most at Comnet, who Stan knew best, would take care of his beloved company.

So much for promoting Meg and shipping her to Hong Kong to head Comnet’s Asian division. To place Meg in charge of TBC meant she remained in Los Angeles.

Cole glanced over his shoulder. His gaze landed on Meg and a feeling deeper than lust stirred within him—protectiveness.

He couldn’t give his entire heart to her but if she wanted him, he could give her some of himself. A part. As he watched her cross and recross her legs, Cole felt certain that his comment to Stan and Allison that he and Meg were a couple wasn’t a deception. Or at least very soon wouldn’t be. Something brewed between them. Feelings and physical needs that he could no longer dismiss.

“I think the only person qualified to do your company justice is Meg.”

Cole believed what he said. There was no other person within Comnet who Cole would trust where TBC was concerned.

“I’d hoped you’d say that,” Stan said. “She’s a bright one. Worked for you—what? Three years? As an
assistant
?”

Cole cringed with the word
assistant
and the way Stan emphasized it with incredulity and disdain.

“I’ve been training her, preparing her to take over a division,” Cole said.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’ve been keeping her close.”

Cole stiffened. He’d never had a mentor—a strong man to question his decisions or guide him. At twenty-two he’d wrestled control of his parents’ company away from his marauding uncle. A part of him recoiled from Stan’s observation. And yet, Cole knew Stan’s words to be true—he had wanted to keep Meg close until his feelings for her began to overwhelm him. Then he’d sent her away.

“Don’t worry about it, son,” Stan said. “We do crazy things when it comes to the women we love.”

Love?

Cole couldn’t trust anyone enough to love. There was too much money, greed, and power that surrounded him. Eventually, even the purest of souls became corrupted.

 “I’d never sell TBC if it wasn’t for her.” Stan looked into the living room where Allison and Meg sat smiling and laughing as if they’d been friends for years. “She’s let me work morning, noon, and night for over forty years. Not quite sure how she’ll stand it,” Stan said, and shook his head. “But she guarantees me that it’s what she wants and she surely deserves it. I’m not sure anymore if this drive that men like you and me share is a blessing or a curse. We miss a lot in life with our unquenchable need to succeed.”

Inside the beach house, Meg lifted her fingertips to her mouth and leaned back with a laugh that Cole couldn’t hear. Her body intimated pure pleasure with something Allison just told her. Cole smiled even though he couldn’t hear the joke. Just watching Meg’s happiness made him happy, because, whether he admitted it, he cared.

Stan nodded toward Meg. “That will be the biggest accomplishment of your life. Not my company. Not even your giant company. But that woman. Her happiness. Her smile. Her laugh.” Stan followed Cole’s gaze and glanced inside the beach house. “Business will disappoint you a million different ways, but that woman, the one you decide to love, well she’ll pick you up off the floor after the bastards knock you around.”

Stan’s words rang true. Cole’s eyes adjusted to the darkness looked from Meg and to Stan. A man so similar to him but further along the journey of life.

A sudden knowledge opened within Cole.
Meg.
Meg and her happiness would be his biggest achievement.

His heart pounded.

A divide and conquer strategy wouldn’t work with Meg. He actually wasn’t sure what strategy would.

“Well, then, we’ll let the attorneys work out the paperwork,” Stan said, and reached out his hand. “But I think we’ve got a deal.”