The Paler Shade of Autumn (10 page)

Autumn’s eyes widen. She breathes, forms her mouth to say his name, but is interrupted by Scott.

“Autumn Leone, meet Jethro Stark.”

Jet smiles crookedly, a glint of humour in his eyes and steps towards her, hand outstretched. “Autumn, so lovely to meet you.”

She tentatively takes his hand, really not wanting any of his thoughts thrown into this already awkward, confusing situation.

“Yes, likewise, Jet—thro, I mean, Mr Stark.” She barely has the words out succinctly as pictures and emotions stream from his hand, through hers and into her mind: their last encounter in Bodh Gaya, kissing with such sexually fuelled energy.

“Please, call me Jet.”

“Sure, um, Jet.”

In his thoughts she sees another face, an embrace, naked bodies entwine. As though his hand is acid, she releases her grip and in the midst of her bumbling, drops her notepad. She squats to pick it up, happy for a moment to collect her thoughts, but he beats her to it.

Crouching towards the lush carpet, Jet watches her face intently as he hands the notepad back, eyes narrowed. “Is everything ok?”

She nods quickly and stands, patting her skirt with her hands, regaining physical composure, but her eyes can’t hide her despondency.

“Everything is fine,” she lies, pulling her shoulders back square.

He nods, eyeing her briefly. “Good. Let’s get down to business then shall we? Scott, you can leave us to it now.”

Scott nods and walks out the door, closing it behind him. Jet ushers her to take a seat at his desk and he assumes his position across from her.

“I had no idea you were the Mr Stark,” she says when alone.

“I figured as much during our conversation this morning.”

“I don’t know what to make of all this.”

He smiles. “Don’t make anything of this. It is what it is.” He leans forward, rests his elbows on the desk. “I wanted to meet with you this morning to let you know what is happening over the next month or so.”

“Ok.”

“With Tanya away, I’m going to need your help with a number of deals I’ve got in the pipeline, purely as another face of the Stark Group.”

“Which means?”

“Attending boring meetings, lunches and stultifying meet-and-greets with me.”

“Oh.”

He smiles. “A very essential part of operating a business,” he says.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I’ll be more than happy to join you.” She lowers her eyes for an uncomfortable moment, wondering how best to venture forward. She decides on the truth. “I can’t help but have my attention on our history and hope that it won’t interfere with our professional relationship.”

He raises one of his eyebrows, ever so briefly. “We’re both adults. I can’t see that it will.”

She nods and forces a smile. “Of course.”

She retraces his handsome face with fresh eyes and he stares at her for a length of time that, by anyone else, would have been considered uncomfortable. But then she recalls the picture of the woman he was entwined with and cringes.

“What did you see, Autumn?”

She shrugs and gives a strained smile, wishing now he knew nothing of her abilities. “Nothing, really. None of my…”

“Business?” he says, one eyebrow raised.

“Exactly. I simply saw,” she clears her throat, “you and me, um, in India and then how you have moved on with another woman, which is just wonderful news.”

He stares at her. “Me, and her… it’s complicated.”

Autumn doesn’t care to know any of the
complicated
details. It would only make things personal and emotional and after five years of trying to inhibit anything remotely emotional to do with Jet, she can’t have that enter her life again, not if he is off-limits. Leaving India, knowing she was never to see Jet again was one of the hardest decisions she has ever made. The countless relationships she has had with men since meeting him, has made her realise how important the soul connection was that they shared and how much of a sacrifice it was not to pursue it.

But, of course, there were other factors at work: the waif children, Jet’s position at the orphanage; however, now that he is home, obviously having given it all away, it makes her feel that her sacrifice was pointless. A touch of anger and regret surges into her throat, but she swallows it down and leaves it to fester in the bile of her stomach, rather than pay it any heed.

“But like you said,” she says, “we’re adults. And as of this minute, I’m your employee, so your personal life is none of my business.”

Jet lowers his eyes to the desk and frowns. “Yes. That’s a very pertinent point.” He offers a tense smile. “Lucky for you I’m a professional at being professional, so first on the agenda is last month’s management report.”

Autumn’s stomach sinks. “Um, about that…”

He frowns again and looks at his watch. “You’ve got three hours to produce the completed report. I’ll meet you in your office to go through the figures at quarter to twelve, and then we’ve got a lunch to get to by one.”

Autumn swears under her breath all the way back to her office, for two reasons:

1. Bitch (aka Tanya) for not completing the now overdue and urgent reports; and

2. Jet is her boss.

Once in the safe confines of her office, she plonks onto her chair and looks blankly at the computer screen. Autumn breaths in deeply and straightens her skirt over her lap. She pulls her shoulders back, lifts her torso high in her seat and starts to work.

Professional acquaintance it is
.

The saving grace for Autumn is that the report she needs to complete in three short hours is a report she has done twice before when Tanya was ‘too busy’ to complete it herself. She has a list of all the other month-end reports required to pluck figures from and where they need to be input. Without too much sweating, she sees the job through to the end; however, with only a moment to spare.

As she is double-checking the final figures, simultaneously sipping on her second cup of coffee, Jet walks in. “All done?” he asks, taking the spare seat opposite her.

Jolting from the fright of his booming voice, she haphazardly controls her mug of coffee, barely saving it from spilling down her blouse again. The desk, though, fails to remain dribble free.

“I was proofreading the final figures—”

He grins and holds his hand out over the desk.

“But, yes it’s finished,” she mumbles, handing him the report, careful not to bring her hand into contact with any part of Jet.

He is silent as he reads through the material, nodding and frowning, smiling, but not saying a word and maintaining an impartial facial expression, which communicates nada to Autumn about the report’s adequateness or lack thereof. After a silence that stretches for a tedious seventeen minutes, he finally lifts his gaze from the pages and peers at her from across the desk.

“You’ve prepared this in the past,” he says. Not a question, simply a statement.

“Yes.”

He nods. “I can tell. Your writing style in the comments and analysis is completely different to Tanya’s. I noticed this on a few occasions in the past and suspected she must have got her
assistant
to do the job for her.”

“I do hope it is still adequate?” she asks, fidgeting with her fingers.

He grins. “It’s perfectly adequate, Autumn. Well written, professional prose, articulating well-constructed ideas and conclusions, yet flowery, almost pretty, if that makes sense?”

She smiles.

“The only issue are the figures. They’re not as strong as I was hoping for.”

“But they’re definitely stronger this month, about six per cent across the board.”

“Yes. But not to the extent I want; however, they are what I was anticipating.”

“Oh?”

“I have a thirty-three per cent market share in the business-consulting sector nationally. My smallest market is Brisbane, for a number of reasons, but mainly because of two local competing firms. Hansen and Hansen—my biggest competitor, and McCaffey Consulting Co—a young and quiet achiever with some of the wealthiest clients on their books; some of whom used to be mine. I think I can have this market licked, provided this deal I’ve planned today goes smoothly.”

“What’s the deal?” Autumn asks, leaning forward across her desk.

“McCaffey are selling and I intend to buy them out. But, there is a hitch. Hansen and Hansen have also put in a bid, which is not a move I predicted they would make.”

“So with them in the running, the sale price goes up?”

He nods. “Exactly. The last thing I need is a bidding war. The company’s not worth as much as I suspect I will have to pay for it, to secure it. It’s a catch twenty-two situation though, because if I don’t secure it, Hansen and Hansen assume even more of the market and it will mean the closure of Stark Consulting Brisbane.”

Autumn flinches. “What’s your plan?”

“For starters, I always get what I want. Other than that, let’s play it by ear.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asks.

“Be your
mesmerising
self and stay away from the coffee, at least while we’re in company. I don’t want you making a mess of that blouse again.”

She can’t stop the curl of her lips into a smile.

“That’s exactly the
mesmerising
I’m talking about,” he says standing. “I’ll meet you in the foyer in ten minutes.”

Autumn clacks her heels across the foyer’s shiny tiles, her eyes searching for Jet. She spies him at the reception desk, deep in conversation with his assistant, Scott. As though feeling her presence, he turns to face her, overtly gliding his eyes over her legs, hips, breasts, lips, never looking away as she struts towards him. By the time Autumn is standing in front of him, she is flushed, feels self-conscious and strangely stirred—in a good way.

Not at all professional
.

Jet smiles, drums his fingers once on the reception desk. “Let’s go then, shall we?” He reaches into his pants pocket for his keys and pulls them out with a tinkle, tosses them in the air to Scott, who catches them and grins.

“You’re driving,” says Jet.

Once in the basement, Autumn understands the pleasure she saw on Scott’s face when he was handed the keys. They are keys to an Aston Martin: a shiny, new, expensive Aston Martin. Jet opens the back door for Autumn and she sits as primly in the car as is possible for someone who has never even touched, let alone sat in, a car worth what she supposes this car is worth. Her mouth gapes with surprise when Jet joins her in the back seat through the opposite door.

“We have business to go over before we get there,” he says.

She nods, as though of course she knew that is what would be happening.

As Scott takes full advantage of the Aston’s power, pushing the car to its allowable limits through the Brisbane streets, Jet pulls pictures from his briefcase of the men she is to dine with and runs through their names until Autumn is able to recite perfectly, each name to each face. He fills in all the pertinent details of the current purchase contract he has in place, including the current offer for six million, eight-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of which, thanks to Hansen and Hansen also bidding, may need to be raised.

“That’s already too high. It’s not worth anything over five-and-a-half to six mil, but the circumstances push the value up. Losing Stark Consulting would be much more costly.”

Autumn frowns, unable to hide her disappointment at hearing this news twice in one day. It makes her stomach clench with nerves, especially after finally landing a position in a firm she respects, for a man she—well she doesn’t really know how she feels about Jet, but she is sure it is, at least, respect.

Jet offers a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let that happen. My advantage is that McCaffey not only wants a good sale price, they also want the purchasing company to be aligned with their business practices; they want their clients to be taken care of. Stark Consulting is leaps and bounds ahead of Hansen and Hansen in that respect.”

“If you don’t mind me asking?”

Jet raises one eyebrow.

“What is your spending limit? When do you pull out?”

“I’m not going any higher than my current bid,” he answers.

She nods. “What’s the format of the lunch? What can I expect?”

“Do you have an aversion to drinking?”

“As in alcohol?”

Jet grins and nods his head.

“I, um, no.”

“Good. Because I anticipate doing a lot of it. These guys are Irish and they adore Guinness and whiskey.”

She smiles. “I don’t have an aversion to it, but I must warn you, I’m not very good at it. Especially not Guinness and definitely, especially not whiskey.”

“That makes two of us then.”

Arriving at the luxurious hotel, a little before one, Scott parks in front of the entrance and sees to Autumn’s door while Jet lets himself out. When Jet says to Scott, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she learns her assumption of Scott joining them for lunch is incorrect.

Jet places his hand, ever so lightly, on the small of Autumn’s back and leads her forward through the door into the foyer: a grand, expansive room fitted out with lustrous marble flooring, chandeliers, plush carpets and expressionist art adorning the walls. The well-groomed concierge, with dark brown eyes and flawless black skin, rushes towards them and offers Jet a hearty hand shake and a rigorous smile. “Mr Stark. Wonderful to see you today, Sir.”

“Thanks, Robbie. This is my associate, Miss Autumn Leone.”

He extends his hand towards Autumn. She eyes it, precariously outstretched in front of her, until she cannot avoid tentatively gripping it and shaking his hand as hastily as she can. Despite her precautions, the images begin to flow. They always do.

Vague impressions of this man, Robbie, who she has never met, yet now knows intimately, are transferred from him to her. Robbie has, at an earlier time, lived a heart-wrenching, underprivileged existence in another country; a pitiable existence, a struggle of incredible magnitude, the severity of which she would never have comprehended without her gift. Being granted citizenship eight years ago—now raising a young family in Australia and, from what she can see, working another job on top of this concierge job so he can give his two precious daughters every opportunity possible—he smiles every single day for the belief that his life now is nothing less than blessed and beautiful.