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And I wasn’t going to let him get away with this. I was no longer the little girl who was powerless and meek. I would fight back and retain my daughter with everything I had.
Even if I had to go and make a deal with the devil.
FOUR
NICK
I didn’t quite comprehend how serious the problem was going to be until I met with one of our retailers.
Daniel was one of the major retailers partnering with the company, accounting for about a million dollars a month’s worth of sales. For a billionaire, he was pretty down to earth, so I usually set up our meeting at the local burger joint he loved.
He was already there when I arrived.
“Hey,” he greeted. “You good?”
“Yeah, you?”
He nodded, but I sensed that wasn’t all he wanted to say. He was eyeing me carefully until I finally got irritated and asked, “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, glancing away. I sat and looked over to find him watching me again.
I leaned in and waggled my eyebrows, leveling my best seductive look at him.
“If you’re going to tell me that you have a crush on me, then I will tell you that I’m way more than you can afford, Danny-boy.”
Daniel blinked for a few seconds and then burst out into booming, raucous laughter.
“Damn,” he said as his laughter turned into a cough. “That caught me off guard. I can see why the ladies love you so much.” And then I understood what all the staring was about. He’d read the article.
“I didn’t know business was so slow that you had time to read gossip,” I stated.
“I usually don’t, but my wife loves the morning paper. She told me about the whole thing.” Then, he continued, adding, “Urged me to stop doing business with you, actually, for your cruel treatment of those women.”
I didn’t bother addressing the claim or stating that most of what the article said was either untrue or heavily dramatized.Who gives a fuck anyway?We were all consenting adults, and I never lied to anyone.
“Are you going to?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. “I like you too much. Not in that way, but you get what I mean.” He sighed. “Unfortunately for you, not everyone can be reasonable like me. And you know, in our business, we cater to public perception, so I might have to consider it in the future. Especially since Stanleys is offering us a giant discount on the percentage and fees.” He gave me a sidelong look.
Fuck. Simon was right. I needed to get ahead of this now.
“No discounts just yet,” I told him. “But I will offer you the first pick of our next launch a few days early.”
His face brightened. “I’ll take it.” From the twinkle in his eyes, I could see that was what he was angling for all along. It wasn’t a huge loss on my end either, so I allowed it.
“But seriously, did you have to date so many women at once?” He sounded amused.
“Hey, they were the ones who came to me. Some actually stalked me.” It sounded like a joke, but unfortunately, it was an unpleasant reality of being a ladies’ man.
Daniel shook his head. “Where did you find the time?”
“I’m great at multitasking,” I said, and he laughed again.
The meeting concluded quickly after discussing the launch in more detail.
I mulled over the issue with the smear campaign for the rest of the day, assigning a part of my brain to it while I continued with other matters I needed to attend to. By the end of the day, I figured out what I needed. It seemed so simple.
Or at least something to that effect.
