“Your mommy’s hilarious. And, yes, you know I couldn’t get married without you, pal. I’m counting on you to give me away.” She returned her thoughts to the problem at hand.
Fifty big ones. At least fifty big ones. “I think,” she said to Di, “I’m going to have to resort to something more than a favor for fifty thousand.” Joss gazed at herself in the mirror, then unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. “I’m going to have to try a little more—”
She found herself looking straight into Peter’s curious eyes.
“A little more what, Aunt Joss?”
Di gave her a “try to get yourself out of this one” look.
“A little more hard work, Peter. That’s what being a grown-up is al about.” She returned Di’s look with a tiny tongue stick-out.
“Exactly how hard is this work going to be?” Di asked.
“Jeez Louise, I’m hardly going to—” Peter’s eyes shot right to her face. What is it with kids these days? “I’m not going to work so hard that I’l regret it.”
“Good to hear,” Di said. “Girls who work that hard can get a reputation.”
Peter’s gaze narrowed and moved between his mother’s face and Joss’s.
“But let’s face it,” Joss said, “I’m gonna do what it takes.”
She thought of Ann and her other thirty-one employees, their spouses, children and health care plans.
The jesting smile left Di’s face, replaced with a raised brow. “Real y?”
“Real y. It’s not like I haven’t gotten hints he’d be amenable.”
“I know, but … real y?”
“It seems a smal price, if you know what I mean.”
“You’re not going to … you know?” Di gave her a look to fil in the missing idea.
“No. Absolutely not.” Even bald-faced manipulation had its limits.
The door opened on eighteen, and they trooped out and into Rogan’s empty office. He strode in a moment later, an impossibly handsome man with soft blond curls and clear blue eyes that cut to the bones of any business deal.
“Hey,” he said affably to Peter and nodded at Di. “Good to see you. Are we—?”
“Nope.” Di grabbed Peter’s hand. “We’re on our way out.” She handed the cash flow report to Joss. “Don’t work too hard, eh?
Joss glanced down at the paper. This may be the time to go all the way, Di’s scribbled note read. The number is $63K.
Oh, crap.
“Hey,” Rogan said with a cheery grin. “What’s up?”
“I’m here with a request.”
“Oh.” He nodded, replacing the smile with a more impassive look, and made his way to the desk.
“I need another loan.”
“Oh, Joss.” The words bloomed with disappointment, and he sat. “How much?”
“Sixty-three thousand.”
He leaned forward, elbows perched on the desk, and ran his thumbs back and forth across his lips, considering. “I wonder,” he said gently, “if you should think about closing.”
“No,” she said. “We’l be fine once this quarter is over.”
He shook his head. “The board won’t go for it. They barely went for the last one.”
She felt a spark of panic. “They wil if you endorse it.
Rogan, c’mon. You know I’m good for it.” She’d made it a point this morning to put on her sexiest bra. It was a demi in pink that lifted her breasts up like two scoops of French vanil a ice cream. Rogan was a decent fel ow—the big surprise when she’d first met him. A little flash of ice cream.
Perhaps a peek at some unskirted thigh. He’d do it. He had to.
That was about the one advantage women had in the business world. Men didn’t always think with their frontal lobes, and anyone who’d ever dated a man knew it. And when the thought process did its little dance out of the frontal lobes and over to the basal ganglia, it left a trail of mush in its wake.
She put the cash flow report on the chair beside her, stood up and leaned over—way over—to reach for his desk clock. It was an ugly, ornate thing he said his old girlfriend had given him. It managed to be both gaudy and tethered by a power cord—the worst of both worlds. Her disdain kept her from breaking into a total sweat.
She had never done this before. It wasn’t her operating style. But if this was al it took to keep the company afloat, in the scheme of things, it wasn’t too much to ask. Business was business. Some people had the marbles. Some people wanted the marbles. Unless you could think of a
