CHAPTER FIVE
A PLAN? Details? She had no plan. No
details.
Jayne had no plan for Garrett because
the only logical plan in this instance would be to file for
bankruptcy right after calling the police and that’s what she
should have advised him. But she hadn’t.
And why? Because of a noble desire to
erase the anguish from his face? Ease the clenching of his jaw?
Soothe away the pain of betrayal in his eyes?
Well, it was desire, all right, but it
was the memory of his bare chest in the cruise brochure that
compelled Jayne to try to find a way to continue working with
Garrett.
If Garrett filed for bankruptcy, the
lawyers would take over and Jayne would be out of the picture.
She’d never see him again. Therefore, she’d offered a plan. A plan
she did not yet have.
She was not proud of
herself.
And now he sat there, expecting her to
come up with something brilliant. She was an accountant, not a
miracle worker.
But she was highly
motivated.
“You do want to save your company?”
she asked to verify that they were on the same
wavelength.
“Of course!”
A belated sense of professionalism
made her caution him. “It will be expensive.”
“I never had any doubt,” he said
dryly.
“All right then.” Jayne’s last wisps
of guilt evaporated. “Your top priority is to meet your financial
obligations tomorrow. Can you do that out of your personal
funds?”
Garrett shook his head. “Hardly. I
tapped into them already.”
“So we need another source.” It was a
measure of Jayne’s desperation that she mentally checked her
own bank balance. “What
about your family?”
“I don’t know. George handled our
personal investments, too.”
And no telling what he’d done with
them, but that was a problem for another day. “Did he have access
to your family’s checking accounts?”
“I don’t know.”
“If they could, would they be willing
to kick in to cover the payroll?”
Garrett drew a deep breath. “I don’t
know,” he said once again.
“Can you find out?” Jayne asked,
trying not to sound irritated. Here she was, actually coming up
with a plan, and Garrett wasn’t helping.
“They’re in New York shooting
Christmas catalogs. I’ll leave a message for them at the
apartment.” He reached for the telephone.
“Garrett?” Jayne looked over at the
landscape above the filing cabinets. “What’s the painting
worth?”
He followed her gaze. “Monetary value,
or sentimental value?”
Jayne didn’t answer.
“Sonry.” Garrett waved away his
question. “We gave that to George last year on his fifteenth
anniversary with us.”
And all the time the man had been
ripping them off. However, Jayne had learned that it was best to
keep emotions out of financial discussions. “So, technically, you
don’t own it.”
“I know where you’re going with this.”
Garrett stared at the painting. “Tell you what. Let’s leave that
for our backup plan.”
Backup plan? He was giving her too
much credit. With a last glance at the painting, Jayne turned away
from it. “Okay, but let’s hope your family comes
through.”
Garrett nodded and picked up the
phone.
During the next week, Jayne sometimes
thought she was a miracle worker.
The payroll had been met only because
Sasha and Sandor had foolishly, but fortunately, kept obscene
balances in their checking accounts. Garrett’s parents had
“responsibly” stashed their earnings with George Windom, who
presumably still had them.
After the payroll hurdle had been
passed, Jayne had spent an idyllic weekend holed up in the office
with Garrett going over the books in order to complete the audit.
The going over the books part wasn’t idyllic, but being with
Garrett was. They sat side by side, arm to arm, calculator to
calculator.
Numbers and Garrett—could it get any
better?
He brought her food, more healthy
grilled and steamed stuff, but she appreciated the thought. He even
insisted that she take breaks and walked around the shops in the
Pavilion courtyard with her. She expected a tour of the designer
boutiques with a critique of the clothes in the windows, but the
only window Garrett stopped in front of was the skiing display of a
sporting goods store.
“Do you ski?” he asked.
Jayne instantly visualized herself in
front of a cozy lodge fire with Garrett, but in truth hadn’t been
nearer to a snowflake than the instantly melting bits that
occasionally tantalized Houston. “No,” she said. “I’m more of a
cruise person.” Not that she and Sylvia had made any progress with
their vacation plans.
“You ought to give skiing a try.” He
smiled down at her. “You’d like it.”
There wasn’t a hint of an invitation
in his voice, and truthfully, Jayne hadn’t expected
one.
But a girl could dream, couldn’t
she?
The first time they went walking, she
pretended that she and Garrett were an ordinary couple out for an
afternoon, but every female they encountered underscored just how
unordinary Garrett was.
Women stared. They weren’t even subtle
about it. Garrett didn’t seem to notice, but Jayne did. She also
noticed the curious glances she drew. The women were wondering what
a mousy brown accountant was doing with Garrett.
Jayne didn’t like taking breaks. They
spoiled her fantasy. It was worse even than being at the agency
during office hours, and that in itself was pretty hard on her
feminine ego.
Nevertheless, Jayne, with Mr.
Waterman’s blessing, had spent the first part of this week at the
agency with Garrett devising a strategy for rebuilding the company.
It was a solid, conservative plan that depended on a little luck.
And a lot of luck wouldn’t be amiss, she thought carrying a stack
of binders over to her coffee table.
Garrett had called the rest of the
Charles family for a meeting. In Jayne’s office. Today. They’d
flown in from New York last night probably expecting a miracle.
Jayne hoped to give them one.
“You mean there are more like him?”
Sylvia peeled the paper cup away from her apple muffin and dug at a
walnut.
“The whole family
models.”
“Wow.”
Jayne scooped the ashtray out of
Sylvia’s reach. “Could you take your walnuts with
you?”
Sylvia had been in the process of
dropping the walnut and it now bounced on Jayne’s coffee table. She
gave Jayne a look.
“I’m going to have people in here,
Sylvia. Models. I don’t want pieces of walnuts in the
ashtray.”
“So I’ll dump them in the
trash.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want food smell in my office.
Garrett’s family is probably hungry all the time and it might
distract them. I need them to concentrate.”
“Ooookay.” Sylvia made a point of dropping
the walnut pieces one by one into the white paper bag from the
bakery.
Actually, Jayne was afraid of being
distracted, herself. She’d given up her ten o’clock doughnut after
being at Garrett’s agency and her body was still adjusting—she
hoped by shrinking. However, yesterday, she’d caught herself
actually thinking about eating Sylvia’s walnut pieces out of the
ashtray. She unwrapped a stick of gum and chewed hard.
Gum just wasn’t the same as a
chocolate doughnut
Jayne fussed around her office,
arranging and rearranging the Pace Waterman binders into which
she’d put a complete financial analysis of the books, the
disposition of the funds prior to George Windom’s departure and the
unfortunate disposition of funds after his departure. She had illustrated
them with colorful graphs. She’d obsessed with borders and fonts,
trying to make the unpalatable more palatable. All in all, she’d
spent untold hours preparing for this meeting—untold, because she
wasn’t about to report the actual number to Mr. Waterman and have
him bill Garrett after it was Jayne’s idea to try to salvage Venus,
Inc.
Her weekends and evenings were her
own, or should be, anyway. If she wanted to devote them to Garrett,
then she would. And she had.
“I thought the fan shape looked nice,”
Sylvia commented and brushed her hands together, scattering
crumbs.
“Sylvia!” Jayne swiped at the chair
cushions.
“Jayne... can I meet
them?”
“This isn’t a social occasion.” Due to
client confidentiality, Jayne hadn’t told Sylvia anything about
Garrett’s situation. Sylvia was of the opinion that client
confidentiality didn’t extend to her, but Jayne wouldn’t budge and Sylvia was
still miffed.
“I figured that, but...couldn’t I take
a coffee order?”
Jayne studied Sylvia, remembering how
she’d acted when she’d previously met Garrett. “The receptionist
will bring in a tray with a thermal pot.”
“I could do that,” Sylvia said
brightly.
“I don’t think so.” Jayne rearranged
the binders in a fan shape so she could avoid looking at
Sylvia.
But she could feel Sylvia looking at
her.
“I thought we were
friends.”
“We are.” Now Jayne looked at her.
“But they’re new clients and you don’t even work
here.”
Sylvia stood. “You’re afraid that
Garrett will pay attention to me, aren’t you?”
No, I’m
afraid you’ll pay attention to Garrett. “Some other
time.”
“Right, like there’ll be another
time.” Bracelets jangling, Sylvia flounced out of Jayne’s
office.
Jayne felt guilty until she noticed
the white paper bag with the walnuts in it that Sylvia had left
behind. She grabbed it and was trying to find a trash can outside
her office when she heard voices coming from Mr. Waterman’s end of
the hall. That had to be Garrett and his family.
Still carrying the bakery bag, Jayne
scurried back into her office, stuffed it into her own trash and
stood by the desk. No, that looked too awkward. She sat on the
couch next to the binders.
Now she looked as if she didn’t have
anything to do. She should look busy and important and valued to
inspire confidence in Garrett’s family. She sat behind her desk,
which was in an abnormally pristine state. No files, no papers. She
needed props. Reaching into her drawer, Jayne withdrew the first
thing her hand touched just as Mr. Waterman appeared in her
doorway.
“Jayne?”
“Just finishing up this...” She looked
down and was horrified to find she was holding the cruise brochure.
Yanking open her pencil drawer, she tried to stuff the brochure out
of sight, but it didn’t fit in the narrow drawer. She ended up
letting it slither to the floor as she stood and prepared to meet
Garrett’s family.
Garrett herded his family into Jayne’s
office. He’d suggested coming to her office rather than meeting at
the agency because he’d wanted them to understand the gravity of
their situation. Too, he thought Jayne would be more comfortable on
her own turf.
Garrett caught her eye and gave her a
quick smile as his family drifted around him. After working with
her the past several days, his confidence in her abilities was
unshakable. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but she made him feel
as if their strategy was as much his as it was hers. He guessed
that “make the client have an emotional stake in the solution” was
a device she’d learned in business psychology, but he didn’t care.
It worked.
During their long hours together,
Garrett had caught himself wondering about Jayne, the woman, as
much as Jayne, the accountant. She never mentioned a boyfriend,
either past or present, so he assumed she was currently not dating.
It would be difficult to have much of a social life with the kind
of hours she worked.
He looked forward to their sessions
because afterward, he felt revitalized. He’d considered seeing her
after hours, except they’d been working so hard, there weren’t any
after hours. Maybe now that the bulk of the planning had been done,
he’d take her to dinner. She certainly deserved a night out on the
town.
Garrett was ready to get the meeting
under way. His parents were chatting with Mr. Waterman about some
place in France and the twins were sulking because they’d rather be
hanging out in the designer boutiques in Pavilion. Both wore the
pout they’d perfected. Since this was their trademark look, Garrett
hoped Jayne couldn’t tell that this pout was the genuine
thing.
They slouched over to the couch and
draped themselves against it, Sasha on the arm and Sandor next to
her. It was their party pose.
Jayne remained behind her desk, mutely
staring at them. Garrett wasn’t surprised. Although they could look
quite different if they chose, particularly when Sasha pulled her
hair back and wore dramatic makeup, today they were emphasizing
their “twinness.” Dressed alike in white tunics and pants, and both
with the same chin-length hair, they made a striking
picture.
His entire family made a striking
picture, which was fortunate given their current financial
state.
Garrett had never been quite as
striking. His features weren’t as angular, he wasn’t as tall and he
didn’t get the high-fashion jobs the way they did. He was more the
Father’s Day, sportsmen’s catalog type, which was fine with him.
But if he’d been seriously pursuing a modeling career, he’d have
been fiustrated. Whenever he was with his parents and the twins,
people overlooked him, which didn’t bother him, except today, with
Jayne here.
He didn’t want Jayne to meet Sandor.
He didn’t want to see her caught by the legendary appeal of his
younger brother, but judging from the wide-eyed blank look on her
face, Sandor had eclipsed him once again. He only hoped Jayne
didn’t drop something or hurt herself when she met
him.
“Garrett, I’ll let you introduce
everyone to Jayne,” Mr. Waterman said, and left them alone as
Garrett had asked.
Everyone looked at the woman still
standing behind the desk. Garrett’s heart sank. It was worse than
he’d thought. She couldn’t even move.
Fine. He’d bring everyone to her.
Gesturing for his brother and sister to join him, he approached
her. “Jayne, these are my parents, James and Rebecca
Charles.”
Jayne managed a smile and shook their
hands. So far, nothing had been knocked over. But she still had to
meet Sandor.
“My sister, Sasha...”
Sasha nodded at her.
“...and my brother,
Sandor.”
Sandor gave her one of his
heavy-lidded looks. When Jayne held out her hand, he took it in
both of his.
Very few women could resist Sandor
when he set out to captivate them, either from the printed page, or
in person. There was nothing Garrett could do, except edge closer
to the filing basket and pencil holder on Jayne’s desk, ready to
catch them when she knocked them over. He glanced behind her to
make sure her chair was in place in case her knees gave
out.
But Jayne gave Sandor a perfunctory
smile and, if Garrett wasn’t mistaken, pulled her hand away. A
smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you all for coming,” she said,
and gestured to the sofa without hitting anything or anyone. “If
you’ll take a seat around the coffee table, I’ve put binders there
for each of you.”
Jayne immune to Sandor? As his family
pivoted toward the coffee table, Garrett watched her, but she
wasn’t looking at Sandor and she didn’t knock anything over, not
even when she reached for a pen and the folder from her desk. Then
she met his eyes.
Inordinately pleased, he widened his
smile.
And Jayne dropped her
pen.
She was numb. She wasn’t even sure she
could hold on to her pen.
So these intimidatingly sophisticated,
polished, elegant, glamorous people were Garrett’s family. They
were tall. Garrett was tall, but these people were
tall tall.
They were also thin and had cheekbones
so high, the makeup artist probably used a ladder. The clothes they
wore looked deceptively simple—no doubt designer
originals.
In her navy-blue suit, Jayne felt
frumpy, lumpy and short. She wondered if she could make her
presentation from behind her desk so they wouldn’t see her
hips.
No, of course, not. She snuck a glance
at Garrett, to find him watching her intently.
“I told them that George had stolen
the agency assets and that the police haven’t got any leads,” he
said.
“How are they taking it?”
He looked over toward the sofa. “It
hasn’t affected them yet.”
“I suppose it’s going to take a while
to sink in.”
“No, I mean it hasn’t made any
difference in the way they live, so they’re not concerned.” He
looked back at her. “They’ve still got the apartment in New York
and the house here in Houston. They can buy what they
want—”
“Not for long!”
Garrett drew a breath. “Convincing
them of that will be your biggest challenge.” He smiled
encouragingly and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “But I know
you can do it.”
In the face of such confidence, Jayne
nearly melted.
Okay. It was time. Holding the folder
in front of her hips, Jayne approached the group sitting around her
coffee table as Garrett pulled her desk chair over for
her.
Yes, sitting would be best. She smiled
her thanks and Garrett went over and took his place next to his
father’s chair.
Jayne’s gaze swept the group. No one
had made a move to look at the binders. That surprised her. Weren’t
they curious about their financial state?
Garrett was right. His family was in
deep denial. Understandable, but it meant that she’d still have to
get past all the protests and the are-you-sure-youhaven’
t-made-a-mistake comments.
She’d never liked the awkwardness of
people coming to terms with financial shocks.
Maybe she should stand after all, hips
or no hips. “If everyone will take a binder, we’ll get
started.”
The twins each took a binder, opened
it, flipped through a few pages, checked each other’s, shrugged,
then closed the binders and put them back on the
table.
Jayne was fascinated. It looked like
they’d choreographed their movements.
Garrett’s father had his binder open
on his lap and had propped a finger against his cheek, looking as
if he was posing as a silver-haired executive.
Rebecca Charles smoothed the silky
legs of her pantsuit before carefully setting the binder on her
nearly nonexistent thighs. She didn’t open it.
Fine. Jayne would spoon-feed
information to them. “Garrett came to me when he noticed
irregularities in the Venus accounts after your business manager
resigned.”
“That was clever of you, Garrett,” his
mother said, smiling without crinkling her eyes. “I’ve always said
that you were the clever one.”
“Yes, that’s what you’ve said.” There
was a faint impatience in Garrett’s voice.
Here came the tricky part. “In
addition, Mr. Windom withdrew almost all your liquid assets,
including those held in escrow. I conducted an audit of the books
and found that, in my opinion, the financial statements do not
fairly represent the company’s actual financial situation.” Jayne
waited for them to absorb the information. She’d used the technical
legal language that basically called George Windom a
liar.
Four pairs of pale blue eyes blinked
at her, then looked at Garrett.
He straightened. “She’s telling you
that George stole all our money. Checking, savings, he cleaned out
the agency, then tried to cover it up. When he couldn’t, he
left.”
“You told us that already,” James
Charles said.
“And you said that the police were
looking for him.” Rebecca Charles sounded as though she thought the
money would be recovered at any moment.
“They are, but Jayne is just making
sure you understand that, of this moment, the accounts are
empty.”
“That’s why I had to transfer money to
you,” Sasha said with a let’s-get-on-with-it gesture. “So what are
we doing here?”
“Yeah, you said it was a loan,” Sandor
added.
“Exactly,” Jayne said. “Copies of the
affidavit stating that you and Sasha lent money to Venus are in the
binder, and I’ve worked out a repayment schedule. The loan met the
agency’s immediate obligations. In the meantime, Garrett and I have
worked out a business plan to keep your company going until the
funds are recovered. And I must stress that there is the
possibility that they won’t be.”
“No kiddin’. If I’d stolen a wad of
cash like that, I sure wouldn’t sit on it. It would be
par-toy all day!” Sandor
wagged his index fingers from side to side.
Sasha laughed her
agreement.
Mr. Charles closed the binder and
returned it to the coffee table. “Whatever you and Garrett have
decided is fine with us.”
“Go to it, bro!” Sasha jumped up and
tugged at Sandor’s arm. “Let’s go have a sea salt scrub at Urban
Retreat.”
“Wait!” Jayne protested with a
helpless look at Garrett. “I haven’t started yet.”
“Sash, Sandy, go sit down.” Garrett
intercepted his brother and sister and turned them back to the
sofa.
Jayne realized she was going to have
to be very blunt and very basic. These people didn’t have a
clue.
“On pages eight through thirteen,
you’ll find a monthly breakdown of the agency’s operating expenses
during the last quarter with the income on the facing page.
Included in the totals is income from the assets Mr. Windom has
withdrawn. They are printed in red ink. On pages fourteen and
fifteen, you’ll find a revised monthly statement without the income
from those assets. Should your expenses keep increasing at the
average rate they have been over the past—”
Jayne was interrupted by a knock.
Judging by the glassy expressions on the Charleses’ faces, this
wasn’t a bad thing.
“Coffee anyone?”
Sylvia She started to come into the
office, but Jayne’s glare kept her near the doorway. This was
stretching the bonds of friendship way too far.
“I’d like a decaf skim milk cappuccino
with cinnamon,” Sasha piped up.
“Ditto.” Sandor shifted his position
and crossed his arms.
Everyone else nodded, so Jayne said,
“Decaf skim milk cappuccinos for six.” She smiled. Sylvia would
have to hike through the walkway to the coffee shop in the mall to
get the fancy coffees. Even if she bought the small sizes, it would
still do serious damage to a twenty-dollar bill.
Served her right.
With a chagrined, but unrepentant
expression, Sylvia backed out of Jayne’s office and Jayne prepared
to continue her presentation.
Garrett spoke first. “To summarize,
Jayne is saying that our income has dropped and we need to make
more money.”
“Yes, but it’s more compli—” Belatedly
Garrett’s look registered. Simplify, it said.
After that, they fell into a pattern
of Jayne barely touching on the pages in the binders and Garrett
translating into elementary language until at last, James Charles
held up a hand.
“All this tells me is that we need to
make more money.”
“Yes,” Garrett said.
“And cut expenses,” Jayne reminded
them, but no one paid any attention because a flushed Sylvia chose
that moment to kick the door open.
“I hope that’s the coffee,” Sasha
said.
“Twenty-two dollars and seventy-three
cents,” Sylvia murmured as she walked past Jayne with the cardboard
tray.
“You sprang for the large
size?”
“Wouldn’t want them to think you were
stingy,” Sylvia said, glaring at Jayne before beaming a huge smile
at Garrett.
“Hello again,” she said in an overly
bright voice that made Jayne cringe. “Coffee?”
“Thanks.” Garrett took two paper cups
and handed them to his parents.
Sylvia, standing as close as she could
with the tray, hungrily watched his every move. “What about
you?”
“Go ahead and give my sister and
brother theirs.” He followed her over to the couch.
With each step he took, Jayne’s
spirits sank. Why couldn’t she flirt like Sylvia? Why couldn’t she
attract men like Sylvia? Why couldn’t she—
Sylvia stopped abruptly in front of
the couch, a stunned look on her face as she encountered the
twins.
“Hey, thanks.” Sandor stood and
reached across the table for the cups. After handing his sister
one, he sat down and pried off the plastic lid, then sipped at the
thin layer of foam, his pale blue eyes watching the immobile
Sylvia. The tip of his tongue touched the edge of his mouth and
Sylvia visibly swallowed.
Jayne saw the corner of the tray tilt
a fraction of an inch and Garrett held out his hands, deftly
rescuing the tray before Sylvia sank onto the coffee table, her
gaze never leaving Sandor.
Garrett calmly carried the tray over
to Jayne and offered her a coffee, taking the last one for
himself.
Her friend had crashed an important
client presentation and now sat smack-dab in the middle of the
table, right on top of Mr. Charles’s binder, if Jayne wasn’t
mistaken. She glanced around to see how everyone was taking
this.
No one seemed to think anything was
odd at having Sylvia stare at Sandor. Garrett’s parents exchanged a
few murmurs. Sasha drank her coffee and made a call on her cell
phone.
“I apologize for Sylvia’s intrusion,”
Jayne said, wondering how she was going to get her to leave without
an embarrassing scene. Make that a more embarrassing
scene.
“Not a problem. Sandor affects women
that way.”
“What? Turns them into drooling
zombies?”
Garrett laughed softly.
“Basically.”
Jayne studied Garrett’s younger
brother as she sipped her coffee. Full lips pouted beneath a
well-shaped nose. His cheekbones were so high they almost looked
like a caricature. His eyebrows were thick and dark and his eyes a
paler shade of Garrett’s blue. Jayne had seen pictures of the twins
at the agency, and frankly, thought they looked better in
photographs than they did in person. They certainly weren’t as
good-looking as Garrett.
“I don’t get it,” she said at last,
looking at Garrett.
He wore an unreadable expression as he
searched her face. When he didn’t say anything, Jayne thought she’d
offended him.
Of course she’d offended him. Sandor
was his brother and she’d just insulted—
“Jayne, if you haven’t made other
plans, will you have dinner with me tonight?”
Since the meeting had obviously
deteriorated, reconvening for dinner was probably a good
plan.
She headed for her desk. “I’m free,
but let me check with Mr. Waterman. I know he’d like to be
there.”
As she set her cup down and reached
for the telephone, Garrett stepped forward and covered her hand
with his. “I don’t want to have dinner with Jayne, the accountant,”
he said near her ear. “I want to have dinner with Jayne, the
woman.”