Can't Buy Me Love (17 page)

“Fine,” Prim said. “Then I’ll just have to bring
him
here.”

Panic fluttered along Meg’s insides. There was no way that Prim would go about attempting to be matchmaker, would she? Try to fix the unfixable? Convince Cole just how mistaken he was about each and every email he had in his horrid black binder.

“Him who?”

“Your employer,” Prim said.

Meg snorted. “I don’t have a job and I haven’t gotten any offers.”

“As far as you know.” Prim crossed her arms over her chest. “And how
exactly
would you know? Not one bit of communication with the entire world.”

Meg opened her mouth to respond but Prim cut her off.

“Waving to your mailman doesn’t count. There are people looking for you. People making offers. People who are impressed with how you stood up to Cole Jackson and won.”

“Won? If this is what winning feels like I’d rather be drug through the mud and beaten. Won? How did I win?” Meg slipped her eyes away from the television screen and looked at Prim.

“And who are these people?” Meg couldn’t help but be interested in the scuttlebutt surrounding the demise of her and Cole’s relationship. What did he tell people? That she was a femme fatale not to be trusted? That she’d been out for him and his company and everything his money could buy since the day she started?

“It’s not Ryan Murphy, is it? Prim, I know you love your job, but I just couldn’t work for Metro Media. Not now.” And probably not ever. Her career and personal life had become messy enough she didn’t want to muddy the events further by accepting a job from the very company for which Cole was convinced she spied.

“I won’t tell you who,” Prim said, and turned toward the bedroom door. “But you
do
want to present your fabulous self. Not this.”

Meg’s bottom lip quivered. She didn’t want to resemble a giant pile of unclean goo, plus feel broken and unemployable, but her heart was a lump in her chest. Her throat closed up and her eyes threatened tears with each sappy TV commercial. She never realized how sentimental daytime TV was until this past week.

She truly tried each day to take a shower, go buy a new cell phone, even walk outside, but the enormity of what she’d lost weighed so heavy on her shoulders.

She’d become what she loathed. A slobbering a mess just like her mother after each and every one of her torrid affairs. Meg behaved no better really. The only difference was that instead of drowning her sorrows in Stolichnaya and Jim Beam, Meg chose Cheetos and Milky Ways.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Prim rushed to her side. Like a true friend, Prim braved crumbs and dirty napkins to sit next to Meg.

 “You are making this way worse than it is.” Prim flung her arm over Meg’s shoulder.

“How could it possibly be any worse? My career is dead. My reputation ruined and the one man I ever—” Meg’s voice cracked, and a sob broke through her chest.

“Hey.” Prim squeezed her tight. “No. It’s not true. Everyone thinks you left Comnet on your own terms. The only rumor is that you left because you suggested Cole put Stan Morton on the board and Cole said no. There isn’t even a whiff of you shimmying between the sheets.”

Meg sniffled and pressed a dirty In-N-Out napkin to her nose. “Really?”

“Really. You’re a bit of a hero, not a harlot.”

Meg dabbed at her eyes…and then the tears started again, blocking out the sudden burst of sunshine through her sky filled with gray clouds. “But…but…I still…I still love him.”

Prim gently hugged her best friend. ““I know, and you can’t fix that. At least not now. But you can fix the rest of your life.” Prim jumped up from the couch, her sudden burst of energy an attempt to prod Meg into action. “And that is exactly what you are going to do.”

“I’m not ready,” Meg said. Snot dripped from her nose.

“Well, you better get ready, because the car will be here in an hour, and this is one meeting you don’t want to miss.”

*

“This is our only offer,” Stan said. “We’re not going to anyone else with this.”

Meg fiddled with her knife, which lay beside her untouched salad. Allison and Stan were offering her the world professionally. She fought against the tug in her chest. She wasn’t certain what she did to gain their obvious respect and admiration. She felt unworthy of such kindness.

“This isn’t about pity if that’s what you’re worried about,” Allison said. “This is about making a smart business decision. We’ve known all along, Stan and I, that for TBC the smartest business decision is you.”

“Thank you,” Meg said. “This is an amazing opportunity and, well, completely unexpected.”

“Stan wasn’t talking with Metro Media just because of the board position,” Allison said. “Ryan Murphy kept telling us you were moving to Metro Media.”

“What?” Meg said, and attempted to modulate the shock in her voice. Yes, Metro Media made overtures to her but she’d never seriously considered…hadn’t thought she’d need to consider actually moving to Ryan Murphy’s company.

“I knew you couldn’t tell me if you were, it would have been inappropriate,” Stan said. “But I wanted TBC to be with you. That’s why we’ve been slowing down the deal, to make sure you landed with Comnet.”

“And now…”Allison said.

Allison exchanged a look with Stan and then a gentle look with Meg. “Well, what may not feel ideal to you seems ideal for us.”

Meg fought hard to maintain her composure. To keep her faux smile firmly fixed on her face. Ideal? Yes, the job was a dream. But her personal life? Not ideal. Not anymore.

“So you would stay on the board?” Meg asked. “Both of you?”

“In a hands-off capacity,” Stan said. Allison shot him a look. “Okay, as hands-off as I can be,” he admitted.

“And I would become president and CEO of TBC. All of TBC?”

Stan and Allison nodded.

“As a stand-alone entity,” Stan said.

“So you’d pull out of your deal with Comnet?”

Allison and Stan glanced at each other. A flash of knowing wafted through Meg. She understood the look.

“You already pulled out of your deal with Comnet,” Meg said.

“He was resistant to giving up the deal,” Stan said. “But he did.”

“Really?”

Losing TBC would be a devastating blow for Cole. Not long ago she’d believed that her leaving would be too.

 “Did you tell him?” Meg’s finger trailed up the stem of her water glass. Shivers raced up her spine with the idea of sitting across a conference room table from Cole. Glancing at his hands, his lips, the memories of his touch, his kiss cascading through her mind. Staring into his cool blue eyes knowing how he’d once looked at her with hunger, desire, maybe even love. “Did you tell him who you wanted to hire?”

“We told him we’d make the announcement after we met with the new president of TBC.”

“We were hopeful—” Allison said softly.

“—that I would take the job,” Meg finished.

Allison smiled softly. “Yes, darling, and for a myriad of other things.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Today is the day.”

“It is.” Meg looked at her computer screen. Prim was halfway around the world in Hong Kong and it was the dead of night in Asia but she had still Skyped Meg this morning.

“Are you ready?”

“More than anyone their negotiating team has ever faced before,” Meg said.

“Who will he send?” Prim asked.

“I’m guessing an army of attorneys, perhaps a couple VPs, maybe even a few junior execs to fill the room. He likes a show of force.”

“How many on your negotiating team?”

“One.” Meg squared her shoulders. As the new president and CEO of TBC she was ready to bring home the win for her very own company.

“Does Cole know?”

A shadow of pain closed around Meg’s heart and her pulse ticked upward a couple beats per minute. But her heart hurt nothing like two months before, when she’d been afraid to bump into Cole or hear his name or his voice.

She steered clear of his numerous attempts at contact. She donated his flowers to local hospitals. Brought in his chocolates for the support staff. Avoided his calls and deleted his texts and emails without reading them.

She realized that although Los Angeles was a huge city, eventually she’d bump into Cole and she’d be prepared, emotionally ready. But first Meg needed to stand on her own two feet. She’d devoted herself to TBC and now, with this, her first major negotiation, she was ready to reap the benefits.

“The press release went out. I’m sure since he lost TBC he’ll instruct his team to play hardball. Cole will want to make a point in this negotiation, to somehow prove to Stan and Allison that they should have sold to him when they had the chance.”

“But you’re ready?”

“It would seem so,” Meg said.

Meg
was
ready. She didn’t need an action list. She didn’t need anything. This negotiation for the new licensing deal would carry TBC for the next five years and Meg would make certain that this deal would be the best that TBC ever had.

“I can’t wait until the negotiations are complete so I can hear all the sordid details.” A salacious smile curved over Prim’s lips.

“Neither can I.”

*

“Miss Parson—”

“Meg, please,” she said, and surveyed her new assistant, Mandy. “I’ve said it before, call me Meg.” The young woman was barely twenty-five and reminded Meg of herself when she’d begun working for Cole, what seemed like a lifetime ago.

“He’s here.”

“He?”

Not what Meg expected. Her belly hollowed out and her palms felt moist. Cole sent only one person? Unlike him. Perhaps he didn’t think she could stand on her own two feet or that she could put her personal pain behind her when it came to business.

She’d just started sleeping again and thoughts of Cole still wandered through her head at every turn but she’d buried herself in work. She knew that if she could focus on something, anything but the pain she felt, she’d come through the other side.

 “In the conference room.”

Meg filled her lungs with purifying and calming breaths as she walked swiftly down the hall. Her fingertips tingled with anticipation. She pulled at the edges of her jacket and straightened her skirt. She was the president of TBC. She took a final deep breath to calm the jittery feeling that skittered across her insides. She was ready. Meg pulled open the conference room door and stopped.

Her heart pounded and she swallowed hard. She’d been prepared for almost anyone, anything, an army of lawyers, accountants, executives.

But not this.

“Cole.” Meg breathed out his name.

He stood at the front of the boardroom and gripped the back of the chair at the head of the table. The conference room door closed behind her.

Her legs paralyzed, like a deer in the wolf’s stare. She hadn’t even considered that Cole might negotiate this deal. What better way to throw off an adversary than to confront them with their weakest part, and for Meg the chink in her armor was and would always be Cole.

“Meg,” he said gruffly.

Memories of his body pressed against hers, his lips on hers, his hands on her neck, her legs, her breasts flooded through her with the sound of his voice.

“I…I didn’t expect to see you,” Meg said.

She walked to the credenza at the side of the room filled with waters and sodas and coffee. With her back to Cole she took a moment to rally the composure she needed. The confidence that she must exude. She filled a cut crystal glass with water. The future of TBC depended on her fortitude. She grappled with the emotions rushing through her. Loss. Pain. Desire.

In the weeks since her leaving Comnet, Cole hadn’t said anything unseemly to anyone about her departure. He didn’t let the speculation run wild either. Instead he’d issued a calm and well-thought-out statement that praised Meg for her dedication and hard work. He’d been complimentary of her business acumen, her work, and her ethics. He had to know after he sifted through the remnants of her life at Comnet that he’d been wrong—desperately wrong—about her motives.

“You look well,” he said. He didn’t move from the power position at the head of the table. “Leadership seems to suit you.”

Was that a dig? She turned to him, but saw no smirk nor sneer, only a melancholy smile and something else. Something deeper…something more complex.

Meg sealed away the emotions that rushed through her. She stifled the questions she wanted to hurl at him. She quashed the anger that surprised her and bubbled in her gut. Silenced the longing that pounded through her mind.

“I’ve read Comnet’s offer and it is surprisingly fair.”

“TBC provides good content,” Cole said. “Comnet would be foolish to let this relationship slip away.”

Only Comnet?
So business was the only reason he was here. Nothing else. Not to apologize. Not to admit his error. Not because he couldn’t live without her. Fine, she could play this game. She too could be the cool tough executive.

“And although I may be a fool where my heart is concerned,” he said, “I’m a businessman.” He moved closer to her. “Meg, I came here—I’m here because—”

Meg stepped away from his presence, his physicality, his…just Cole. He overwhelmed her, and that wasn’t the position she could be in when negotiating this deal. It wasn’t a position of power, of strength, of authority.

Cole stopped. He was inches from her. So near. So close.

“I owe you an apology,” he said. “I’m—I am sorry.”

“For what? You did what you thought best for your business, for Comnet.” Meg clung to her calm cool façade. She’d pretended for nearly three years that Cole Jackson had no impact on her emotional state. She could certainly pretend for twenty minutes more.

Even if…even if…he’d opened so much in her. Cole unlocked so much passion and made her believe in love and happily ever after with him.

“No,” Cole said. “I let my fears control me. I didn’t think. I was rash. I was—”

 “Rude and unforgivable,” Meg said.

Cole nodded. “Rude and unforgivable.”

Cole stared into her eyes. His pain and pleading were so evident to her, but she couldn’t risk letting him inside her heart again—could she?