AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Thankfully, time was money, and Chuck was determined that none of us waste any of it; we moved quickly into presentations. The Douchebros were going first—I certainly bet not for the first time—and I was actually grateful.
Maybe this’ll give me enough time to compose myself and give a pitch so great it’ll totally blow Hunter Knox away. Or at least make him forget how close I came to blowing him.
He caught my eye and winked.
Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly.
Harry sauntered up to the front of the room like confidence was a market and he had cornered it. He brought images up onscreen; last year’s ads for Knox whiskey, and those of its three biggest competitors. The Knox one featured a rugged prospector knocking back a shot, while the other two featured variations on the theme of ‘whiskey droplets trickling down the photoshopped clea**vage of a model in a bikini, licking her lips.’
“Why do people drink?” Harry declared more than asked.
“Great taste?” Hunter said dryly.
Harry scoffed. “Puh-lease. People drink to get drunk, and because of the image they can achieve with the right bottle in their hand, and bro? That grizzly frontiersman image you have going for Knox—well, it’s not the image people fantasize about anymore.”
“Please, enlighten me on your fantasies then,” Hunter said, completely deadpan.
Oh my God, had he cut a look at me when he said that? He had, he totally had.
Heat bloomed across my cheeks and down my chest, settling between my legs. Was it possible to be simultaneously this embarrassed and this turned on? Was I even going to be able to form words when it was my turn to present?
Dead, dead, dead, I was so dead.
I forced myself to focus on Harry’s words to distract myself from my rampaging libido, though they made me so sick I soon wished I hadn’t.
“It’ll be a total rebrand: ‘Girls Gone Wild’ but with a wilder, hotter, more in-your-face vibe! You drink Knox, you get a party—complete with all the whiskey-loving babes you can dream of. We’ll get a hot nak**ed chick on the label, with strategically placed lettering, of course—” he brought up several potential photos on the screen, and I tried not to gag, “and here’s what we’re thinking for TV spots.”
He hit another button, and moans filled the room as women writhed in ecstasy across the screen. For a moment I felt intensely embarrassed for him, accidentally playing us his po**rn collection like that during an important meeting.
Then I saw the whiskey splashing over their bre**asts, and I realized that this was actually the ad he wanted Knox whiskey to go with.
Was he insane?
“Sure, there’ll be controversy,” Harry was saying dismissively, “but any publicity is good publicity, and that’s how you get the college crowd. The ones that won’t follow their di**cks to us will be following us based on our stand on free speech. There’s nothing more like catnip to a college freshman than a banner-waving contest about—”
“I hope you’re not implying we’ll be marketing to underage drinkers,” Hunter cut in.
Harry blinked, derailed. “What?”
“College freshmen are eighteen years old,” Hunter Knox said patiently. “Marketing to them would not only be illegal, but downright immoral.”
“Well, obviously we wouldn’t be selling to them,” Harry said in his ‘I-have-to-say-this-for-the-lawyers’ voice. “But if we can get in there as early as possible, establish brand recognition, then we can create a desire in the marketplace for—”
“I’m afraid I’m not terribly interested in customers who—how did you so poetically put it—are led to us by their di**cks. For one thing, it’s a terrible mental image that I may never be able to fully scrub from my mind.” Hunter’s voice had been dryly amused, but now it hardened, heated steel underlying his words. “For another, it pisses on everything I hold sacred about this company, which I’ll remind you is a family business, and the trust it has put in me.”
Harry gaped, as if he couldn’t comprehend a universe in which a man hadn’t decided to put a nak**ed woman on his product. Around the table, the rest of the Douchebros sagged, deflating like balloons with day-old helium.
“Now hold up just a minute,” Chuck argued, leaning over to his boss. “We haven’t heard them out yet. Maybe they’re a little gung-ho, but new directions are why we approached this company. No sacred cows, remember? Not if we want the share price to go anywhere anytime soon. What else do you boys have in mind?”
The Douchebros immediately perked up, like Rottweilers who’d heard a dog whistle in the distance.
? Also By Lila Monroe
· Billionaire With a Twist · The Billionaire Bargain 3 · The Billionaire Bargain · The Billionaire Bargain 2 · The Billionaire Game 2 · The Billionaire Game · The Billionaire Bargain 3 · The Billionaire Bargain 2 · The Billionaire Bargain ? Last Updated
