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“Many people do,” Nick pointed out. “It’s not like it’s ancient Sumerian!”
“It’d have to be someone in the company. Someone who understands our business already. Someone we can trust.”
“So, a woman in the company, reasonably attractive, vaguely resembling Vanessa, and speaks French?” Nick shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like a major ask to me. Not exactly a needle in a haystack. We do have over 3,000 employees.”
“I just can’t see how anyone could take her place.”
“A trained poodle could do it,” declared Nick. “Provided it spoke French (which I sort of assume most poodles do) and worked for the company. All you need is the right trainer.”
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“I can.”
Adam sat up as straight as his heroic consumption of strong liquor would allow. “You? You’re saying you could do this yourself? You could train someone to be Vanessa?”
Nick hadn’t really thought about it but… yes. Why not?
He’d been sent to the best of schools, he knew about art, he knew about food and wine. Hell, if he got up in drag with the right wigs and makeup he could probably do the job himself! Certainly he could train someone else who looked somewhat like Vanessa to do the job.
“You bet I could do it!”
Adam’s ears pricked up at one particular word. “Bet? You mean it?”
“What?”
Adam’s eyes flicked momentarily to a girl who had just entered the room, apparently looking for a friend. He leaned forward on the sticky bar. “I bet you, that you can’t turn an ordinary girl into a convincing Vanessa Reese. And I pick the girl”
“One who works for the company, resembles Vanessa, and speaks French?”
Adam nodded.
“How long do I have?” Despite himself, Nick was becoming interested.
“Three weeks.”
“What are the stakes?”
Adam leaned still closer, so Nick could smell the alcohol on his brother’s breath. “Your stake in the company. If you lose, I become sole decision-making CEO. You will only retain dividends from your stock. You will sign over all your voting power on the board to me.”
In a way, Nick had nothing to lose – he had no interest in the business and never went near it. He usually gave his brother decision making power anyway. But, however much he did not like taking an active role, Nick had to admit that he very much liked having the possibility of taking a more active role, and the prestige and respect being the CEO of RothCo afforded him.
Giving that up would be… well, it would be a lifestyle adjustment. Then again…
“And if I win?” That would surely be the determining factor.
“I’ll give you the wines and spirits division,” said Adam. “No one could say that you don’t have experience in the area. It’s worth about two-hundred million yearly.”
Nick was confused. “If I win, you’ll give me the thing that you’ll only get if I win?”
Adam rolled his eyes at his brother’s ignorance. “I keep the distribution. That’s what I want. That’s the three billion. Jourdan’s got a global network that has a stranglehold on the market. You get to go off to France and run a vineyard. All that lovely French wine. All those lovely French girls. I understand they have nice bread and cheese too.”
From the moment he had said it, Adam had known that he had his brother.
Running a vineyard was Nick’s idea of heaven. More accurately, running a long-established vineyard was Nick’s idea of heaven. He wouldn’t want to set one up – that would be work – he wouldn’t even want one that was just ticking over – Nick could run anything into the ground, even his bar was struggling. But controlling one that essentially ran itself and had done for the last two centuries? Sitting back and watching the money flow in while he drank and chatted up the Mademoiselles? That was a future that appealed to him.
Especially the Mademoiselles. Nick had a serious weakness for women, and vice versa.
Adam stuck out his hand. “We have a bet?”
Nick grabbed his brother’s hand and shook. “Oh yeah.”
Adam leaned back and pointed across the bar to a mousy, chubby, girl seated in the corner. “I pick her.”
“No, no!” Nick wasn’t going to be caught out that easily. “We agreed - it has to be someone from the company who speaks French.”
“She’s Vanessa’s assistant,” grinned Adam. “Isn’t it a small world?”
“She’s got to resemble Vanessa!” Even from across the bar Nick could see that the girl was lacking height, and the elegance and grace of Vanessa Reese. He watched as the woman dribbled nacho cheese sauce on her blouse, and then suck on the finger she used to scoop the glob up, with growing horror.
Adam shrugged. “She’s got the right…skin tone. That’s what counts. Like I said. Jourdan has a type.”
Nick looked across at the girl. It could probably be worse, but not much. As he watched the girl, she slugged back her drink, and then choked violently, spilling alcohol down her front and finally coughing up the lemon wedge she had nearly swallowed.
Adam beamed – the deal had been doomed the minute those wildebeest had taken a dislike to Vanessa, but at least he could salvage something out of it.
Getting rid of his brother’s potential to interfere with the direction he wanted to take RothCo was not as good as a three billion dollar wines and spirits deal, but it would still be pretty sweet.
“She does speak French,” he added, to cheer up his brother. “Slight Southern accent, but I’m told the French find that charming.”
Nick buried his face in his hands – he had said that he could make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but he now wished he’d taken a look at the sow first.
Chapter Three
If you are returning home from an African Safari, then it really doesn’t matter where you live, it will be a come down. And if you are forced to come home early because your boss is apparently as objectionable to wildebeest as she is to everyone else (only the wildebeest at least had balls enough to do something about it) then the come down is going to be that much worse.
Zoe had been very much looking forward to her African Safari, and even Vanessa’s constant haranguing had not dulled her enthusiasm for it. There had been things she had been looking forward to seeing (vultures for some reason were a favorite bird of hers) that she had now been denied. Everyone who went on safari used the same phrase: ‘once in a lifetime trip’ – it was sad to think that she might never get another chance.
On the other hand, she had expected to remain in what was, to Zoe at least, one of the less interesting parts of Africa – the city of Johannesburg – and she had been pleasantly surprised to find that she was not. As Vanessa Reese’s personal assistant Zoe had naturally assumed that she would be spending the next three months at her boss’s bedside, relaying messages, typing up dictation and fulfilling all the tasks that a broken leg prevented her employer from fulfilling.
It had not been something that Zoe had been looking forward to, partly because she would be run off her feet, but mostly because she would have been spending even more time than usual with Vanessa, and a broken leg seemed unlikely to improve her overall temperament. The relief therefore had been massive when Vanessa told Zoe that she (Zoe) should head back home and handle Vanessa’s State-side commitments while she (Vanessa) was out of action.
True, Zoe got what felt like thirty phone calls a day from her boss with no respect to differing time zones, but that was still better than having to be in her physical presence.
“I’m so glad you’re back!” Zoe’s flat-mate Alisha enthused. “I thought you were going to miss my birthday!”
“Yeah,” Zoe managed to force a smile. “Funny how things work out.”
Zoe liked Alisha very much, but they were not similar people, and one of the main differences between them was their definition of a good time.
An African safari or some other o
nce-in-a-lifetime adventure was Zoe’s ideal while Alisha would prefer to get falling down drunk in a bar. Zoe considered treasured memories that will last a lifetime to be a key component of a good time, Alisha thought that if you remembered a night then you hadn’t had enough fun.
Privately, Zoe thought that Alisha’s preference for memory-voiding levels of alcohol was a defense mechanism, because if she remembered the things she did when she was drunk then she would never drink again (or indeed set foot outside the apartment).
“We’re meeting the girls at Nick’s,” Alisha explained. “Then we’ll see where the night takes us.”
