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She had no choice; she was going to have to come clean and honestly maybe it was for the best. “Um, the truth is that we wanted you to have our faces and not just our names to base the decision on.”
Max put his hand under her elbow and she felt the heat of his touch through the wool of her jacket or maybe she was just feeling sweaty again since she was going to have to tell him about the video. To be fair she was dreading it. This was where most of their business opportunities dried up. Her reputation made people think twice about working with her but it also made customers think twice about supporting her business and her projects.
“You’re both pretty I’ll give you that, but I don’t make business decisions based on looks,” Max said.
“Good thing or you’d be fooled by Angelica Rossi. She might have the name of an angel but she’s a mean girl through and through. A bit of a scroogey bully, isn’t that right?”
Angelica tried to freeze her expression as she turned to see Roxanne Powell. Current chair of the Women of Whiskey River and thorn in Angelica’s side. She’d flatly refused Angelica a seat on the committee and had rejected every proposal that Angelica had brought to them.
Max still had his hand on her elbow and he turned to her, one eyebrow arched. “Scrooge?”
“I prefer Ms. Scrooge.”
Angelica tried to appear aloof and calm because they needed this opportunity with Max Parrish, though what she really wanted was to defend herself or disappear.
Chapter Two
Ms. Scrooge? Shecertainly was getting the side-eye from the lady whose name he’d missed. “Thanks for the heads-up. But I haven’t seen any bullying tonight.”
“You just don’t know who she really is. Remember that New Orleans shop owner who bullied one of the artists who worked for her last year?”
“I do recall something about that,” he said.
“That’s her. Don’t go buying the innocent ‘I want to change’ act,” she said.
Max glanced over at Angelica whose face was a blank mask as she looked at the other woman. Suddenly he got why she hadn’t just sent in a proposal. He was intrigued and since he believed in second chances…
“Thanks for the warning but I’ve had some tough press and been called a bully more than once so I know that it’s not always the case. Plus you might not have heard of me but I’m known as a good judge of character. Angelica, let’s go into the other room so we can talk,” he said, offering her his arm.
She put her hand through his arm and smiled at him. “If you play your cards right, I might let you be my Mr. Scrooge for the evening.”
He laughed at her spark of sass and humor. He didn’t look back as they walked away from the woman who no doubt had just written him off. He wanted to know more about Angelica’s incident. He couldn’t work with someone who was cruel but he did understand how losing her temper and making a mistake could happen. It had happened to him more than once.
He led her away from the music and dancing and chatter in the foyer down a back hallway that the catering staff was using to serve the canapés and drinks and then into a smaller formal living room, in which the furniture had been arranged for the evening into smaller conversation groups. He found a settee in the corner and waited until she sat down to do so.
“Thank you for that graceful exit,” she said. “I am currently persona non grata with the Women of Whiskey River. My mom has been trying to get them to add me to the committee… Anyway, it was very gracious of you.”
He leaned against the settee, putting his arm along the back. “I’ve been called aggressive more than once. I’m not sure where we should start.”
She sighed. “I wish Cosima was here. She’s much better at this than I am.”
“Better at what?”
“Making things sound good. We owned a boutique together just off Jackson Square in New Orleans. It was a blend of our two passions. Cosima had a wine bar and café on one side and I had an artsy shop on the other. We worked with a lot of local artisans to stock one-of-a-kind or unique items. Trinkets, clothing, paintings that sort of thing,” she said. “We had to close after the video and we’ve opened a new shop here in Whiskey River on the Square.”
“Sounds interesting. I’m not sure how that’s going to be a project for The Barrels,” he said. She was different. When she talked about her store, he could hear the passion in her voice but also it was underlined with some emotion he couldn’t define.
“We want to use part of the property you purchased to establish an arts center where kids can come in and learn different artistic and practical skills, not only from us, but we want to reach out to other artists and local skilled craftspeople in the area to share their knowledge. My sister-in-law is a basket weaver and she’s already interested in passing on her craft.”
He liked the idea but it would take money to sustain something like that. And he had already planned a retail park that would revitalize The Barrels and bring jobs and income to the area. “How would you keep the center running?”
“Charitable contributions at first, but eventually we are hoping to be self-sustaining. Cosima would be teaching kids skills they’d need to work in the hospitality and wine industries. I don’t know if you’ve driven through some of the old warehouse area, but there is a really good graffiti artist who has been using those old buildings as a canvas. I think the art center could help bring people like that some good attention.”
“And it wouldn’t hurt your reputation either,” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t. But honestly, it’s not about me,” she said.
He was a bit skeptical of that. “So business is booming in town at your new shop?”
