Julie pushed away from her desk. “Let’s get everything set up in the conference room.”
Their meeting was set for eight thirty sharp. Gerald arrived a few minutes early, took one look at Rachel, and scowled. “What the . . . ?”
“Don’t ask,” Rachel said.
Julie laughed. “Her kitchen door beat her up.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t want to go into it.
“We can postpone this,” Gerald offered.
“As bad as this looks”—she pointed to her face—“postponing is worse. Besides, maybe the owners will see that I’m willing to take one for the team.”
“Whatever you say.”
Gerald took his seat when three members of the advertising team walked in. Julie ran interference by telling everyone about her door punch.
Rachel ignored the giggling and willed her stomach to settle. She’d really wanted to go into this meeting poised and confident. As much as she knew her presentation was exactly what the company needed, delivering the message and selling it to the CEO and CFO didn’t need the distraction of a bruised face getting in the way.
There were only two chairs left that needed filling, and it was eight thirty-five.
When she heard voices behind the closed conference door, she turned around to gather her strength. Public speaking was easy for her, she knew her material . . . but damn, her head hurt, messing with her psyche.
A chorus of good mornings spread around the room.
Rachel sucked in a breath, blew it out slowly.
“You remember Julie Kim,” Gerald said.
Rachel painted on a smile and turned.
“And this is our newest member of the team. Rach—”
“Rachel?”
Maybe the hit to her head was harder than she thought. “Jason?”
“What the hell happened to your face?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Jason stood beside another man, close in stature, their power suits perfectly pressed, not a hair out of place. He was just as easy to look at as she’d remembered.
“You two have already met?”
Two giant steps and Jason was at her side, his hand reaching up to brush her hair back. The gesture and the concern on his face would have wooed her if he wasn’t standing in the middle of her office doing it.
“She had a fight with a door,” Julie said from the side.
“Have you had this looked at?” Jason asked.
Rachel shook him off. “No. What . . . what are you doing here?”
The room was perfectly silent, and the seed of doubt spread in her gut. She glanced around. The man Jason had walked in with had his hands tucked in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels, a mischievous grin on his face. The advertising team was exchanging glances. Julie looked at her and shook her head; the hidden message she was attempting to send was lost on Rachel.
She felt sick.
Gerald was the only one who found his voice. “Rachel, this is Jason Fairchild.”
“Fairchild.” She blinked several times, trying to register everything coming in at one time. Stranded Car Guy. Her Wednesday night tree trimming date . . . was her boss. She closed her eyes, shook her head. “No, no . . . this isn’t . . .” She was thinking out loud.
“Are you okay?” Gerald asked.
She opened her eyes, pushed her chin in the air.
“I think you should sit down,” Jason suggested.
How could he be her boss? “I’m fine.” Her tone was harsher than she meant.
“This is highly entertaining.” The man with Jason approached. “I’m Glen . . . Fairchild. Jason’s brother.”
Rachel attempted to compose herself, reached out to shake Glen’s hand. “Rachel Price. It’s a pleasure.”
“It sure is.”
The staff in the room started to mutter among themselves.
She took advantage of the noise and leaned closer to Jason. “Why didn’t you tell me you were my boss?”
He leaned in. “You didn’t tell me where you worked.”
Glen started laughing.
“Now that the introductions are formally done, should we get started?” Gerald moved them along.
Rachel couldn’t help but glare at the man she was supposed to be impressing.
“Fine.”
A long drink of water later, she asked that Julie dim the lights, which didn’t help much to hide the man staring at her. The fact that he sat at the head of the conference table, directly opposite her, his smirking brother to his right, Gerald to his left, made her acutely aware of the fact she’d flirted with her boss.
Her boss!
She stopped looking at him and started to speak.
What the hell happened to her? It looked like she’d been punched. Her eye was swollen damn near shut. She kept rubbing her temple, a sure sign it hurt. He had a strong desire to pull her out of the meeting to quiz her and make sure a doctor had given her a clear view of her health.
Glen kicked him under the table.
Jason glared.
His brother nodded toward Rachel, making him aware that he wasn’t listening to her new approach to online marketing.
“. . . so if we’re going to capture the millennials and push Fairchild Charters to the top of the private jet food chain, we need to spend a serious effort online.” The image on the screen showed early twentysomethings holding cell phones while sitting in a bar.
For the next hour, Rachel offered an impressive array of facts, including the sheer number of kids under twenty-five who were self-made millionaires. Many of them living in Silicon Valley, working for companies such as Google and Yahoo, both companies that had their own fleet of jets but didn’t offer them to everyone. Rachel suggested frequent trips and networking with these companies and other tech enterprises to encourage private charters as an alternative for their travel needs. It helped that she had worked with these businesses when she lived on the West Coast.
All in all, the presentation was well thought out and left room for very few questions when she was finished.
Jason was impressed.
“If we start rolling out my plan now, we should see a bump in charters by early summer. By fall I’d like to see Fairchild Charters land a corporate account with Yahoo, Google, or Amazon.”
“Or all three,” Julie added.
“I won’t oversell that idea, but it’s worth a try.”
“You already have contacts in Palo Alto?” Jason asked.
“I do.” She didn’t offer more.
“I like it,” Glen said. “We’ll need our team to create a budget.”
“The big accounts are obviously where it’s at, but the long-term plan with young CEOs will be our bread and butter in ten years,” Gerald added. “I think Miss Price has given us a lot to consider.”
“I want to see more numbers,” Jason told them. “Projections on how much staff will be needed, cross-training cost.”
“We can do that,” Rachel assured him.
She rubbed the side of her neck and quickly looked away.
“I’d like a report in two weeks.”
“I can do it in one.”
His gaze traveled to her bruise. “Two weeks is fine. It is the holidays.”
She winced.
Glen stood and someone turned up the lights.
“Thank you, Rachel, Julie,” Glen told them.
“Our pleasure.” Julie spoke for both of them.