“Yeah, well, if you come up with anything, let me know,” her mother said, and the knife twisted deeper into Sophie’s heart. “In the meantime…I need to call a real estate agent this afternoon.”
Sophie watched as her mother went down the hallway, coffee cup in hand. Sophie looked around at all the product notes and samples that littered every horizontal surface.
She grabbed up her cell phone and dialed Mark. “Hey you,” he answered immediately. “How’s it going? How are you holding up?”
Sophie quickly outlined the problem. “She’s losing her house, Mark. I have to do something.”
Mark sighed over the crackle of cell reception. “I don’t know what I can do, Sophie,” he said, his voice rich with regret.
“Isn’t there some other account that we could land?” Sophie pleaded. “You know the industry, all the ins and outs. You know who’s buying!”
“I can give you the names of a few distributors,” Mark said. “But…it’s not going to be easy, and it’ll take time. You guys are aiming too high. If you had a few years…”
“But she doesn’t. I need to make a mint in a hurry,” Sophie said quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” Mark said.
Sophie closed her eyes. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s not your problem.”
“Sophie, don’t…”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “But it is our company. And one way or another, we’ll figure out a way around it.”
He sighed heavily. “I really am sorry.”
“I know.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go.”
“When can I see you again?”
“I’ll be in New York to sort out some final things for Diva Nation,” she said. “We’ll be together then.”
“I miss you,” he said.
“Miss you, too,” she replied. “I really have to go.”
He paused, then hung up.
She sat there for a second, feeling numb. Her mother would lose her house. Her company would go under. And as much as he loved her, Mark could not help her.
She had to help herself.
She picked up her cell phone, dialing carefully. “Marion & Co.,” the voice said cheerfully on the other line.
“I need to talk to Mrs. Abigail Marion,” Sophie said.
“May I ask who is calling?”
“Tell her that Sophie Jones from Diva Nation is calling,” Sophie said slowly. “Tell her I have a deal for her.”
10
“SO WHAT DID YOU WANT to set up this meeting for, Mark?” Roger said, sitting in his office. “I’ve only got about twenty minutes, by the way. I’m meeting with the CEO on the links at eleven.”
“I appreciate the time,” Mark said. Simone was sitting next to him, opposite Roger’s broad glass desk. She looked puzzled, too. “This is about the Marion & Co. account.”
“You did a great job,” Roger said. “Surprised the hell out of me. Not just me, either.” He smiled, a broad, used-car salesman type smile. “If you’re worried about getting the job, don’t be. You earned it. I’ll be sure you get that promotion.”
“That’s good to know,” Mark said, savoring the satisfaction of the words for a second before plowing forward. “What I wanted to say was…Diva Nation did a great job, though. They came damned close.”
Roger shrugged. “I don’t follow.”
Mark swallowed, surprised to find himself nervous. He hadn’t felt this way since his first runway show, back when he was seventeen years old. But this was a big risk for him.
She’s worth it.
“I was thinking,” Mark said cautiously. “It’d be a terrible waste for Diva Nation to fall off the map completely.”
Roger frowned, puzzled. Simone’s eyes widened, Mark noticed.
“I would like the ability to hire Sophie,” he said.
Simone shook her head almost imperceptibly. Mark kept going.
“And I think it’s a damned shame we fired Mrs. Jones, the chemist,” Mark said. “After all, she’s the one who came up with those products. We really could use someone that innovative. I think she’s adequately proven that her age isn’t a factor.”
Roger was now bewildered. “You’re saying…you want to hire the competition? Is that it?”
Mark nodded, trying hard to look casual. “I think it’d be a smart business move.”
Roger, to Mark’s surprise, burst out laughing. “Christ, kid,” he muttered. “You know, maybe I was too hasty in telling you the promotion was in the bag.”
Mark blanched. “I won that account,” he protested.
“Yeah, and now you’re trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They’re bush league,” Roger said dismissively. “We can’t save all the orphans and lost puppies in the world, Mark. Life’s hard. If they want to play against the big boys, they’re just going to have to get hurt.” Roger crossed his arms, studying Mark curiously. “I would’ve thought you knew that by now.”
“What I’m saying isn’t personal,” Mark said, glad that his voice was cold and dispassionate. “It’s that…Sophie Jones is a good exec, and her Mom is a good chemist. There should be a place for them at Trimera. We hire people all the time.”
“Yeah, but not people we’ve slept with.”
Mark winced at Simone’s words, feeling the blood chill in his veins. He glanced at her; she was glaring at him. “This isn’t—”
“Listen, I already told you I have a tee time set up,” Roger said, “so I’ll make this brief. No, we cannot save your girlfriend. No, we cannot save her mom. We won, they lost. You all need to deal with it.” Roger stood up, gesturing to the door. “You know, Mark, talks like this really don’t encourage me. I thought that you had gained more business sense than that. But this only convinces me that you’re still using your body more than your head.”
Mark grimaced, feeling rage bubble through him. He nodded curtly and left, Simone following him all the way to his office. She shut the door behind them, then lashed out at him. “Are you crazy?”
“I guess I am,” he spat back, feeling humiliated.
“You stuck your neck out for some rinky-dink competitor that you’ve been sleeping with,” Simone growled. “I thought I taught you better than this. People have been telling me you’re some pretty-boy model, that you’ve been coasting along on my coattails. But I stood up for you because I thought you had the killer instinct, and that you had a brain in that gorgeous head of yours. And now, this is the thanks I get?”
“So sorry, Simone,” he said sharply. “I didn’t realize how much I was going to injure you in this whole deal.”
She let out a long exhalation. “You fell in love with her, didn’t you?”
He clenched his jaw, refusing to answer.
“Well, that’s just peachy,” she said sarcastically. “Good luck getting taken seriously now, sport. And I wouldn’t bank on that promotion, either.”
Mark felt his gut knot into a cold ball of stress. “Why not?”
“Because you blew it,” Simone said. “Frankly, you were always a dark horse for it, but we all thought that maybe you were finally showing some progress. Now, I think you’re right back to square one.”
“I showed that I knew my stuff,” Mark said. “We wouldn’t even have the account if you’d left Carol on it all by herself.”
“That might be the case,” Simone said, returning to her usual icy-calm demeanor. “But that was then. Carol could easily run the new account, now that you’ve landed it for us.”
Mark gaped. After everything he’d done…all that work…all the problems with Sophie, they were going to simply hang him out to dry?
“It doesn’t have to happen this way,” Simone said. “But seriously, given the same opportunity, do you truly think your girlfriend over at Diva Nation would turn her back on landing the account? It’s huge. It would make or break them.” Simone shook her head. “It’s not personal. It’s just business, Mark.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said staunchly. Sophie had already given up too much, made too many sacrifices because of how she felt about him. And he knew how she felt about big corporations.
“You don’t have to,” Simone said. “But mark my words, when it comes down to it, you’d be surprised what people will do when it comes to business.”
He watched, depressed, as she walked out. He picked up his phone to call Sophie—needing to hear her voice, and feel a bit better about the situation. He stopped himself before he could hit Send, though. He hadn’t told her about what he’d been planning to do. Unfortunately, it had been the only solution to their problem that he could think of. Their business would still fail. Her mother’s retirement would still be in jeopardy. They’d still be living on opposite coasts. And if it became widely known that they were involved, he got the feeling that Roger would probably make him pay for it, one way or another.