The Truth About De Campo(16)
“It was a Tuesday night at six. There were empty tables.”
She was silent. Pursed her lips. “Go on...”
“You need more beautiful women working the bar.”
She lifted a brow. “So men can go ogle them and spend their money? This is a high-end restaurant I’m running, Matteo, not a strip joint.”
“Precisely. Seventy-five percent of the patrons at the bar that night were men—financial power players having a drink after work. Those types are all about the eye candy. You put a beautiful woman in front of them, they’ll stay longer, drink more and I guarantee, they’ll keep coming back.”
“I suppose I should have them in short skirts, too?”
“Sex sells, Quinn.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Sometimes I think life would be so much easier if I were a man. You are such simple creatures.”
He smiled at that. “If you mean honest and straightforward about how we feel without a hundred pounds of analysis spread on top of it, then si, it’s true.”
“But in being that way, you miss many of the subtleties of life.”
“Care to give an example?”
“I’d prefer you finish your list.”
By the time he had and they’d eaten dinner, Quinn had the glaring feeling she’d vastly underestimated how valuable De Campo could be in helping her dig Luxe out of the mess it was in. Matteo was clearly a brilliant businessman and a marketing genius. De Campo was making scads of money at its übertrendy wine bar locations on the East and West Coasts. She’d done the research.
“You make some very good points,” she conceded, pushing her empty plate away. “But there still remains the fact you are competition for us in the restaurant space.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same clientele. Go sit in one of our wine bars. The customer is ten years younger at least. They do not have the disposable income to eat at Luxe.”
Her gaze sharpened. “How would you guarantee you wouldn’t compete with us in the future? Write it into the contract?”
He flinched, a slight, almost imperceptible movement. “We could talk about that.”
She pressed her lips together. “It’s a problem. I agree that there are synergies there. But I can’t sell this to the board if we’re going to be competing against each other.”
“Who’s to say Silver Kangaroo won’t get into the restaurant business? You can’t know what’s going to happen in the future.”
“But I can hedge my bets. Make my decisions based on the facts I have now.”
He picked up the wine and poured the last of it into their glasses. It occurred to her she should probably refuse any more but the legendary Brunello was just too good to turn down.
He fixed that intense dark stare on her, the one that made her pulse jump all over the place. “Why fourth, Quinn? Why originally rank us fourth when you so clearly want a pure wine play, not a big behemoth.”
Maybe the wine was loosening her tongue, but she decided he deserved to know. “In my mind, De Campo is an arrogant, self-satisfied brand. Yes, you make exceptional wine. Your lineage is impeccable. But you represent what Luxe used to be. Not where we’re going. Silver Kangaroo is young, vibrant and fresh. A bit on the eclectic side. It fits perfectly with where I intend to take the Luxe brand.”
A frown furrowed his brow. “De Campo is not an arrogant brand. A proud brand—yes. A brand with a century of heritage behind it—yes. But arrogant? You’re wrong.”
She tilted her head to one side. “I beg to differ.”
“I have third-party brand studies that will show you you’re wrong. That we appeal to a young, hip demographic.”
“Brand studies are a self-serving exercise in making a company feel good about itself,” she countered. “It’s an instinctual feeling I have, Matteo, and at the end of the day, that is how I will make my decision. Instinct.”
Frustration glinted in his eyes. “You need to visit Gabriele in Napa. He is light-years ahead of Silver Kangaroo.”
She nodded. “I will if time permits.”
A server came to take their dishes away. “That was fantastic,” she murmured, sure she could crawl into bed right now and sleep for twenty-four hours. “Maybe I should steal Guerino away from you.”
He flashed a lazy smile. “Sorry. He’ll never leave Italy.”
“So sad.” She tried to ignore how the dark stubble that covered his jaw was even more pronounced tonight as he spoke to the waiter in Italian. How it took his rakish good looks to a whole new dangerous level. But the warmth from the wine had turned her limbs into mush and her brain along with it. He had been mentally undressing her earlier, she was sure of it, and what had she done? Just let him keep on doing it. Insane, really, when this was all about business and this was Matteo they were talking about. The playboy who couldn’t keep it in his pants.