The proposal, p.7
The Proposal, page 7
“Sorry, what was that, Kathleen?” Focus, Zara. I snapped to attention and leaned in, trying to keep my panic spiral from dragging this whole thing down.
Kathleen’s glasses slide even lower on her nose. “A paint balloon fight? I do hate being disappointed and dealing with people who aren’t even trying.” She set down her pen and crossed her arms over her chest.
Everyone else in the room shifted back, similarly. Panic rose in my throat. We’re losing them.
My gaze cut to Leo’s and my fists tightened at my side for a flash.
Leo jumped in. “All the paint is non-toxic and non-staining. There’ll be coveralls for anyone who doesn’t want to get it on their clothes. It’s a new take on capture the flag, and nowhere near as painful as paintball, but with the healthy living ethos and reputation of Winthorpe, I—we felt it would be an adventurous addition outside the norm.”
Kathleen leaned back with the corners of her lips turned down.
I stepped forward. “And there will also be stations for people who want to opt out of the activity itself. Beauty treatments and express massages. Head, neck, and back massages for participants after the paint battle as well.” Every second under their exacting gazes threatened to melt me into the floor.
“We had a massage set-up at our retreat a year ago. There were a lot of long lines.” Kathleen tapped her pen on her notepad.
Leo held up his phone and directed everyone to the spot on the handouts we’d given them. “They’re express massages, and the company has an app to let people book a spot only a few minutes before, so no wait times. And they can change their appointments depending on what else they wanted to do that day.”
Kathleen’s mouth tightened and she jotted down a note.
She hated it. She hated everything we’d presented today. Gasoline was pouring out of the wreck of this presentation headed straight toward a lit match on the ground. It was too different. Too out there for a more traditional company. If I could’ve fit my hands around Leo’s neck I’d have strangled him.
No worries, I could always use his tie.
“We’ll have a campfire for roasting hotdogs and marshmallows?”
“For eighty people? How do you propose to make that work?” Kathleen rolled her chair closer to the table, tenting her fingers together.
The sun came out from behind the clouds, lighting up the room even more. Like a stage hand shining a spotlight on us to watch me bake in my failure. I swallowed against the anxiety-induced lump in my throat. Why the hell had I been thinking I could do this? Bill was definitely going to fire me for not only tanking this, but making us look like idiots. Where would I go? I’d get evicted. My credit would be ruined. Tyler would have to leave his boarding school he loved to live in a cardboard box on the side of the road, or worse—with our parents.
Their scrutinizing gazes zeroed in on every gap of our plan.
I cleared my throat, stepped forward. “We would also have full catering, of course. But for people who wanted to fully lean into the camp experience, we have another option.” I pointed to the campfire pictures.
The room was bathed in a cascade of rainbow colors from Stella’s rock on my finger. Before I could drop my hand and cover the ring, I nearly blinded Kathleen. She shielded her eyes and locked onto my hand. Her face softened and the corners of her mouth shot up. Looking from me to Leo, her lips parted and the smile widened.
The ring. She loved the ring. And after our tie tying fight out in the hallway, she now thought Leo and I were together. No, not just together. Engaged. And that made her happy. Giddily happy. Her pen was down and she’d rolled her seat forward even farther, taking her steepled hands to the side of her face like she was looking at two lovebirds.
An idea ricocheted through my brain.
I angled myself toward Leo, trying to catch his eye. “Right, hun.”
Leo’s head jerked back, almost cracking the drywall.
Narrowing my gaze, I walked to him and stood beside his chair.
Kathleen’s eyes lit up like she’d stumbled into her own live action soap opera. Three minutes ago I was sitting on a block of ice in Antarctica, but now we were on a rocket fired into the center of the sun.
“We have a strong relationship we know can provide you with the best experience possible.”
Leo looked over at me with so many questions in his eyes. Was I having a stroke? Or hallucinating? Was this some head injury-induced lucid dream?
Taking his hand, I squeezed it to snap him out of his stupor. Read the fucking room, man.
His gaze shot from me to our hands.
Did I need to hire a skywriter? He hadn’t picked up on the whiplash change in mood in the room?
Through clenched teeth with my head tilted, I gripped his fingers tighter.
He hissed. Whoops. Too tight.
“I was telling Kathleen about our wonderful relationship.” Keep it ambiguous. Couldn’t he read the intense arch of my eyebrows?
I kept the pleasant smile on my face, meeting Kathleen’s gaze.
She sat up straighter in her chair. It was no longer bored and uninterested, but engaged and total ga-ga smiling.
“What relationship? Working together?” His face was a mask of confusion.
Work with me, Leo, I willed him, but the eyebrow signals weren’t getting through.
Kathleen’s smile was fading. So much for ambiguous.
Laughing, I threw back my head and turned to our audience. “He’s such an amazing actor. I always told him he should take up acting, but he followed me into the planning business. But we’re currently working for different companies until we can finally work together. Our bosses don’t know.”
Kathleen pressed her hands against her chest. “So wonderfully romantic. We’ll keep it quiet, for sure, and not let it out of this room.” She zipped her fingers across her closed mouth, locked it, and threw away the key.
There was a murmur of approval from the three other people around the table.
“How long have you two been together?”
A small sound escaped my mouth.
Stepping forward, Leo wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me against his chest.
Then his hand travelled south, cupping my ass. My teeth clacked shut and I clasped my hand over his, squeezing it and dragging it around to my hip.
“It’s all new. A whirlwind engagement. Sometimes it feels like we’ve only known one another a week. Isn’t that right, Gingersnap?”
He stared into my eyes and I let loose a glare burning with the fires of retribution. Sliding back into the agreeable fiancée mode, I swung my head around and smiled wide.
“It is new, but when you know, you know.” And I knew I was going to murder him in the parking lot. I grabbed his wrist and slid it back up to my waist.
“We know you’ve had many wonderful presentations today, but we also know how important it is to do things differently and make a lasting impression, especially for your employees. That’s why our ideas were so unorthodox. When Zara and I are working together, we can’t help but create something long lasting that’ll leave everyone screaming for more.”
He’s certainly taken the ball and run, sprinting, streaking across the field with it.
“Should we go through the rest of the presentation?” I tried to steal away from Leo’s Mr. Handsy routine.
“No, it’s fine. We’ve seen enough. There were a few unorthodox things in your presentation, so let us talk it over. If you’ll wait outside?”
We gathered up our presentation materials and walked out. Leo dropped his hand to the small of my back to guide me out of the door.
The second the door closed, I whirled on him, keeping my face as neutral as possible. Everyone else was still standing outside the conference room.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper-shouted, backing him into the corner with a smile on my face.
“It’s called playing along, Gingersnap. You’re the one who sprung the whole ‘hey, guess what, I’m engaged to this guy’ card like it was no big deal.”
“I insinuated it. I was trying to be subtle.” I raked my fingers across my scalp. The ring snagged in my hair, ripped out a few strands. “I freaked, okay? We were losing her, so I looked for another angle. Once she saw the ring, her eyes lit up and she was into it. Checking us both out.”
He squints. “Hunter said she used to work in weddings before moving to the hotel side of things.”
My head whipped up. “You had information on her and what she did before this and you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “How was that going to help us?”
“We could’ve tailored the presentation to play up romance and love versus a paint balloon, capture the flag, testosterone-fueled rave.” My fingers flexed at my sides. If his neck weren’t so thick…
“They seemed into it.”
“We could’ve framed it as a historical battle or something else. If you have information like this in the future, you need to share it with me.” What else was he holding back?
“And if you decide we’re moments away from the honeymoon suite, a heads-up would be nice.”
My cheeks flushed. “Even if we were engaged, manhandling me in a professional meeting was out of line.”
He scoffed. “Hardly manhandling.”
I glared, roasting him under my gaze. “Sorry, was someone else’s hand on my ass in there?”
“If you want me to—”
The door opened and we both straightened, pulling ourselves out of our ready to rip each other’s throats out pose.
Kathleen stood in the doorway and she scanned the room.
“Thank you everyone for the wonderful presentations this morning. We’ve made our decision.”
10
Leo
Hope flared in my chest. We were new. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, which was certainly a new direction for them to go in. Maybe I hadn’t completely fucked this up.
She glanced down at her clipboard. “We’ve chosen Oren & Co. to handle our staff event. I’m so happy to be working with you two again.”
Zara sagged, her shoulders rounding.
I nudged her with my shoulder. “At least we don’t have to pretend—”
“The gala, that is. The Simply Stark and Easton Events collaboration from Leo and Zara? You’ll take over our two staff appreciation events. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this union.” She winked with the subtlety of a fifty-yard punt return to the head.
We both froze, slack jawed and gaping at one another. From the look on her face I knew I hadn’t imagined it. The words Simply Stark and Easton had come out of Kathleen’s mouth.
Zara flung her arms around my neck and without thinking, I wrapped mine around her, pulling her close. So much for calm, cool, and collected professionals.
She smelled like raspberries. In a split second, she seemed to realize she’d practically jumped into my arms and she dropped hers from around my neck and slid down my body.
I held on for a split second too long and she gave me a gentle shove in the stomach.
“Just playing along, Gingersnap.” I slipped my fingers through hers and we walked over to Kathleen.
Zara squeezed right on my knuckle and I swallowed my wince.
“Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. We look forward to creating many memorable experiences for everyone.”
“I’m very interested to see how you two pull this off, and I hope it’ll be the beginning of more than one happy relationship throughout the process. I’ve divided up the events and you’ll have the first one, which will be this Friday. I know it’s tight and it doesn’t have to be the full event, but it would be wonderful if you two could be our first.”
“Of course, we’d be honored.” I lifted my hand, draped it over Zara’s shoulder, and cupped it. “Wouldn’t we?”
Her teeth were clenched hard enough to bite through nails. I was going to enjoy this. Oh so much.
Zara tried to dislodge my hand, but I held fast. “It would be our pleasure. If you give us the details, we can get to work right away.”
“I’ll touch base with Oren & Co. and then lay everything out for you.”
We followed her back into the conference room after the other companies had left. Two events two weeks apart while Oren & Co. would handle the gala in between. Kathleen had hinted no-so-subtly we could end up as the go-to planners for the five Winthorpe hotels in the tristate area, if we proved ourselves through the smaller events.
These events alone would put Stark back on the map and pull Sam out of any financial worries. It was a retainer account, so he’d have a steady cash flow no matter what, which would allow him to bring in the right people to keep the business going.
My phone vibrated on the table as we got the final details from Kathleen.
Jameson: 911. When are you getting here? Teresa’s getting restless.
Me: I’ll be there ASAP. Wrapping things up now.
Jameson: Hurry!
On my way. Zara threw out another volley of questions to Kathleen. Everyone else had already left. She was the kid who asked the teacher about homework as everyone was already halfway out the door.
“Gingersnap, I have that meeting I told you about, but I’ll see you later.” I laid it on thick like molasses and enjoyed every eye-dagger she sent my way.
“Really? Right now?”
“We’ve got all the details. Thank you for this opportunity, Kathleen.” I shook her hand and left without waiting for Zara.
But the click of her heels across the parking lot told me I wouldn’t be lucky enough to get out of here without a fight. Bring it on, Gingersnap.
11
Zara
It had taken me a full ten seconds to stop gaping at Leo and go after him. I said bye to Kathleen and rushed after him. Every time I called out his name, he waved to me over his shoulder with his car keys clutched in his hand.
I opened the passenger side door of his car, leaning in. “Where are you going?”
Leo jammed the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life. “I told you.”
“A meeting? That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“I have somewhere to be.”
“We need to talk about this. She thinks we’re engaged.” I’d never hyperventilated in my life, but there I was, gasping while standing in the middle of a wide-open parking lot.
“So when you pull something out of your ass it’s fine, but when I do it, I’m trying to destroy things. You said it yourself. We were losing them. You saw an opening and went for it…and so did I.”
“That’s not fine. If she finds out she’s going to lose it.”
He shrugged. “You should’ve thought about that before you started dropping ‘huns.’ When’s the wedding date, Gingersnap?”
“We don’t have much time. We’re not through discussing this.”
“You can have me all day tomorrow, but I have somewhere to be now.” He shifted the car into reverse and backed up a foot, bumping me with the open door. “I’m leaving.”
“You’re not rolling out of here without talking about this.” I flung myself into the car and buckled my seatbelt.
“Get out of my car.”
“No. Let’s go.” I patted the dashboard. “I’d like to see where you need to go that’s more important than coming up with our plan of attack for the event in eight days.”
“I’m already late. I’d hoped to present first, so we wouldn’t be late, but someone decided to take her time and go jewelry shopping on the way here.”
“I’m not getting out of this car. We can go over everything in your car, meet at my office or yours. I don’t care, but we have eight days. In planner time, it might as well be tomorrow.”
His jaw ticked and he glanced down at his watch. “Fine.”
“Great.” I reached for the seatbelt to unbuckle it, when he slammed on the gas, reversing out of the parking lot. Bracing my hands on the roof of his car, I banged against the passenger side door. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You said we could have our meeting in my car. You didn’t say anything about the car being stationary. I said I had somewhere to be.”
We whipped past city blocks following signs for the bridge into Jersey. Oh god, he was going to murder me and bury me in the Pine Barrens.
He looked over at me with his smackable smirk. “Didn’t you have some things to discuss that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”
Pressed up against the door at my side, I glanced out the window. Did I need to jump for it?
“For once you’re speechless. It’s a Christmas miracle.” He kept his gaze trained on the road, other than glances at the clock on the dashboard.
Reaching into the wheel well at my feet, I grabbed my tablet out of my purse and made a few notes. “We’ll have to confirm everything we put into the presentation. Catering will be hard for three hundred people on such short notice.”
“It’s only one-fifty at a time. They can’t exactly shut down the hotel for our afternoon of team building. It’s two shifts, so we’ll have to do everything four or five hours apart. It gives us a lunch and a dinner option.”
I paused with my stylus above my screen and ran over what he’d said. We could call in a last-minute order for lunch and dinner much easier for one hundred and fifty people. “You’re right.”
“Turns out I’m not a total fuck up.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Resting my hand against the window, the afternoon sun caught the solitaire cascading the inside of the car in a rainbow kaleidoscope of color. My finger was a charming three shades too dark due to lack of blood flow.
He nodded at it. “When we get there, I can help you get that off your finger.”
“With a bone saw?”
He laughed, turning to me before laughing even harder.
I reached out to steady the steering wheel as his deep laugh cut through some of the simmering tension.
