by Dawn Tamayo
Jake stood in front of Victoria realising she couldn’t quite see him as she squinted and shielded her eyes against the bright sunlight, so he purposely took a step closer blocking out the sun. She wasn’t that much shorter than him, maybe a few inches or so, and Jake found himself looking down into her soft brown eyes. As he introduced himself he admired the woman standing in front of him with her seductive clear glossy rounded lips. He wasn’t paying much attention to what she was saying, he was more interested in how desirable her mouth looked and he guessed it would kiss just as beautifully too. Then his eyes quickly travelled down her curvaceous body, he could see her full rounded breasts hiding non-too-convincingly beneath her colourful linen top and her white jeans showed off her slim waist and rounded hips with long slender legs to perfection. Quickly he pulled his mind back to what she was saying, and no, he had no intentions of letting her hand go because if he did then he might not get another chance with this rodeo-show of a media circus which was about to commence!
“Now you have me at a bit of an advantage.” Jake’s eyes twinkled in the sunlight looking like they matched the clear blue sky.
“I can’t see how that’s possible.” Victoria said as she squeezed their intertwined fingers indicating that he had her very much at a disadvantage with his arm around her holding her close the way he was.
“Is there any chance you might tell me your name?” He asked knowing that any second now at least thirty people were about to descend on them and it would be good to know something about her before he got whisked away in a whirlwind of reporters.
“Victoria.”
“Victoria?” He looked at her and raised an eyebrow in question. “Just Victoria or is there another part to that name?”
Victoria laughed despite finding the good-looking American quite annoying considering he hadn’t yet let her go. Amazingly gorgeous, but really quite annoying! “Pembrose. My name is Victoria Pembrose.”
Victoria wondered why on earth he was still holding her hand - her fingers were still intertwined with his as his arm rested around her waist. She knew she should have been shaking him off, but there was something quite nice and comfortable about it. For all the very prim and properness of his smartly-cut suit there was a strength and almost roughness to his hand that didn’t quite match his look, like someone who worked with their hands. She liked the contrast. It was almost as if by holding his hand he had let her into a little secret that everyone else didn’t know - a little something about Jake the private man that nobody else could see.
“Smile for the cameras.” Jake said as his cheeky grin changed to one of total professionalism and serious smiles.
‘Cameras? What cameras?’ Victoria thought having totally forgotten about everything else apart from the closeness of this stranger and the feeling of his hand holding hers. But then she became very much aware of a crowd of people running towards them with cameras clicking and mini tape recorders held in their outstretched hands.
Victoria tried to take an involuntary step away from Jake wondering what on earth was going on, but Jake wasn’t giving way and she stayed firmly in place. Then it occurred to her! Jake Cumberland! The Jake Cumberland of Creative Technology Holdings! The Chairman and founder of one of the biggest American new technology companies who was now launching several new products over here in the United Kingdom. Of course she had known he was coming to the fete today, but as the donations and arrangements had been made by his public relations team at the last minute she hadn’t had time to research much information on the Chairman himself. Victoria had managed to find some articles on his products and the success of his company, but she hadn’t actually seen a photograph of Jake Cumberland himself and this wasn’t what she had been expecting at all. Victoria had expected a much older man in his fifties or sixties to pull up in a big black limo, not this thirty something fit Adonis-like man to come crashing down from the sky!
As the crowd of reporters closed in Jake turned Victoria away from the encroaching crowd and casually steered her in the direction of a large black promotional lorry parked at the far side of the fete which seemed to have arrived whilst she was in the beer tent. Still with his professional smile in place for the clicking cameras, he kept his voice low so only she could hear him. “And what do you do Victoria Pembrose? When you are not enjoying a country fete that is?”
“I’m in marketing. In-fact I am one of the organisers for this fete, and on that note I would like to personally thank you for your very generous donations to our raffle and tombola. You have been a great help in raising a sizeable amount of money today. It’s all going to a wonderful cause.” She continued to walk with Jake towards the lorry, still hand in hand.
“No problem, anything for a good cause.”
Again came that squeeze of his hand. Victoria flashed him a look and once again she was mesmerised by his crystal clear blue eyes - they were so unusual and contrasted with his almost jet black hair.
“So you’re a local? Do you live near here?” Jake asked as they finally reached his destination, the promo lorry.
“No, I’m from London. I’m just here for the day.”
Jake raised that eyebrow again, they were a long way away from London. He didn’t need to ask her the question, his expression did it for him.
“I grew up near here and a friend of mine is on the committee. The charity we are raising money for today is very close to her heart, and as no one else had any marketing knowledge and I work in marketing, she asked me for a favour and I said I would give them a hand.”
Jake looked around at the large field full of gazebos and marquees bursting at the seams with hundreds of people all happily buying local handmade produce and sipping drinks. He realised his PR team had been right about the age group of the people here, there was a good mix but the beer tent was certainly fuller than the cream-tea tent and there was definitely more thirties and forties than any other age bracket. He was impressed, this was a well put together event and the amount of sponsorship Victoria had secured was impressive. “So you put all this together in your spare time and you’re not getting anything out of it?”
“Well a team of people and I put it together, but otherwise yes. But I am getting something out of it – I am getting free drinks and great company all day knowing that we have raised a lot of money for a good cause. That’s good enough for me.” She smiled feeling good that she had impressed such a successful businessman.
“And after here, where are you off to?” Jake held up his free hand in a silent signal for the waiting photographers and journalists who were getting impatient to stay back for a moment longer, and two large men in black suits walked out from what seemed like nowhere to stand a few feet in front of Jake making sure no one encroached forward before Jake was ready.
“Home.”
“London?”
“Yes that’s right.”
“Maybe I can give you a lift? I’m staying in London for a few days. Actually would you like to join me for dinner tonight?” Jake said looking down into Victoria’s soft brown eyes as if she were the only person there and there weren’t a crowd of people waiting for his attention.
For a moment Victoria was taken aback, and not just by the way Jake made her feel, as if she was the only person in the world and the only one that mattered at that very moment in time. Was she hearing Jake Cumberland right, had he just asked her out on a date? She smiled and held up her free hand realising that Jake still hadn’t let go of her other one and wiggled her ring fingers letting the solitaire diamond flash in the sunlight. “Thank you for the invitation but I’m afraid my fiancé wouldn’t be too happy about that.”
“Oh! Am I about to get set upon by a jealous fiancé?” Jake laughed gently, it was a sound more like a chuckle and it penetrated right through Victoria.
“Hardly. He knows he can trust me.” Victoria said seriously putting her hand on her hip looking Jake squarely in his eyes. Then she wished she hadn’t done that, she wished she hadn’t seen Jake�
�s blue eyes sparkle playfully at her and she quickly looked away towards the group of reporters trying to ignore the feeling in her stomach. Then Victoria wished she hadn’t looked at the reporters either as she realised they were gleefully snapping their cameras at her and Jake standing close together.
She turned back to Jake.
“So where is he?” Jake said scanning the surrounding area ignoring the growing sound of impatience from the waiting journalists. He knew they would get what they wanted in a few minutes, he always made sure they did, but first he wanted a minute or two more for himself.
“Not here.” Victoria shrugged.
“Not here? Is he mad? If you were mine I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.” Jake said as he finally let Victoria’s hand go, only to pull her in again close to his side as he put his arm around her shoulder and held her there.
“Yes well my fiancé knows that I am not an object, so he doesn’t feel the need to constantly be by my side.” She retorted and saw a glimmer of laughter in Jake’s eyes.
“That wasn’t what I meant.” He muttered between smiles as he squeezed her shoulder gently.
Victoria subtly tried to step away but Jake’s hand on her shoulder held her firmly in place, and for some reason, she had no idea why, it felt warm and comfortable. Victoria knew she should step away and tell Jake to take his hand off her, but the photographers had already started snapping away with their cameras from a distance and the journalists had now started to shout questions at Jake, so she decided not to cause a scene and stayed where she was. “What are you doing?” She whispered through a smile for the cameras as she looked up at Jake who had once again turned on his professional persona and obviously had no intention of either answering her or letting her go.
Jake motioned to the two burly suited men to allow the journalists through, and the media circus commenced.
“Jake! Jake, over here. Smile!” called several voices all at once.
“Mr Cumberland, what exactly are you doing here today? We know you are launching some new products but why are you here and not in London or at the NIC in Birmingham?”
Once again Victoria tried to take a side step and move out from under Jake’s arm but he gently squeezed her shoulder again still not letting her go, and without missing a beat he answered the reporter’s question one by one. So Victoria stayed put and adopted the same professional smile, after all this was a publicity stunt and it was all in a good cause. She had a feeling that after today her friend’s charity was going to be a lot more popular for donations.
A crowd of fete-goers were beginning to form behind the journalists and Victoria could see her friend Alice standing at the side looking amused. She flashed Alice a smile with a look of ‘what the hell am I supposed to do now?’ which only seemed to fuel Alice’s amusement that little bit more.
Jake’s voice sounded loud and clear through the microphone and that brought Victoria’s attention back to him. She wondered where the microphone had suddenly appeared from and then realised his PR person was not far away and assumed she had brought it across.
“Jake! Who’s the girl?” One of the reporters interrupted.
Jake didn’t miss a beat. “This is the lovely Victoria Pembrose. She is the one who organised all this today.”
Victoria froze with her professional smile in place as a new flurry of camera clicks went off, all focused on her, and she was sure she could feel her cheeks burning red. In fact all of her body felt like it was on fire but she wasn’t sure it was entirely out of embarrassment or the closeness of Jake’s body against hers. Quickly she leaned across and said into the microphone, “Thank you Mr Cumberland for that but I did not work alone. There was a great team of people responsible for today.” And then with that she went back to wishing she could crawl away and hide, but no such luck with Jake’s arm still around her shoulder holding her gently in place next to him.
“Shall we get down to the business of why I am here then? It’s not very original to demonstrate to you the ease of our new tracking devices on our display in the Olympia exhibition in London, which by the way my team will be coming around handing out free tickets to the exhibition should you wish to go and see it. So my team and I decided that we will do something a little bit different today, and you all know we love different! So we have hidden a number of gadgets containing our tracking devices in the surrounding fields and within this fete. My team will organise anyone at this fete who wants to take part in this little treasure hunt, and the winners will receive the gadgets they find. This way you will all get to see how easy and effective these new tracking devices are.”
A murmur of approval came from the fete crowd but Victoria was livid, this wasn’t the plan! She pushed the microphone out of vocal range. “Hang on a minute, this was not what we agreed. I agreed with your PR team that you could come and do a quick press release and provide a stand with whatever it is you wanted to promote. You had a one hour slot maximum, that is all. I did not agree that you could come here and play “find the gadget” games. You are totally high-jacking our fete!” She was furious, how dare he come and try and take over her well organised day. Who did he think he was? Okay so he was a multimillionaire, probably a billionaire, and Creative Technology Holdings had donated a large amount of the prizes, but that didn’t give them the right to take over her fete without prior consent.
“What’s the problem Victoria? This is a win win situation all round.” Jake couldn’t understand her problem; he would get his publicity and their charity would get mentioned in the news giving them free advertising. She should be happy, not angry with him!
“Not if it gets out of hand it’s not. I’m not prepared for this or set up to have a load of people rummaging around in marquees and fields. This is a health and safety nightmare. If someone gets a bit overzealous and hurts themselves, or even worse hurts someone else, we’re going to get sued.”
“Alex, bring me a pad and a pen please.” Jake called to one of the men in suits, then turned back to Victoria again. “Look around, I have a full promotional team all ready to make sure that nothing goes wrong. They are going to love it. We’ve planned for all this, don’t worry.”
“Well I haven’t!” She didn’t like not feeling in control – this was her event and she should be in control of everything.
Victoria looked around, and as if they had magically conjured themselves up out of nowhere, at least fifteen brightly coloured men and women in Creative Technology Holdings’ logo colours roamed amongst the fete goers organising the willing participants to join in the search. She saw a promotional woman talking into her mini-microphone headset telling the growing crowd how it was all going to work:
“We will divide you all into teams of five or six and give each team a telephone with our tracking application on it, or a tracking-watch. Using this tracking method you will be able to locate one of our planted devices, and along with it there will be a piece of paper telling you what gadget you have won. Don’t worry, take your time. We have plenty of devices for you to find and even more gadgets to give away today. But if by any chance we do run out, then we will simply take your details and forward your gadget onto you within the next couple of days.”
Victoria stood back and looked amazed, there were at least eight or nine teams of people waiting to take part. This publicity stunt was going to cost them a fortune. However Jake was right, they were going to get a serious amount of free publicity from this on the television, newspapers and the internet. Whatever today cost wouldn’t even nibble into Creative Technology Holdings’ advertising budget and would be far cheaper than placing advertisements in the media – what better way to prove a product worked than this? Pure genius she had to admit!
Finally Jake removed his arm from Victoria’s shoulder and for a second she felt cool, as if a coat had been taken away from around her and she rubbed her hand up and down her arm to warm up. She guessed the temperature was finally getting cooler now.
“Here, this will do it j
ust in case anything goes wrong. Which it won’t!” Jake said as he handed her a piece of paper he’d quickly written on.
Victoria read it and smiled, he really did have everything covered;
I, Jake Cumberland of Creative Technology Holdings, take full responsibility for the Creative Technology Holdings promotional treasure hunt at today’s fete. Should any expenses, including legal actions, arise from this event we agree to pay full monetary compensation.
“I must admit that I was a bit concerned when my team came up with this idea, I couldn’t quite imagine a load of old grannies and grandpas running around a field looking for the latest technological gadgets. But they assured me that the woman organising it had said there would be a lot of thirty and forty-somethings attending; mums and dads with kids or teenagers, exactly the demographic group we want to reach. I don’t suppose that was you was it?” Jake asked cutting into Victoria’s thoughts bringing her attention back to him.
Victoria nodded and smiled proudly, she was pleased with what she had achieved today. Yes there had been a small team of them organising it, but the others had taken care of the practical side of marquees, porta-loos, and local stall holders. The sponsorships, donations, and advertising with a budget of zero had all been down to her, and she thought she had done pretty well. And by the look of it so did Jake Cumberland.
A rogue reporter wandered away from the treasure hunt and headed back towards Jake and Victoria.
“So Jake, does Miss Pembrose have anything to do with why you chose this particular event to host your treasure hunt?”
“Hi Richard, good to see you again.” Jake held out his hand to shake the reporter’s.