CardsNeverLie

by Heather Hiestand

  “Any idea where their money is coming from?”

  “No. The CEO is Billy Joe Harriman. I don’t know who the owner is.”

  “I’ve never heard of Harriman.”

  “Me either.”

  “Okay, so what’s the offer? Bigger? Smaller?”

  “Three point two million.”

  “Smaller. So why do we care?” Rob opened the folder and glanced at the sparse contents.

  “How do they even know we’re for sale?” Jack asked.

  “How did we end up for sale in the first place?” Rob countered.

  “Professional Massage made an offer. I don’t know where they got the idea Mr. Black would be willing to sell, but your grandfather certainly warmed to the idea once there was money on the table.”

  “Not very quickly. I still think he can be dissuaded, if I can come up with the right argument.”

  “I’m not sure I agree.” Jack sat down in one of the black leather chairs in front of Rob’s desk. “I think the delay has merely been a matter of properly valuing the company and coming to terms with Professional Massage.”

  “So why do you think Wicked Oil would bother to put an offer on the table when, to the best of our knowledge, they haven’t bothered to find out what the company is worth or even to contact us?”

  “It’s a placeholder. They expect us to open a dialog. And their figure isn’t too far off, you know.”

  Rob mentally ran through a few relevant spreadsheets. “It’s almost as if they have the preliminary valuation and haven’t seen the final report.”

  “Yeah.” Jack warmed to the idea. “Like someone got their hands on the analyst’s original report and gave it to these bastards. You remember our Accounting director hadn’t fully accounted for outstanding accounts before the preliminary evaluation was done. Maybe the preliminary report got out. And all of a sudden a private deal becomes public.”

  Melanie, Rob thought instantly. Who knew what she had access to? But why would she want another company to buy LeatherWorks? She worked for Professional Massage. He wondered what her connection could be to Wicked Oil. “I’m willing to believe there’s some funny business going on,” he conceded. “But someone I met last week gave me a reality check. She said, ‘No one cares enough about any of our little businesses to spy on each other’. And you know what, she has a point.”

  “You’ve been talking about the deal to outsiders?” Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders.

  Leave it to the excitable Jack to pick up on that. “No, but I accused her of coming to Vegas to try to talk to me. Why would someone from Professional Massage go there at such a coincidental time if not to try to get to me?”

  “Who was this?”

  “Melanie Vanderpool. She said she’s the Product Design manager at Professional Massage.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about her,” Jack said in a dismissive tone.

  Rob took a long look at his VP. Jack reddened slightly under his gaze and Rob wondered again what he was hiding behind his strung-out exterior. “Why not?”

  He watched Jack’s eyes roll up in their sockets as he visibly cast about for an answer. “She works for Al Plowman. And he’s nobody. He’s been in meetings about the sale, but the execs at Professional Massage never let him talk. So she can’t be in a power position.”

  Rob nodded. “Point taken.” He stood. “I guess I’d better go speak to Grandfather and see what he wants to do.”

  “Have you talked to him since you got back?”

  “Of course, but not about the sale. It’s time though.”

  “Get back to me. It doesn’t pay to leave me in the dark.” Jack gave him a stern look.

  Rob frowned. “What do you think I haven’t told you?”

  “This is the first you’ve mentioned a potential corporate spy.” Jack stuttered on his last words.

  “I thought we just agreed I had no reason to worry. And I did mention her. She’s Bombshell’s cousin.”

  “Oh. New career for her?” Jack looked at him oddly, but Rob couldn’t remember what he’d said about her.

  “She mentioned she’d just had a promotion. So are we okay?” he asked.

  “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” Jack rubbed at his nose.

  Long ago, Rob remembered, Jack had a problem with cocaine. Grandfather had given him a second chance in memory of Jack’s father, who had been Operations Director at LeatherWorks before his early death from lung cancer. Jack had taken that opportunity and made a real success of himself. But now, ten years later, he was acting erratic again. He’d have to see what Grandfather thought, if this was how Jack had behaved before.

  “You feeling okay?” Rob asked.

  “Never better, buddy.” Jack smiled. “You’ll pull us out of this mess. I’ve got faith in you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Al placed the mock-up board depicting a four-ounce black champagne bottle with a dark eye-shaped label back on the easel in the corner of Melanie’s small office. “Midnight Oil. I like it. I’ve always preferred our massage oil product to our massage lotion product.”

  Melanie leaned against her desk and crossed her arms. “Oil could use a boost since lotion sales have been higher recently.” Due to the poor quality of our oils, she reminded herself. Would the problems destroy the new product too? With her job on the line, she’d make sure they didn’t.

  Al smoothed his tie. “What about massage milk? Have you considered that?”

  Melanie thought for a moment. “We could go with a Cleopatra theme. That might work. She supposedly bathed in milk. It would be different.”

  “Work on it, but quickly. We need to build up our cash position with new, exciting products.”

  “Any word on our existing product line?” At Al’s raised eyebrow, Melanie said, “Quality-wise. Did the testing that was mentioned in the company e-newsletter get completed?”

  “There aren’t any adulterants in the raw materials or at the plant.”

  “So they have no idea why we’ve had so many complaints at the retail end?” C’mon, she thought. There has to be something. Product turnover was high so rancidity wasn’t the answer. Professional Massage had reduced production and furloughed a shift of workers when sales slowed.

  “The assumption is there was a temperature problem causing rancidity. The heating bills at the plant have been extremely high. They’ve locked down the thermostats and tested the monitors, so it shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”

  Sabotage or mechanical failure? “So the raw oils were exposed to high temperature?”

  “Right. In the storage area. Don’t waste time worrying about the operational side of the house, Melanie. Let’s schedule a review for Midnight Oil and whatever variation of the massage milk idea you come up with as soon as possible.”

  “What kind of timeframe do I have?”

  “ASAP. I want the new products on store shelves by the Christmas selling season. We just had a call for cash by upper management yesterday. No experimentation, just make it work with what our suppliers have available and get it out the door.”

  “Does this have anything to do with LeatherWorks?”

  Al narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about that?”

  “I heard a rumor in Vegas.” Melanie shuffled some papers on her desk.

  Al frowned. “I hope you didn’t spread them around.”

  Melanie remembered telling Tommy Joe but she didn’t mention it. Al looked upset enough as it was.

  “I’ll keep it to myself,” she said with a wince. In her current tenuous position, she wouldn’t be volunteering anything.

  “Good. Senior management wants it kept quiet.”

  Melanie nodded at Al as he left her office and reached for her phone to call Jill. Her hand was an inch away when it rang.

  “Melanie Vanderpool.”

  “Melanie? It’s Rob Black.”

  Her heart fluttered. Why would he be calling? She remembered how they had left things. Not w
ell.

  “Hi,” she said slowly, hearing the question in her voice. Feeling restless, she paced behind her desk.

  “Question for you.”

  “Yes?” He sounded calm. Maybe being back in his home environment had calmed the paranoia.

  “Wicked Oil.”

  That company’s name was the last thing she expected to hear. Melanie frowned. “They are nominally a competitor of ours. I’ve seen their products in one store in Seattle, but we don’t have the same product range.”

  “Oh?” Aha. The gravel in his voice was faint but growing stronger. Still paranoid.

  He was so silent she could hear the low static on the line. “But remember my idea for a new product? They’re the ones that announced a similar idea, so I guess we are going to be competing very directly in the future.”

  “You’re coming out with your idea anyway?”

  “No, remember? I had a second idea.” The one intimately connected to you. “Why are you asking?”

  “They made an offer for LeatherWorks.”

  Melanie couldn’t think of what to say. “No kidding. Do they want to move your operations to Odessa?”

  “I have no idea. I thought you might know how they found out we were for sale.”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Our talks with Professional Massage were supposed to be secret.” Rob emphasized the last word.

  “You told me about it,” she reminded him. “Don’t blame me for your own mistake.”

  “I think that was the mistake that brought this new bid into existence,” Rob said tersely.

  So that’s why we need the cash so soon, Melanie realized. LeatherWorks is going to cost more than expected. “So now you think I’m a spy for this company? I’ve worked for Professional Massage since I got out of college. My loyalty is here.”

  “You have no contact with Wicked Oil?”

  “I don’t. I do have a coworker who is related to the CEO.”

  “Did you tell him about the proposed sale?”

  Melanie opened her mouth to say no then decided against it. “Yes.”

  “Why would it even come up?” She could hear his annoyance.

  “Gossip. I am sorry, but you shouldn’t have shared information with me if it was supposed to be a secret.”

  “He must have told the CEO.” Rob ignored her apology.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m sure he didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong.”

  “Is this your boyfriend we’re talking about?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said automatically. Rats. Hadn’t she meant to make him jealous? And why did she care if she sounded available?

  “So you tie up casual strangers in public?” The gravel in his voice had turned into a purr. Was he turned on or just teasing?

  Her hand slipped on the phone. She caught it, realizing his sexy voice was beginning to make her palms sweat. “I didn’t know we were in public. It was a weird scene.”

  Rob laughed. “It looked to be his kind of thing though.”

  “You think so?” Melanie couldn’t figure out why she would want to defend Tommy Joe, but Rob had a way of irritating her, even as he made her want to jump him. “He’s a very nice person actually. And to be honest, it was practically my idea.”

  “Whatever,” Rob said sarcastically. “Try not to share my company secrets with the world in the future, okay?”

  “You told me to share LeatherWorks’ dirty little sexual harassment secret with my company the last time I saw you. Why not all of your secrets?” She matched his tone, in the hopes he would realize how silly he was being. And get back to sexy again.

  Unfortunately, the sarcasm turned to superior male exasperation. “Show a little judgment, okay, Melanie?”

  Oh! He sounded like Gerald. But she wasn’t dumb anymore, she wasn’t impossibly naive and eighteen. She could control her lust.

  “That’s rich coming from a soon-to-be-unemployed, paranoid—oh Rob, you make me so mad sometimes!” Her words came out in a breathy voice, sickening her. Whether her mind liked it or not, her body insisted she play the mating game.

  He laughed. “At least I don’t bore you. I’m sorry for scapegoating you. This deal, which I don’t even want to go through, just keeps getting complicated. It’s a bad time and I’m seeing demons at every turn.”

  Demons? “Don’t worry about it,” she retorted. “I don’t expect we’ll run into each other again.” Melanie! Don’t tease. You’re so pitiful, fishing for hope from him.

  “That’s what you think. I like to win my bets.” The phone went dead. Melanie stared at it blankly for a moment then replaced the receiver, remembering he had bet Tommy Joe’s losses against them meeting again. She wrinkled her nose. He’d lost forty bucks on that video poker machine. But it was a sucker bet. He didn’t have to pay up because he’d win if they ran into each other. She was the sucker. Letting out a deep breath, she dialed Jill’s number. All she got was voice mail.

  * * * * *

  “Jilly, Jilly, Jilly,” Jack’s creamy voice hummed into Jill’s ear.

  She automatically smoothed her rainbow-colored broomstick skirt before she spoke. “Hi, Jack.”

  “That’s it?” he asked, silky as a snake. “No ‘you stallion, you’? No ‘last weekend was the best sex of my life’?”

  “You flatter yourself,” Jill said lightly, leaning into the phone.

  “It takes two to be that good, baby. When can I see you again?”

  She shivered at the way his voice had roughened. “I have aerobics tonight and dinner with my mother on Tuesday.” She thought for a moment. “And Wednesday is my book club. How about Thursday? There’s a good comedian doing a show at the Muckleshoot Casino.”

  “Baby girl, you know we can’t see each other in public right now. Not until the sale is canceled.”

  “Do you really think—” Jill said in her normal voice then lowered it and bent still farther over the phone. “Do you really think Professional Massage will fire you after we purchase LeatherWorks?”

  “Yes,” Jack said impatiently. “Of course. That’s the way all businesses work. Cut the guys who make the big money off the payroll.”

  Jill thought sourly of that big salary and how it hadn’t been used to purchase her any presents since the day after the first time she’d slept with him. What good was it doing her, despite his promises? Three months now. She was starting to feel cheap. Jill hated feeling cheap.

  “I need you to do something for me,” he said in a singsong voice.

  “No, Jack,” she said automatically. “I can’t anymore.”

  “Sure you can, baby girl. That’s what you said last time, after you were promoted out of the plant. But you managed and cost Professional Massage a pretty penny.”

  “They’ve locked down the thermostats. I just heard a director telling my boss.” She sighed, thinking of how unfair all this spying and sabotage had been to Melanie. She had stressed out her boss, put her under risk of being fired if she couldn’t come up with something new to save the company and for what? A relationship that she wasn’t sure would last if she told the man “no”. “I can’t help you for love or money.”

  “I’ve got a lot of love to offer.”

  Yeah and no money. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t want you to lose your job, but I can’t do it.” She picked at a loose piece of yarn on the pocket of her crocheted vest.

  “So think of something else,” he said in a persuasive tone. “The sabotage was your brilliant plan. Remember that weekend together? The things I did to you with Professional Massage’s massage oil?” His voice lowered.

  Jill shivered involuntarily, feeling the moisture pool at the apex of her thighs. Why was it that it always felt extra dirty to use company products when she had sex? She took a deep breath and felt her nipples pucker underneath her corduroy shirt. Jack was reliable in one way. “Come over tonight. I’ll be home around eight thirty.”

  “No can do,” Jack said, his voice al
l business. “Dinner at the old Whipmaster’s.”

  “You can come by afterward.”

  “No. It will be too late and I work out at six thirty a.m. on Tuesdays. You know that. I’ll come over Thursday. At midnight,” his voice deepened on the last word.

  Jill giggled and squirmed in her chair. “What am I going to do until then?”

  “I don’t know, but think of me while you’re doing it,” he said in a sexy baritone. “And after you come, think of another way to cut back Professional Massage’s cash flow.”

  Jill heard Melanie’s door open and quickly dropped the phone. She knew her face was scarlet, but Melanie didn’t really look at her. She seemed a bit unfocused, which was unusual.

  “I need you to schedule a product review meeting for two weeks from today. And set up a meeting with the R and D director,” Melanie instructed, moving at a fast clip past Jill’s desk.

  “Where are you going?” Jill asked, hoping her boss wasn’t getting sick.

  “Down to the mixing room. I want to work on a scent for a new product,” Melanie responded. She had already prototyped the cranberry, cinnamon, musk scent for Midnight Oil, but now she had to come up with something for Cleopatra Massage Milk.

  After passing the lunchroom, Melanie swiped her keycard down its slot in the security-protected door of the mixing room. Filled ceiling to floor with locked cupboards, the room contained hundreds of vials of scents, far more than the line of sixty essential oils that Professional Massage carried for wholesale repackaging or the twenty-five oils they sold under their own brand. Adjacent was a cabinet full of various mixing compounds, both natural, like sesame oil and chemical, like the polysorbates. As always, Melanie wondered why they hadn’t converted the cupboards to keycard as well, instead of sticking with the old locks.

  She pulled her keys out of the old lab coat she had donned in her office and unlocked two of the essential oil cupboards. For the next two hours she mixed and matched until her head spun with the strong scents of undiluted oils. Ultimately, her selection included jasmine, burdock, yarrow, linden flower, hops and mint in a base of aloe vera, distilled water, polysorbate twenty and powdered milk. The crisp but sensual herbal scent would entice her to stay in a bath for hours, she decided. She finished writing the formula on a notepad and made a note to remind Development to put in the preservatives.