Closer Than She Thinks

by Meryl Sawyer

  He rose, realizing how Clay Duvall could be so taken with Alyssa. But why had Duvall insisted his name be kept secret?

  Smiling at her, Burt couldn’t help thinking something about Alyssa bothered him and had from the first moment he’d met the designer. What was it? He wasn’t sure, and he found that even more troubling.

  They don’t pay you the big bucks to ask questions, Burt reminded himself. He worked as a consultant, putting together small deals like this one for corporations whose executives were too busy with larger, more complicated acquisitions. It was easy money—most of the time—but this one had a slight hook with the secrecy angle. Don’t look for trouble, he cautioned himself.

  Burt greeted Alyssa as he pulled out her chair. He couldn’t help smiling inwardly at the envious looks from the other men in the room. What was an old man with flyaway tufts of gray hair doing with such a beautiful woman? Trying to conclude his last deal, one that would let him retire to his place in Florida and devote himself to his only true love—golf.

  “You look nice this evening,” he said without going overboard and telling her she was a knockout.

  Alyssa Rossi wasn’t susceptible to flattery. If she had a weak point, he’d yet to discover it. She often seemed almost shy, yet at other times she was boldly assertive.

  “This scarf is one of my designs,” she told him, acting as if he’d been complimenting her clothing, not the woman in them. “I plan to add scarves and pashimas to my accessory collection.”

  “Pashimas?” He signaled the waiter to bring the bottle of Pinot Grigio he’d ordered earlier.

  “A cross between a stole and a scarf,” she informed him. “They’re very in right now.”

  The waiter arrived with two wineglasses and a silver urn filled with crushed ice. With a deft twist of his hand, he uncorked the bottle, and poured a bit of the vintage Pinot Grigio Ascoli into Burt’s glass. “Signore.”

  Burt swirled the white wine, then took a small sip. He nodded, indicating he approved. The obsequious waiter bowed before filling their glasses.

  “Are we celebrating?” Alyssa asked, her tone measured, and he wondered if she was being sarcastic.

  “I assumed having your aunt read the proposal was only a formality. You’re the sole owner of Rossi Designs, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I always confer with my aunt. She gave me the start-up money for my firm.”

  “Did your aunt have any”—he didn’t want to say problems—“concerns?”

  “Not concerns … questions. I want to know more about Jackson Williams, CEO of TriTech. Since this is a private company, I assume he’s the one with the power.”

  Burt had never met the man, but Clay Duvall had given him enough information to make it sound as if he knew Williams personally. “Jake’s in his early thirties, tall, athletically built. His education was a bit unusual. He never attended college. He—”

  “If I sell to TriTech, will I be allowed to continue running my own company, or is Mr. Williams one of those hands-on executives who constantly meddles?”

  Burt listened, striving to appear attentive as Alyssa outlined her concerns. He managed a smile, then said, “Be assured. Jake Williams wants Rossi Designs to expand and grow. By selling it to TriTech, you’ll have the infusion of capital you need, but the day-to-day running of the company will continue to be your responsibility. TriTech executives won’t bother you, believe me.”

  “I want it in writing.”

  Burt sipped his wine before saying, “There may be a slight problem. Jake’s hiking in Patagonia right now. That’s in a remote part of Argentina. No cell phones or faxes. Jake likes to get away from it all when he can. He’s trekked in the Himalayas, run the—”

  “I can wait until he comes home.”

  For the first time, Burt sensed the deal slipping through his fingers. He knew Williams had already returned from Patagonia. Clay Duvall wanted this deal completed before his partner realized what was happening.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Burt said, his tone reassuring. “I’m certain someone in New Orleans is authorized to sign the necessary document.”

  The waiter topped off their wine. Burt raised his glass, set to seal the agreement with a toast. Mentally, he pictured himself out on the fairway, the stressful world of negotiating deals behind him forever.

  “There’s one other thing.”

  Burt lowered his glass and tried for a smile. “Yes?”

  “Does TriTech expect me to relocate to New Orleans?”

  “Good question,” he responded with as much enthusiasm as possible. Clay had warned him to avoid this topic. “All the great Italian designers have bases in the United States. Gucci, Armani, Missoni. Versace put Miami on the map. In New Orleans you’ll be global, but you’ll have access to the technical and marketing expertise you’ll need to ward off counterfeiters.”

  Her cool, measured look told Burt this was the deal breaker. He had to convince her or postpone a life of golf for another year.

  “The minute you post your designs on RossiDesigns com, they knock off every piece, right? But with a base in the States and the resources of TriTech behind you, those designs will be in the stores nationwide just as they go onto your website. With the market saturated, it won’t be lucrative enough for counterfeiters to copy your designs, will it?”

  It took her a moment to concede, “I guess not.”

  Again he raised his glass. “We have a deal?”

  She reluctantly clinked the rim of her glass against his. “Yes. Here’s to a new start with Jackson Williams in New Orleans. Buona Fortuna.”

  “Yes. Good luck.” Here’s to Clay Duvall, Burt silently toasted.

  She graced him with a half-smile. Suddenly, it hit him. The picture in Clay’s office of his wife, Phoebe. That’s what had been knocking around in the back of his mind.

  How could you miss it? he asked under his breath. What was Clay Duvall up to?

  CHAPTER 2

  Jake Williams attempted to concentrate on the reports stacked on the Louis XIV desk. There wasn’t enough room on the wimpy desk to spread out, Jake decided, riffling through the papers as he searched for the report he’d seen earlier. Which one was it? He racked his brain, but nothing registered.

  “Aw, hell. That’s jet lag for you.”

  Unable to locate the troubling document, he glanced around the room, taking in the gilt furniture and drawn brocade drapes. Beams of light from the crystal chandelier played across the highly buffed parquet floors.

  “It’s a long way from the Redneck Riviera to the French Riviera,” he said out loud.

  He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes for a moment, blocking out the company’s opulent town house in Monte Carlo. It was a stretch from Mobile, Alabama, and the sweeping, picturesque bay Southerners fondly called the Redneck Riviera. Jake had grown up in a trailer park across the street from Mobile’s commercial fishing docks.

  He lived for boats and the sea the way most young boys lived for sports. Before he was eight, Jake was earning money shucking oysters in a steamy shed behind the wharf where no one would see him and report the situation to Social Services. By the time he was a teenager, he was skippering sport fishing boats for the rich men from the North who spent a fortune on yachts and fancy tackle just to catch “the big one.”

  Jake’s life was totally different now, but the lure of the catch, the challenge of the sea, was in his blood.

  Exhausted, Jake kept his eyes shut and let his mind drift back to the warm summer days on Mobile Bay. He could almost hear the workers on the wharf as the fishermen returned, flying special flags to announce their catch. A black fish on a small white flag hoisted from a boat brought the loudest cheers.

  “Must be black grouper,” Jake said to himself as the noise grew louder.

  He opened his eyes and shook his head, realizing where he was and mumbling, “Jet lag.”

  Two days ago he’d flown back from Patagonia through Ecuador to New Orleans, where he’d stop
ped long enough to pick up clean clothes and collect his papers before flying on to Monte Carlo. His body must not have adjusted, and he was imagining things. It was past midnight in Monte Carlo. For damn sure, he couldn’t hear shouting from Mobile’s wharf. He’d left there over eight years ago and seldom looked back—except in his dreams.

  Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, he reminded himself the meeting tomorrow morning was too important not to be in top form. Rising to go to bed, he stopped. He wasn’t imagining the noise. It was very real and getting much louder. Not shouts, he decided, but chanting.

  “What the—”

  “Saturday night fever,” answered a voice from across the room.

  He turned and saw his assistant, Troy Chevalier, emerging from another section of the town house. Troy swung back the drapes and opened the French doors onto the balcony. Strange noise, a cross between Rap and a Gregorian chant, burst into the room. Jake walked over to the balcony, curiosity getting the better of fatigue.

  The narrow street two floors below was dark, lit only by antique gas lamps that cast dim amber shadows across the uneven cobblestones. It was enough light to see a long, serpentine chain of skaters racing down the street, singing in French.

  “A Conga line?” Jake asked. “Of Rollerbladers?”

  “No, nothing old-fashioned like a Conga line. It’s the latest craze. It started in Paris, where else?”

  Jake nodded slowly, watching the seemingly endless chain of people—young and old—skate by single file, their hands on the hips of the person in front of them. Troy Chevalier was a Frenchman who had been raised in Paris and spoke several languages fluently. From his point of view, the world centered around the French capital.

  Jake and Troy had stayed with Troy’s wealthy parents in Paris. They’d had a blast. Parties. Another seven-course meal every time you turned around. Jake preferred the outdoors for his vacations, but he had to admit the Chevaliers’ lifestyle was seductive.

  French women were knockouts, but as far as Jake was concerned, French men were prissy wimps who resented anything that wasn’t French. Let Troy kiss up to the frogs. Jake would put his money on a good old boy any day.

  Despite his fondness for the French, Troy was a standup guy in Jake’s book. TriTech was a complex company, its deals so friggin’ complicated that it took a team of attorneys and accountants to sort them out. Jake had been through the school of hard knocks while Troy had graduated from the London School of Economics. His advice had made it possible for Jake to successfully run TriTech.

  “In Paris,” Troy continued, his voice low, “they call this Saturday Night Fever. Some radio announcer tells everyone where to assemble at eleven o’clock each Saturday night. The meeting place changes so the police can’t shut it down, but the routine is the same. Put on your rollerblades and skate your way through the city, singing at the top of your lungs. I guess the craze has spread to Monte Carlo.”

  “What next?” Jake turned away, the surge of adrenaline leaving his body. “I’m going to hit the sack.”

  From his room, Jake could see the boats in the harbor, swaying on the rising tide. He walked into the bathroom. “Rich people have yachts. Poor people have boats.”

  Gleaming in the moonlight, yachts, moored by the dozens, stood for megabucks. Money was only a way of keeping score in a rich man’s game, he reminded himself. In the end, it didn’t mean squat. Still, he enjoyed playing the game. It was a challenge—even more of a rush than catching “the big one.”

  Toothbrush in hand, he swiped at his teeth and gazed into the mirror. Were those puffy slits his dark brown eyes? When was the last time he’d shaved? A jaw grizzled with an emerging beard made his dark hair appear even more unruly. He looked as wild as he had been once—before his father reappeared in his life.

  If he didn’t get some sleep, Jake was going to be worthless when he went out to the Swiss venture capitalist’s yacht to pitch his new project. Suddenly, he remembered he needed to ask Troy an important question.

  Christ! Was he losing it? At thirty-three it was too early for his mind to be slipping, but who knew? His life was proof positive anything could happen.

  He walked back into the living area of the town house, where chanting filled the room. The noise seemed to be tapering off. Troy was still out on the balcony, gazing down at the revelers.

  “I need to ask you about an acquisition Clay Duvall made while I was in Patagonia.”

  Troy turned slowly, seemingly reluctant to take his eyes off the chain of skaters. Jake saw the end was in sight now. A few stranglers were madly lurching over the uneven pavement to grab the last person in line.

  “Is there a problem? You authorized Duvall to purchase small companies that fit TriTech’s criteria.”

  “Right.” Jake didn’t have to add he’d given Clay Duvall this latitude, in effect making him a minor partner, to gain control of Duvall Enterprises. Troy knew as much about TriTech as anyone, even its founder, Jake’s father, Max Williams. Troy understood how uncomfortable Jake was with an outsider like Clay Duvall.

  Troy continued, “Duvall didn’t exceed his limit. It was a cheap acquisition compared to what TriTech usually does.”

  “Just what is Rossi Designs?”

  Troy turned, his thin face appearing even narrower in the dusky light. His receding blond hair made his dark eyes seem larger. “Rossi Designs manufactures costume jewelry.”

  “Costume jewelry?” Jake echoed, dead certain jet lag was making him wacko. “Earrings and bracelets and … stuff?”

  “Also pins and necklaces and—”

  “Aw, crap! Tell me you’re kidding!”

  “Don’t you wish.”

  There weren’t many men who dared joke with Jake. He took life and the role that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon him with total seriousness, but he had a wry sense of humor that people often misunderstood. Troy had been set to leave the company eight years ago when Max Williams unexpectedly produced his long-lost son and gradually began to turn the company over to his heir.

  Jake had tripled Troy’s salary and convinced him to stay. He’d never regretted his decision. Jake was unseasoned, but he’d learned quickly and had taken the company into the new millennium in ways that Troy found challenging and exciting.

  “Why? Costume jewelry doesn’t fit our profile.” Jake dropped into an antique chair that hadn’t been made to handle his six-foot-plus frame. “What was Duvall thinking?”

  “You said to give Duvall some latitude, to make him feel part of TriTech, so I didn’t question his reason for buying Rossi Designs.” Troy took the chair opposite his boss. “Alyssa Rossi, the founder of the company, has quite a track record for innovative jewelry.”

  “I don’t give a sh—” Jake stopped himself. There was no sense cursing at Troy. It had been Max’s idea to bring Clay Duvall into the company. It remained to be seen if this was one of his father’s better plans. “A jewelry manufacturer doesn’t fit our mix.”

  “You wanted a diversified group of companies, not just tech businesses.”

  “True.” Jake threw his head back and stared up at the domed ceiling where a bunch of bare-assed angels were laughing down at him from behind banks of fluffy pink clouds. “I want solid companies with good management.”

  “Alyssa Rossi built her company from nothing.”

  “It’s still a fashion business.” He lowered his gaze and looked at his right-hand man. “You know women. They can never make up their minds what they want. One day it’s one thing. The next day something else is in style. Rossi may be hot now, but for how long?”

  “Long enough to make our investment profitable.”

  Something clicked in the back of Jake’s mind, and he mentally switched gears. The report he’d been trying to find, the reason he’d gotten out of bed. “Did I see a report about the reallocation of space at corporate headquarters?”

  “Probably. It was among the papers we brought from New Orleans for you to check over.”

  “Why is th
e Bridwell Group’s space being downsized? What are we doing with the empty offices?”

  Troy hesitated a second as if he already knew Jake wasn’t going to like the answer. “We sold off more than half of Bridwell’s unprofitable ventures, remember? Rossi Designs is moving into the empty space.”

  “Why can’t they stay in Italy where they are now?”

  “It was your idea to consolidate all of TriTech’s companies in one location,” Troy reminded him. “It makes good business sense. Rossi is using the capital from the acquisition to expand into the American market. It’s better if they’re in the States.”

  “Was the move Duvall’s idea?”

  “Yes. He ran it by me and I agreed.” Jake stood up and walked over to the open doors to the balcony. The night air was cool with a slight tang of salt drifting in from the sea, and it was quiet now. Taking a deep, calming breath, he thought about Clay Duvall.

  Sandy hair, a square jaw. Better looking than most male models. Women found Clay charming. To Jake it meant Duvall smiled more than necessary and had a subtly bored nonchalance as if he had somewhere more important to be. Why women flipped for Clay was a mystery to Jake. But then, a guy could go crazy trying to figure out women.

  Clay Duvall looked like a million dollars because that was his yearly clothing budget. Okay, okay, maybe a mil was high, but Jake believed Duvall spent way too much time looking in the mirror. And entertaining in his mansion on Audubon Street, the ritziest part of New Orleans. The pretty boy had coasted through life on money his ancestors had earned.

  Watch yourself. It’s not a bright idea to underestimate a man who acts and looks like just another hunk from the pages of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Especially when he’s after your job.

  Not that Duvall had ever mentioned one thing about taking over TriTech. But sometimes Jake had a feeling the boys on the dock in Mobile would have called “hinky.” Not right.

  Max had convinced Jake that they needed the Duvall family’s connections as well as their lucrative importing firm. Jake had listened to his father because Max had started the company in a warehouse and built it into a multimillion-dollar corporation.