“I see. Thought you might want to know I found spyware in our system.”
“Our internal SAS?”
“Yes. Originating from your laptop. I was going to run a sweep, then I thought it might be from her.”
“She planted it?”
“Who else? We have a very secure firewall.”
Justin thought hard for a moment. “Leave it,” he decided.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. We don’t want to alarm her.”
Matt went quiet at the other end. “Did she crack yet?”
“She’s desperate. She looked as if she almost cried when I asked her what’s wrong.”
“I think this charade has gone on long enough. We should bring her to Azura and claim her. I’m tired of New York.”
“Patience is a virtue, brother of mine. She almost trusts us.”
Matt growled with impatience. “Two more weeks. Then we’ll bring her home whether she likes it or not.”
“We’ll see.” Justin ended the connection. When he came back inside, he found Anna staring at their food. Her gaze looked faraway as if she was dreading something. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.
Anna startled. “Nothing. I was waiting for you.”
Such a bad liar. “Well, let’s eat then. Later, I want to you show you something fun we can do while we’re taking a hot bath.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
He grinned mischievously. “You’ll see.”
* * * *
Anna straightened her legs and drew a relieved breath in secret. She closed her notepad programme while Justin wrapped up the meeting with his Japanese business partners. As Justin’s personal assistant, her job was to take minutes. Most of the time, she didn’t know what the hell Justin and the others were talking about. She didn’t understand Japanese other than Iie and Hai. But Anna suspected that Justin didn’t actually need a PA anyway. Her presence was nothing but a showpiece. It seemed Japanese men had a thing for a genuinely blonde chick.
After spending the weekend in onsen in Kanagawa, on Monday morning they’d driven to Tokyo for Justin’s business meeting. They were staying at the Ritz-Carlton since the hotel was close to where the meeting was being held.
A giant department store chain that dominated the Asian market was interested in carrying the Martels’ line and they were eager to stock Surrender. During the meeting, she’d noticed the reps from Takaya pressed over and over for Justin to sell them Surrender. Even though she didn’t know Japanese, if somebody constantly mentioned something with sheer desperation, she became aware of what was going on.
Justin had politely refused to continue the Surrender production. It made her wonder as well. Why would Justin decide to discontinue their best-selling product when they made an obscene profit from it? She didn’t get that.
When Surrender was first launched, Justin had retailed it for fifty dollars for a one-ounce bottle. And when it became a global sensation, Justin cut productions in half and retailed it for seven hundred dollars. Now that Surrender was being withdrawn from the retail market, the price on eBay had skyrocketed to ten grand a bottle. According to the SAS programme, the cost of producing Surrender was twelve bucks and nine cents. An obscene profit margin, indeed.
Anna rose from her seat, following Justin’s suit when the meeting was concluded. They bowed deeply then exchanged pleasantries as they exited the boardroom. Judging from the look on the Takaya reps’ faces, they were dissatisfied with the result of the meeting.
Justin motioned her to an unoccupied elevator. He drew a relieved breath when the door was closed. “Just watch, this is not over yet. Those pests will keep hounding me until I agree to sell them Surrender.”
She jumped on it since Justin was on the topic. “Why won’t you, sir?”
“Because we discontinued the line.”
“Why? It’s our best-selling product.”
“We’ve got what we wanted. I don’t see the point of keeping it in the retail market.”