Scandalizing the CEO

“I can and I will. What else do you need?”

“Nothing. I’ll do my other research, but finding the photos would be time-consuming. I need them to be unique and glamorous…”

“I think I know what you have in mind. I’ll e-mail them to you as soon as I have them.”

“Thanks, Freddie,” she said.

“I owe you one after I sicced Danielle on you.”

“This doesn’t make up for that.”

“What does?”

“A jog along the Thames tomorrow morning at seven.”

“Seven? That’s still the middle of the night,” he said.

“But you owe me, so you’ll be there.”

“You’re right, I will be,” he said. He headed down the hall to his own office and she reentered hers.

It was one thing to think of doing a story of this magnitude, but it was something else entirely to convince her publisher that it should be done. And she needed to make sure they could do the story she’d proposed.

She spent the next hour pulling up details on the women who had been involved with Malcolm Devonshire. And Ainsley was fascinated by what she’d found. The women were all very dynamic and, from a fashion perspective, she couldn’t have asked for three women whose sense of style was more distinctive and individual. There was Henry’s mother, Tiffany Malone—the embodiment of a seventies hippie chick rocker. With her sexy long hair, sultry eyes and pencil-slim jeans, she was earthy and radiated sexuality. It was hard to think of her as being someone’s mum.

Then there was Princess Louisa—the wild-child party girl who was a distant cousin of the current monarch. Her look was haute-couture sexiness from her stick-straight bob to her slim-fitting, low-cut tops and hip-hugging slacks. She was glamour with a capital G.

Then there was Lynn Grandings—Steven’s mother. The physicist, who should have seemed very much like a bookworm, but instead radiated a keen intelligence and with her waist-length, thick, curly brown hair, she exuded her own brand of sexuality. The picture that Freddie had sent showed her laughing at the camera, and it was easy to see why Malcolm had been attracted to her.

The only thing the women had in common was a distinctive beauty all their own. These women were defined by their lifestyles and she was dying to know what had attracted Malcolm to them at the same time. How had he been able to juggle these relationships?

She finished making her notes and realized that talking to the sons would be the perfect accompaniment for the story because these strong women raised them.

Dinah sat across from him in the conference room. He’d ordered the financials for Everest Mega Stores from the last three years. The retail stores had suffered a setback over the last quarter but even prior to that there had been signs of decline. The pattern that emerged showed that the North American retail stores were the ones that were having the most problems.

“I think our North American retail shops should be closed,” Steven said after he finished reading the financials.

“I’m not sure,” Dinah said. “If we do that we stop the loss, but we aren’t going to see a new revenue stream.”

“If we focus our energies here,” he said, gesturing to the spreadsheet for Europe and the UK, “I think we can make it up. But I’m open to ideas on how to keep North America. I don’t really want to lose that market.”

“Why don’t I do some research? I can write a report on the analysis of closing the North American stores versus keeping them open. I’ll recommend some course of action as well, if you like.”

Steven glanced over at Dinah. “I like that idea. Can you have it to me by Friday?”

“Close of business?”

“If you need that long,” he said.

“Yes. I might take all the time.”

“I don’t mind. I want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

Dinah stood up and gathered her purse and briefcase. “We will. You’re known for saving companies like this one, so it should be a piece of cake.”

“Exactly.”

“Is that why you took this job?” she asked.

Steven shrugged. Dinah and he had worked together a long time and never had the conversations turned personal. They sometimes flirted and always talked business and market trends, but never did any conversation broach the personal areas of their lives.

“Off-limits?” she asked.

“No. This is business—pure and simple,” he said. Opting for the truth as he saw it. The inheritance issues weren’t a big thing for him, because he saw this as a challenge and the chance to prove himself was too great for him to pass up.