The Playboy's Protegee. Michele Dunaway

don’t like the idea,” Harry observed.

      Megan gestured. “No, I don’t. It’s still limited. It’s missing something.”

      “Jill researched everything you discussed at the meeting. You remember the meeting.”

      Megan sidestepped that question as if that meeting was now irrelevant. “I should have done the research on this myself. I hate delegating. Something’s always missing whenever I do.”

      “Nothing’s missing. It’s a great plan. Betty is going to do the presentations. We’ll be meeting in the conference room of Smith and Bethesda, the legal firm that Evie’s hired to act as intermediaries for the sale. It’s as close to neutral ground as we can get. Evie’s legal team, and some representatives from Evie’s, will be there.”

      “The presentation is still wrong. It’s missing something,” Megan repeated. Her face still showed her concentration. She took a sip of juice.

      “You said it was missing something in the meeting too,” Harry reminded her. “We’ve fixed that.”

      “No, we haven’t. We’ve simply found out why the restaurants were losing money, and that the problems that they’re having are easily correctable. We can keep the establishments open, which eliminates one of Evie’s complaints against our bid. But we didn’t address Evie’s main concern. What is it that makes our presentation better? Why are we a better company than Odyssey Holdings? Why should they sell to us instead of merge with Odyssey?”

      Harry looked at Megan. Her face had become more animated, and he found his gaze drawn to her full lips as she spoke. Those lips were eminently kissable. “What makes Jacobsen better, Harry?”

      “Grandpa Joe.” The words were the first thing to his mind and they shot off his tongue before he even thought to think about and perhaps stop them.

      “Exactly!” Megan looked triumphant. “That’s it! Grandpa Joe, well, to me, Joe Jacobsen. He’s what we need to sell to Evie’s. Grandpa Joe cares. That’s what makes us better than Odyssey Holdings, why Evie’s should take our bid over Odyssey’s. Jacobsen Enterprises is a family company. Sure, it’s a public company with publicly traded stock, but the family holds the majority of the stock. You’ve got a trust fund full of it, don’t you?”

      “That’s irrelevant.”

      “Harry…” Her tone protested his vague answer. “This is important.”

      He exhaled. He’d been raised not to talk about how much money he had. “Only thirty percent of the stock is owned by nonfamily members.”

      “Evie’s is a private company, based on a man’s love for his wife. What we need to sell, Harry, is your family. Your family firm will take care of Evie’s. It won’t be lost somewhere in the corporate shuffle of some large, anonymous holding company. Jacobsen will take care of Evie’s, just like it was a Grandpa Joe’s Good Eats.”

      Harry thought about that for a moment. She had a point. An excellent point, in fact. “I’ll have Betty work it into the presentation.”

      “No.” Again Megan’s firm tone stopped him. “She’s not going to make the presentation. You are.”

      “What? That’s not my role on the team. While it’s under my leadership, Betty is a better presenter.”

      “It doesn’t matter. You are going to present the proposal, Harry. Look at the image you’ll bring to the floor. Grandpa Joe cares about this acquisition so much that he sent his grandson, a stockholder, to personally oversee it. You need to make the presentation, and run the negotiations. You’re not the new car manager but the salesman on the floor. I’ll help.”

      Harry wasn’t sure he liked this idea. His sister Darci had always been the negotiator. Even Kyle, Alan’s mentor, was a much better negotiator than Harry was. Harry always handled the public relations end of things, the spit-polish so to speak. He calmed nerves, smoothed over ruffled feelings, made transitions flawless. As Megan had just put it, he was the new car manager. He cemented the deals but was never in the forefront.

      “And how will you help?” he asked.

      “I’m going to write your presentation.” Megan reached into her purse and pulled out a Palm Pilot. Within a moment she’d set up a little keyboard attachment to the unit and had the whole thing sitting on her fold-out tray. “It shouldn’t be too hard. It’s not like we have to redo any of our visual aids or acquisition folders.”

      “Breakfast,” the attendant interrupted. She handed over a plate of what looked like bagels, bacon, and scrambled eggs.

      “No, thanks,” Megan said. “I ate already. But I’ll take more orange juice when you have a moment.”

      “Certainly,” the attendant said as she moved down the aisle.

      Harry munched on a piece of bacon. Not too bad. Like Megan, he’d eaten earlier as well, but some snack food never hurt. They’d be starting the negotiation meeting at one, right after lunch. He spread some cream cheese and strawberry jam on the bagel, took a bite, and watched as Megan’s fingers flew over the small keyboard. She’d just amazed him.

      Maybe there was a little substance to her after all.

      It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do the presentation, he just never had been the front man before. But with Megan writing the proposal, suddenly he felt confident. They could make a good team.

      Strictly business, of course.

      But she challenged him. She rubbed him raw. His grandfather’s favorite phrase—as iron sharpens iron—came into his head.

      He finished off the bagel and listened to her outline her proposal. And then he grilled her within an inch of her life over it. She managed to hit each one of his concerns, diffuse them. “It’s good,” he finally said.

      She smiled, and suddenly Harry needed to clench his right armrest. How easy it would have been to simply shift to his left, put his left hand on the back of her neck, bring her face to his and kiss her.

      She’s a siren. A siren who’s engaged to a man twenty years her senior. That thought threw a bucket of cold water over him. Twenty years her senior. There was no way her engagement could be true love. Distaste filled Harry’s mouth. But at least he and Megan had proven that they could work together. They could be a team. But that was probably all. He doubted they could even be friends.

      “You know,” Megan said, “I used to think you didn’t know very much about business, but in reality you really do.”

      “I have an MBA that I did work for,” Harry snapped. “I did graduate magna cum laude from Vanderbilt.”

      “I know. I’m sorry. Don’t be so touchy. You’re the grandson, though. Everyone knows you’ll always have a job.”

      Maybe a job, and a trust fund, but Harry knew that because he was family the need to prove himself was even greater. Grandpa Joe was an eccentric where his family was concerned. He’d wanted both Harry and his sister Darci to be indoctrinated into the company by serving two weeks in every “aspect” of the company. Harry had drawn the line at being a cook at Grandpa Joe’s Good Eats. Darci, however, had survived her waitressing gig. Megan didn’t know about Grandpa Joe’s crazy indoctrination schemes into the family business, or that Grandpa Joe favored his granddaughters. Even Harry’s cousin, Nick Jacobsen, who at twenty-seven headed the East Coast Jacobsen restaurant-supply business out of the Chicago office, only seemed to please Grandpa Joe about half of the time.

      “Here’s your juice.” The flight attendant was back, pouring each of them refills from a clear plastic carafe.

      Time to take a break. “I think we’ve covered enough business,” Harry said to Megan as he passed the attendant his plate. He hadn’t eaten the eggs. “We’ve got about another hour before we land. Why don’t you read your book.” He pulled the airline company magazine out of the seat pocket and