Ten minutes later, she’d doubled her money, scooped up eight green-and-white chips, and waved goodbye to the couple. He pressed a finger against the Bluetooth device in his ear, quickly ringing up one of his colleagues.
“I need you to keep an eye on her. See where she goes.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up without another word.
Tucking the chips into a small purse, the redhead walked away from the table, her fine ass in those tight blue jeans looking quite the fodder for a shower jerk. He bet she liked it hard. He bet she liked things done to that fantastic ass. He’d love to yank down those jeans, run his hands over her smooth flesh, give her some of what he had packing. She’d probably never had it as good as what he could do.
Then he nearly smacked his wandering mind. He wasn’t here for his dick. He had a job to do, and she was getting in the way of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Friday, 2:12 p.m., Las Vegas
A light breeze rippled across the cool blue waters of the pool, sleek and elegant with dark stone and classy wooden lounge chairs that surrounded it. A wrought-iron fence on one end sealed off the rooftop pool, but you could peer over it six stories below and watch the crowds roll by along the Strip, packs of sightseers and throngs of conventioneers jamming down the sidewalks of the city, popping in and out of the hotels and shopping malls that beckoned to them.
The warm air rustled her hair, blowing a few strands across her cheek. She pushed it back, then took a drink of her iced tea. Tad had an iced water. She wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t drinking. It was a business meeting, after all. What surprised her was his teetotaling attitude. When the waitress had stopped by the high table where they perched on cushions on bamboo stools, he’d held up his hands and waved off the idea of liquor like it was a virus.
“Oh no, I never drink,” he’d said.
Julia had wanted to make a joke about his age, but she’d bit her tongue. He did look like his mom drove him to the meeting—he had a tiny nose, the smooth, baby-face of a pre-teen and the skinny body of a boy barely in puberty. Add in the towhead blond hair, and she’d have carded him in a heartbeat at Speakeasy. But she knew from researching him in advance that he was twenty-nine, and the son of the company’s chief marketing officer.
She’d gleaned too, from spending a few minutes with him that he was serious. Intensely serious. He placed his hands together, and she did the same. Tad’s all-business persona made her mirror him: serious, straightforward, and focused.
“As you know, Ms. Bell,” he began, and Julia stifled a small laugh, because no one ever called her Ms. Bell. “We want to expand your role at Farrell Spirits. The Purple Snow Globe has been a big hit.” He proceeded to rattle off numbers and percentages that thrilled her. She was proud of her drink-baby; consumers loved it, and stores had picked it up and stocked it, then sold out of it.
“I am delighted that it’s been doing right by you, and I so appreciate you taking a chance on my drink.”
He held up his hands in deference. “No chance taken there. You deserve all the credit for creating it. In fact, our market research tells us that consumers both love the drink, and you. They want to know more about you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Market research about me?”
“Not exactly about you. But the beverage, and what they like. Of course, they love the taste, but they also like you—the article Glen Mills ran about discovering your drink was one of the most popular in his magazine and drove hundreds of thousands of views online. We’ve been tracking the reviews and write-ups in blogs and across cocktail sites for those who try the drink in person at Speakeasy in New York. The bottom line is—they want more of you.”
“Why on earth would someone want more of me?”
He furrowed his brow at her as if her question didn’t compute. He reached inside his briefcase, took out a stack of papers, and stabbed his finger at it. “Because they call you the beautiful bartender. Because they like your . . .” He paused to read the notes again. “. . . charm. Your confidence. Your conversations.”
He looked up as an extremely tall man in a black suit passed behind the table, sunglasses shielding his eyes. “After crunching the numbers and running a P&L, we’ve concluded that we can grow the Purple Snow Globe business significantly if the drink and you become synonymous,” he said linking his fingers together as if to demonstrate.
She couldn’t resist. She simply couldn’t not touch that. “So they want to drink me?” she asked in a sexy purr.
A blush crossed over his baby cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Poor guy. She’d been too bawdy when this young man clearly needed the safe-for-work Julia. “No, it’s okay. My apologies.”
He took a deep breath, perhaps recalibrating. “So, we’d like you to appear in some ads, in the marketing materials, maybe even a TV spot, and on the packaging. We think it can help skyrocket the product even further, and we’re prepared to pay handsomely for the additional role we’d be asking you to take on,” he said, then shared a number that nearly made her jaw drop. But she’d mastered the poker face long ago, and it came in handy here as she gave a curt nod and let him continue. “There’s only one stipulation,” he said, then cleared his throat.
Ah, the fine print. There was always a hoop to jump through. “And that stipulation is?”
“It’s a morals clause,” he said, in a firm tone.