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CHAPTER TEN

Jackson Dupree did not want to sleep with Sasha Miller. Right at this moment he did not want to talk to her, see her, hear her, or be forced to acknowledge her existence in any way. Sasha had just lost them a huge deal, and Jackson was furious.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he exploded. ‘Do you know how valuable Morgan Graham’s business is to us? You can’t even be polite.’

‘Oh, I can be polite.’ Strutting down Wall Street in a severely cut black Donna Karan suit and power heels, Sasha was equally angry. ‘What I can’t be is coquettish and fawning and flutter my eyelashes like Bambi just because Graham needs his dick massaged.’

‘Jesus Christ. It was an anecdote. A funny story.’

‘That story wasn’t funny. It was cruel. He screws his poor wife over and I’m supposed to laugh at that? I’m supposed to be impressed?’

‘You called him a prick, Sasha. To his face. You called the head of Goldman Sachs’s Private Equity Group a prick, and you blew up a joint venture that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars to this firm.’

Sasha shrugged. ‘He is a prick.’

‘Yeah? Well so are you,’ snarled Jackson. They glared at each other.

It was six months since Sasha Miller had joined Wrexall Dupree. Six months since Jackson had been deafened by the howls of protest from the board about her exorbitant salary. Six months since Sasha’s hostile, truculent little face had appeared in the doorway of Jackson’s office, demanding to see her contract and to be seated as far away from him as was feasibly possible within the confines of the building. In that time Jackson had grown to respect and dislike Sasha in equal measure. Her intellect was astonishing. Jackson was no slouch himself in the brains department, but he had never seen another human being assimilate information so quickly. Her maths skills were outrageous.

‘No way she’s a business major.’ Jimmy Noakes, who ran Wrexall’s highly regarded modelling group, told Jackson in an awestruck voice. ‘She’s a quant. I’ve never seen anyone crunch numbers that fast and with that degree of accuracy. She should be working at NASA, not wasting her life here.’

The marketing department was equally impressed. ‘Clients love her. Seriously. John Walsh practically ate the girl up with a spoon. And it’s not just men. Angie Jameson called Bob Massey to tell him how impressed she was with Sasha. Angie Jameson!’ A brilliant businesswoman and one-time knockout beauty, Angie Jameson famously loathed working with other women, especially pretty ones. Her entire company, Jameson Estates, was staffed by men, right down to the secretarial and catering staff. But somehow Sasha Miller had won Angie over, scoring her first big deal for Bob Massey’s commercial real estate division by selling Jameson Estates a chain of strip malls. Soon after that, the board stopped bitching about Sasha’s salary. For once, they agreed, Jackson had done well.

When he offered to take Sasha out to celebrate, she turned him down flat.

‘Come on, now,’ he said smoothly. ‘I know we got off to a bad start. But don’t you think it’s time to bury the hatchet? I was really proud of your work today. We all were.’

‘Thank you,’ said Sasha.

‘So you’ll come out for a drink?’

Sasha smiled sweetly. ‘Absolutely not.’

She was never unprofessional, or overtly rude. She avoided Jackson where possible, and where not possible worked alongside him with a cool detachment that would have made Henry Kissinger proud. But her distaste for the company of Wrexall’s heir apparent was not lost on anyone at the firm. Jackson couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being laughed at behind his back, and that it was all Sasha’s fault.

Lottie Grainger, a Yale graduate with short chestnut hair and an enchanting, freckled, pixie-like face, couldn’t understand Sasha’s continued hostility. One of the few other female executives at Wrexall and a rising star in the PR and communications group, Lottie considered Sasha a friend and confidante. But she also liked Jackson.

‘Don’t you think you should give him a chance? Compared to a lot of the old farts on the board he’s a good guy, you know. And you have to admit he’s great at his job.’

‘I never said he wasn’t.’

Over the last few years, Jackson had developed something of specialization in high-end residential work, focusing on uber-wealthy private clients and developers. Sasha officially worked in the commercial group, under Bob Massey, which meant their paths rarely crossed. Recently, however, she’d been roped in to help with a potential joint venture in the hotel sector. The deal with Goldman Sachs’s Private Equity Group was Jackson’s baby. To Sasha’s surprise and irritation, he had specifically requested to have her work on it with him.

Lottie Grainger would have given her eye teeth to have been Jackson’s right-hand woman and couldn’t understand Sasha’s bitching.

‘I know Jackson’s a player and all that,’ said Lottie.

‘Quite the legend. In his own mind,’ Sasha replied scathingly.

‘But I’ve been here four years and he’s always respected the boundaries.’ Lottie couldn’t entirely hide her disappointment. For some reason Jackson had made a pass at every attractive woman to walk through the doors at Wrexall … except her. ‘Besides, like it or not, Jackson Dupree’s going to run this place one day. If you want to make it to the top at Wrexall, you’re going to have to make peace with him at some point.’

This was true. It was one of the reasons that Sasha had no intention of making it to the top at Wrexall. Her plan was to learn all she could, take the firm for as much money as possible, then get out and start her own firm. There was a popular saying at HBS: ‘No one ever got rich on a salary.’ Of course, that all depended on how one defined ‘rich’. But Sasha wasn’t interested in making a few million, the sort of money to keep her in big houses and couture clothes. She needed serious money. The kind that could buy and sell companies and make or break futures. The kind that could destroy a man.

Looking at Jackson’s furious face after today’s meeting, Sasha thought, Maybe I’ll have to bring the whole “ quitting Wrexall ” plan forward a few years. Morgan Graham, the big cheese from Goldman, had pissed her off royally with his self-aggrandizing, sexist bullshit. But deep down, Sasha realized she’d gone too far. Jackson had been working on this JV for six months. If he went to the board and told them what happened, they’d have every right to fire her.

Jackson stormed back into his office, slamming the door so hard that the framed photograph of his grandfather, Randall Dupree, crashed down off the wall. Lise, his secretary, knocked with trepidation.

‘Can I, er … can I get you anything?’

‘You can get me Sasha Miller’s head on a plate,’ snarled Jackson. ‘Tell Bob Massey I need to talk to him. She’s gone too damn far this time. And get Lottie in here,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘We need to figure out a damage-control strategy for the media. Everyone expected us to announce a deal this week. If we don’t put something convincing out there our share price is going to drop faster than Paris Hilton’s panties.’

‘Yes, sir. Right away.’

Lise scuttled off. A few minutes later, Lottie Grainger walked in. In a simple, grey turtleneck sweater from J. Crew and Stella McCartney wool pants, with her face almost completely free of make-up, Lottie still managed to look radiant. She’s so lovely, thought Jackson, warmly. Seeing Lottie was often the highlight of Jackson’s working day. There was something pure and innocent and innately decent about her that had kept him from trying it on with her. Not that he hadn’t thought about it. The girl had no idea how fabulous her figure was, with those gazelle legs and perfect little apple breasts. But Jackson knew that if he slept with Lottie, the easy friendship between them would be gone forever. He’d wind up hurting her – Jackson could no more ‘do’ commitment than he could fly to Mars – and he didn’t want to be that guy, not with Lottie. Sasha, on the other hand, he would love to get into bed and then drop from a height. Boy did that chick have tickets on herself.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘Yes.’ Jackson took a deep breath. Just being in Lottie’s presence seemed to calm him. ‘Sasha Miller just walked into Morgan Graham’s office and told the guy he was a prick and that she didn’t blame his wife for leaving him.’

Lottie gasped. ‘She didn’t!’

‘So I think it’s safe to say that our Goldman deal is well and truly dead.’

Lottie looked at Jackson’s clenched jaw and hunched, tension-filled shoulders and longed to walk over and touch him. I could make you better. I could make love to you so perfectly you wouldn’t stop smiling for a week.

Aloud, she said ‘You want a damage-limitation strategy?’

Jackson nodded. ‘We need to get a statement out by tomorrow morning. Something the street will swallow, before Goldman put their spin on it, or some trigger-happy equity analyst starts making shit up.’

Lottie grabbed a pen, her quick mind racing, ‘OK. This is what I suggest.’

Half an hour later, the press release was ready to go. ‘Should I send it out now?’

Jackson hesitated, looking at his watch. It was already six o’clock. He was due at the Met in half an hour, attending yet another fundraiser, this time with a stunning French girl called Pascale. She was the new face of Chanel Mademoiselle and she was new to New York, bless her.

‘No. We’ll do it in the morning. I ought to sleep on it, anyway. Do you have plans tonight?’

For a moment, Lottie’s heart soared. ‘No! Not at all, I’m free as a bird. Why?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ said Jackson. ‘You did a great job today, Lottie. Unlike some people I could mention. Go home and get some sleep. You deserve it.’

Lottie watched him leave. It was as if someone had shut off the power to the building. Or at least to her heart. She knew she wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, whether she deserved it or not. Although she suspected she’d get more than poor old Sasha. What on earth was she thinking?

Sasha sat on the couch in her poky Brooklyn apartment, eating Cherry Garcia Ben & Jerry’s out of the tub and feeling sorry for herself. On her salary, she could have afforded a much nicer place than the drab one-bedroom walk-up with its magnolia walls and dated, old-ladyish, avocado bathroom. But she preferred to invest her money in stocks, following a model she’d designed herself at Harvard. Everything was about making money, as much money as possible as fast as possible. Which was why Sasha was so disappointed with herself about today.

OK, so the guy was an arsehole who totally deserved it. But why couldn’t I have held my tongue?

As much as she longed for the day when she would set up on her own, Sasha knew that right now she was too young and too inexperienced to attract the sort of serious investors she would need to get her own business off the ground. It wasn’t about talent. It was about a proven track record. This Goldman deal would have been a major feather in her cap, a big step towards the type of experience she needed. It wasn’t just that she had angered Jackson and put her job at risk. She’d also thrown away money, and kudos. Jackson had offered her a big step up the ladder and she’d pulled out a hacksaw and cut off the crucial rung.

Depressed, she flipped on the TV. One of the many things Sasha missed about England was the television. Where was a good old BBC period drama when you needed one? Where were Judi Dench and Julia Sawalha? The only British face you saw on American screens was Simon Cowell’s, which was enough to put anyone off their Cherry Garcia ice cream. That and, of course, Theo Dexter’s.

Unable to stop herself, like a child scratching a chicken pox sore, Sasha turned on her TiVo and clicked on the latest episode of Dexter’s Universe. The show, originally based on her theory, had since morphed into a general look at space and the planets and was a huge ratings puller. Visually it was a work of art, an intergalactic version of David Attenborough’s acclaimed Planet Earth. Although of course, in place of Attenborough’s comfortable, fireside manner, there was Theo, young, impossibly handsome, energetic, funny, full of enthusiasm and joie de vivre. No wonder American women were all in love with him.

‘Astronomy is like a drug.’ Theo was talking directly to camera. ‘More than that. It’s like a love affair. For physicists like me, the universe is not just infinite. It’s infinitely beautiful. There are many times when I’ve thought I’d rather give up breathing than give up science. Because it is breathing. It is life.’

Yes, Sasha thought bitterly. And you stole my life from me.

She looked at the cheap IKEA clock on the wall. Seven o’clock. Switching off the TV she jumped off the couch. If she dressed quickly, she might just make it.

Morgan Graham was preparing to leave the office for the day. He was meeting Anna, his new Russian mistress, for dinner at Elaine’s, a prospect that would normally have put a smile on his face, however bad his work day. But today’s meeting with Jackson Dupree and the girl from Wrexall had soured his mood beyond repair.

Tall, distinguished and (he flattered himself) quite attractive in a powerful, older-man sort of way, Morgan Graham was used to having young women fall at his feet. Admittedly, he wasn’t a young stud like Jackson Dupree. But with two hundred million in the bank, a division of a hundred and fifty people reporting to him and a reputation as one of the sharpest dealmakers on Wall Street, Morgan Graham expected adulation and demanded respect. But this girl, Sasha, this child, had torn a strip off him in front of his team, as if he were some idiot she’d met at a bar! In his own office, too!

What rankled most was that the girl was extremely sexy. Morgan had always loved that dark-haired, green-eyed, Catherine Zeta-Jones look. He’d also heard rumours that she was immune to Jackson Dupree’s charms and that Jackson was secretly livid at this rejection. For months now, Morgan had nursed a fantasy of bedding Sasha Miller, purely so that he could boast he had succeeded where the legendary young Dupree had failed. He’d been going to invite Sasha out to dinner tonight, in front of Jackson, to seal the finalizing of their long-awaited joint venture. Instead, he’d been made to look a fool and a laughing stock. The jokes were already doing the rounds on the trading floor.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Graham.’

‘Then why are you disturbing me?’ Morgan Graham bit his assistant’s head off. ‘I’m going home, Kate. Whatever it is it’ll have to wait until the morning.’

‘There’s a young lady here, sir. She says it’s urgent.’

Morgan Graham frowned. If he’d told Anna once, he’d told her a thousand times. He did not like being surprised at the office. He did not want to walk home with her and talk about his day, as if they were man and wife. Morgan Graham had just got rid of a wife, his third. All he wanted from Anna was for her to keep her weight under a hundred and twenty pounds and to open her legs whenever, and wherever, he told her to.

‘May I come in?’

The secretary stepped aside. Sasha Miller stood in the doorway. In a backless black Ralph Lauren dress and spiked Jonathan Kelsey heels, her dark hair pulled starkly back in a ponytail and her exquisite, mint-green eyes ringed with smudged black liner, she looked more like a supermodel than a real estate executive. For a second, Morgan Graham forgot to be angry, standing and staring like a schoolboy. But he quickly regained his composure.

‘What do you want?’ he barked. ‘Don’t you think you’ve caused enough trouble for one day?’

‘I want to do the deal,’ said Sasha coolly. ‘I think you do, too.’

Morgan Graham laughed in her face. ‘Forget it. I wouldn’t work with Wrexall now if you were the last firm on earth. You think I need you? I don’t need you. We’re Goldman Sachs. We can get another partner like that.’ He clicked his fingers imperiously.

‘You could,’ agreed Sasha, walking slowly towards him. ‘I know you don’t need us. But that’s not the point, is it, Mr Graham?’ She was only two feet away from him now, close enough for Morgan to see her flawless skin against the clinging black jersey of her dress and to smell her Rive Gauche perfume. He stopped packing away his papers and looked at her, his eyes sweeping hungrily over her glorious body. ‘The point is,’ Sasha paused for effect, ‘do you want us? And I think you do.’

Morgan Graham thought about Anna. He thought about the way Sasha had humiliated him today. He thought about the joint venture with Wrexall, and how excited he’d been about it until this afternoon. Finally he thought about Sasha’s body, and how much he wanted to see her out of that expensive dress.

‘If I sign,’ he ran his hand languorously down her bare back, ‘will you sleep with me?’

Wow, thought Sasha. This guy doesn’t beat around the bush. She flashed him her best, come-hither smile.

‘Put it this way, Mr Graham. If you don’t sign, I won’t sleep with you.’

Morgan Graham grinned. He liked a woman he could spar with, a woman who liked the chase. Anna’s attempt at playing hard to get was wearing panties under her dress. And he did want to do this deal with Wrexall …

‘Do you have the paperwork with you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Let’s see if you can convince me over dinner, shall we?’ Morgan Graham’s mistress was in for a long, lonely evening at Elaine’s.

‘You’re sure this is what you want, Jackson?’

‘Quite sure.’

Bob Massey was depressed. He didn’t want to lose Sasha Miller. Not only was she a superstar in the making, not to mention easy on the eye, but she’d halved Bob’s personal workload since she’d joined his division. The girl appeared to have no life whatsoever outside the office and cheerfully put in sixteen-hour days whenever they had a deal on. But even Bob Massey had to admit that yesterday’s fuck-up was a firing offence. It was Dupree’s deal that the girl had nuked. Which meant it was ultimately his decision.

‘Couldn’t we stop her bonus and, I don’t know, give her a written warning or something? If we fire her she’ll go straight to one of our competitors. In a few years she’ll be a huge revenue generator for someone.’

‘I don’t care,’ Jackson said stubbornly. ‘If I see her face around here any more, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’

He’d had a fitful night’s sleep. The sex with Pascale had been terrible, largely because Jackson couldn’t get Sasha out of his mind. He was still livid about her outburst at Graham. What made him even angrier was the way she got under his skin sexually. He never knew it was possible to dislike someone so much and want them so much at the same time. In the end Pascale had got up and gone home in the small hours of the morning, and Jackson knew he wouldn’t be seeing her again. Before long word would no doubt be spreading throughout Elite: Jackson Dupree had lost his touch. Yet another thing he blamed Sasha Miller for.

It was time to face facts. Yes, she was bright, but hiring Sasha had been a huge mistake. She was too wilful, too much of a wild card.

Jackson’s phone started buzzing. Morgan Graham Cell flashed across the screen. That’s all I need, thought Jackson, another ear bashing from Graham. He turned it off. ‘Let’s get her in here. I want to get this over with.’

A few minutes later, a sober-looking Sasha walked into the boardroom. Ignoring Jackson, she smiled at Bob Massey and a couple of her other board-level supporters. They all avoided eye contact. Uh oh, thought Sasha. This is it, then.

If only she’d been able to seal the deal with Morgan Graham last night! She came so close. She could feel him weakening. But in the end, she realized, it was the power game he was interested in. He’d toyed with her all through dinner, but he wasn’t going to sign the paperwork unless Sasha went home with him. No deal was worth that.

‘I imagine you know why you’re here?’ Lucius Monroe, the chairman, said grimly.

‘Actually, no.’ Sasha looked at Jackson. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. If you want to fire me, then go ahead and fire me. I’m not falling on my sword to save you the trouble.

‘This firm lost a very valuable piece of business yesterday, Sasha,’ said Monroe. ‘Now we’ve heard Mr Dupree’s version of events. Before we take any definitive action, we’d like to hear yours.’

‘Why?’ asked Sasha. ‘Do you think Mr Dupree might be lying?’

Jackson exploded. ‘OK, that’s it.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’ve given you every chance, Sasha. We all have. But this is the end of the line. You’re fired.’

‘Hold on a minute, Jackson …’ said Bob Massey. But Sasha didn’t need a defender.

‘And what am I fired for exactly?’ She glared defiantly at Jackson. ‘Losing us the Goldman deal? Or refusing to go to bed with you?’

What?’ Jackson roared. ‘In what alternate universe do you think I would want to sleep with a ball-breaker like you?’

Jackson!’ Old man Monroe had gone white. He was imagining the sexual discrimination lawsuit. Sasha Miller standing outside the Supreme Court with a fifty-million-dollar Wrexall cheque in her hands.

‘It’s all right,’ said Sasha. ‘I’m used to it. And to think, I’m the one being fired because I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.’ She knew she was in the wrong. That this wasn’t about Jackson’s ego, it was about her screw-up. But guilt and anger at herself only fuelled her aggression. Besides, what did it matter now? They were firing her anyway.

‘Excuse me.’ Lottie Grainger burst in looking flushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. But have you seen this?’ She waved a piece of paper at Jackson. Taking it from her he saw it was a printout from Bloomberg news. It was less than a minute old.

‘I don’t believe it.’ He read it twice more before handing it wordlessly around the table. Sasha watched the board member’s faces light up one by one, like a string of Christmas lights. Jackson turned to her accusingly. ‘How the hell did you pull that off?’

Sasha looked at him blankly. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Goldman Sachs’s Private Equity Group just put out a press release,’ explained Lottie. ‘Morgan Graham said he signed a joint venture with Wrexall Dupree this morning. He says he’s excited to be moving into the growing boutique hotel market and that he’s looking forward to working closely with the Wrexall team. He even mentions you by name.’ Lottie beamed at Sasha.

So it’s a reprieve! No wonder Jackson looks so pissed off.

‘Does this mean I’m un-fired?’

Bob Massey hugged her. ‘It certainly does. Congratulations, Sasha. You can go back to your desk now. We still have some other business to discuss.’

Twenty minutes later, Jackson stormed out of the boardroom with a face like thunder. He found Sasha by the water cooler and pulled her to one side.

‘That must have been quite a blow job you gave Morgan Graham,’ he hissed.

‘How dare you!’ said Sasha.

‘Oh, cut the Pollyanna crap, would you,’ Jackson shot back. ‘The rest of them might not see through you, but I do. Hiring you was the worst decision I ever made.’

‘Why? Because now you have to interact with one woman who doesn’t think you’re God’s gift? Anyone else would be pleased I salvaged that deal.’

‘It’s because of you that it needed salvaging!’ snapped Jackson. ‘You get to keep your job. For now. But you will have no further part in this joint venture.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Sasha flushed with indignation. ‘I worked my arse off on that deal.’

‘I can do whatever I like. This is my company,’ said Jackson. ‘And I don’t want to work with you. The sooner you get that through that thick, feminist skull of yours the better.’ He looked at her, and for a moment Sasha saw a flash of genuine pity in his eyes. ‘You know, whoever the guy was who did a number on you? He really screwed you up.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Sasha blushed.

‘Sure you do,’ said Jackson. ‘Some guy broke your heart and you’ve never gotten over it. Well guess what, sweetheart? It wasn’t me. Maybe if you pulled your pretty head out of your ass some time, you’d realize that.’

After he walked away, Sasha stood by the water cooler, shaking.

She ought to feel happy. Morgan Graham had caved, without her having to sleep with him. She would keep her job. She would keep her bonus. But Jackson’s words stuck in her heart like a flick knife. ‘Some guy broke your heart and you’ve never gotten over it.’

He thinks I’m a victim.

Jackson’s anger she could take. In some twisted way, she even enjoyed it. But his pity? That was unbearable. Even more unbearable was the fact that he was right. Everything came back to Theo Dexter in the end. Until she made Theo suffer, as she had suffered, she would never be able to move on. But the truth was she still had no idea how to do it.

Sasha was lost.

And Jackson Dupree knew it.

Tilly Bagshawe 3-book Bundle: Scandalous, Fame, Friends and Rivals

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