He did so, jotted down a couple of messages, then hung up while nerves twisted in her tummy. She suspected he was deliberately making her wait just to drive her crazy. He did know how to get to her. She forced down her impatience.
“So.” He sat back in his chair. “What do you know about Molina Distributors?”
She frowned. “Molina? They’re a big olive oil importer in Los Angeles. Huge, in fact.” She waved a hand dismissively. “The oil they import is mediocre.”
He nodded. “Apparently, Cole Sotello and Johnson Brothers are joining together to sue Molina.”
“Whaaat!” Her mouth dropped open. “Sue them for what?”
“They claim Molina is importing olive oil, then cutting it with cheap canola oil, passing it off as pure extra virgin olive oil and, of course, selling it at a very attractive price.”
Tara nodded. That wasn’t really a surprise. She’d heard rumors, stories, whatever, about unscrupulous producers who did that. But Molina was big. “Wow,” she said. “How’d they come to that conclusion?”
“Apparently they’ve had some independent testing done at a lab to confirm it. Joe wants us to join the lawsuit.”
Her eyes widened. “Whoa.”
Joe leaned back in his chair and nodded. She looked at him. He was serious for once, looking thoughtful. There was a confidence-inspiring and reassuring aura of solid reliability about him, and despite her annoyance and pique at being excluded from the meeting, she knew he’d probably handled it well. Dammit. There went her resolve to take back everything from him.
“What did you tell him?” she asked.
He smiled. “I said we’d consider it.”
Her eyes widened. “But we wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Of course, she’d gone with her gut instinct first response, which was “no freakin’ way”, and naturally Joe was taking a different approach. “Why would we do that?” she asked. “Think of the publicity.”
He nodded. “Why wouldn’t we do it? Give me your rational reasons why we shouldn’t.”
“I just did!”
He smiled again, put his hands behind his head and regarded her thoughtfully. “Look, I’m not saying we should. I just think before we make a decision, we’d better give it some careful thought and have a plan.”
She slowly sucked in a long breath between her teeth. He was right, damn it. “Fine,” she said shortly. “I’ll get right on it.” Shit. A feeling of being overwhelmed started to swell up inside her, choking her. She stood up, smoothing her skirt down over her thighs.
“Sit down.” Joe waved a hand. “You don’t have to do this by yourself. In fact, I’ll handle it.”
She sat down slowly on the edge of the chair. She did not want him to handle it. Then again…it would be almost a relief to have something like that taken off her plate. That heavy weight, that swamped, drowning feeling wasn’t so much fun.
“But that’s a big decision.”
“I’m not suggesting I’m going to make the decision myself,” he said mildly. “What I plan to do is have a look at the situation, do some checking into it, talk to Johnson Brothers, maybe even Molina. Then we’ll have a meeting here. I definitely plan to include Tyrone and I think our legal counsel should be involved. And Marina.” Marina was their public relations manager.
“And me.”
He smiled slowly. “Yes, Tara, and you. Most definitely you.”
Tara nodded. What he said made sense. Letting him take on the leg work for something so unpleasant was actually…okay with her. Feeling a little lighter, a little brighter, she stood up again.
“Okay,” she said. “Go for it.”
He smiled at her and she couldn’t help it, she smiled back. His smile was so sexy and infectious, almost irresistible. Those long dimples that appeared in his cheeks just made her want to lick them. She shivered at the thought. She tried to be tough and businesslike, but it was getting very hard to fight him all the time. With a gulp, she fled his office for the safety of her own.
When Baxter called to see if Sasha wanted to go to a big party that night, she didn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely,” she said. She could drown her humiliation at Nick’s rejection with massive amounts of tequila, obliterate her disappointment with whatever other controlled substances were available that evening, soothe her ego with sex with Baxter.
“Haven’t seen you around much,” he said.
“I’ve been busy.” She’d been busy showing up at the center, where she apparently wasn’t wanted.
“You’re turning into a big bore like your sister.”
“Hey.” She took offense on behalf of Tara. She could call Tara a bore, but nobody else could.
“Sorry,” he apologized insincerely. “I’ll pick you up at ten.”
“Okay.”
But the party was a big let-down. It wasn’t really that different than any other party she went to, but she just wasn’t into it. She knocked back shot after shot until her head was spinning and her body was buzzing. But tonight she could still feel the emptiness. Her friends were all laughing hysterically about stuff that wasn’t even funny and Baxter was just irritating. When he started making out with some blonde bimbo, she couldn’t bring herself to even care. He was just an idiot.
She called a taxi from her cell phone and was home in her bed before midnight.
Over the next few days, Tara and Joe were busy with their own work, popping into each other’s office to consult on various things. At one point, Tara had questions about a piece of equipment at the mill Blair wanted to purchase. The new piece of equipment would change some of their processes and Joe had such a good knowledge of manufacturing processes. So she went to see him.
When she presented the problem to him, he thought about it, then asked if it could wait a couple of weeks. He had some other ideas on changes they could make to business processes at the mill that might make things more efficient and, of course, reduce costs. She agreed to wait, curious about what he was going to propose.
They met with Tyrone, Marina Coutts, their PR manager, and Derek Atwood, their legal counsel, about the Molina lawsuit on Friday afternoon.
Tara entered the meeting room at the end of the hall a few minutes early. Paige had prepared coffee for the meeting and Tara poured herself a cup of the richly fragrant brew and gazed out the windows overlooking State Street. Oh, good coffee from Karma Coffee. Paige did know she liked good coffee. Taking a sip from the steaming cup, she turned just as Joe walked in. He was dressed more formally today, in black dress pants, a pale blue shirt and a striped blue tie, but his sleeves were rolled back.
“Hi,” he said and they shared a smile.
“Coffee?” she asked. At his nod, she poured another cup and handed it to him, black, just how he liked it.
“Thank you.”
Their eyes met and held and she knew he would have kissed her if he could have. The fact that she’d pleased him with the simple act of pouring him a cup of coffee spread warmth in her heart and made her absurdly glad she’d done something for him, even such a little thing.
Tyrone came into the room at the same time as Marina and they chatted as they waited for Derek to arrive, taking seats at the long oak table in the middle of the room. Paige showed Derek in a few moments later.
Joe brought everyone up to speed on the issue, providing much more detail than he had when he and Tara had last spoken, and she was reassured and impressed by the amount of information he’d acquired since his lunch with Cole Sotello.
“Do we know for sure Molina is doing this?” Derek asked.
Joe shook his head. “Cole tells me they’ve had testing done at an independent lab but hasn’t shared that with me. We either take his word for it or we do testing ourselves. That’s one of my points.”