Stormy Attraction

by Danielle Stewart

  “I won’t take up the opposing side of that argument. I personally think it’s a messy game played by fools. It’s why I’ll never run for office no matter how much pressure I get from my father and his cronies. They want a legacy. They want a dynasty. I’ve seen too much of what is behind the curtain to ever want to be a part of that.”

  “But you still have the skills,” she remarked, smiling coyly as the waiter circled around, clearly waiting for a break in our conversation. Good luck with that Gustavo. “The gift of gab and persuasion.”

  “I do. It’s a curse. I can’t I say I used them much on you though. I was exhausted and shitty. I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, forgiving him sweetly. “A lobster and some caviar should make us even.”

  “Consider it done.” In his mind he ran through the list of things he could do to her to make them even. None were acceptable at this restaurant or any other public place. Junie’s sex appeal was impossible to ignore. Her green eyes were guarded, weary, and skeptical. It was apparent she’d been crossed before and had no intention of letting it happen again. There was a capableness to her that was enticing. She didn’t need to be led around and taken care of. It was nice to be with a woman who could walk out of the place and be just fine on her own.

  “Damn.” She playfully banged her fist into her palm. “I should have asked for more. Who knew you’d cave so easily.”

  There was plenty more the two of them could do. If she came back to his hotel room he could pay this debt in a matter of minutes. Minutes that turned to hours. But Junie didn’t feel disposable or forgettable, and that scared the shit out of him.

  After a little debate they placed their extravagant dinner and wine orders and began a meal that would impress even the most guarded woman. It wasn’t exactly his intention when he picked this place, but it was clearly working in his favor. She looked like she was enjoying it. Enjoying his company. He was certainly enjoying hers. The stories she told of her family were almost too crazy to be true. If it weren’t for the waiter moving their meal along, they could probably sit there all night and never realize how many hours had passed.

  “Tell me about your product,” Hugo finally said as they glanced at the dessert menu. The conversation had been so natural he’d almost forgotten why they’d come.

  “It’s sweaters for seagulls,” Junie said, forcing herself to keep a level stare and not laugh. “Little knit sweaters to keep them warm after a spill.”

  “Sweaters?” Hugo choked out; his brows rose high as his eyes went wide. Shit. She was a nut like the other people he’d talked to. He invested all this time, let himself fantasize about going back to his hotel room, and now he’d have to come to terms with the fact that she was a few crayons short of a carton.

  “Bird sweaters,” she corrected, making a small flapping motion with her hands. “You know feathered animals are impacted after a spill because they can’t repel water and often suffer from hypothermia. Most people don’t know that.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Hugo said, cracking his knuckles like a sudden nervous twitch. “You’re suggesting that after an oil spill we round up the feathered animals and put sweaters on them?”

  “Relax.” She held up a hand and finally broke into a wide smile. A dazzling white, charming smile that instantly put him at ease. “I’m just screwing with you. It’s not tiny bird sweaters. How would we know what sizes to make?”

  “Oh.” He flung a hand over his heart with relief. “It’s been a long day. That wouldn’t have been the craziest thing I’ve heard. It wouldn’t have been in the top ten. But you, I was just holding out hope for you.”

  “I’ll try not to let you down.” Junie blushed a bit and licked her lips as she tried to gather her thoughts. Maybe this night had turned out to be as heady and unexpected for her. “I’m not really sure where to start though. I practiced my pitch so many times it’s burned into my brain. And I had the props and the script. Sitting here, I’ll probably not do it justice.”

  Hugo leaned forward and lowered his voice to an intimate whisper. “Pretend it’s only you and me in here. Just talk like we’re old friends. That’s what I’ve been doing all night.”

  Her face flickered with surprise and then melted into something else. Something he didn’t know her well enough to identify. Relief? Excitement?

  “All right.” She sat up a little straighter in her seat and looked up at the ceiling as though she were gathering her thoughts. “When I was a little girl my father worked for a bioengineering company.”

  “Wow,” Hugo cut in looking impressed. “So you come from a long line of big thinkers.”

  “Slow down,” Junie laughed. “He was on the cleaning crew. A night janitor. It was a good job, still requiring clearance and stuff, but he wasn’t in there running experiments. Well, actually I guess he was. But not the way you might think.”

  “How’s that?”

  “There was a department working with a chemical compound similar to oil. My father was responsible for cleaning up their equipment, and it was very labor intensive. He tried endless types of cleaning supplies and then one day he came across a sponge at some organic store that was made of milkweed and some other synthetic materials. The sponge would soak up the oil and leave the water behind. He’d never seen anything work that way before.”

  “Milkweed?” Hugo asked, furrowing his brow as he processed the information. He wasn’t sure if he could pick that out of a lineup if his life depended on it. He’d worked enough in the industry to have heard plenty about cleanup solutions but nothing about milkweed sounded familiar. Now he felt guarded skepticism. She’d fooled him with the bird sweaters; he had to be sure not to look like a fool twice.

  “It’s the fuzzy stuff you see floating around in the spring and summer. It’s been an annoyance to people for years. My father swore by it and even created some of his own products for cleaning. But it was always on a small scale. He never really pursued it. The most he did was tell other janitors about it. I, on the other hand, was not going to let this potential discovery die on the vine. I started getting my hands on any research that had been done on it over the years.”

  “Was anyone else using it?”

  “Not in the United States, but some other countries were trying to develop some cleanup products with it for spills. We’re talking about it being four times more effective than anything else being used. It repels the water while collecting the oil. It has no negative effects on the sea life. It’s low cost, I mean it grows like a weed, as they say.” Her excitement was contagious and the sparkle in her eye made him hungry to kiss her. There were so few people who were truly passionate about anything anymore. Clearly this was her whole world.

  “Then why haven’t I heard about this before?” Hugo asked, leaning back. He hadn’t wanted to take away her momentum, but before he got excited he needed to know how far down the path she’d been able to go. “Four times more effective must mean cost effective too. Some cleanup company would have latched on to this by now.”

  “Do you know how companies who do oil spill cleanup are paid? It’s not by how well or how fast they clean up. It’s billable hours. The longer it takes, the more money they make. There is no motivation for them to create efficiencies. Sure, there are nonprofits and animal rescue places but they aren’t corporate powerhouses. The people who do want to develop this stuff don’t have the funds or the backing to bring anything to market on a large enough scale to make a difference. But do you know who should want the oil cleaned up quickly and safely?”

  “Oil companies,” Hugo said with a knowing grin.

  “Right. It’s in their best interest to mitigate the damage and create goodwill with the public. Yet just like you said, no one wants to go on record and be proactive. It’s ridiculous. A guy like you, with the power of persuasion you have, could sell this. You don’t want to be hanging around talking to the crazies all day. This could be something you could make a real impact wit
h. They’ll call you innovative. A game changer.

  “Whoa.” Hugo pumped his hands to slow her down. “Am I the one who spins stuff or you, because you’re doing a hell of a job right now. But before we start imagining this catapulting me to success, what kind of product testing has been done? What research facilities have you worked with?”

  “This guy I went to high school with . . . his name is Kenny, and he’s basically an engineer.”

  “Basically?”

  “If raw talent and skill could earn you a degree, then yes, basically. He’s brilliant. He helped me design the prototype, and we’ve done loads of testing.”

  Hugo wasn’t one of those men that discounted someone because they didn’t go to a fancy school or have a great family pedigree. Street smarts could carry people just as far, sometimes further than anything you could learn in a classroom. But if Junie wanted to be taken seriously, she’d need to formalize her research and structure her product development idea. Plus, she’d need to pick the right audience. West Oil wasn’t it.

  He reluctantly held the same line he’d started with. “As a company it would be an admission that you expect future oil spills. There wouldn’t be a way to smooth talk that past a guy like James West or any other CEO worth his salary. You could do this from a cost savings angle and sell it to a cleanup or mitigation company. The EPA has hardly any funding right now, and the Coast Guard won’t invest in a tool like this. They are more about lending manpower during spill cleanups. But a company looking at the bottom line might be interested in a product that can save them money.”

  “I won’t argue that point,” Junie stated coolly, not seeming deterred. She was a force, and he was enjoying this more than he imagined. “You haven’t even seen the product. I’m not only talking about floating booms to absorb and contain on the surface. The booms would also have a mesh attached to them for dredging and capturing oil that has sunk below the surface. The beauty of this mesh is that the water passes through but the oil is captured. The combination of these two products could revolutionize how quickly and affordably a spill is cleaned.”

  Hugo took a sip of his wine and soaked up the energy she was exuding. He was getting swept up in her persistence. “I feel like you’re about to hit me with a but wait, there’s more.”

  “You’re clever.” She pursed her lips and shot him a look as if they were old friends. How quickly they’d found this comfortable banter. “There is more, and I’m going to make you sit here and listen to it all. The milkweed has an environmental impact that could be easily overlooked.”

  “There had to be.” Hugo readied himself for the downside. Almost every recent development of product meant to fix a problem brought on even more. Medications designed to help one condition came with a flurry of other side effects. A chemical made to help in one way would end up poisoning some other area of the environment. No good deed went unpunished.

  “Monarch butterflies utilize milkweed to lay their eggs. It’s the only place they’ll do it. Pesticides are killing the weed, and it’s the only source of food and habitat they have before they migrate to Mexico. Their numbers are declining at staggering rates. Planting more milkweed to develop this product would help support their very delicate ecosystem. How would you like to be the oil company that saves the butterflies?”

  “Oh.” Hugo leaned back as if her well-placed sales strategy had struck him. “This is a great pitch. You should be very pleased. Especially doing it here in a noisy restaurant, differently than you planned. You’re essentially saying you have an easily sustainable product that can clean up an environmental disaster faster and cheaper than ever before. In addition, it can have positive effects on a completely unrelated bit of wildlife.”

  “I told you. It’s a solid investment. You could help me get it ready to take to James West. I’m not stupid. I understand that I’m way underprepared. It’s a good idea, but it’s raw. The steps people normally take for this stuff, I haven’t been able to. But just think of the butterflies.”

  “I haven’t spent much time with James, but my initial assessment tells me he doesn’t care much about butterflies.” They both laughed at the image that conjured up. A CEO prancing through a field with orange and black wings fluttering by his cheeks.

  “Butterflies are crucial for our environment. They pollinate while they migrate and are a fundamental part of the food we eat and the crops we grow. The trickle-down effect of this product would be felt for generations. Think of what it would be like to have the West Oil logo plastered all over this miracle product.”

  “Wow.” Hugo took the napkin from his lap and laid it on the table as if he were throwing in the towel, as if he’d been beaten.

  “I’ve done as much legwork as I could on my own. I have thirty-two farmers in the north willing to grow the crop. They’ve already begun. There is a waitlist of over fifty others who would be on board if I had the financial backing to begin production. I just need someone to buy in. I need West Oil to get behind this.”

  “I love it.” Every ounce of logic in his body was screaming for him to shut up. The idea was great, but Hugo understood that it wasn’t enough. Connections were important. Money. Investors. The stars had to align and Junie had none of that working in her favor. He liked Junie. That was why he was going to give it to her straight. “You need to pursue this. I don’t think you have a path forward with West Oil or any other oil company in the industry. However, I’ll make some calls for you tomorrow. There may be some private equity groups or environmental agencies who would jump on this. The scale would be smaller, but you’d be able to at least fully develop a product and then possibly sell them to the cleanup companies who handle some of the biggest spills in the world. You’ve really got something here.” His beaming smile and look of pride didn’t seem to have any effect on Junie. He’d shot her down. He’d done it kindly, but that didn’t matter.

  “You haven’t even talked to anyone at West Oil. It’s your first day. How can you be sure that James West wouldn’t want to invest? They are the billionaires. They have all the power. Nothing will ever happen unless they get behind this. You have to at least try to get me some time to make my pitch.”

  “It’s not about West Oil in particular. I had one interaction with James West, and he was very clear about how he felt when it came to that room full of people today. They call it the Pen. If you were in there, it meant you’d been lumped in with people whose ideas or concerns were so far outside their standards they couldn’t be taken seriously. I’m not trying to insult you.”

  “You may want to work harder on that then,” Junie said, and it pained him to see angry tears form in the corners of her eyes. “I get it. I was in the room of nut jobs today. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You’re coming at this with tons of preconceived notions. Dismissing things before you’ve even had time to consider them. It’s arrogant. It means you think you know better than everyone else.”

  She’d taken a swipe at him, and he had to admit it stung. The accusation of arrogance was one he couldn’t swallow. It reminded him too much of his roots, of what he hated about his father. “I don’t see why you’re taking this personally. It’s business. That doesn’t make it fair, but it’s reality.

  “Gee,” she bit out angrily, “why would this be personal to me? You know that thing you’ve dedicated your life to for years? You know that thing you have put your blood, sweat, and tears into? Why is that so personal to you?”

  He knew better than this. It wasn’t productive or helpful. So he bit his tongue.

  “All I’m asking for is the opportunity to present this to James and let him make a decision for himself. I know if I can do my full presentation for him, he’ll give this the consideration it’s due. That’s all I’m asking.”

  The desperation in her voice pained him. If he hadn’t split a bottle of wine with her and had the day from hell, he could sugar coat this. Or he could put this off until tomorrow. Sweet-talk her. But that didn’t seem fair. “You’re s
uggesting that after one day at this company I should suggest you get a meeting with the CEO. As far as I can tell my entire job is to make sure he’s not bothered with this stuff. I’m not going in there tomorrow and telling him he’s got to make time for a sales pitch I already know he won’t entertain. Does that sound like a good move for me?”

  “No.”

  He expected her to keep pushing, maybe he was even hoping she would. Instead, her gaze dropped and she nodded as though she understood how much she was asking.

  “I get it. That wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you to do that tomorrow.” She raised her eyes back up and smiled coyly at him. “I can wait until Wednesday.”

  “Let me work a little behind the scenes,” Hugo suggested, unable to fight off his own urge to smile. “I’ve worked with other companies in this industry, but I’ve not been on this side of it before. I’ll do some more research and see if there is an angle I’m not thinking of yet.”

  “I appreciate that,” Junie replied sheepishly as the waiter came back to the table suddenly. They’d dragged this dinner out for hours, but Hugo didn’t want it to be over. Even with the tension it was one of the best nights he’d had in a long time.

  “Can I interest you in dessert?” the waiter asked, his hands dutifully tucked behind his back as he waited for their reply. Dessert had been part of the plan before they’d begun arguing. There was a good chance Junie was desperate to get out of there. So he pursed his lips and waited for her to tactfully dislodge herself from this nightmare situation.

  “Of course we are,” she said, shocking him. “We’re not ready to go yet.”

  “Bring us a sample of everything. I’m in the mood for something different. Something that makes me think. Maybe even a challenge.”

  “Of course, sir,” the waiter said, taking their menus and bouncing back toward the kitchen.

  “Something that makes you think?” Junie asked with a quizzical look. “A dessert is going to do that? Maybe you don’t know what you want at all.”