He shrugged. “Good. Because I’d hate for you to waste your time on my brother, Francesca. He is undoubtedly a magnetic personality and an inspiring leader, but he is not boyfriend material by any stretch of the imagination.”
Boyfriend material? She blinked at the twin assaults being mounted on her, one from the air as they climbed at a petrifyingly steep angle and one from the man opposite her. “Is that what he thinks? That I have a crush on him?” Good God. So she’d responded to a few of her boss’s flirtatious smiles lately. She was human.
“I can assure you,” she said crisply, “I do not have a crush on Coburn.”
He held up a hand. “Just a friendly piece of advice. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”
The jet climbed swiftly into the clouds. Frankie gave the receding ground an anxious look, her stomach swooping as the plane rode a current of air. Was that why Coburn had handed her over so easily to Harrison? Because he thought she had a crush on him? That was wrong. So wrong.
A scowl twisted her lips. Good to know the two Grant brothers both had egos the size of their fortunes... Her resentment faded to terror as they went through a bumpy patch of cloud, her fingers digging into the armrests.
Harrison sighed and set his computer aside. “You really are terrified of flying.”
She clamped down harder on the leather. “Something else to add to my list of eccentricities.”
He smiled. “I rather like Rocky. And all joking aside, the seniors, your work in the community, I appreciate your altruism, Francesca. It’s refreshing.”
“The Grant family does the same.”
A cynical light filled his eyes. “There is an intent and purpose behind everything my family does. It’s all done with a camera in sight and cleverly crafted messaging at the ready. Hardly the same thing.”
His candor caught her off guard. “Hardly surprising with the White House in mind.”
He arched a brow at her. “Do we? Have the White House in mind?”
Warmth seeped into her blood-deprived cheeks. “Everyone thinks you do.”
He tipped his head at her. “Anyone considering a presidential run spends the years leading up to it coyly denying they’re interested. Dropping little hints that never might not mean never, but then again, maybe it does. Then they sit back and take the pulse of every interest group in the nation and see if it’s a viable proposition. It’s a game, Francesca, a long, bloody battle that would sap the stamina of even the strongest man.”
She frowned. So did that mean he was going to or he wasn’t?
An elusive smile claimed his lips. “What that means is right now I am focusing on Grant Industries and specifically what Leonid Aristov is going to bring to the table tomorrow.”
And with that Harrison Grant cut off whatever valuable insight Frankie might have glimpsed into his psyche and got to work. He pulled up the presentation he’d done for the meeting that addressed two of Aristov’s final concerns, asked her to get her notes out and the marathon work session began. This time, however, she was grateful for any distraction that would keep her mind off the fact they were traveling at thirty thousand feet in a glorified tin can.
* * *
A couple of hours into their trip across the Atlantic, Harrison thought he might finally have gained some sort of symbiosis with his PA. He could not question Francesca’s intelligence after the week they’d just spent together. She was whip-smart, just as Coburn had said, with street smarts to go with it that gave her an uncanny ability to see through people and situations. And now that he’d given her permission to delve deeper with her questions, she was starting to give back to him what he needed—intelligently thought-out ideas on how to present the information she’d gathered to a tricky prospect in Leonid Aristov.
The Russians, he conceded on a deeply exhaled breath, were a thorn in his side. Aristov was playing with him as if he held all the cards when, in fact, he held none. The Russian’s fortune was disintegrating in front of his eyes. He needed to sell Siberius and yet he was intent on making Harrison’s life difficult for a reason he had yet to divulge. Which hopefully, he would wrangle out of him tomorrow.
And Markovic? Well, Markovic was Markovic—an arrogant oligarch with too much money to play with, too flashy a lifestyle and too short a memory to remember the bridges he’d burned. It antagonized Harrison to see him prosper. But soon he would remember what he’d done to his father and he would pay with the same agony Clifford Grant had. With everything he had.
Frankie curved one long leg over the other, adjusting her position as he had been over the long flight to keep the blood flowing. It was taking everything he had to ignore her five-star legs and keep his mind on work. He might have put a lock on his attraction to her but it didn’t mean he wasn’t a man with functioning parts. Evidently ones that needed some serious attention.
Coburn would have been highly amused at the situation given his older brother had been born the one with all the self-control and discipline. The one who was not ruled by his emotions. But after a week with Francesca, he almost got why his brother had punted her to him for six months. She was temptation that didn’t know it was temptation. And that was the most tempting female of all.
The pilot’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “Hey, folks. We’re anticipating some rough weather ahead. I’m going to turn the seat-belt sign on in a few minutes for about an hour so if you’d like to use the restroom, now would be the time.”
A pinched look spread across Frankie’s face. “What kind of bad weather?” she asked the attendant as she came to offer them a drink before she sat down.
“A bit of lightning in the area. It could be rough for a while but no worries. Captain Danyon is the best.”
Frankie turned a greenish color and unbuckled her seat belt. “Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Just going to do like the pilot said.”
When she came back, she had a set, determined look on her chalk-white face. They worked through the Aristov presentation. When the captain turned on the seat-belt sign and the bumps began, Frankie kept her gaze fixed on his computer screen and kept talking. As far as storms went, it was a good one. The tiny plane swooped on fast-moving air, then rose again, some of the plunges taking his breath away.
“We can stop,” he suggested. “Wait until it’s over...”
“Keep talking,” she commanded, clutching her seat with white-knuckled hands. “It’s keeping me from freaking out.”
He wasn’t sure how much she was taking in in her terrified state, but he kept going, working through the back end of the presentation. Forty-five minutes later, they’d finished it and were going through a checklist to make sure they hadn’t missed anything crucial.
“We haven’t included the most recent market stats,” Frankie announced, shuffling through her papers.
“They’re on the third slide.”
“Oh.” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it. “Do we have that graphic in there, too? The one you asked me to fix and expand?”
“It’s in there.” He pulled his gaze away from her lush mouth to study her. She didn’t look as green as she had earlier, but now she was acting a bit...vague.
“Francesca, are you okay?”
“Perfect.” She forced a smile. “I think that’s it, then, isn’t it? I’ll make a note of any questions Aristov asks, although I don’t expect he’ll have any with this much information put in front of him. Oh—and I’ll bring the backup.”
The way she said that last part, as if it was a ‘nice to have,’ alarmed him. “Yes,” he said deliberately, “the backup