‘I already know we’re in trouble, Jo! What I need is a way out.’
‘Take it easy, Father. You know what the doctor said about stress being bad for your back.’
‘Dammit, girl, don’t fuss over me! There’s a lot at stake here—or have you been too busy playing nursemaid to notice?’
‘I am not a “girl”.’ Joanna got to her feet, her gaze turning steely. ‘I am your daughter, and, if you weren’t so determined to keep me from knowing the first thing about Bennettco, I wouldn’t have to ask you all these questions. In fact, I might have been able to come up with some ideas that would have gotten you off the hook tonight.’
‘Listen, Jo, I know you have a degree in business administration, but this is the real world, not some ivy-covered classroom. It’s Ellington who let us down. He—’
‘You should have told Ellington to tell Khalil the truth, that your back’s gone out again.’
‘What for? It’s nobody’s business that I’m lying here like an oversized infant, being driven crazy by you and the hotel doctor!’
‘Contrary to what you think,’ Joanna said coolly, ‘being sick isn’t a sign of weakness. Khalil would have understood that he wasn’t being insulted, that you had no choice but to back out of this meeting.’
Sam glared at her, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe.’
‘What did you plan on accomplishing tonight?’
‘For one thing, I wanted to eyeball the bastard and see for myself what Abu’s been up against.’
‘And what else?’
Sam grinned slyly. ‘He may resent us dealing with Abu—but I bet he won’t resent a deal that has some under-the-table dollars for himself in it.’
A frown creased Joanna’s forehead. ‘You mean, Bennettco’s going to offer him a bribe?’
‘Baksheesh,’ her father said. ‘That’s what it’s called, and you needn’t give me that holier-than-thou look. It’s part of doing business in this part of the world. It just has to be done delicately, so as not to offend the s.o.b.’ Sam sighed deeply. ‘That was the plan, anyway—until Ellington botched it.’
‘Have you any idea what, exactly, he said to the big pooh-bah?’
‘To Khalil?’ Sam shook his head. ‘Ellington didn’t even talk to him. He spoke to the Prince’s aide, a guy named Hassan, and—’
‘His first mistake,’ Joanna said with crisp self-assurance. ‘He should have insisted on speaking with the Prince directly.’
‘He tried, but Hassan says Khalil doesn’t deal with underlings. Underlings, can you imagine?’ Sam chuckled. ‘The only good part of this is imagining Ellington’s face when he heard that.’
‘What did Ellington say then?’
‘The conversation was all Hassan’s after that. He made some veiled threats, said if Sam Bennett wasn’t interested enough to deal with Khalil man to man, Khalil wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen.’
‘That’s insane! He can’t be fool enough to think he can ride down on our crews with his band of cut-throats—can he?’
‘Maybe—and maybe not.’ Sam grunted with displeasure. ‘Hell, this meeting was the key to everything! I just know that if I could have met face to face with this Khalil I’d have been able to convince him that Bennettco—’
‘We still can.’
‘How? I just told you, Khalil won’t meet with Ellington.’
‘But he might meet with me,’ Joanna blurted.
She hadn’t planned those words, but once she’d said them her heart began to pound. Sam’s prideful stubbornness, Ellington’s blind adherence to orders and the arrogance of a greedy bandit with a fancy title had set in motion a series of events that might make all the difference in her life.
Sam laughed, and Joanna looked up sharply.
‘Right,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I’m supposed to send my daughter to meet with a barbarian. Do I look like I’m crazy, Jo?’
‘Come on, Father. He’s not exactly a barbarian. Besides, I’d be meeting him for dinner, in a fancy restaurant. I’d be as safe as if I were dining in my suite.’
‘Forget it. The great Khalil doesn’t deal with underlings.’
‘Maybe he’d feel differently about someone named Bennett, someone with a vested interest in Bennettco.’ Joanna looked at her father, her voice strengthening as her idea took shape. ‘Someone who could identify herself as not just her father’s daughter but Bennettco’s vice-president.’
Sam scowled darkly. ‘Are we back to that?’
‘We never left it. Here I am, your only offspring, somebody who grew up as much in the field as in the office—’
‘My first mistake,’ he grumbled.
‘Here I am,’ Joanna said evenly, ‘the only person who knows as much about business as you do, my university degree clutched in my hand, and you absolutely refuse to let me work for you.’
‘You do work for me. You’ve been my hostess in Dallas and New York since you were old enough to carry on a conversation.’
‘That,’ she said dismissively.
‘Yes, that! What’s wrong with “that”, for lord’s sake? Any girl in her right mind would grab at the chance to—’ Joanna’s brows lifted and Sam put his hand to his heart. ‘Forgive me,’ he said melodramatically. ‘Any woman in her right mind would be perfectly happy to—’
‘Stanford Mining’s offered me a job,’ Joanna said softly.
‘They did what?’
She walked to the bureau and leaned back against it, arms folded over her breasts. She’d never meant to tell her father about the offer this way; she’d planned on working up to it, using it as the final link in a well-conceived argument designed to convince him, once and for all, that she wanted more than to be a beautifully dressed figurehead, but she knew in her bones that now was the moment.
‘The manager of their Alaskan operation is leaving. They asked if I might be interested.’
Sam’s face darkened. ‘My own daughter, working for the competition?’
‘The key word is “working”, Father. I’ve told you and told you, I’ve no intention of spending the rest of my life like some—some over-age débutante.’
‘And I’ve told you and told you, I didn’t work my tail off so my daughter could get her hands dirty!’
‘I’m not asking you to let me work in the field,’ Joanna said quickly. ‘Even I know better than to expect the impossible.’
‘Joanna.’ Sam’s voice softened, took on the wheedling tone she knew so well. ‘I need you doing just what you’ve been doing, baby. Public relations is important, you know that. Having your name listed on the committee for charity benefits, getting your picture in the paper along with the Whitneys, Rockefellers and Astors—’
‘You’re wrong about the importance of that stuff, Father, but if it matters to you so much I can hold down a job and still manage all the rest.’
Sam gave her a long, hard look. ‘Are you serious about taking the job with Stanford?’
Until this moment, she had only been serious about considering it—but now she knew that she would accept