Read Online Double-Cross My Heart by Carol Rose - Free Book Online Page B

you’d have some time to go around Michele and get the board to appoint you CEO,” Jessica said. “But from what Greg told me, this Alex guy is pretty tenacious. How are you going to distract him from his plans?”
    “I don’t have to distract him from his plans,” Eden said, the flicker of excitement taking hold in her head. “I just have to buy some time to get my own in place.”
    “So, how are you going to do that?” Jess asked patiently.
    “By sleeping with him.” The words were out of Eden’s mouth as they formed in her brain.
    “The sex slave angle? I don’t know,” Jessica said doubtfully. “I’m sure you’re good in bed, but he’s a tough businessman. You might have to have sex with him six or seven times a day to get him distracted enough to forget a take-over this big. That may not be much of a sacrifice, but you never know.”
    “Not the sex slave angle,” Eden said with growing exhilaration. “The ‘relationship’ angle that he’s already set up! What if I told him I was taking him up on his generous ‘revenge’ suggestion—made him think I was going through with his plan to get control of the company for him to dismantle. But, while he thinks I’m working with him, I’ll actually be working for myself —and every other employee at Michele. I know all the board members, Jess. I’ve pretty much been acting-CEO for the past year or so. It would also give Bergere time to get his research done.”
    “Well,” Jessica’s voice was dry. “You certainly know Dave Sanders and he’ll go along with anything you ask him to so you won’t be tempted to tell that wife of his what he’s been up to. Who thought something good would come out of being lied to by a man?”
    “Yes!” Sitting forward in her chair, Eden said, “I also know and work well with the management team.”
    Jessica laughed. “Except for Joe Garcia. You and Joe always knock heads.”
    “I can handle that situation,” Eden replied. “I can work with Joe. He doesn’t hold grudges. He just needs to know he has respect. And Dave doesn’t just fear my telling his wife about our interlude, he respects me, too. He pretty much said that two months ago, after the last board meeting.”
    “He’s still thinking with his penis,” Jessica commented cynically. “He hopes you’ll get over his being married.”
    Eden laughed. “Maybe he hopes so, but he knows there’s no real chance of that.”
    “So you’d actually make a play for the board to give you the job? Now? Before Michele agrees to retire?” Jessica said. “Can you get the rest of the board behind you?”
    “I guess I could make some allies by underlining the product profitability information,” Eden said, a sense of breathless enthusiasm mingling with the tension in her chest. She spared a brief moment of regret about Michele herself. The woman had mentored her for several years, but now it was a self-defense thing: eat or be eaten.
    She continued quickly, “You know revenue has been down on the Golden Youth and Healthy Me lines and they’ve been our biggest money producers in the past. We need this anti-aging cream. At the last meeting, the board was really concerned about our place in the market slipping. I think with a little…maneuvering, I could convince them to make a move and appoint me Chief Executive Officer in Michele’s place even if she isn’t voluntarily retiring. I’d have to really hustle, you know, work some people, get Dave’s and Sol’s support, but I might could stir up enough shit about Michele’s uninvolvement in the business that the board will back me to take over now.”
    Jessica said, “Life isn’t worth anything if you can’t take a gamble now and then.”
    Looking at the fax on her desk, Eden said slowly, “It may not be as much of a gamble as it seems.”
    “Well, you are good at what you do,” her friend said.
    Eden hesitated, startled and a little shocked at what she was thinking. “I think I have an ace that no