Chapter Two

Jackson

“What in the hell were you thinking?”

The sound of the newspaper hitting Jackson Weathers’ desk was almost as loud as Jane’s question. Jackson looked up from his work to see a very angry woman glaring at him.

“Just what in the hell were you thinking?” Jane repeated, her voice low and dangerous. She motioned to the newspaper. “Do you know how hard I have been working to change your image? And then you go and pull this shit?”

Jackson glanced down at the paper to see the headline: “BILLIONAIRE PUBLIC SEX SCANDAL.” He had made front page news. Again.

“I don’t remember doing that,” he said, frowning and looking closer at the picture. The picture was censored, but it was clearly him balls deep in some blonde chick at a bar. “It’s not really a flattering angle.”

“You bastard,” Jane whispered. She shook her head. Her normally neat bun was coming undone and gray wisps of hair framed her face. “I can’t believe you’d do this.”

“Do what?” Jackson scoffed. “The woman was of age and very consenting.”

“You were in public,” Jane hissed through gritted teeth.

“We weren’t supposed to be, but that was half the fun,” Jackson admitted. He looked a little closer at the picture again. “I think her name was Heidi?”

“It was Tiffany. And she also says that you then had her sister come and join you after you trashed the bar. With a bar fight. It’s really thrilling reading.”

“Oh, yes. I remember Brittany. Those two were tigers in the sack.” Jackson smiled with the memory.

“Are you seriously not seeing the problem here?” Jane asked him, her hand going to her head like she had a headache.

“That I didn’t get their numbers? Or perhaps that there was a photographer at a private party taking pictures without consent?”

“No.” Jane narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s that your business is going down the drain and the only way to save it is to clean up your reputation. You tell me that you’ll keep your hands to yourself for a bit and stay out of trouble. And then you pour gasoline and light a match to destroy everything we’ve worked months for.”

“This is not my fault. You said to keep a low profile. This was a private party. I don’t even know how this photo got out.”

Jane rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Getting into a fist fight is not low profile. Fucking a girl on the bar is not low profile. Having a threesome with her and her sister in the hot tub of the hotel is not keeping a low profile. It doesn’t matter what the hell kind of party it was.”

“At least they had a good time,” Jackson replied with a smirk. He remembered now. It had been a great night. He leaned back in his office chair, keeping his cool.

“Right.” Jane glared at him. “Telling them to get lost after was a nice touch. Very gentlemanly. It’s really selling your product for you.”

“This will blow over in a couple of days,” Jackson told her. He sounded more confident than he felt. He’d never seen Jane this angry. The PR woman was usually the epitome of calm, always rolling with the punches. Physically, Jane reminded him of his very Italian grandmother, so her being angry was not a pleasant experience.

“It will not ‘blow over.’” Jane sighed and smoothed her hair back into the neat bun at the back of her head. “Sales are already down. The stock price is already down. The comments on our social media ads are out of control.”

“It can’t be that bad. It’s never that bad.”

Jane pulled out her phone and cleared her throat. “I used to love W&W products for my baby, but now I won’t buy them ever again. The owner is a horrible human being who obviously only cares about money and women. Why in the world would I buy diapers from him? Hash tag #lostcustomer and hash tag #FireWeathers.”

Jackson shrugged. “There are always negative reviews.”

“There are over three thousand like that on an ad that only ran for five hours,” Jane informed him. “We had to stop running the ad because of the negative comments. Our moderators couldn’t keep up with them. Hash tag #FireWeathers is trending right now.”

Jackson felt a cold settle over his shoulders. This could be bad.

“So, we change advertisements. I lay low,” Jackson replied.

Jane shook her head. “The board of directors is done with you. They’re starting to talk about kicking you out.”

“They can’t do that,” Jackson said, anger heating his voice just slightly. “This is my company. This is my father’s company.”

“They can if you are a detriment to profits.” Jane motioned to the newspaper. “Which you are. Your playboy antics are hurting your company and given the evidence, you don’t care. That story isn’t the first one to blow up since you were supposed to lay low.”

“The board shouldn’t care about this kind of thing,” Jackson said. The newspaper no longer felt silly. It felt like it might turn into a snake and bite him.

“And if your antics weren’t costing them money, they wouldn’t. You can’t treat women like that and not expect a backlash.”

“They consent,” Jackson informed her. “They come up to me and ask for this. They want their fifteen minutes of fame and are willing to use their bodies to get it. I’m not going to say no to a good time.”

Jane sighed. “I know you aren’t a bad guy.” She looked over at the newspaper. “But no one else does. They just see the headlines. And the headlines aren’t good.”

“What do you know about the board?” Jackson asked, pointedly looking away from the paper. “How much time?”

“Not long. This latest advertising blowup has them all riled. They want you gone,” Jane told him. “And right now, they’re right. You are costing profits.”

“I’m not losing my company,” Jackson growled. He got up and paced behind his desk. “What do I do?”

“Other than resign with what I assume you consider dignity?”

Jackson gave her an annoyed look. “Yes.”

She evaluated him for a moment, her dark eyes looking him over. Once again, he was reminded of the way his grandmother used to look at him. The only difference was that Grandmother liked to hold a wooden spoon as a threat.

“I have a nuclear option,” she told him. “You aren’t going to like it. It’s something the board can’t know you planned, but if you do it, they will leave you alone. It will let you keep your company.”

Jackson sat down behind his desk. “Tell me.”

“You need a wife and a baby,” Jane told him.

***

Jackson couldn’t help but let out a quick laugh. “How in the world is a wife and a baby going to save my company?” he asked, leaning back in his big office chair. His kept his expression easy, despite the difficult nature of the discussion. He always appeared calm. It was how he successfully ran a business.

“You need to change your image,” Jane told him. The slender woman settled into the over-sized leather seat facing the desk and got comfortable. She crossed her legs at the ankle and once again smoothed her graying hair back into her bun.

“Isn’t that what you were supposed to be doing?” Jackson asked.

“It was, until you made headline news negating everything I’ve done,” Jane replied coolly. “There is no amount of photoshoots of you holding babies that can fix this.”

“I thought you said the baby ads were working,” Jackson countered. “That they upped sales.”

“They helped, but your competition is a loving mother and her two adorable kids,” Jane said. “She’s beating you in every demographic because she’s real. Your customers relate to her. They don’t relate to you.”

“But her prices are twice what mine are,” Jackson countered. “People prefer cheap.”

“True,” Jane acknowledged, bowing her head slightly. “However, her numbers are going up and yours are going down. Cheap isn’t winning anymore. You need people to want to buy what you represent. You need people to trust you. ”

“What’s not to trust?” Jackson asked, giving Jane a winning smile. His blue eyes sparkled.

“That.” She pointed to his grin and then his whole body. “You exude confidence and charm. You’re full of easy sex appeal.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” He asked her, still giving her the full Jackson Weathers’ smile. It had the effect of making women drop their panties and willingly give themselves to him on a regular basis.

“You want to know what’s wrong with that?” Jane didn’t seem affected by his smile. If anything, she seemed annoyed. “You sell diapers. No one wants to buy sexy diapers.”

Jackson let the megawatt smile fade. It wasn’t working on her anyway.

“You are known as a playboy. You have a different model or actress in your bed every other night. And that was fine until the Innocence Company started cashing in on the sweet nature of Jessica Balboa. She’s a mother that other mothers want to emulate.”

“And that’s not me,” Jackson agreed.

Jane stood up from the chair and put her hands on the front of the desk.

“You hired me, Mr. Weathers, to fix the fact that every single one of your products is down this year,” Jane told him. She was all confidence. “Your brand hasn’t changed. Your prices and suppliers are all the same. The only difference now is the competition. And that means that we have to beat the Innocence Company at their own game if you want to be king again. You need to be the face that mothers want to trust their babies with. Right now, I wouldn’t trust you with a houseplant.”