Risky Negotiations (19 page)

“
Take the day off and come skiing with me. I have the plane standing by at the airport. All you have to do is pack a small bag and we can take on a few slopes before they close tonight. Everything else you might need is already at the house.”

Laci considered it for all of ten seconds. She didn’t have anything urgent to do tomorrow and the negotiations were going well. Why not take a weekend and just relax. “Ok,” she said and smiled at the lightened expression on his face.

“
Can I pick you up in a half hour?”

“
I’ll be ready,” she said and hopped off the desk. She moved out the door, excitement starting to seep into her being.

Laci rushed back into the conference room. The two men were gone but her briefcase had already been packed. All she had to do was grab her case and her purse and catch the next elevator.

As soon as the elevator opened, a gorgeous, tall blond glided out, leaving a trail of heavy perfume behind her. Laci stepped in, but watched the direction the woman walked. She actually walked the opposite direction of Sal’s office and Laci didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she let it all out in one big sigh of relief. Then she felt silly for even thinking that Sal would be meeting another woman right after inviting her to go away for the weekend with him.

Laci arrived back at her apartment and threw some clothes into a bag. She had no idea what she would need to wear so she limited herself to jeans and sweaters. She’d changed into faded jeans and a thick, cable knit sweater, then released her hair from its confining pins to fall loosely down her back.

She was just about to close up her case when she changed her mind and threw in a simple black cocktail dress. A girl never knew, she told herself as she dug through her closet to find the strappy heels she’d bought to wear with the dress.

As soon as she found them, she had to laugh at herself. The shoes were dusty from lack of use. The men she usually dated had no use for evening attire. She’d bought the dress for a business party several years ago. They had obviously only been worn once since the soles were barely even scuffed. But she’d splurged on the outfit, wanting to impress her boss at the time.

Laci was just zipping the bag closed when her doorbell rang. She looked around, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, then pulled her case off the bed and answered the door.

She wondered if she would ever get used to him, she thought as she opened the door. Sal’s tall frame filled up the hallway, leaving very little space since he was so tall and muscular. Each time she saw him, he seemed to be more handsome than the last time. He was wearing jeans that seemed to hug him in all the right places, topped by a soft, gray, V-necked sweater with a white tee-shirt underneath. He looked as if he should be posing for the cover of GQ magazine.

“
Good grief! You are beautiful,” he said and came through the door to take her into his arms. His kiss was devastating to rational thinking. Knowing what could come next, Laci didn’t want the kiss to end and her arms automatically reached up to hold onto his broad shoulders, needing an anchor amidst the desire he instantly generated within her.

He broke off the kiss and stepped back, but Laci could tell that the same passion was in his eyes. “We have a short flight, then we’ll continue this,” he said and took her hand in one of his, grabbing her bag with the other.

He led her to the front door of her apartment building where a limousine was waiting for them. They were instantly whisked off to the airport. Instead of having to go through the long lines of security, the car drove right onto the tarmac of an area she didn’t even know existed and delivered them to a private plane. The engines were already running as they climbed the stairs to the Gulfstream jet.

Laci glanced out the window and noticed that the limousine driver was handing her bag and another to someone on the ground. She tried to act non-challant as she took in the extreme wealth she was instantly surrounded by, but she knew she’d failed when she heard a chuckle behind her.

“
You’ll have to put on your seat belt for take-off, Laci.”

Laci blushed and turned around quickly, then strapped herself into a large, white leather chair.

“
We’re ready, Ted,” Sal said through what looked like a telephone but was obviously some direct connection to the pilot’s seat. Instantly, the plane started taxiing to a runway. Within five minutes of their arrival at the airport, the plane was lifting off.

“
Wow, I’ve never gotten through an airport so easily,” she said, her voice nervous for some reason.

“
Why not?’

Laci chuckled at his question. “Probably because I’ve never flown in a private jet before.”

“
Get used to it,” he said.

The phone rang and Sal answered it, his eyes apologizing to her while he talked about some business deal he was working on. Laci didn’t mind. She needed to get her bearings. But she was unable to do so because a moment later, a flight attendant appeared. “What can I get you to drink?”

Laci started to shake her head, but Sal covered the mouthpiece and answered for her. “We’ll have champagne, Lisa,” he said and returned to his conversation.

Lisa instantly nodded her head and disappeared behind a door, appearing again a moment later with two glasses of still-foaming champagne.

Laci sipped the chilled champagne and listened to Sal’s conversation. He was talking about a billion dollar deal. Laci had always known that Sal was wealthy. Her sister was part of his family and Victoria used to be awed by the luxurious trips they regularly took. But Victoria hadn’t told her everything. Victoria had never mentioned flying in the leer jet, for instance, even though she knew that the Attracelli family had a cabin in Vale, which Laci assumed was where they were headed. The whole family congregates in Vale each winter for a family vacation and others fly out there several other times, but not as a large group.

Sal got off the phone a moment later, unbuckled her seatbelt then pulled her into his lap. “Tell me what you’ve been doing for the past four days that you couldn’t tell me over the phone.”

Laci laughed. “I really haven’t been doing much. Research, trying to beat your company into submission on the union issue, cleaning my apartment, that’s about it,” she said and took another sip of champagne. “I lead a very boring life.” For some reason, she felt comfortable teasing him about the union negotiations. She hesitated for only a moment before continuing. Sal didn’t bring up the negotiations when they were alone, so her fear that he was using her to get a better union contract didn’t hold up under scrutiny.

“
I doubt that,” he said and sipped his own champagne. “What would you be doing right now if you weren’t with me?”

Laci looked up at the ceiling. “Well, it’s Thursday night, right?” She had to think about what she did before trying to negotiate union benefits with ATI’s legal team. “I think I’d probably be in the library or on the internet, doing research for some project. I got another one dumped on my desk this morning but it doesn’t start for another month, so I’m procrastinating right now. It doesn’t seem nearly as challenging as my current, cut throat negotiations.”

“
That doesn’t sound very interesting.”

“
Well, what would you be doing if you weren’t here with me?” Laci laughed. “No, don’t answer that,” she said and covered his mouth. “I don’t think I want to know.”

He took her hand down and nibbled on her fingers. “What do you think I’d be doing?”

Laci remembered the blond getting out of the elevator. “I think you’d be escorting a beautiful woman to a fancy restaurant somewhere.”

He raised one eyebrow in response. “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

Laci just laughed, not really taking him seriously. “Are you a good skier?” she asked, changing the subject.

The other eyebrow went up, indicating that he understood she was avoiding the previous topic, but followed her lead anyway. “I’ve been skiing almost all my life. My parents used to take us to the resort several times a year.”

Laci grimaced. “So you’re probably very good.”

“
I’m not a slouch, but I avoid the mountain tops without any ski lifts.”

“
I bet you go down the double diamonds, don’t you?”

He nodded his head from side to side. “I’ve been known to take on the challenge if the weather was right. My brothers and I used to sneak away from our parents when we’d all come as kids. Until Carlo broke his leg and we all had to carry him back. He pretty much ruined all our fun for several years.”

“
I bet that was painful.” Laci commiserated.

“
For all of us. Carlo isn’t a small guy,” he laughed.

She rolled her eyes at him and looked his body up and down. “That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. None of you are.”

“
Well, you should have seen him. He was in the middle of a great run down a double diamond and we were all racing down the slope. When suddenly, this blond girl flies right through the middle of us, shaming us all in the process. Carlo, never one to back away from a pretty woman, was the first to notice her and he took off, heading right after her. Turns out, she was one of the ski lift supervisors who did the run every hour. So she knew the terrain. The rest of us, we were sliding all over the place in an effort to catch up to her and making a fool of ourselves in the process. I’d just passed Carlo when I heard a loud howl. When I was finally able to stop and turn around, Carlo was wrapped around a tree. He had one leg up the tree, the other trying to continue down the slope. The leg up in the tree didn’t look too good. Neither did Carlo when he realized that he’d broken his leg. And when the rest of us figured we’d all be in trouble with my mom and dad when they found out, well, we all turned a little green.”

Laci laughed at his annoyed expression. “How old were you when this happened?”

Sal thought for a moment. “I think I was about fifteen, so Carlo was only about seven or eight.”

“
And he was going down a double diamond slope?” Laci asked, outraged. “What was he doing going after a teenage girl? He should have been pulling little girls’ pony tails. I didn’t think boys liked girls until a later age.”

“
You don’t have any brothers, or you’d understand the kind of pressure we can put on each other. Once Thomas and I bragged about how we’d gone down the slope the day before, all the others had to try it. Antonia would have been right along side of us, but she was on the bunny trail, only about five at the time. My mother kept a pretty close eye on her.” He shook his head at her second statement. “I can’t even understand your second comment. Boys of every age appreciate a beautiful woman. Age is irrelevant.”

“
So how did you get down the slope?” she asked, not wanting to hear how men liked women. It sounded like he was telling her about men’s need for variety. She didn’t like the sound of that, even though she accepted it as a fact where Sal was concerned. She knew it was only a matter of time before he needed a new challenge and would leave her for greener pastures, so to speak.

“
It was right after lunch so we thought we had time to get down the mountain before dark. We were all boy scouts so we rigged a bunch of tree limbs together and tied him to it. It took us three hours, but we eventually got him down the mountain in one piece.”

“
What did your parents say?”

“
We didn’t tell them immediately.”

“
What?” Laci was outraged on Carlo’s behalf. “I thought you said his leg was broken.”

“
It was,” he confirmed with a half smile.

“
How did you plan on hiding something like that?”

Sal shrugged, smiling at the memory. “We were kids. And we thought we knew everything. So we got him to the doctor, who immediately sent him on to the hospital. I rode with him and tried to act as his guardian. It is fortunate looking back, but at the time, we were horrified when the hotel was called and my parents showed up just as I was trying to sign the release for him to get an x-ray. Needless to say, my parents were less than happy about the whole situation.”

“
What did they do?”

“
They made us all stick to the bunny trail for the rest of the vacation.”

Laci laughed. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the most fun. Why didn’t you just stay off the slopes?”

Sal shook his head. “Not with my parents” he said, the pride apparent in his voice. “My father didn’t build up this company with just smarts. He had creativity as well. And both parents used their creativity on raising all of us. There was no way we would have survived childhood otherwise. They forced us to go up and down the bunny slope for the next three days. It was humiliating. All the gorgeous teenage girls snickered at us. We didn’t have dates for the rest of the trip.”