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Chapter One
"You could always try dating a woman for longer than two months," Pete Stockton commented.
The Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune lay across the wide glass-topped desk, open to the society pages. Jordan Prentiss sat in his leather chair, staring at a photograph of himself and his current companion at a recent charity affair.
When his executive assistant spoke, Jordan looked up in surprise, having forgotten that Pete was still in the room. "I've dated a lot of women for longer than that," he replied.
Pete smiled and shook his head.
"I haven't?" Jordan asked.
"No, I'm afraid not."
"What about Clarise Sheppard?"
"Seven weeks."
Jordan frowned. "It seemed like years," he said absentmindedly as he picked up the paper and scrutinized the brief article beneath the photo:
Jordan Prentiss, bachelor-about-town, with his current lady-in-waiting, Alicia DuMont, attended the recent opening of the new orthopedic wing at Children's Memorial Hospital. Prentiss and his firm, BabyLove Baby Foods, were major contributors to the project.
His gaze drifted back to the photo. After a long pause, he spoke again. "This isn't good, is it?" he murmured. The rhetorical tone of his statement solicited no response from his assistant. When it came to business, Jordan rarely sought or accepted the advice or counsel of others.
Prentiss has the uncanny ability to assess a situation in one second and integrate a fully refined business strategy in the next. Prentiss, a loner by nature, runs his company with absolute authority, maintaining a reserved distance from his management staff. His business tactics are cold and competent, and unquestionably brilliant.
When nosy reporters weren't examining his personal life in the society pages, their counterparts from the business news were carefully dissecting his professional life. He had taken over the helm at BabyLove four years ago, and at the age of 34 had become the youngest CEO in the history of the food industry. The business press had hailed him as a wunderkind and watched with interest as he turned a failing, family-owned company around. The following year, the gossip columnists named him one of Chicago's "most eligible." Yet through it all, Jordan thought he had managed to keep his private and his professional life completely separate. Until today.
The bad news had filtered through the office grapevine and ended up on his desk in the form of a tenpage report from Pete. "Are you sure about your information?" Jordan asked, glancing down at the report.
Pete regarded him seriously. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have brought it to you. Your cousin is maneuvering for control of BabyLove and he has some influential board members behind him. He's got until the next board meeting to plead his case. That's just three months away. Edward may not have much business sense, but the guy has a real knack for exploiting a situation. He's convinced the board that as a bachelor, you couldn't possibly represent the wholesome, family image that BabyLove Baby Foods needs to convey to the public. The media's fascination with your marital status hasn't helped. You've been photographed with six different women in as many months."
Jordan stood and walked to the wall of windows. He gazed down at the bumper-to-bumper Chicago traffic from his vantage point 23 stories above Michigan Avenue. "They think Edward would make a better president simply because he's married and has four children." His voice was even and unemotional. "This company was on the edge of bankruptcy when I took over the presidency. Give me another four years and we'll own the baby-food market. I'm the one who's saved this company, not Edward."
"And you've done it by bullying the board into doing things your way. They're a conservative bunch, Jordan, and they've never felt comfortable with your progressive ideas about running BabyLove--both you and I know that. You've convinced them to overextend the company and they're scared. Edward would make a much more malleable president."
"Edward would fail inside of a year," Jordan said dryly. "He'd take the company my grandfather founded right along with him. And when Edward failed, the board would be free to appoint someone outside the family. BabyLove has always been run by a Prentiss. I'm not about to let that change."
The office was silent for a long minute before Jordan turned around and took his place behind his desk. He neatly folded the newspaper and dropped it into the wastebasket. "What do you suggest?"
Pete looked taken aback for a moment, then regained his usual composure. "You want my opinion?" the young man asked guardedly.
Jordan nodded. "Of course I do. That is what I pay you for, isn't it? Show me some of that Harvard M.B.A. stuff."
Pete sat down across from Jordan, an earnest expression on his face as he spoke. "First, I think you should meet individually with each of the board members, preferably in a neutral setting. Feel them out, find out where they stand. Then lay the facts out on the table and remind them of what you've done for this company. Throw some numbers at them. Play up your close relationship with your grandfather. They loved the old man."
"Is that all?"
Pete shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then handed Jordan a manila envelope. "If that doesn't work, you should consider using these."
Jordan opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of glossy eight-by-tens, each one featuring a buxom young woman, in various stages of undress, and his cousin Edward, in various stages of undressing her. The young woman was not Edward's wife, but by the looks of the photos, she was performing well beyond what was expected of one's marital partner.
Jordan placed the photos back in the envelope and slid them across the desk. "Burn those. Be sure you get the negatives and destroy them, too."
Pete took the photos, his face coloring slightly. "I'm sorry. I just thought--"
"Don't be sorry. You were doing your job. I'm impressed by your instincts about Edward. I never would have suspected."
"But using these photos would put Edward right under your thumb. You could end his interference here and now."
"Edward isn't the problem. The board is." Jordan laughed. "You've got to admire the old man," he added in a cynical voice. "He still controls this company, even from the grave. He chose the board before he died. They're all pillars of the community, happily married, active in their churches, carbon copies of my grandfather, right down to their conservative little business minds. To them, a stable home life equates with a stable business life. It's me they're uncomfortable with. If they couldn't replace me with Edward, they'd find someone else. Some mundane, middleaged corporate yes-man with a wife, a house in the suburbs, and 2.3 children."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to woo them individually as you suggest. I'm going to pander to their conservative natures." Jordan paused before he continued, wondering if the decision he had made was too rash. But his company was at stake and he would do anything in his power to save it. "And I'm going to get married."
Excerpted from Terms of Engagement by Kate Hoffmann and Miranda Lee. Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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