I smiled. “That was a lot of years ago.”

“Speak for yourself. You didn’t go to Frank’s bachelor party a few months ago.”

I chuckled. “What’s going on?”

“I have some news that should get you big points with your little girlfriend.”

I knew exactly who he was referring to, yet I said, “There’s no woman in my life at the moment. Plus, if there was, I wouldn’t need your sorry ass to help me earn points with her.”

“So you must not want to hear the news then…”

“Spit it out, Sullivan. What’s up?”

“There’s good news and bad news. The good news is, the new Steamer-Beamer—some sort of contraption that lets you get the wrinkles out of your clothes while wearing them—caused second-degree burns on one of our producers.”

“Someone you work with got burned? That’s the good news? I hate to hear the bad news.”

“Obviously it’s bad news for that dude. But it’s good news for you. The Home Shopping Channel had to yank the Steamer-Beamer from its scheduled spot, and that means they have an opening for a product with some immediate air time.”

“Oh yeah? Think Signature Scent might have a shot?”

“Better than a shot. Spot’s yours if you can be ready faster than you originally planned.”

The launch was set for nine weeks from now, but we could definitely speed things up a bit if needed. “No problem. When would we need to be ready?”

“That’s the bad news. You’d have to be ready next week.”

“Next week?” I shook my head. “That’s impossible.”

“Well, the show would film then. It would air the following weekend. But they quote two to four weeks for shipping. So you’d have some time to get the goods out the door.”

I blew out a deep breath. “I don’t know if we can move things up that much.”

“Have I mentioned the volume they’re forecasting?”

“No, what are we talking?”

It took a lot to make my jaw drop, but the number that came out of Jack’s mouth left me catching flies.

“Jesus. That’s more than we anticipated selling the entire first year.”

“Women eat up the products they hawk on that channel. Robyn needs an answer within an hour. If you can’t do it, she has a list of anxious people with products who can. So you better figure that shit out.”

CHAPTER 15

 

Hudson

 

“Seriously? They think they can sell that many?” Stella sat down, as if the number was too big to digest while standing.

“According to Jack, their sales forecasting is pretty spot-on. They know their audiences and buying power.”

“My God. That’s crazy. But we can’t be ready that soon.”

“Yes, we can!” Olivia chimed in. “We have no choice. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We have to be ready.”

Stella raised a hand to her forehead. “But how? We just ordered some of the products we need, and they’re coming from overseas. Shipping alone is almost two months. We won’t have anything ready next week.”

“Well, we have longer than next week,” I said. “The show would film next week, but air the following Saturday. Then they allow two to four weeks for shipping. So we could stretch it before we’d have to start moving products out the door. We’d either have to expedite the stuff we’re missing—put them on a plane instead of a slow boat. Or find suppliers locally to start shipping until the full stock comes in. Maybe both.”

Stella shook her head. “That’ll all be really expensive.”

“We could increase the price point to help make it up,” Olivia said.

Stella looked skeptical. “I don’t know. Perfume is really price sensitive when you aren’t a well-known brand or don’t have a celebrity endorsement.”

“The shopping channel sells their products on a three-payment plan,” Olivia said. “So items aren’t as price sensitive as they normally are. Something that’s fifty-nine ninety-nine might be hard to swallow, but when it becomes three easy payments of nineteen ninety-nine, it’s a lot more palatable for a consumer.”

“Well, if you guys think we could make it work, it’s obviously an incredible opportunity,” Stella said. “Maybe we could spend the next day or so figuring out what it would take to make it happen?”

I shook my head. “We don’t have a day. They need an answer sooner.”

“How much sooner?” Stella asked.

I looked down at my watch. “We have about fifty minutes left.”

 

***

 

We reconvened in the conference room five minutes before I was supposed to call Jack back with a decision. Stella tossed a legal pad with shit scribbled all over it on the table.

“I can get half of what we need expedited from local suppliers, with the exception of two items—calone and ambrette. The price is much higher, but if we buy in bulk, it’s not actually as terrible as I thought it would be. And the lab is available to mix ingredients as soon as the orders come in. With that kind of volume, it might take us a few days to fill orders, but it’s doable within the turnaround time.”

I nodded. “I can get the two items you can’t source locally flown in with very little price difference by increasing the order size.” We both looked to Olivia.

She smiled. “The printer said he can run the presses all night, if he has to. He just needs twenty-four-hours’ notice for staffing, and of course, our finalized PDF files, which aren’t ready, but can be shortly. And the website is a non-issue. There are some cosmetic things the team was working on, but we could go live in an hour if we needed to.”

Stella couldn’t hide the excitement on her face. “Oh my God, are we really going to do this?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “Though I forgot to mention one small detail.”

“What?”

“They want you on camera to sell the product with Robyn.”

Her eyes widened. “Me? On camera? I’ve never done that before.”

“Guess there’s a first time for everything.” I smirked. “You’ll get to make good use of your happiness system.”

 

***

 

“She’s fucking hot.”

Jack’s head moved in tandem with Stella’s legs as she walked out onto the stage. She bent so the sound guy could hook up her microphones, and I didn’t give him a chance to say anything more.

My jaw flexed. “Don’t be disrespectful, you dick.”

He scoffed. “What? Like you weren’t looking at her ass just now?”

I didn’t answer.

“Nice rack, too.”

A noise gurgled from my throat.

Jack turned with a knowing smirk plastered on his face. “Did you just growl at me?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Admit it. You don’t want me looking because you like her. You’re already territorial about this chick.”

“This chick? Is it nineteen eighty-five here in the studio? Do you refer to your employees like that?”