Chapter 2
Evan
“M r. Jones.” A relatively young man stepped up to me and shoved his hand in my direction. “I’m Pete Dempsey, executive assistant director of accounting. It’s a pleasure to—”
“Mr. Dempsey, I know who you are. I hired you. I was the one who greenlit your promotion to this board. Something you need to learn about me yesterday is that I don’t like wasting my time with meaningless introductions.”
His jaw remained wide open, and he turned about three shades paler.
“I… was only trying to be—”
“You were trying to suck up, Mr. Dempsey. While it’s a time-honored tradition at many a firm and can lead to advancement, it will not avail you here. If you want to suck up to me, do your job better than anyone else in the world could do it. Then I’ll be impressed. Now sit down.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. Jenna, my assistant, hid a smile behind her hand. Even Edmond Fitz, the firm’s marketing director, kind of looked amused, and he was usually all business.
“All right, I’m here.” I sat down in my spot at the head of the table. “You can get started, Fitz.”
“Yes, sir.” He walked around to the front of the long table. The windows offered a gorgeous view, akin to Mount Olympus up in the clouds. Everything else fit my style and taste, a strict minimalist interpretation of the modern office meeting room. Black, white and stainless steel, no plants, no art. Nothing to distract people from the business at hand.
And the business at hand was always the same—making money.
Fitz went through his usual spiel. He was short, bald and overweight, but he was also damned good at his job. It was as if mother nature put everything it had into his brain and didn’t have much left for the rest of him. But when it came to reading the market and predicting its unstable course, Fitz was quite literally the man.
In short, profits were up and costs were down, which was good. But I could tell he was building up to something. Eventually, after about twenty minutes of relentlessly good news and cheer, I had to put a stop to it.
“Okay, Fitz. Just out with it already.”
He adjusted the horn-rim glasses on his nose and cleared his throat.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Come on, Fitz. Don’t sling bullshit with me. I was through with it before you knew what to do with it. Obviously, there’s something you don’t want to tell me, and you’re buttering me up with all of this fluffy good news. If I wanted to know our sales records or our fiscal growth aspects, I would look them up in the ample reports delivered to me daily. Now, tell me.”
Fitz flipped a few pages forward in his ledger.
“Okay, let’s cut to the chase here. The one thing holding this firm back is our CEO.”
I stared at him for a long moment while everyone in the room gasped. I wasn’t offended. I knew that Fitz would never dare to attack me. The little man just had a penchant for the dramatic and he was probably going somewhere with all of it.
“Simply put, Evan Jones is a great cult of personality and is good for our brand overall.” Fitz used the projecting screen to put up a slide he’d prepared. “But take a look at this. Tesla lost stock value after Elon Musk broke up with his wife. Jeff Bezos had an affair and his empire took a hit.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend to break up with, Fitz, so relax. I’m not going to tank our stock.”
Chuckles went around the table, but only Jenna’s was sincere. The rest of them were trying to suck up to me.
“This isn’t about you tanking our stock. It’s about you taking it to an even higher value.”
I did something I rarely do. I rubbed the bridge of my nose and sighed. Normally, I see such things as a sign of weakness. That should tell you how exasperated I truly was.
“Fitz, you had better be going somewhere with this.”
He adjusted his glasses and went at it. He had facts and figures to back him up. At first, I was incredulous, but he sort of started winning me over by the end. I checked Jenna’s facial expression, because she’s a great judge of whether something is bullshit or not, as well as a mathematical whiz.
When I noticed that she seemed hooked on the presentation, it made me all the more intrigued.
“…and so,” Fitz said, wrapping up “Our prediction is that by entering a public relationship you will increase your name brand and personal recognition factor by seventy percent, with a correlational increase in stock value. And if we make it controversial, as I outlined in subsection C of my presentation, then the most modest estimates are one hundred and fifty percent.”
He closed up his pointer and stood there with his hands in his pockets as casually as he could. I knew he was as smug as the cat who ate the canary on the inside, though.
I turned to Jenna.
“Jenna, calculate what this alleged increased stock price will do for my net worth.”
“You’ve got it, boss,” she said, unfolding her ever-present laptop and setting into work. “You want the seventy percent or the controversial one hundred and fifty percent.”
“Indulge me and give me the figures for both.”
She went to work, typing like a fiend and crunching numbers in her head and on the screen.
I turned back to face Fitz.
“All right, Fitz. All those facts and figures and numbers?”
He nodded.
“I want you to transform and compact all of that into a five-minute pitch. Go.”
His eyes widened. Fitz stammered for a few seconds before he took off his glasses and started to speak.
“Mr. Jones, you are very well known through both your business ventures and your carefully curated public life. Both of these aspects contribute to your net worth and give you the power to ruin your competition or start a new venture.”
It was true. Once, I happened to stop at a chain coffee shop because it was conveniently located across the street from the business I was about to purchase. After being pleasantly surprised by the service and the product I received, I wanted to give a shout-out to the hard workers at that location.
My intention was to help them get some recognition and earn some goodwill with their company. The public seized upon my tweet as ‘proof’ I was about to purchase said coffee shop chain.
The stock prices doubled, then quadrupled. I decided not to comment until a reporter finally asked me point-blank if I was buying the company. I said no. The baristas I’d tried to help wound up getting in trouble when the stock tanked.
“However,” Fitz continued, “we’ve reached the accretion point where the shotgun blast of publicity is no longer generating growth. And without growth, if we’re not generating it on a regular basis, well, there’s no gain to your net worth, either.”
“And my reputation as a brilliant businessman doesn’t help?”
“It helps to maintain our position, but not to enhance it.”
“Wait, Fitz. When I started this whole public persona shindig, you assured me it would lead to an increase in my net worth.”
“And it did.” He adjusted his glasses. “It did, and now I’m telling you that it’s plateaued.”
“And why is it plateauing? That would be my next question.”
“Well, sir…” he cleared his throat and adjusted his bow tie. “It would seem that you have a certain reputation.”
“What reputation would that be? For being rich?”
“Being rich is fine. Being rich is cool these days. Keeping up with the Kardashians and all of that jazz.” His lips formed an inverted U. “It’s not your reputation for being rich that’s the problem. It’s the fact that you’re known for being a ruthless master manipulator, and, um… what the press likes to dub as ‘billionaire playboy.’”
“Billionaire Playboy, huh?”
Jenna looked up from her computer for the briefest of moments.
“It’s a deserved reputation, sir.”
“I never said that it wasn’t, Jenna.” I turned back to Fritz. “Please, continue.”
He swallowed hard and looked rather uncomfortable.
“Well, sir… and I’m just reporting the results of our research, you understand, I’m not judging or even presenting my own personal opinion… ”
“Just spit it out, Fritz. Stop trying to protect my feelings because I don’t have any.”
He closed his mouth, swallowed one more time, and continued.
“Quite frankly, we need to try and humanize you, sir. Your public persona is perceived as being icy, manipulative, and ruthless. Not to mention your blatant disregard for the conventions of marriage and relationships.”
“I don’t know why you were so afraid to tell me that, Fritz.”
“Sir?” he said anxiously.
“Since when have I ever gotten angry with you for telling me the truth? In fact, I demand that you tell me the truth. It’s one of the reasons you’re in the position you’re in.”
I let a rare smile blossom over my face.
“Everything you said was true, Fritz. I am cold-blooded and calculating. I don’t believe in traditional marriage or relationships in general. All of this is what has made me into the success that I am today, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
“You don’t have to pretend otherwise, sir.” Fritz sighed. “Well, okay, you are going to have to pretend otherwise on some of it. But you can continue to be a calculating and ruthless businessman so long as you show some sign of humanity.”
“And you think that my having a girlfriend is going to be a sign of humanity to the masses?”
He nodded.
“Yes, exactly. A fake public relationship is perfect for you. You won’t even have to pretend too much. Just show up with her on your arm, dine in fancy restaurants, take her on a shopping spree or two, and the press will do the rest of the work for us. Just the perception that you are in a relationship is going to work wonders.”
“And when I take her out, what am I supposed to do if the paparazzi come up with a flashbulb and a microphone in my face?”
“Just let her do the talking. You stay you, the Iceman, Mr. Stoic. All the masses will think that you’re just cold on the outside, and that there must be a gooey center of humanity, some soft spot, on the inside.”
“So, I take her out once in a while, and let her do all the talking. I think I can get behind this plan. It sounds like a minimal disruption to my life.”
Jenna looked up from her computer, her eyes shining. I knew it had to be good.
“Sir, I’m finished with my calculations.”
I turned to her.
“Lay it on me, Jenna.”
“If we go through with Fritz’s plan on the most basic level, you’re looking at an increase to your net worth of four billion.”
My brows climbed high on my face. That wasn’t a number to sneeze at, even for me. It would be a roughly one-fifth increase in my net worth.
“That sounds almost too good to be true, Jenna.”
“I thought so too. I crushed the numbers three times and got the same result. Would you like to hear the aggressive, controversial model’s predictions?”
“Yes,” I said, my heart beating faster. I felt a heady rush, anticipating the next words to tumble out of her mouth.
“On a conservative estimate, you’re looking at an increase of eight billion to your net worth.”
Almost a third. That was too tempting to ignore.
“All right.” I turned to Fritz and encompassed him in my gaze as well. “Let’s say, hypothetically, we pull the trigger. How do we maximize this?”
“Controversy,” Jenna said. “Controversy Creates Cash. ”
It was one of her favorite mantras. Lately, Fritz had picked it up as well.
“I concur with Jenna, sir,” Fritz said. “The best way would be to generate controversy, with drama, romance, passion, all of that good stuff.”
“Hmm. Okay, Cecil B. DeMille, what’s your endgame?”
“A sudden marriage right out of the blue.”
“What?” I sputtered. A fake relationship was one thing, but that suggestion had me reeling.
“A fake marriage, of course. Think about the headlines. Ruthless playboy— tamed and turned into a loving husband to everyone’s sheer, utter shock.”
He wound down, and then quickly composed himself.
“Of course, that’s not acceptable to you, sir. So perhaps—”
“No.”
He closed his mouth again, but his eyes opened wider than ever.
“Sir?”
“Let’s do it. Let’s do the marriage. I never do things halfway. I made my fortune by going all the way. I’m all in on this.”
Fritz and Jenna started talking all at once.
“We need to create a list of celebrities suitable—”
“We’ll have to vet every one of those candidates, Fritz. How would we—”
“What if we did an old flame? A second chance romance kind of thing?”
“No, too sweet and Hallmark channel for Evan. No one would buy it. It has to be a sudden storm of love.”
“Jenna, what does that even mean?”
“I don’t know, but I’m trademarking it. ”
“Yeah, you go ahead and trademark that, but for as long as I am head of marketing…”
I tried to interject, but I don’t think either of them heard me. They were on a roll. I decided it was best just to treat this event like a natural disaster, similar to a tsunami. I would just sit back and wait for it to be over.
In the end, Fritz brought up a point that Jenna concurred was quite important.
“Sir, we need to make sure that, rather than celebrity, we select a woman based on her likelihood of accepting the contract stipulations.”
“Fritz is right, sir,” Jenna added.
I grunted and leaned back in my chair.
“No need to consider that aspect, Fritz.”
“Why not?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Because women always do what I want.”