Page 34 of As You Crave It

CHAPTER TEN

INTHESMALL conference room at the Rexford Rum Distillery, Quin sat down at the table across from Gemma and Reid. “Well, we did it,” he told them. “We’ve got a verbal agreement with Jared Foster to stock Rexford Rum.”

“That’s great.” Reid pumped his fist. “I knew you could do it.”

Reid’s confidence in him was a new feeling to Quin. Maybe he was doing the right thing. Maybe it would be best for everyone if he stowed away his conscience and thought about the future of the business. But he saw that Gemma was watching him. “You don’t look happy about it,” she said.

He shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not. After my plane landed, I got an email from Jared and he told me that he’d also been talking to Cain Rum again for the same deal,” Quin told them. When he saw the email, he’d wanted to punch the seat in front of him. He knew that Jared had seen him kiss Celia and in retaliation, he’d reached out to Rexford’s biggest rival in the rum world, to see if they would also be interested in stocking their product on Seacoast Prestige’s properties. “He’d told me earlier that he was also interested in stocking the Cain brand. But he forwarded me their conversation and he offered them our shelf space. He wants us to move on the deal now.”

“Son of a bitch,” Reid muttered under his breath. “But we’ve got it, right?”

“He’s playing with us. But we have a conditional offer. So, yeah, if we act now. If we want it.”

“What do you mean by that??” Gemma asked him. “This is what we want, right? I’m just going to keep making rum. Where it’s available is all up to you guys.”

Quin didn’t even know anymore if the deal was worth it. “I was right about Foster. The guy’s a real asshole.”

“That’s not a surprise. We knew that. Not everyone is an angel,” Reid said. Quin could see his brother was irritated by Jared’s actions. They had a long rivalry with the other distillery, which was based in New York.

“There’s more to it than that. He’s...” Quin struggled to come up with the right word. “A predator.”

“What?” Gemma asked.

“That’s a pretty heavy word to throw around,” Reid said.

“I’m not doing it lightly. The things I heard him say—about women, his employees. He’s deplorable. He invited a woman on board, a woman who works for him, and he pursued her relentlessly.”

“Did he...?” Gemma trailed off. “Do anything?”

“No,” Quin told her. Jared had gotten nowhere near Celia, but not for lack of trying. “He made his intentions known, though.”

The mood shifted in the room.

“So, what do we do?”

“What do you mean?” Gemma asked him. “We tell him to go fuck himself.”

“Hold on. Quin, do you have any proof of what happened?” Reid asked.

“No, just what I experienced with my own eyes and ears.”

“And that’s good enough for me. But we can’t just go around accusing him in public without actual proof.”

“What about the rumors?”

“They haven’t been enough to take him down yet.”

“You can’t be seriously considering signing a contract with him.” Gemma looked between Quin and Reid.

“We need this, Gem,” Reid told her. “It’ll be a whole new luxury international market for Rexford Rum. It’ll open markets in the Caribbean and South America for us. But I agree we can’t get into bed with this guy if he’s as bad as you say.”

“What do you think we should do?” Gemma asked Quin.

He shook his head. “God, I thought this would be easier. I’d go down there, make a deal, come back with these papers and we’d sign them and celebrate. Let’s hold off for a few days. We’ll wrap our heads around it and revisit. I know we can’t pass up an opportunity like this. Especially if he also has Cain Rum chomping at the bit. We can’t let them win this one.”

“You’re willing to do business with this guy?” Gemma asked. “I’m surprised at both of you.”

“I didn’t say that,” Reid told her. “But we need to have all of our facts straight before we do anything rash.”

---