3. Make Her Brother Proud

3

MAKE HER brOTHER PROUD

L aken took her seat across from Jamie.

He was looking awfully relaxed in her office in his jeans and sneakers.

She wouldn’t mind wearing the same outfit but never did in the office.

She wanted to be taken seriously in her position. Being a woman and West’s sister often had people dismissing her.

Her age and her looks played another part in it.

Most times she didn’t give a crap what other people thought, but for some reason she didn’t want this ex-athlete to look down at her.

Or think of her as just a chick on his arm.

She wasn’t that and wouldn’t be.

Men like him got on her nerves.

Those who thought they could walk on water.

It didn’t matter she worked for someone like that. Or who everyone thought West was.

But he wasn’t.

Though she would admit it was because she knew a side of him that most didn’t outside of their close-knit family.

Her laptop was open on her lap.

“Down to business, huh?” Jamie asked. “Where should we start?”

“How about you tell me how this all came about? I’m trying to figure out why someone like you?—”

“Someone like me?” he asked, interrupting her.

“An ex-athlete that most women are likely throwing their panties to in the streets. Now you’re on TV. I’ve addressed the fact you’re nice on the eyes. I didn’t see anywhere that you were married so I’m going to say single?”

“I am,” he said.

“And here you are starting a business for children’s soaps and shampoo. Seems a little out in left field.”

“That’s a baseball reference,” he said, smirking.

She rolled her eyes. “How about seems like a hundred-yard fumble return that a three-hundred-pound defensive tackle has to make and no one is able to catch him?”

“There you go,” he said. It was the charming grin on his face matched with shock that she could know that.

She had to admit she only did it because she was reading up on the game to try to understand Jamie and how he worked.

What position he played and what that entailed.

Laken wanted to have some knowledge of him for conversation like she did everyone she met.

Be prepared for anything was what she’d always told herself.

Make her brother proud.

“So,” she said, clearing her throat. She reached for her bottle of water too since she’d felt some heat in her face. She didn’t want to admit it might be pride that he understood her or could appreciate that she understood his career some. “How did Penelope Plush come about and why?”

“First,” he said, “I’m going to go out on a limb that in your research of me, you discovered that I was seen with a lot of different women?”

“I did,” she said. She wouldn’t say anything else. Sometimes he was dating someone, other times it looked more like a party scene.

His choice to live his life that way.

Not someone she’d want to associate with on a personal level and never did. It wasn’t her to be out like that and have cameras in her face watching her every move.

“You probably also saw that my first four years in the league I was with a team that I didn’t quite get along with.”

“I did find a few articles about some tension, yes.”

She read he was released a year early from his contract and signed with the Jets for a massive amount of money. She knew athletes were paid well in prime positions and Jamie obviously deserved what he got.

“Not everything makes the news and that is fine. It was mutual why I left. The coach and the owners didn’t have the same vision as I did. They wanted to win, sure, but they didn’t want to pay to make it happen.”

“They didn’t give you enough money?” she asked.

“It wasn’t for me. You need to spend money on support,” he said. “Wouldn’t you want to have an assistant you could trust one hundred percent? Or a team under you that you were confident shared the same beliefs and work ethics?”

“Of course,” she said. Laken didn’t have that as much as she wanted. She needed it.

She had staff and they did their job, but she needed more. She needed right-hand people that she could delegate things to without having to stress it was getting done right.

“Well, I needed that support and backup. To get it, you have to pay for the best. They weren’t willing to do it. The Jets wanted to rebuild their team. That takes time like any other investment. They gave me the money I needed to go to a losing team with the promise to build the team around me.”

“Their star?” she asked. “They put a lot of faith in you.”

“They did and it worked. I had some say in the players hired but not all. I was fine with that. What I wanted more than anything was the knowledge they were going to have a long term plan and do what they could to build it. They did and I got to the last year of my contract and almost got us to the Super Bowl.”

“The highest of honors,” she said.

“It is. One that not many see and it still burns me I didn’t. But you can’t have it all,” he said.

“Not as much as we wish,” she said. “But you still haven’t told me how this business came about or why you needed West to be part of it. I know West would have told you this is the first we’re venturing into the children’s market, so it’s not bringing as much to the table as you might think. And to be honest with you, I don’t see where you portray someone with a children’s line. Maybe you’re a fun-loving uncle?”

“But not father material?” he asked, lifting his eyebrow.

“I didn’t see anywhere that you had a child,” she said, frowning and going through her notes. Though she didn’t need to because she would have remembered that if she’d seen it.

“Did you notice you saw less and less of me in the news after my injury? Personal nature things,” he said.

She frowned. “I suppose there were fewer pictures of your partying ways after your injury. Then your retirement was announced followed by the start of your contract with Fox Sports. Maybe they wanted to make sure you had a different reputation.”

“They did,” he said. “But that wasn’t the reason for the change.”

“Does this have to do with Penelope Plush Soap?” she asked.

If it didn’t, she didn’t want to pry. She felt they were circling the wagon while she tried to piece this all together.

“It does,” he said. “I trust you will keep this to yourself until we are ready to make it public. There will be a big release of the product and the reason for it but not until I’m ready.”

“Oh,” she said. “West didn’t tell me that. What if the products are ready to hit the market and you’re not ready to let it be known?”

She couldn’t see her brother holding off. Not when he owned most of the company.

“I will be by then. Just not until.”

“But you’re going to tell me,” she said. “I should know all these things to help build the team.”

“Why?” he asked, crossing his arms.

She hated to think he was jerking her around and leading this conversation in his direction but wouldn’t fight with him over it.

No reason not to let him have his way right now and compromise. If he always did this, they’d have a war they’d be battling nonstop.

“It’s just as you said about why you went to the Jets. They were willing to build a great support system around you. You’re only as strong as the weakest link. That is completely true. A business is run the same way. I need to understand your business to build that team. Maybe you just think it’s a niche to make money on and all the moms out there will buy it because you’re the one selling it. Or maybe it has sentimental value. Both would be good to know when it comes time to market and brand. Or do you have that covered too?”

No way West would let Jamie take the lead on that, but she was keeping her opinion to herself.

“I’m open to suggestions but have ideas in my head when we get to it. I’ve got test models done,” he said. “I’ve been using it for a year now and stand behind it one hundred percent. I wouldn’t put my name on something I wouldn’t use myself.”

“You’re using children’s soap?” she asked.

She couldn’t picture him squirting soap from a play baby bottle into a sponge-shaped animal’s mouth and then lathering up with it.

When she started to feel the tingling in her body she realized she shouldn’t be trying to imagine him bathing with anything.

“My mother used it on me as a child,” he said. “I had horrible skin. Rashes everywhere. It’s a homemade recipe that she said cleared me up when nothing else would. As I got older my skin could handle more things, but I still got rashes and spent a shit ton of money on prescriptions and fancy soaps, but nothing worked as well as this.”

“That makes more sense,” she said. “But not sure why you are marketing it toward children rather than adults.”

“Because a parent will spend every last dime they have to make sure their child is comfortable,” he said seriously. “I know. I’ve been there too.”

“Penelope is your daughter?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And no, it’s not public knowledge. It’s taken a lot of work for me to keep her out of the news.”

“Why?” she asked. “It might have softened your image.”

“I don’t need my daughter to change my image, but I didn’t want my image to be reflected on her. I had a come to Jesus talk with myself and pulled it together.”

Which explained why so much changed in his life in terms of tabloids.

“Does your daughter have the same skin issues as you?” she asked.

“Yes. Everything that touches her would make her break out in a rash. I’ve got to wash all her new clothes first. All her stuffed animals. Everything. She hated taking baths because I think the water and the soap burned or itched more. My mother reminded me of what worked for me as a child and sent me the formula she’d used. It’s patented and your brother knows. I mixed it together and tried it on myself first after stopping everything else I used.”

“Because you wouldn’t let it touch your daughter’s skin until you remembered how well it did work?” she asked.

Laken was touched to hear that and wondered if she’d unfairly judged him.

Didn’t West tell her not to do that?

Now she knew why West wanted her to hear all of this from Jamie.

“Exactly. I’d like it branded that way too. That I wouldn’t give my daughter anything I wouldn’t use first.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Not that marketing is what I do, but I know they will eat that up. And the designs?”

“Penelope is young yet. I needed something to occupy her in the tub. I bought these animal sponges and she’d play with them and we were able to put the soap on the sponge and bathe her that way by tricking her. I might have pretended to be feeding them.”

“Cute and smart,” she said.

“I’ve been told I’m both.”

“Back to the cockiness,” she said, grinning, “but I get it now too. That baby bottle shape makes sense. The same with the sippy cup and straw. It lets the device grow with what the child is using too.”

“That was my thought. We can have normal sponges and bottles for teens and adults, but I want to focus on this for children. This is for my daughter. Everything this company becomes or represents is for her future.”

Which would touch a chord with Laken too. Her parents were this way.

West more so.

West would have appreciated that trait of Jamie’s.

“I’m going to guess by the timing of things, Penelope is less than two?”

“She is,” he said. “She’ll be two on February eighteenth. So twenty-one months now.”

“Are you going to have her be in the press when this comes out or just her story?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “Her skin is cleared up. I never wanted to be judged over my skin and don’t want her to be either.”

“And people would have judged you as a parent,” she said.

“Definitely that.”

“This probably has nothing to do with business, but I’m curious. Do you have full custody of Penelope?”

“I do,” he said. “Her mother is no longer with us.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. Penelope never knew her mother anyway.”

She wanted to ask more but knew by his tone that it was off the table.

She got what she needed for now and would move on to actual business and keep this as professional as possible.

It’s the one thing she was good at.