The Playboy's Protegee

So much for it looking to be a good day with a promotion on the horizon. A sense of foreboding filled Harry. He knew his eccentric if not business-brilliant grandfather too well. And although at six foot two Harry often towered over other men, the dynamic Grandpa Joe still made Harry occasionally feel like a small wayward child.

Harry began to sort through the papers Peggy had given him. As he found the memo, he said, “Here it is.”

Grandpa Joe nodded, his thin white beard bobbing slightly. “Why don’t you take a minute to read it.”

As Harry scanned the memo he read the words aloud. “I just wanted to give you a heads up on the newest Jacobsen Enterprises program to recruit and retain upper-level management.”

He looked up at Grandpa Joe, who was staring out the window. Harry’s gaze flew over the rest of the memo outlining the new Jacobsen Stars program. A worried thought started in the pit of his stomach as he looked over at the spiral-bound presentation folder that was with the other mail on his desk. The sinking feeling quickly spread through the rest of his body.

“You want me to be a mentor?”

Grandpa Joe slowly turned around, his face a neutral mask. He gave a curt nod. “Absolutely.”

Harry stared as his grandfather continued. “I quite like my idea, and given your position in the company, it will be a good way to expand your horizons and help out the Jacobsen team. I think it will be a good experience for you.”

“A good experience for me?” Incredulity filled Harry’s voice. “From the way you were talking two days ago, I thought you were going to fill the vice president of development position.”

Grandpa Joe rolled his shoulders. “I’m still not sure about that yet.”

At that moment, business relationship be darned. This was personal, this was family. Whatever his grandfather had up his sleeve a few days ago, it hadn’t been this. “You’re going to promote someone else over my head, aren’t you? How is that a good experience for me?”

The neutral expression on his grandfather’s face never changed. “No one said anything about promoting people. Stop putting words into my mouth. This program is all about keeping top talent in the company. We don’t want them lured away by any of our competitors, especially after we’ve put so much investment into training them.”

“What about me? Where do I fit into all this?”

Grandpa Joe blinked. “That’s obvious, Harry, my boy, you’re going to be a mentor. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I’ve got the perfect person picked out just for you. She’s a recent hire. Well, I guess a year ago isn’t too recent. We hired her after Darci left. You know Megan MacGregor. She’s in Mergers and Acquisitions. An absolute gem that girl is, and I want to make sure she stays with us. She has raw talent, and I think you can help develop it.”

Megan MacGregor. Harry bit back the bile that immediately came to his throat upon hearing her name. He certainly did not want to mentor her. “I develop business opportunities and future growth,” he said. “I do not develop talent in females.”

“Your playboy reputation tells me that you at least try to develop something with females,” Grandpa Joe said. There was hard steel underlining his voice. “And let me remind you that Working Mother named this company one of the best places to work in America. At Jacobsen Enterprises we take pride in knocking down the glass ceiling. But don’t worry. You don’t have to participate, Harry. After all, you are family, and you will always have a place in the company. I made that promise to your mother when you graduated high school and went off to Vanderbilt.”

Wonderful, Harry thought. Grandpa Joe had wanted Harry, his oldest grandson, to go to Princeton. Accepted at both colleges, Harry had wanted to stay closer to Saint Louis. So he’d chosen Vanderbilt in Tennessee instead of the Ivy League Princeton in New Jersey, much to Grandpa Joe’s disappointment. Grandpa Joe had graduated from Princeton.

And by his grandfather bringing up Harry’s choice of alma mater, Harry knew that once again he’d displeased Grandpa Joe.

Which probably meant that Harry was about to be passed over again for a better spot in the company. In reality, being family didn’t even mean that much. Everyone knew that Grandpa Joe favored his granddaughters over his grandsons. Look at poor Shane, the youngest of all the grandchildren. Grandpa Joe didn’t even want him around, and hence Shane didn’t work anywhere in the company. Instead, he lived in his parents’ pool house and sponged off his trust fund. All the grandchildren had gotten a trust fund at age twenty-one, and Harry had tripled its value already.

Not that Grandpa Joe had ever mentioned that feat, a formidable accomplishment given the current stock-market crisis.

Heavy silence fell as Harry contemplated his options. How to get out of this situation gracefully? “I’d prefer that if I was going to mentor someone it be someone other than Megan MacGregor,” Harry said finally. “Someone male preferably. I don’t need to even get close to putting myself into a potential sexual harassment case.”

“So you think Megan MacGregor is a sexual harassment case waiting to happen?” Uh-oh. That tone again.

Harry squared his chin. He knew Megan’s type, but he should have kept his mouth shut about his opinion of her kind. Too late now. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Interesting,” Grandpa Joe said. He tilted his head as if he was contemplating a new electronics purchase. “You may be right. I’ll have to see what I can do. I have just about everyone else assigned, so it might take some juggling to move people around. If it won’t work out, you just won’t mentor. Let me get back to you.” And with that said, Grandpa Joe left the office.

Harry blinked. Just like that, Grandpa Joe was really gone. Had Harry missed something? Where had the night-and-day change in his grandfather come from?

Or had there really been a change? Harry leaned forward. The leather chair thumped his back as he picked up the spiral-bound Jacobsen Stars binder. He thumbed through it, skimming the highlights of the program.

He tossed the binder down. The program was like handing Megan MacGregor the keys to the Jacobsen kingdom. Couldn’t his grandfather see through her? She was a piranha both in business and her personal life. Although he hated listening to office gossip, according to the grapevine, she’d landed a man twenty years her senior for her fiancé. He’d been seen in her office.

Even the former floor receptionist, before she’d left, had blasted Megan MacGregor. No, Harry didn’t want anything to do with her. She was the type that would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, even if it meant crawling over his dead body to do it.

The real claw was that Grandpa Joe obviously adored Megan. He’d discovered her, so to speak, and had personally overseen her Jacobsen career. Megan had replaced Darci. That meant Harry really needed to be on his toes. He couldn’t let his guard down, especially when Megan MacGregor was involved.

FOR A MONDAY, it wasn’t really that bad of a day. Megan MacGregor looked around, satisfied. Work that she’d thought would take two days had been miraculously finished in one. Not yet three in the afternoon, Megan discovered she could even see the bottom of her wood inbox.

She slid a report into an interoffice-mail envelope and tossed it into her outbox. A creature of habit, she’d clear that out later, around four.

“Can I come in?”

Megan glanced up, seeing none other than Joe Jacobsen, the company founder and CEO standing at the entrance to her cubicle. A small knot of nerves clenched and she took a breath to calm herself.

“Why, of course, Mr. Jacobsen. I was just finishing up the Montana report.”

“Good, good. Come sit down, and call me Joe. Everyone does.”

Everyone perhaps but her. Megan tried not to appear too flustered as he took a seat at the small table, which was really no bigger than a card table.

“So I bet you wonder what brings me by,” he said.

Megan folded her hands into her lap to keep them from twitching. “Actually, I’ll admit that I do, although in the year that I’ve worked for you, I’ve discovered you do wander your company and pop in on people all the time.”

“Keeps them on their toes and I learn more that way,” Joe said. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it keeps the company humming.”

“It’s a good company,” she said, mentally kicking herself for how lame and obvious that sounded. Joe Jacobsen didn’t seem to notice.

“Of course it’s a good company. I’ve been building it all my life. Now, as my delightful wife, Henrietta, reminds me, it’s time to start looking toward the future. Not that I’m planning on retiring, mind you. I’m nowhere ready to do that. But what I am doing is starting a new program called Jacobsen Stars. Let me tell you about it.”

Megan listened in fascination as he began to outline the entire program. A flicker of hope began inside her, and bloomed fully as he said the magic words. “I’m going around personally inviting people to participate in the program. You, Megan, have been chosen. What do you say?”

“Yes,” she managed to stammer out. Then her voice became stronger. “I absolutely would be delighted to participate.”

And she was. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, the type of opportunity she’d been slaving for when she’d put in all those years in night school earning her MBA. Her mother and Bill would be so proud.

“Of course, there is a little glitch,” Joe said. His blue-eyed gaze caught hers, and something about the tone of his words brought her back down a little to reality.

“A glitch?”

“A glitch,” Joe repeated. “Right now you are without a mentor.” He sighed and ran his finger thoughtfully against his white beard. “With your credentials and talent I want someone perfect, someone who can bring out the best in you. And I’ve found just that person.”

Lyle McKaskill, Megan thought. The fifty-year-old man was a wizard in the company, and she’d love to pick his brain. He’d forgotten more than she’d ever learned. Maybe the glitch was that Lyle’s wife was having surgery in a month. Lyle would be taking family medical leave to be with her.

Grandpa Joe leaned back in the chair and folded his hands. “But don’t despair. I have to admit I did spring the Jacobsen Stars program on him. Thus I expect that my grandson Harry will see the light in a day or two and agree to be your mentor.”

“Harry?” The word, said in absolute appalled disbelief, came forth from her lips before she could bite it back. Please let her have heard Joe Jacobsen wrong.