Lily sighed. “You’re too sweet, boo. It always gets you in trouble.”
“It does not. We’ve never had this conversation before.”
“Not exactly, but you are never going to be in a room with someone you care about and not let them know. True story. So if Sacha doesn’t like that kind of attention, you’re always going to clash.”
“So what do I do? Ignore the fact that he looks like shit?”
“Yes, if you want to respect his boundaries and carry on with whatever you’re doing with him. And double yes if he wants to forget the friendship part and go back to being a casual hook-up.”
“He was never a casual hook-up. He was my fake boyfriend for my parents’ winter ball.” Dear god, don’t say that out loud again. Like, ever. It was Jonah’s turn to sigh. “I get what you’re saying,” he said. “I’m just messed up by the whole thing. I never meant to make him uncomfortable, but I didn’t say anything to him that I wouldn’t have said to a friend I wasn’t fucking. Sacha—”
“Mr. Gray?”
Jonah spun around. A Blutecc executive he vaguely recognised was hovering in the doorway. Christ. “I have to go,” he said into the phone and hung up.
His phone buzzed immediately with an angry text from Lily.
Lily: don’t you dare hang up on me!!!
Too late. But Jonah could handle her outrage. He just had to hope the Blutecc suit had rocked up to his office with his mind elsewhere, or he’d be in Sacha’s bad books more than ever.
“You’re joking, right?” Jonah flipped his gaze between his office window, and the Blutecc executive currently taking up space in his office. It wasn’t Sacha, but somehow the mild-mannered man was proving to be every bit as frustrating as the rest of his morning had been. “You’re asking me to find room on our books to conceive a campaign for your product within the next three months. Are you out of your mind?”
“Probably,” the executive said. “But in all honesty, we were expecting the development to bomb, or at least be so delayed we wouldn’t have a launch in place before next autumn. Our team have caught us off guard with their progress.”
“Your team? Or the person you hired to save this project?”
Person? That’s what you’re calling him? Lord. It had been three hours since Jonah had left Sacha in the café and he was still no closer to understanding what had happened to derail their breakfast so entirely. And now he had Blutecc’s director of marketing in his office begging for something Jonah couldn’t comprehend, much less deliver. This day just gets better and better.
The executive sighed. “Yes, okay. Sacha Ivanov has proved more effective than we could’ve possibly envisaged. The app is nearly ready, and the supporting infrastructure isn’t far behind, thanks to his ability to perform several full time roles at once. It is the marketing team that isn’t ready, and I’m coming to you for help.”
“You don’t have an advertising firm on retainer already?”
“We do. But they’re at capacity. Like I said, no one was prepared for anything but failure.”
“That’s a sad base point for your company. Your staff meetings must be fun.”
“Oh they are. Mr. Ivanov is quite…entertaining in his efforts to motivate.”
“And effective too, it seems.”
“Indeed.” The executive leaned forwards, signalling that their casual back and forth was over. “Look, I know it’s an audacious ask, but I’m aware that you didn’t get the Lucozade contract you pitched for last month. That you have material in your arsenal for a sports-based campaign?”
“You want me to transfer a pitch for an energy drink to your half-baked fitness app?”
“Yes. I’d sugar-coat it, but frankly I don’t have the time. If this conversation is about finances, rest assured we have the resources to cover your fees.”
“I know you do. My mother represented your CEO in his divorce.”
The Blutecc director winced, but kept his gaze fixed on Jonah. Begging. Pleading. All without words.
Jonah sighed and dropped into his desk chair. There was zero chance of him agreeing to recycle a concept from a failed pitch into something new, but as it happened, thanks to a delay in the La Glo campaign, there was wiggle room in his schedule. His design team were mostly tied up on other projects, but he could help if he wanted to.
“Fine,” he said around a heavy sigh. “Gather everything you have and I’ll put it to my creative team in the morning. Give us a day to pull a visual pitch together. If you like it, we’ll roll. If not, you can find someone else. Or crash and burn. Whichever comes first. Does that sound fair?”
The executive nodded and extended his hand. “It does. I’ll have Mr. Ivanov brief you before day’s end.”
Jonah closed his eyes. Wonderful.
The day was long. For most of it, Jonah remained convinced Sacha wouldn’t show up. That Blutecc’s marketing director had come to his senses before he’d approached Sacha and the ridiculous plan was off the table. But he briefed his team anyway, an entire day before he’d promised, and sent associates next door for more information.
They came back with a sketchy interface and graphics that looked like Jonah had drawn them in middle school. “What on earth?” He swiped through them. “Did they do these in Microsoft Paint?”
Winona shrugged. “I don’t know. Sacha said they’re all idiots. I don’t think he was including himself or Helga in that, though.”
“Helga?”
“The blonde. I think I love her.”
Jonah pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Let’s start with what we know. This is a fitness app for women? It generates work-out sessions and meal plans, but it doesn’t count calories or monitor weight loss?”
“I think so. No one seems to really know.”
“Who pitched the app in the first place? Who developed the concept?”
“No idea. Blutecc bought it from a failed start-up. I don’t think they even care what it’s supposed to stand for.”
“And what’s that?”
Winona leaned over Jonah’s shoulder and tapped the work out sessions already uploaded to the prototype app. “That women are strong and sexy regardless of their weight and shape.”
“Reality versus perception?”
“Confidence,” Winona asserted. “And positivity. Fuck Instagram, basically. This is real.”
Jonah grinned. “Okay. If you’re swearing at me, I know it’s important. I just don’t understand why it’s not important to anyone at Blutecc. How have they got this far into development without a clear picture of what they’re doing?”
“I suppose because none of it mattered when they didn’t have the infrastructure to support anything. You can’t put pretty wallpaper on a house with no foundations, Jonah. You taught me that.”
“That’s kind, but I don’t know squat about app development. This makes no sense to me.”
“Does it need to?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re weird.” Winona straightened up. “You never used to be. Is it Sacha? Are things not working out between you?”