The Miami Millionaire (3 page)

Once again Victoria tried to take a side step and move out from under Jake’s arm but he gently squeezed her shoulder again still not letting her go, and without missing a beat he answered the reporter’s question one by one.  So Victoria stayed put and adopted the same professional smile, after all this was a publicity stunt and it was all in a good cause.  She had a feeling that after today her friend’s charity was going to be a lot more popular for donations. 

A crowd of fete-goers were beginning to form behind the journalists and Victoria could see her friend Alice standing at the side looking amused.  She flashed Alice a smile with a look of ‘
what the hell am I supposed to do now?
’ which only seemed to fuel Alice’s amusement that little bit more.

Jake’s voice sounded loud and clear through the microphone and that brought Victoria’s attention back to him.  She wondered where the microphone had suddenly appeared from and then realised his PR person was not far away and assumed she had brought it across.

“Jake!  Who’s the girl?”  One of the reporters interrupted.

Jake didn’t miss a beat.  “This is the lovely Victoria Pembrose.  She is the one who organised all this today.”

Victoria froze with her professional smile in place as a new flurry of camera clicks went off, all focused on her, and she was sure she could feel her cheeks burning red.  In fact all of her body felt like it was on fire but she wasn’t sure it was entirely out of embarrassment or the closeness of Jake’s body against hers.  Quickly she leaned across and said into the microphone, “Thank you Mr Cumberland for that but I did not work alone.  There was a great team of people responsible for today.”  And then with that she went back to wishing she could crawl away and hide, but no such luck with Jake’s arm still around her shoulder holding her gently in place next to him.

“Shall we get down to the business of why I am here then?  It’s not very original to demonstrate to you the ease of our new tracking devices on our display in the Olympia exhibition in London, which by the way my team will be coming around handing out free tickets to the exhibition should you wish to go and see it.  So my team and I decided that we will do something a little bit different today, and you all know we love different!  So we have hidden a number of gadgets containing our tracking devices in the surrounding fields and within this fete.   My team will organise anyone at this fete who wants to take part in this little treasure hunt, and the winners will receive the gadgets they find.  This way you will all get to see how easy and effective these new tracking devices are.”

A murmur of approval came from the fete crowd but Victoria was livid, this wasn’t the plan!  She pushed the microphone out of vocal range.  “Hang on a minute, this was not what we agreed.  I agreed with your PR team that you could come and do a quick press release and provide a stand with whatever it is you wanted to promote.  You had a one hour slot maximum, that is all.  I did not agree that you could come here and play “find the gadget” games.  You are totally high-jacking our fete!”  She was furious, how dare he come and try and take over her well organised day.  Who did he think he was?  Okay so he was a multimillionaire, probably a billionaire, and Creative Technology Holdings had donated a large amount of the prizes, but that didn’t give them the right to take over her fete without prior consent.

“What’s the problem Victoria?  This is a win win situation all round.”  Jake couldn’t understand her problem; he would get his publicity and their charity would get mentioned in the news giving them free advertising.  She should be happy, not angry with him!

“Not if it gets out of hand it’s not.  I’m not prepared for this or set up to have a load of people rummaging around in marquees and fields.  This is a health and safety nightmare.  If someone gets a bit overzealous and hurts themselves, or even worse hurts someone else, we’re going to get sued.”

“Alex, bring me a pad and a pen please.”  Jake called to one of the men in suits, then turned back to Victoria again.  “Look around, I have a full promotional team all ready to make sure that nothing goes wrong.  They are going to love it.  We’ve planned for all this, don’t worry.”

“Well I haven’t!”  She didn’t like not feeling in control – this was her event and she should be in control of everything.

Victoria looked around, and as if they had magically conjured themselves up out of nowhere, at least fifteen brightly coloured men and women in Creative Technology Holdings’ logo colours roamed amongst the fete goers organising the willing participants to join in the search.  She saw a promotional woman talking into her mini-microphone headset telling the growing crowd how it was all going to work:

“We will divide you all into teams of five or six and give each team a telephone with our tracking application on it, or a tracking-watch.  Using this tracking method you will be able to locate one of our planted devices, and along with it there will be a piece of paper telling you what gadget you have won.  Don’t worry, take your time.  We have plenty of devices for you to find and even more gadgets to give away today.  But if by any chance we do run out, then we will simply take your details and forward your gadget onto you within the next couple of days.” 

Victoria stood back and looked amazed, there were at least eight or nine teams of people waiting to take part.  This publicity stunt was going to cost them a fortune.  However Jake was right, they were going to get a serious amount of free publicity from this on the television, newspapers and the internet.  Whatever today cost wouldn’t even nibble into Creative Technology Holdings’ advertising budget and would be far cheaper than placing advertisements in the media – what better way to prove a product worked than this?  Pure genius she had to admit!

Finally Jake removed his arm from Victoria’s shoulder and for a second she felt cool, as if a coat had been taken away from around her and she rubbed her hand up and down her arm to warm up.  She guessed the temperature was finally getting cooler now. 

“Here, this will do it just in case anything goes wrong.  Which it won’t!”  Jake said as he handed her a piece of paper he’d quickly written on.

Victoria read it and smiled, he really did have everything covered;

I, Jake Cumberland of Creative Technology Holdings, take full responsibility for the Creative Technology Holdings promotional treasure hunt at today’s fete.  Should any expenses, including legal actions, arise from this event we agree to pay full monetary compensation.

“I must admit that I was a bit concerned when my team came up with this idea, I couldn’t quite imagine a load of old grannies and grandpas running around a field looking for the latest technological gadgets.  But they assured me that the woman organising it had said there would be a lot of thirty and forty-somethings attending; mums and dads with kids or teenagers, exactly the demographic group we want to reach.  I don’t suppose that was you was it?”  Jake asked cutting into Victoria’s thoughts bringing her attention back to him.

Victoria nodded and smiled proudly, she was pleased with what she had achieved today.  Yes there had been a small team of them organising it, but the others had taken care of the practical side of marquees, porta-loos, and local stall holders.  The sponsorships, donations, and advertising with a budget of zero had all been down to her, and she thought she had done pretty well.  And by the look of it so did Jake Cumberland.

A rogue reporter wandered away from the treasure hunt and headed back towards Jake and Victoria.

“So Jake, does Miss Pembrose have anything to do with why you chose this particular event to host your treasure hunt?” 

“Hi Richard, good to see you again.”  Jake held out his hand to shake the reporter’s.

“Do you two know each other?”  Victoria asked.

“Jake’s pretty good to us poor reporters.  He sends us hot coffee when we’re standing freezing our bits off waiting outside in the cold for him.”  The reporter said.  He hadn’t covered many newsworthy events for Jake Cumberland, but from the few he had covered he found the multimillionaire to be quite an accommodating man.

“Well you’re just doing your job and as long as no one prints crap about me then I don’t see any reason not to be nice.  We all have a job to do, don’t we?”  Jake said.

Victoria looked at Jake a little surprised.  There weren’t many people who would do that, but then again if today was anything to go by the press weren’t stepping out of line, yet, so she guessed he knew what he was doing and played a good game!  Or was it just that Jake was a nice guy?  A nice guy, crazily rich and very good-looking.  Wow, she thought he was just too good to be true, and she had always been told if something looks too good to be true then it is!  Right now she had no reason to think Jake wasn’t as great as he was coming across, but seriously, he was just too good!

“Very nicely side stepped Jake, but it’s not happening.  Go on, tell us what’s going on, why here in this lovely little village.  Is Miss Pembrose the reason for this?"

“Oh!”  Victoria looked at Jake in horror as she realised the reporter was obviously hoping for an extra scoop today and he was definitely barking up the wrong tree.  She couldn’t really blame him for getting the wrong idea, it did look a bit strange for Jake to be standing with his arm around her all that time, but she was sure he was just as friendly with everyone he met!  No wonder Alice had been so amused, she could see why now.

“Oh no, we’ve only just met.”  Victoria said, “As Mr Cumberland said, I’m just organising the event.”

Finally the reporter gave up on Jake and turned his attention to the treasure hunt as they heard the promotional team let off a starting pistol to announce the start of the hunt.

Seeing his PR team had everything very much in control Jake turned his attention back to Victoria.  “Well this is all going well.  I think my landing was a bit off-course, but never mind.  No harm done.”

“No harm done?  You nearly crashed into me and scared the living daylights out of me.”  Victoria said but tried to keep a smile on her face as she watched a lone photographer out the corner of her eye who was obviously another hopeful hanging around to see if Jake was going to do something interesting that no one else had spotted.  Well as far as Victoria was concerned he could keep on waiting because there was nothing interesting going on here with her and Jake.  Nothing at all.

“Ah yes, sorry about that.”  Jake said.  “Can I make it up to you somehow?”

“No, I’m fine thanks.”

A beep of a horn caught their attention and Jake quickly looked over his shoulder, then back to Victoria.

“My ride is here.  Are you sure I can’t offer you a lift back to London?”

“Aren’t you staying to see how your treasure hunt goes?”  Victoria asked a little disappointed he was about to rush off so soon.

“No, my team have it all under control.  We’ve been doing lots of these in America so they know what they’re doing.”

“Well the least we can do is offer you a drink and some cake before you go.”

Jake hesitated for a moment, he really did have to get back to London, he had a big meeting planned for tomorrow morning and he wanted to go over some research his team had prepared for him tonight.  But one look into those soft brown eyes as Victoria’s red hair once again blew crazily around her face in the gentle afternoon breeze and Jake knew he couldn’t go, not just yet.  He laughed to himself, he was a sucker for a pretty face.

“Oh go on then, introduce me to some English drink and cake.  But do me a favour and send some over to my driver to keep him amused while he’s waiting will you?  We can’t have him going hungry.”

“Great.”  Victoria said as she led Jake away from the promotional trailer into the bustle of the fete, and out the corner of her eye she saw one of Jake’s burley security men approach the lone photographer as he tried to follow them, preventing him from going any further. It was obvious that from now on this was Jake’s personal time.

The rest of the afternoon had gone really well.  The fete had raised thousands of pounds more than anyone had anticipated, and in the end Jake had stayed right up until it finished and had thoroughly enjoyed himself.  Victoria showed him around the stalls and, much to the local traders’ delight, he put one of his promotional team in charge of packing up his large orders of local jams and other produce to be flown back to his home.

Jake walked around the stalls with Victoria exchanging pleasantries with the locals and fete-goers.  He even posed for a few more photographs at the journalists request once the treasure hunt had finished.  However the photographs finished at the beer tent door, and Jake put one of his security personnel at the door just to make sure that they didn’t invade his privacy.  He would do almost anything for work - it was all consuming and he didn’t mind that, after all it was him who had made it that way, but he still valued and protected his private life fiercely.  No one was interrupting a private moment when he wanted it.

Jake agreed with Victoria, the strange English drink she had given him to try was very refreshing and hardly tasted like alcohol at all.  She had called it “Pimms” and at first he didn’t think it sounded particularly appealing - he wondered who on earth had ever come up with the idea to put a slice of cucumber and a mint leaf along with fresh strawberries in a liquor drink with a lemonade mixer! But when he actually tried the drink for himself he decided it was pleasantly light and fruity, and amazingly the interesting mix actually did work. Then again he thought it was not stranger than half the cocktails he drank in Miami! However, he definitely preferred the local beer even if it wasn’t served as cold as they served it in Miami.