Persuasion Skills Read Online Free PDF Page A

mountains.
    The front door landed her directly into
the great room. It contained plush off-white couches arranged around a large
travertine-faced fireplace on the left far wall. The room flowed into a large
kitchen. The two spaces were separated by a large, light-colored granite
island, which, judging by the chairs surrounding it, doubled as a dining table.
    A few feet from her right, there were
three steps that led up to a dais that sported a large four-poster bed atop a
fluffy, white fur rug. She hoped some poor polar bear hadn’t died for the sake
of luxury.
    From her vantage point, she could glimpse
another door slightly open a few feet from the bed and that looked to lead to a
bathroom. The gleaming glint of marble peeked out at her, and she couldn’t hold
back a snort.
    Jax never was one to rough it.
    Thinking of him had her lips firming
again in anger. It didn’t matter how and where he chose to spend his “vacation”
time. She had made the journey to Colorado for a reason. She refused to let him to continue to postpone the Lubtech deal
any longer. She had worked too damn hard on it to let him screw it up now.
    If the mountain wouldn’t
come to the Mohammed....
    She shrugged out of her hat and heavy
coat, slung them over a plush couch as she passed, then marched to the kitchen
island with her rolling case in tow.
    After opening the case, she placed a
laptop and tablet on the double-duty surface and switched them on. She also
removed her paper file on the Lubtech purchase and a few other important pieces
of paperwork before she sat down in front of the computer and began keying in
commands.
    A few minutes later, Jax’s heavy
footsteps resonated on the front porch. When she heard the door open, she
refused to look up.
    “So how much longer do you plan on
staying mad?”
    She ignored him and continued typing.
    “Oh, the silent treatment, how mature.”
    Her hands didn’t pause on the keyboard.
    “The meeting starts in few minutes. I suggest
you park your butt down until it’s over,” she said through gritted teeth.
    She heard the scrape of the chair and
felt the brush of his thigh against hers as he pulled out a seat and sat down
next to her.
    “You’re as sweet-tempered as ever, I
see.”
    She bit back a growl and clicked open the
program that would host their video conference.
    Before leaving the office, she had
confirmed with the legal department, and they assured her that an electronic
signature from both Jax and herself would suffice to move the Lubtech deal
forward, as long as it was witnessed appropriately by all parties. Hence her
trek into Colorado mountain country with a satellite laptop and electronic signature tablet.
    Her screen flickered, and the faces of
their senior contracts attorney and the CEO of Lubtech Enterprises came into
view. She launched immediately into her speech.
    “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Let’s get
this meeting started, shall we?”
    It was a relatively short conference, and
Jax even participated, asking several pointed questions as well as addressing
some of Lubtech’s concerns regarding keeping true to certain research ethics
the company had established and wanted maintained after the buyout. The rat
seemed genuinely eager to close on the deal.
    His willingness to participate in the
meeting only served to incense her further.
    If he was so damned excited about the
acquisition, why hadn’t he flown back to Miami when she’d asked?
    The time finally came when they both
signed the electronic pad, and she sent the digital file for the lawyers to
worry over and finalize. She breathed an internal sigh of relief.
    The deal was finally done, but the sense
of happiness was soured by how she’d had to go about getting it finalized.
    She and Jax would normally be hugging and
giving each other high fives after closing a deal like this, but she couldn’t
even trust herself to look at him without wanting to scream.
    When she finally closed the lid on the
laptop, the silence