I followed Sarah to a stairwell, one that led to the roof and thus rarely had other students nearby. My whole body shook as I stammered and clammed up. She wasn’t in a rush to leave me this time, but she also didn’t look like she was about to kiss me in surprise. I gulped.
“I’m sorry for the way I left you, Chance,” she said. “I really like you, I do. I hope you know that.”
But...
“But what I said, unfortunately, is true. My father will kill me if he finds out I’m dating a boy like you. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, and I wish it wasn’t so, but I—”
I shook my head as her voice trailed off. This was just going to be the remake of Saturday afternoon, wasn’t it?
“Why are you telling me this, Sarah?” I said.
She gulped in a way that suggested that she also had something to say.
“Sometimes I wish I could just say fuck it all and be with you, Chance,” she said, uttering what I felt reasonably confident was her first swear ever. “You’re funny, charming, forceful in a good way, and handsome. I’m not lying when I say I like you. But I’m not in a position to go against my father’s wishes. None of us are.”
I had a feeling where this was going. I hated that it gave me a glimmer of hope.
“While we’re here, we have to obey our parents. We have to obey the family rules. But sometimes, I think about what I’m going to do when I get to college. How much fun I’m going to have. What happens when we don’t have parents.”
I already know. It’s not as fun as you’d think.
But...
“When that happens, Chance... this won’t matter and we can be together.”
I looked at her in the eye. She spoke with utter sincerity.
“You’re under your family’s rule. You have the Hunt name. I see you as more of a Hunt than your brother.”
I wasn’t sure I loved the meaning I took from the compliment, but I got what she really meant.
“When you’re older, this won’t follow you around. You’ll get the chance to be your own man. Just... just wait, OK?”
She grabbed my arm when she said that, sending a shiver down my spine.
I can’t say that I fully agreed. The Hunt name would follow me around. That was unavoidable.
But she did make a point. I had to be my own man when the time came. That wouldn’t be now, that wouldn’t be next year, it probably wouldn’t even be for five years. But when that time came...
Chance Hunt would emerge, both with girls and in business, as a name distinct and separate from Hunt Industries. Who knew what that would do to my relationship with Morgan and the Hunts, but by then, it wouldn’t matter. I could not permanently shake it off, but I could shrug it off.
“OK,” I said, taking the small glimmer of hope for the future.
Chapter Five
Some things just never change.
In the poorly lit corner of a cubicle farm, in a private office only because of my last name, in a building that had seen better days, I sat with a crumpled piece of paper in my right hand. I flicked it up, watched it go about a foot above my head, caught it with my left hand, and repeated the parabolic arc once more.
That day out in the field... when I had learned the true value of having a superficial name but not what it meant to have everything it brought... it had come a full ten years ago. Ten years! I could scarcely believe so much time had passed.
And yet, my worst fears had come true.
Sarah Hill, bless her, grew into one of the most stunning women at school. Boys didn’t just chase her, they practically threw themselves at her feet. I watched with amused disdain, knowing that when the time came that we could escape the Hunts and the Hills, we could do whatever we wanted. I didn’t have to grovel; if anything, Sarah had to grovel because I’d be the one making the choices. I never saw it coming at twelve years old, but then again, what boy ever had the confidence to assert himself to that degree that young?
And then, just before senior year, her family moved to New Zealand.
And that was that. Sure, we kept in touch on Facebook and such, but what the hell did that mean? Her father intended to pay for her to go to college at Stanford—on the other side of the USA, not quite “able to do whatever we wanted”—and then have her run the family business from New Zealand. Sarah had the life she could ever hope for because she had the last name Hill.
Meanwhile, despite all his saying that he would not wind up in a much better spot than I, that we would have the same opportunities, guess where Morgan wound up?
Not in the corner of some crappy investment company, working as an intern, slaving away at the most menial of tasks, that’s for sure. Not having to rely on some back door help because the front door made it look too sad and too awkward for Edwin Hunt to help his adopted “son.” Not wondering where his future might lie.
Nope, as usual, Hunt Industries helped those who were literally family and left everyone else out to dry. I was nothing more than an employee who had no job security the second the market turned down, at least in the metaphorical sense. Of course, at my job here at Burnson Investments, that was a bit too literal.
The only reason it might not have been was because I had the ironic security of not being paid, which meant it might have actually cost Burnson Investments to fire me.
I can’t say that I never had any work. Sure, I got to work on researching potential investment opportunities here and there. In fact, I even had my hand in a few associated deals with Hunt Industries. More than once, something I had done had worked its way up to Edwin Hunt. Undoubtedly, Morgan had seen some of my work too.
But let’s be real. For being named Chance Hunt, an awful lot of my career was left up to chance.
These were circumstances I hated, but it was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t. I had always wanted to branch away from the Hunt name to build myself out, especially as it became apparent after Sarah that my last name would be nothing more than a curse of failed expectations. But, perhaps in a case of wanting my cake and eating it too, I wanted the security and power that came from having the last name Hunt.
Well, I got to branch off. And what did I get out of it? I got to intern for John Burnson, the senior partner, founder, and owner of Burnson Investments, whose named adorned everything, and who, in theory, was supposed to mentor me in a way that Edwin Hunt would not.
I say in theory because, frankly, John Burnson seemed more interested in nurturing his golf habits and his favorite restaurants than he did me.
I looked at the clock. 12:02 p.m. A normal lunch time for most of us. Except today, Mr. Burnson had not even shown up to work today. I had gotten an email advising me to check into a new deal and that he would come in for a meeting around noon, but lo and behold, the man with the name on the business had decided he had a few more holes to play.
I checked my email again. Nothing new had popped up. I sighed. I watched as the balled-up paper flew to the sky. This time, I wanted to approach but not hit the ceiling. I wanted to see how close—
My phone rang. Startled, I missed the paper dropping to the floor and then fumbled my way over to the phone. It was the front desk and I picked it up.
“Burnson Investments, this is Chance,” I said.
“Chance, it’s Peggy,” the front desk lady announced. “Mr. Burnson’s twelve o’clock is here, will you help them to their meeting room?”
Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Golf on regular days, sure, but when clients are in town? Really? Maybe I should start pitching for a job with Hunt Industries. Edwin may be a tyrant, but he’s not a fool.
“Be right there,” I said, putting the phone down.
I stood up with a sigh and grabbed my suit. I smoothed my shirt and tie out, threw on the suit, and cleared my throat. I may have been a disgruntled intern, but that was only when I was alone. I knew how to put a pretty smile on my face for our clients.
If nothing else, Edwin Hunt had drilled into me the value of appearances perhaps a
little too well.
I passed by the rows of cubicles filled with everything from marketers, financial analysts, and investment bankers to tech people and other jobs I had never bothered to learn. It was never lost on me what it looked like that I got the corner office and many of these people did not. It never left me that John Burnson had likely done this not to recruit me to the company, but as a way of getting into Edwin Hunt’s good favor.
It’s too bad he probably doesn’t realize how little Edwin cares about me. I’m only good in the sense that I’m a body to protect Morgan in certain spots.
I came to the front office and found an unexpected pair there.
Of course, there was the older gentleman, a skinny man with thinning hair, sharp green eyes, and veins in his neck. This, from my research, was Craig Taylor, the CEO of the company that Mr. Burnson had expressed interest in investing in.
But of much, much, much greater interest to me was the young girl seated by him. I did not know who she was—she was dressed far too professionally for her to be a wife or a girlfriend, and even then, I didn’t think Mr. Taylor would bring such a woman to a meeting like this. She was likely to be someone who was older than she looked.
But goddamn, did she look fine. She had curves in all of the right places that were on full display even in her completely professional attire. Her eyes, when they looked up at me, had that kind of magnetic draw where not only could I not look away, I did not want to. She had an unsettling smile in the best way possible, in that it left my stomach fluttering a bit but it didn’t disquiet me.
In a way... I had not looked at a girl with some lust like her since Sarah Hill. That experience had scarred me away from looking at girls as anything other than judgmental and, in their eyes, “above me” because I was adapted.
Something about this girl’s eyes...
“Hi, Chance Hunt,” I said, holding my hand out.
“Craig Taylor, pleasure to meet you,” Craig said. He had the tight grip that made you think he was trying to send a message whenever he shook someone’s hand. “This is my daughter, Layla. Ours is a family-run business, and so she will be taking part in the proceedings today.”
“Hi, Chance,” she said.
I knew, intellectually, she had spoken in an even-keeled manner when she acknowledged me and shook my hand.
But I swear, there was something in it that left my stomach feeling more than a little excited. I had no idea how I would ever get to act on this one, but I knew that I would enjoy thinking about how I could have her for a half hour or so.
And then an idea came to mind.
“Welcome to Burnson Investments and thanks for coming out here,” I said. “Mr. Burnson had an emergency so he asked me to run the meeting. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Craig said, who seemed to buy the comment hook, line, and sinker. He had no trepidation whatsoever. I had to consciously fight looking at Layla as I talked with her father, but I swore that she had a slight look of surprise that soon morphed into one of knowing. “Shall we?”
I escorted the Taylors to one of our main conference halls, talking details of the merger and explaining what we wanted out of the deal. I counted myself lucky that I had taken the time to examine this deal as the emails came through—even though I had envisioned being nothing more than a chauffeur of sorts, escorting the Taylors to Mr. Burnson’s office, I still wanted to learn.
After all, as I’d noted far too often, I was not a true Hunt. I did not have a billion dollar business promised to me. I did not have anything other than what I had gathered for myself, which was mostly relegated to knowledge and a level of cunning that Morgan could not have as a spoiled true son of Edwin Hunt.
We sat down in the conference room, Craig and Layla on one side, me on the other.
“So let me explain how this will work,” Craig said. “We want you guys to invest $10 million in us for 8 percent of the company. I think that much is known, right?”
“Absolutely,” I said confidently. As I said, I’d done my research.
“And how does that work for you, generally speaking?”
It was in this moment that the words of Edwin Hunt came to mind. “If you take the first offer, you’re the last person to ever succeed in business.” There was nothing I hated more, as a human being, that instead of being a father, I was like an employee of Edwin’s—and not even a direct one, as those words had not been spoken to me, but to Morgan. I just happened to be in the same room and hear it.
But... well, I wasn’t about to say no to taking advice from Edwin Hunt when it could help me.
“You’re saying with that offer that you think your company is worth, roughly let’s say, $120 million,” I said. “But in looking at your revenue and market share, we only had it pegged at $105 million. Now, obviously, $15 million is a bit of a gap, so why don’t we see if we can reach a middle ground?”
I had to fight so damn hard to keep my eyes on Craig. It was not fair for him to bring Layla in for how stunningly beautiful she was.
It almost made me wonder, honestly, if Craig knew how distracting his daughter was and thus used her for that purpose. She hadn’t said anything beyond saying hi to me, but if she opened her mouth at any point, I’d have to be on guard for her killing my negotiation tactics.
As Mr. Hunt always said, business has no boundaries when it comes to competition. And, I noticed, he would use that rule to the fullest.
“Well, that’s interesting you got that number, Chance, because I came to a very different number,” Craig said. “I noticed that our revenue was $15 million this past year, and since most businesses sell at 10x typical revenue, I would say that you are getting yourself quite the deal.”
This went back and forth for a little bit. I have to say, I believe I held my own ground quite well. Edwin had done a marvelous job.
But I had to struggle to do so. I kept swearing that Layla, bless those curves and those seductive eyes, kept trying to draw me in. Whether for the purposes of helping her father or just because of her attraction to me, I could not say. I knew I was handsome, and I knew that she found me attractive.
Well, OK, maybe that was a bit of the cockiness and arrogance speaking at the moment. But I was rarely wrong in my gut feelings about things, and this was such an example.
An hour later, Mr. Burnson had still not shown up. I almost morbidly wondered if he had suffered a heart attack on the golf course, so focused on hitting the fifteenth hole for par that he strained too hard and burst a blood vessel. But it did not matter, because somehow, I had managed to get 9.5 percent of the deal for a $10 million investment.
Maybe 1.5 percent did not sound like much, but 1.5 percent of a company that looked to grow to the billions within the next few years would prove incredibly lucrative to the company. And we still had the original eight percent on top of that—suffice to say, for an intern, I had done awfully damn well for myself.
Maybe I was trying to impress Layla. Maybe I just wanted it for myself. Maybe all of that was true.
But as I escorted Craig and Layla out, I knew I would have my answer to the question of if I had done well for the business.
Because finally, John Burnson showed up.
“Well howdy, folks, how are you?” he said, aggressively shaking hands with them. It took an awful lot for me not to roll my eyes at the fake good-natured air that Mr. Burnson put on. “My apologies, emergencies came up.”
“It is just as well, Mr. Burnson,” Craig said. “Your employee Chance here negotiated a mighty fine deal.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Burnson said. He smiled, but I could see those teeth looking for blood behind the the smile. “We’ll have to discuss this lovely deal. What is the final number?”
“$10 million from you, nine and a half percent in us.”
It was almost like someone had gifted Mr. Burnson with a thousand women, because the smile went from fake to real in half a second. His eyes went wide. I had rarely seen him betray his poker face, but
boy did he do so terribly.
“I see, very good,” Mr. Burnson said. “You all have a nice rest of your day. Chance, walk with me, would you?”
I shook hands with Craig and Layla one last time. Craig turned quickly, but I caught Layla looking back at me.
For someone who had not said more than two words the whole time, she had sure captivated my attention.
“I’d say you’re out of your fucking mind, boy, but you just pulled off a deal I would not have pegged you capable of doing,” Mr. Burnson said, snapping me out of my thoughts with a laugh. “I guess being in that Hunt household did teach you a thing or two.”
Yeah, it did. Quite a few things.
“I’ll make a deal with you right now, Chance. This might be suicide for the finality of the deal, since nothing is final until its signed, but you clearly have a rapport with the nice Taylors. I was hoping to get nine, but nine and half, why, that might just end up being a bonus for you.”
I knew I would never see a dime, at least until the middle of August when I was up for either a promotion to a regular job or dismissal as an intern. But then again, Mr. Burnson had never said anything like this.
If anything else, it was a resume point I could use if I did, in fact, get let go.
“I will let you take over this case. I swear to sweet Jesus, though, if you fuck this up, you will be gone so fast you’ll be back in your mother’s basement. And I don’t mean dear Mrs. Hunt.”
I fucking hated Mr. Burnson when he spoke like this. Obviously, he knew my secret, but he was not afraid to poke and prod into said secret to get what he wanted. Someday, I thought I’d explode on him in frustration.
For now, though, I just nodded in agreement.
“I understand, sir,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Keep at it. And hey, at least you’ve got a pretty lady to work with as well.”
Oh, that I do.
That I very much do.
Chapter Six
Seven Years Before
Flawed (Hunt Brothers Saga) Page 4