“Did you need a pass to get out tonight?” Charles asked, dropping two poached eggs on Connor’s risotto.
Blake laughed and shook his head. “No, because we’re both grown adults with our own lives and respect that. What about you, Connor? Cameron still being a dick?”
Connor shrugged, chewing a mouthful of food. “He knows that once Dad retires at the end of the year, he’s out. He was a decent head of finance about fifteen years ago, before the company grew to the size it has, but I’m going to need someone a lot more dynamic.” He told them about the ride in the elevator. “He hates change. Wants everything status quo. He’s risk averse and prefers the company to be cash risk instead of having a balanced portfolio.”
“You played the long game well, Connor,” Ben said. “You deserve to take over. I don’t know how you’ve stuck with it all these years.”
“Every day is like playing chess, strategizing moves. I just stay focused on the shit that matters to me. It sucks balls to let some things slide, but I realize that while Dad wants me to take over, Cameron still has a certain amount of sway with him. So keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that.”
Charles placed a sparkling water next to Connor’s plate. “Thanks,” Connor said.
“No worries,” Charles replied. “Donovan has always listened to Cameron. Are you worried your dad is going to spring some last-minute surprise in your new contract saying you have to keep Cameron on?”
Connor’s gut tightened. He’d had the exact same thought. “The draft CEO contract I’ve seen doesn’t have a clause in it. But I’ll triple-check it before I sign it. I’m more concerned Cameron is going to influence Dad into looking externally for a CEO replacement, leaving me where I am, or perhaps he’ll even offer to be the CEO himself.” He was sick of his uncle and needed to get off the topic before it soured his mood.
“Anybody want to try this?” he said, holding up the gin.
Blake nodded. “You’re drinking on a school night?”
Connor grinned. “Was one of the medal winners the other night. Wanted to try it. Figured sharing it with you guys was better than sitting in my apartment drinking alone.”
Charles slapped him on the back. “Told you you were a loser. What did it win?”
“Best in Class. The packaging is crisp and bright, totally stands out on the shelf…a smart touch by whoever created the design. If it tastes as good as it looks, which the medals suggest it does, then the distillery is onto a winner.”
“Is this one of the distilleries you’re thinking of buying?” Ben asked.
“Undecided. Meeting with Dad tomorrow to discuss.” His friends didn’t know his father’s history with the distillery; there had never been reason to share his dad’s business with them. They took his comment at face value.
And he certainly wasn’t ready to tell them about Emerson Dyer. He looked at the gin bottle. Should he find a way to contact Emerson and tell her what he thought?
If his father could get set off by simply knowing Connor had drunk Dyer’s gin, he could only imagine what his father would say if he knew about the thoughts Connor had harbored about Emerson Dyer.
He’d spent several frustrated hours reminding himself it was none of his business if she’d gone back to Sven’s room to geek out on the tonnage of seaweed required for ten thousand bottles of gin. Or perhaps to slip out of that black dress to reveal the body Connor had lost sleep imagining. He’d eavesdropped as they’d spoken to one another after her win, only to be interrupted by his father’s call. Not knowing what Emerson had done after he’d left was gnawing at him.
He rubbed his hand along his cheek and grimaced.
The woman had him in knots, and she didn’t even know it.
Needing to change the topic from Dyer’s Gin Distillery and distract himself, he reached for the poker set and placed it on the dining table.
“Who’s ready to play?” he said.
And attempted to push Emerson Dyer to the back of his mind.
Emerson groaned. “Why did I decide to do this? And how was I able to convince you to join me?” she asked Ali, her patient best friend, as she sweated through every available pore.
“Because it’s the only way I get to see you,” Ali replied, the sentence punctuated by gasping breaths as they finished their final set of burpees before the trainer allowed them to collapse on their mat.
When Emerson’s father had died, it was Ali who’d stayed with her that first week. It was Ali who made sure she functioned enough to keep the distillery going. And Emerson had thanked her by diving headfirst into running a business she was barely capable of, leaving little time for her friend.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a lot.”
Ali sat up on her mat and crossed her legs, her long, blonde ponytail swinging. “I know it has. I was only teasing.”
Emerson wiped the sweat from her forehead. “I’m serious. I’ve got to get on top of all this, but I still feel like I’m drowning in stuff I didn’t do yet.” She stretched her legs out and reached for her toes. “I’m like a novice skier heading down a double diamond on their first day out.”
Ali stood and pulled her foot to her butt. “What can I do to help?”
“Meet me at the six a.m. class for the foreseeable future?”
Laughter bubbled from Ali. “I can do that. Outside of the amazing medal wins, how was your trip?”
Connor’s face flashed in Emerson’s mind. “Interesting.”
“The way you drew the word out says there was something specifically interesting. Care to elaborate?”
Emerson changed to a different cooldown exercise. “There was this guy—”
“Oh, the best stories start with that. Tell me.”
As they finished their stretches, Emerson found herself telling Ali everything that had happened.
“And you didn’t get his number?” Ali practically yelled as they walked to the showers.
Emerson shouldered her friend gently. “What part of he disappeared from the ballroom did you not understand?”
“Urgh. You are useless. You could have called down to the hotel desk, asked for his room, and spoken with him.”
“And even if I’d thought of that, I wouldn’t have done it because that is spectacularly creepy. If a guy did that to me at an event, I’d have to change hotels!”
“Fine. You’re right. It would be weird. But a quick search online would tell you where his office is, and I’m sure you could come up with something to say.”
Perhaps she could.
After she showered and went to the distillery, the thought kept rattling around in her mind.
“Hey, Emerson,” Jake said, sticking his pen behind his ear as he popped his head into her office. “Cash flow. I’m placing a botanicals order. It’s a big one. Am I good to go?”
She shook the thought of Connor from her mind. “You’re fine.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any sign of the insurance check for the events hall yet, is there?”
Shit. Did she notify them about the change of ownership? Abruptly, she stood. “Not yet. But I can’t even remember if they were contacted. I’ll check my list. There were so many documents to sign and names to change over the last two months. I know Dad said it would take a while before we heard anything from them.”
Once they had that check, she wouldn’t need to worry about cash flow to place orders or pay overtime.
“Em, relax. If you didn’t, then we need to fix it, that’s all. It shouldn’t stop them from processing the claim in the meantime.”
Emerson sighed, the tightness in her chest was replaced with low-grade anger. It was easy for Jake to tell her to relax. Liv hadn’t been in any state to help, and Jake was needed on the production floor. She’d already been carrying her own job and Liv’s. And then she took on the burden of her father’s work. Basic math said that was untenable. “I’ll get on it. They won’t tell me the status until they have my name on the forms.”
Jake
threw his arm over her shoulder. “It’s okay for us to make mistakes, you know.”
Emerson shrugged. “Not when there’s a lot of money at stake.”
Jake let her go and ran his fingers over the award statuettes that stood on the newly cleared top of the filing cabinet. “I can’t believe we pulled it off.”
Emerson cheered a little. “You pulled if off, Jake. You. Dad always said you had talent. Remember how when we were little, Mom always used to play that game over dinner? What did she call it?”
“Guess the Ingredients,” Jake said with a grin. “I always crushed it.”
“It was always some stupid herb or something. Like she’d sneak chopped, fresh oregano leaves into pasta. You could always taste them or smell them.”
“So, what you’re saying is that there’s finally a place for my talents.”
Emerson smacked his arm playfully. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, pity it counted for shit at school.”
Jake hadn’t gone to college. He’d left school with less than stellar grades and gone to work directly for their father. “But look at you now, Double Gold and Best in Class medal winner.”
“Let’s hope I’m not a one-trick pony. Dad only won one medal in his career.”
She could hear the doubt in Jake’s voice. They all had fears about stepping into their father’s shoes to drive the business forward. “You’re off to a strong start, Jake. I’m sure you’ll keep the momentum going. I have faith in you.”
Jake looked at her intensely for a moment. “That’s exactly what Dad used to say to me.”
The loss had affected all of them deeply, but Jake rarely shared his emotions about it.
“He used to say it to me too.”
Jake squeezed her hand, gave her a sad smile, and left the office.
Her gaze returned to their trophies. For a moment, she wished her father had been the one to bring them home. Instead, it had been her.
And then there was Connor.
Wait. Why was she still thinking about a man who’d simply disappeared?
It had been rude.
It had been expected based on his behavior on the airplane.
But it still hurt.
Damn it.
Emerson pulled up her hair into an elastic and turned on a focus playlist. Within the hour, she’d reviewed all the new order requests. She’d had to quietly remind herself that having too many orders was a good problem to have. Only then had she been able to make a plan for production that would see them hit at least eighty percent of it for the month.
She opened the presentation she’d started during her enforced airplane working session.
Thoughts of Connor’s eyes on her had spurred her on until she’d not only forgotten about her fear of flying, but also had the most productive two hours she could remember in months.
Gah!
Why did he keep appearing in her thoughts? It had been three freaking days.
She focused on the presentation. When the insurance came in, she was going to suggest putting the money into expanding the distillery with additional stills and labor, so Jake could have time away from the stills to develop the new line of products. The additional production would quickly translate into sales, and the resulting profit could be used to reopen the reception venue.
Her father had already cancelled weddings for the next few months, and then there was the lighter spell before they hit spring and summer weddings. It wouldn’t require much risk. It could work.
Emerson looked at the numbers again. It was tight, but it was doable. And then they wouldn’t even need a loan for the expansion. They’d use the insurance to pay for the expansion, and the expansion to pay for the renovation. It was a win-win.
With a sigh, she flopped back into her chair. Knowing her luck, there was some clause that you had to use insurance money to repair the thing you claimed for, or they’d recall it all or something. She’d have to double-check before she proposed this to Jake and Olivia.
The idea of calling the insurance company made her feel a little sick inside. She hated phone calls. Hated the flood of paperwork that would inevitably follow. And while she knew she sounded like an overtired, pouty toddler, she just wanted to be left alone for a little while.
By eight, the factory was dark. Jake preferred starting his days early and had just completed another fourteen-hour production run.
Emerson was confident she had the framework of a solid plan that built on what she had started on the plane. There had been something about Connor’s energy and antagonism and her own stubbornness that had merged together to stimulate her problem-solving skills, with just enough alcohol to stop her from censoring or second-guessing herself as she wrote.
Connor.
Had it been ridiculous to think that after their bumpy start, they might have been able to create a friendship, or perhaps a flirtation out of it?
She thought they had.
But he hadn’t, obviously.
Her fingers were on the keyboard before she could stop herself. She typed Connor’s name into the search engine as Ali had suggested and pressed Enter.
A trade journal article popped up with his name. She hadn’t known much about Finch Liquor Distribution beyond their existence. Dyer’s never made the volumes a company like Connor’s dealt in, so their paths had never crossed. She hadn’t been aware it was still family owned, like her company.
See, another thing we have in common. Both in the liquor trade, both in family business.
She clicked on a photograph of Connor, this time in a wetsuit and swimming cap. So, he competed in the Ironman. There were facts and figures, which by her deduction meant that, for an amateur, he was quite good.
Really good, according to one of the races he’d done. Some Norwegian Ironman that involved jumping off the bow of a ship into borderline frigid waters for the swim.
Emerson shuddered. Dear Lord. The closest she came to swimming was hanging out on the back of an inflated, pink flamingo sipping cocktails while on vacation. And though she did run, it was highly unlikely her three-mile circuit would impress Mr. I-Can-Run-A-Marathon-After-Cycling-A-Billion-Miles.
After twenty embarrassing-to-admit minutes, she found herself on Connor’s company profile. When she had turned into a cyber stalker was unclear, and she’d likely have to have a large gin when she got home to absolve her sins. But here she was. Sitting in the dark, reading his professional bio.
This image was a straight-up corporate headshot. He stood in a white corridor with chrome details, his arms folded, just as she remembered them, feet forty-five degrees to the photographer, with his head tilted in the direction of the lens.
It looked like a cardboard cutout.
It lacked personality.
But the page didn’t lack his email address.
She hovered over the link, then copied it.
Perhaps she should email him. She could make it friendly. Polite.
The champagne.
That was it. She could email him about the champagne. Thank him for the wonderful celebration. And she wouldn’t ask him where he had disappeared to. Nope. She wouldn’t ask.
But she wanted to know.
She pasted Connor’s address into a new email.
Dear Connor,
No. Too familiar.
Connor.
Better.
Thank you so much for keeping me company on Saturday evening. It was such a huge day for our distillery, and I really appreciate the champagne you bought presented provided
Urgh.
Ask her to write a report on the production requirements to fill orders in the first quarter, and she’d be all over it. Ask her to write something personal, something to foster connection, and she’d be as useful as the weak head of a new distillation.
Emerson slammed the lid of her laptop shut.
Oh my gosh. What if it accidentally sent?
She opened her laptop and quickly deleted the message, but not before copying the e
mail address into her contacts.
There might be a time when she’d need it.
Like when?
With a burst of energy, she jumped from her seat and shoved the laptop into her bag before she got any more bright ideas that might include calling the company switchboard to get his voicemail. If she couldn’t write him an email under pressure, the chances of her doing better on the phone were slim to none.
Emerson grabbed her purse, set the alarms for the distillery and stepped out into the cool Denver evening air. Perhaps she’d call Ali to go out for a drink.
Anything to avoid the temptation of contacting Connor Finch.
Fuck, that’s hot.
Connor juggled the plastic container out of the microwave, switching between fingers and thumbs, and dropped it on the concrete countertop. The sweet potato, broccoli, rice, and chicken steamed as he nudged the lid off. He fought off the urge to cover the stuff in soy sauce or chili sauce or something that would make the food just a touch more interesting. Emerson had judged him correctly in her assessment of his eating habits.
Macros mattered, even if they sometimes tasted bland.
While it cooled a little, he grabbed a fork from the cutlery drawer and topped up his glass of water.
He pulled the leather stool from under the counter and perched on it. Fork in hand, he opened his laptop to study his latest project.
Dyer’s Gin Distillery.
Their Medallion gin was just as good as it was reported to be. So good, in fact, he’d had one more drink than intended yet he’d woken up with a head as clear as if he’d not taken a sip.
Emerson Dyer was already encouraging him to break his own habits.
From his first sip while playing poker, he was committed to learning more about the distillery, and he’d spent the last twenty-four hours doing as much research as he could about the private family-owned company.
Except there wasn’t much to find.
His father had always suggested he was heavily involved in the beginnings of Dyer’s Gin Distillery, but Connor couldn’t find a trace of his father’s name in connection with the distillery anywhere. Paul Dyer had completely erased his father from the narrative. Even in old online newspaper reports of the time, he couldn’t find any reference. Every source said the same thing, that it had been started by Paul and Rebecca Dyer. He assumed Rebecca was Emerson’s mother because not only did they share the same last name, they shared the same warm brown hair and cute smile.
Love in Numbers: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Love Distilled Book 1) Page 4