by Megan Hart
Reese has a crush on her. Corinne knows this because she catches him watching her as she takes care of the other tables. When he thinks she can’t notice him, he stares, but every so often she’ll look up into the diner’s mirrored interior and let her gaze move across the room, deliberately seeking out the sight of Reese’s long-distance worship. On the nights when he doesn’t come in, she finds herself still looking for his reflection.
Tonight, they’re short-staffed and overcrowded. People wait for tables even though it’s nearly two in the morning, and anyone with any sense would’ve gone home to bed by now, grouchy Corinne thinks as she weaves and bobs to get around Dino, the busboy, who’s trying to clear off a table so she can seat someone else. Corinne’s so busy she barely notices when Reese and his friends come in, at least until she finds herself at their table. They’re jostling and joking, causing a ruckus as usual. Except for Reese, in the far corner.
At the sight of him, every bad feeling she’s had this entire night, all the shitty tips and messed up orders and rude patrons…all of that melts away when she sees Reese’s smile. He’s a gust of clean, fresh air, and she breathes him in. For a moment it’s like they’re the only two in the diner, but only for a blink, because she shakes herself back into the real world. No time for goo-goo eyes. She sees him watching her in the mirrors as she walks away, and for the first time in all the months he’s been coming in here, Corinne lets her gaze meet his in the reflection.
She smiles.
After a few seconds, Reese smiles too.
The next hour is a blur of coffee and late-night orders, but she keeps an eye on the clock for four a.m. Her salvation. Her shift will end, and she’ll be able to finally get home, grab a steaming shower, and slip into bed. It’ll be Sunday. She doesn’t have class, and she won’t have to go back to work until Monday night.
So caught up in the rest of the work, she doesn’t notice when Reese’s group heads out, leaving piles of cash on the table and Reese sitting alone, waiting for the check. She notices the look in his eyes though. Oh, yeah. She notices that, for sure.
“I’m about ready to go off shift,” Corinne says as she scribbles the total on the bill and passes it to him. “If I leave before you’re ready, you can take it to the register.”
“I’m ready now.”
The words leap from her lips, coasting on a smile. “Are you? You sure?”
Reese doesn’t smile. He nods, his gaze never leaving hers. He’s lined his icy eyes with dark liner that make them stand out even bluer. It’s not a look she usually goes for, but something about this guy flips Corinne’s switch.
“Yes. I’m sure,” he says.
As far as come-ons go, it’s subtler than she’s used to, but that’s what she likes about him. He’s waiting for her outside when she comes out, and she somehow expected that. His shoulders are hunched, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and he’s blowing out a few frosty breaths into the late November chill.
“Are you coming home with me?” she asks.
“Yes, please.” He smiles.
And that, that she fucking loves, the way he says it so politely, so hopeful and yet at the same time it’s clear he has no doubt she’s going to say yes. He’s confident. Not cocky.
She lives close enough to the diner that the car doesn’t even have time to get warm before she’s pulling up in front of her apartment. Not that it has to—the heat between them is palpable. They haven’t talked much on the ride over, but whenever she glances over at him, Reese is looking at her.
Inside, she hangs up her coat and turns to him, meaning to ask if he wants a drink, but she’s in his arms before she has time to say a word. Reese pulls her close, his hands firm on her hips. She expects a kiss.
Instead, Reese goes to his knees in front of her.
Everything inside her shakes at this, his worship of her, his face pressed to her belly. Her hands go automatically to the top of his head, fingers threading through his hair. She cannot breathe.
She can feel the heat of him through the thin cotton of her uniform. He inches up the hem, sliding his hands up the backs of her thighs along the smoothness of her pantyhose. At the press of his mouth between her legs, Corinne mutters a cry.
Reese laughs and nuzzles her. Her fingers tighten in his hair until he looks up at her. His eyes blaze. His mouth is wet.
She finds her voice. “You want this pussy on your tongue?”
“Yes,” he says. “Please.”
Her grip tightens a bit more. His eyes go half-lidded, heavy with desire. She doesn’t know why she says this, but something inside her has awakened. Something strong and powerful and incapable of being denied.
“Please…what?” She waits, breathless, uncertain what he will say, but when he speaks, his answer is perfection.
“Yes, please…Ma’am.”
In that moment, everything Corinne has ever believed she wanted from a man falls away. She’s been waiting, she thinks, dazed, as she stares down into Reese’s face. Waiting her entire life for this.
Chapter Three
Stein and Sons had started off as the Stein Brothers back in the thirties, when Morty and Herb Stein had joined forces to provide a dairy delivery service to rural families who lived too far from town to make a regular trip but who didn’t live on farms.
Morty had handled the actual deliveries. Herb had gone door-to-door not only to the farmers from whom they’d negotiated their supplies, but also to the families who’d needed convincing that the Stein Brothers could provide them with efficient, reliable, and, most importantly to Depression-ravaged central Pennsylvania, thrifty goods and services. They’d started with driving a single horse-drawn carriage and preparing invoices in the back room of their mother’s house and ended up with a fleet of refrigerated tankers and a corporate headquarters. In the early to midseventies, renamed Stein and Sons, they’d been the largest local dairy delivery service in the entire state. Corinne could remember pouring Stein and Sons milk on her cereal while watching Sunday morning cartoons.
Of course all that had changed over time. No more home deliveries. Competition from other dairies. Issues with customers refusing to buy products that used bovine growth hormone. Slowly, the business had diversified and reorganized and downsized.
Stein and Sons morphed from a delivery service of bottled milk, cream, and cheese into a small dairy specializing in gourmet items such as goat’s milk, artisanal cheeses, specialty yogurts, and hand-churned ice cream. With an on-site store and tours to capitalize on Lancaster County’s thriving tourist business, Stein and Sons had a tidy little setup that would’ve confused its founders, but Corinne liked to think it would also have made them proud.
Chief financial officer. The title felt unwieldy when she said it aloud, though it looked just fine on all the stationery printed with her name. The company was so small that she did more than take care of the financials—she was also the head of human resources and director of operations…sort of. All the jobs had been bundled into one. They’d had to let go most of the other staff. Other than the off-site custodial staff that came in to clean three days a week, most of the time it was only Corinne and the secretary, Sandy, in the office. The fifty or so other employees who maintained the barns and livestock and worked in the production facility rarely, if ever, came in. It wasn’t exactly what her early twenties self, waitressing at the local diner and busting her ass to complete her MBA, had pictured she would be doing, but Corinne guessed that could probably be said by a lot of people.
She’d started at Stein and Sons fifteen years ago in the accounting department and worked her way up, until here she sat in her own corner office with a big, shiny desk and a view of what had once been farm fields but was rapidly becoming obscured by neighborhoods populated with mini-mansions. She’d been through every downsize and shift in the company’s focus. There’d been a few times she’d considered leaving for a position that paid more, but she’d never quite made the leap. She’d been too aware of how decep
tively green the grass could be when fertilized with the manure of someone else’s cows. Now she wondered if it was time to start seriously revamping her résumé.
There’d been rumors flying for months. Corporate takeover. A buyout. Mergers. Flat-out shutting down the entire production line and selling off all the assets. Dennis, Lynn, Patty, Jennifer, and Ryan—the Stein grandchildren who’d maintained their inherited positions within the company—had been reassuring the employees that nothing was going to change, no matter where Stein and Sons ended up heading.
Corinne doubted that was true. Everything changed, no matter if you wanted it to or not. Besides, she saw the numbers and the bottom line. She signed off on the paychecks and ran the quarterly reports. She’d been the one to let the rest of the office staff go when they needed to cut back on employee costs. Stein and Sons was in trouble, with no good way out in sight.
The board had turned down too many offers over the past couple of years, ones they probably should have taken back when the business had started off booming and they could’ve turned a hefty profit. It was now fizzling, without much to offer anyone. If they couldn’t turn around sales in the next few months, they were going to go under.
“We’re still not seeing enough growth,” she explained to the men and women sitting at the conference table across from her. Someone had laid out some bagels with a carton of the dairy’s garlic/rosemary cream cheese, and she’d already indulged herself in coffee with real fresh cream from the employee fridge. She was going to miss this if she had to leave.
“Patty was supposed to oversee the new marketing ventures,” Jennifer said, turning to her cousin. “What’s happening with getting the new products into local stores? Why aren’t we increasing orders?”
“We’re not only not increasing, we’re losing them,” Dennis put in.
Patty frowned and tucked a curl of graying brown hair behind her ear. “Look, it’s not that easy. We’re in direct competition with a lot of the local dairies we used to have business relationships with—”
“A million years ago,” Ryan interrupted.
Patty nodded at him but kept talking. “And none of them are dealing with all this fancy stuff. It’s straight up milk, cream, seasonal eggnog, ice cream, whatever. They’re selling to the big conglomerates too, for more money than we can afford to spend on more product than we can possibly utilize. So even if they’re not putting local products on the shelves, they’re profiting by selling to the big kids’ club.”
“Exactly,” said Dennis with a small thump of his fist on the table. “We need to serve a market with an expanded palate. That’s what we’re going for. We want to reach those folks who think nothing of driving into Philly for dinner because they’re sick and tired of nothing but chain restaurants. The kind who pair cheese with wine. Hey, have we looked into maybe getting in with some of the local wineries? Maybe a themed cheese spread or something?”
Corinne had heard people like that existed in Lancaster County. Transplants from New York or Philadelphia or even D.C. who’d fled “to the country” and suffered a long commute so they could raise their kids to play endless seasons of soccer on fields that reeked of manure. She’d been born and raised here in south central Pennsylvania. She’d never driven to the “big” city just for the sake of having dinner.
“People around here don’t want to eat herbed yogurt, Denny. They want the kind with fruit on the bottom. They might go for some fancy cheeses, but trying to sell them anise and lavender ice cream is just going to end up making us look like fools.” Patty said this last bit firmly, with a matching rap of her knuckles on the table. It was a habit most of the family had picked up from their parents, who’d learned it from their fathers, Morty and Herb.
“Look, we got into the Philly markets—” Ryan began.
“Only three, and only on a provisional basis. It’s more expensive to ship there. If we had more customers it would make the cost of shipping maintainable, but we don’t. We also have more competition from bigger dairies closer to Philly, and they’ve snagged the spots in the farmer’s markets, places like that where we might have a shot. Yes, we can reach the sorts of customers who’d love a candied walnut and rosemary goat milk ice cream, but only if we find a place that will carry the products. All around, what Corinne’s been saying is the simple truth.” Patty turned to Corinne with a sigh. “Not enough growth. Guys, we have to face it. We’re going to have to shut it all down.”
Ryan sighed. He was in charge of product invention and testing. “We could go simpler. It doesn’t have to be so fancy, I guess. Get back to basics, come at it from the nostalgia angle. Stein and Sons has been around forever.”
“I don’t want to sell. I never have.” This came from Lynn, usually silent, which meant that when he did have something to say, everyone listened. Before anyone could chime in to agree or disagree, he held up a hand. Lynn had started off in the company working in the dairy barn. He knew more about the cows and goats than any of the others. His brother Dennis liked to tease that Lynn wore manure instead of cologne, and Corinne was privately inclined to agree, but no matter what he had caked on his boots, Lynn commanded respect. “But I think it’s time we seriously considered the offer again.”
The offer.
That’s how all the owners referred to it, usually in a disdainful undertone or with a casually anxious sneer. For a company with a history of staying in the same family for generations without so much as a hint of a power struggle, the idea of passing the Stein Brothers legacy into the hands of a stranger had always been unthinkable. They’d received and passed up plenty of offers for other buyouts in the past, unanimously voting to keep Stein and Sons in the hands of its grandsons and granddaughters.
Now, the offer.
It had come in two weeks ago. An insultingly terrible offer, laden with restrictions and caveats that would’ve essentially crippled the company in the long-term. It would’ve gone straight into Corinne’s trash file, but it hadn’t come directly to her.
Lynn shook his head. “I don’t know that we have any choice. Corinne’s given us the numbers. We’ve tried everything we can think of. Nothing we do is working. It’s time to let go.”
“But if we sold, we wouldn’t have the business anymore,” Jennifer said. “It would be totally gone.”
“It’s going to be gone soon anyway, if we don’t see some turnaround,” Corinne said gently. “Something has to change. Or there won’t be anything left to sell except the physical assets.”
The cousins shared a look. Dennis cleared his throat. Patty sighed. Lynn looked stoic, and Jennifer’s red eyes gave away her emotions. Only Ryan looked resigned.
“My dad always said to quit before you got fired,” he said. “I’m sorry, guys. I wish I’d been able to come up with something that had really taken off.”
Jennifer squeezed her cousin’s shoulder. “Nobody’s firing you. It’s not your fault we can’t convince anyone to expand their palates.”
“I set up a meeting with the guy for you this afternoon,” Lynn said to Corinne. “His name’s Tony Randolph, and he represents the buyer. We need to discuss the terms. The buyer’s intentions. I’ll need you to get a real handle on what’s going to be best for Stein and Sons.”
“His intentions are to throw a couple of bucks our way and make us seem grateful to have it.” Patty frowned. “That offer was almost worse than declaring bankruptcy.”
“It’s certainly nothing close to what we feel the business is worth, I know that.” Lynn shook his head. “But this might be the best thing. It could be good.”
“Not much about this can be good,” Jennifer put in, then quickly pressed her lips closed.
“We have Corinne looking out for us,” Lynn said.
Corinne slid a fingertip across her phone to bring up her calendar. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Of course I’ll go to the meeting. What time?”
“I said you’d meet him at the StockYard Inn at two.” Lynn cracked his knuckles, th
en laid his hands flat on the table. “We trust you, Corinne. Hear what he has to say and bring it back to us. Help us figure it out.”
She nodded, looking at each of them in turn. Softly, she rapped her knuckles on the table. “Okay.”
Chapter Four
Reese Ebersole had bought and sold close to a hundred businesses. He’d acquired his first one twelve years ago using his meager savings, earned from his job bussing tables while he went to school, along with what had been left of the inheritance from his parents. The inheritance itself had not been substantial. He’d lost more money than his parents had ever earned in their entire lives. They’d meant it for him to finish school or pay for a wedding. Have a baby with a woman he loved. All the things they’d wished for him and would never see. Not because they’d both died far too early, but because Reese had never done any of those things.
He’d been too busy working. He’d had as many as thirty small companies in his portfolio, but currently owned only four that remained active. A string of kosher grocery stores. A tech company specializing in up-priced gadgetry appealing to people with too much money and not enough junk to spend it on. A media company with an emphasis on social media applications and development. The final company also specialized in something specific—catered holidays geared for überwealthy kinky people who wanted to travel in the lifestyle to which they’d grown accustomed. Bed and breakfasts with dungeons set up in actual dungeons, or buffet meals served on the bodies of naked, ornamentally beautiful men and women. The sorts of things they showed in the movies but normal people never did.
He had a penthouse flat in Philadelphia, a cottage in Ireland, a condo in Hawaii, and a pied-à-terre in Manhattan with a view of the Empire State Building. Mom would have tutted about the expenses of holding down so many households, especially without a woman to organize them. She’d have wanted to be sure each of them was fully stocked with toilet paper, milk, and eggs, and dishes that matched the silverware. Dad would not have been impressed with what he would have considered extravagance and indulgence. Dad would have counseled more caution. But beneath the criticisms, they both would’ve been proud, or at least Reese hoped. He guessed he would never know. He’d lost them both within six months of each other, long before he’d ever even made a bid on a business.