by Kelsie Fann
The Savannah heat hit her as soon as she stepped out of the building. It filled her entire body. She breathed in deep, letting the hot air and disappointing news fill her to the tips of her fingers., Savannah and Chambers’s Media were her home. They were part of her. That’s when she decided that she wasn’t going to lose either of them without trying everything.
She scrolled through her phone and saw the text message she received from Hamilton the night after the party, only a few days earlier. Wow, she thought. Was that only a few days ago? It felt like a lifetime had passed since she’d seen Hamilton.
Now, as she thought about Hamilton, she wondered if he could help. Liz took a deep breath and dialed his number. She didn’t have any other options.
It rang four times with no answer. With each trill, her heart beat a little faster until it was racing. On the fifth ring, she heard a silky voice. “Hello, Lizzy.”
His voice was even deeper over the phone than it was in person.
“Hammy, how are you?” She tried to make her voice sound upbeat.
“I’m good, getting ready for a meeting.”
She exhaled slowly, trying to find the words for the question she wanted to ask.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Calling to stand me up again? You’re going to force me back into emotional eating.”
Liz grinned and leaned up against a brick building nearby, pressing her back into the bumpy wall. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Actually,” she continued, “Chambers wants to meet with you. He has a proposition for you.” As the words came out of her mouth, she realized she had no idea what Chambers could offer Hamilton, but she had to get the men in a room together before Hamilton found out what Darcy already knew.
“I’d love to hear it. Are you available for dinner after?”
Liz’s pulse started racing. “I’d love that. Can you be here tomorrow at two?”
“I’ll be there,” he said. After a quick goodbye, Liz hung up the phone. She didn’t want to risk saying anything that might hurt her chances for Hamilton buying the company or her chances for a date.
She marched back to the office and found Mr. Chambers, his head lying on his desk, with his eyes closed. Liz was devastated for Chambers, but neither of them had time to waste.
Liz tapped on his desk, and his eyes fluttered opened. “Make sure everyone is working tomorrow. The entire day. We need to look busy and profitable.”
“What does it matter?” Chambers asked.
“Hamilton is coming.” Liz bent down so her head met his. “We’re going to meet with him. We’re going to tell him the truth. And we’re going to negotiate something, anything. This is an amazing company you’ve built. And despite what Darcy says, it’s worth something.”
Chambers slowly pulled his head off of his desk.
“If Hamilton is coming, then I’m going to invite Darcy, too.”
Liz shook her head. She didn’t want to have to face him again, or worse hear “I told you so” out of his pretentious mouth. “No, he’s already made up his mind.”
“Then what will it hurt if I pitch him a new deal? I need every potential buyer I can get,” Chambers said.
Liz shook her head again. This was not part of her plan. “He’s made it clear. He doesn’t want to buy.”
Chambers picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “Maybe we could get them in a bidding war. Maybe whatever fire-sale terms Hamilton gives us will make the deal work for James and Darcy, too.” As the words came out of his mouth, color started to return to his cheeks.
Liz pressed her lips together. She didn’t want a bidding war, and she didn’t want to see Darcy again. Chambers didn’t notice her reluctance. He picked up the phone and started dialing before she could think of a reason to stop him.
No! No! No! Liz thought. Liz dug her toes painfully into the tips of her shoes. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
“What?” Chambers asked.
Liz paused and tried to think of a reason Chambers shouldn’t call Darcy. There wasn’t one, except for her bruised pride. She sighed. “I told Hamilton to be here at two tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell James to be here at one.” Chambers picked up the phone. The bidding war was on.
15.
James sat down at the chair in front of his desk and tossed his hair to the side. “Just hear what the old man has to say.”
Darcy ran his hands along his big, metal desk in his tall, metal building in Chicago. He liked metal. It was smooth. It was strong. It was stable, trustworthy.
“There’s nothing left to say,” Darcy said. “Did you tell him we weren’t interested in his new deal?”
“I did, but then he begged me for just one more meeting.”
“We did that already,” Darcy said.
“He said he has new terms.” James sat down in front of Darcy’s desk and crossed his legs. “And I thought, what if he’s going to drop the price? What if this is a fire sale?” The gleam in James’ eyes made Darcy listen. “It could be exactly what our board members are looking for.”
As much as Darcy and James were on opposite sides of the equation when it came to due diligence before buying companies, they both loved getting a great deal. Once, they’d bought a production company for pennies on the dollar after James found out one of the co-owners wanted to liquidate before she filed for divorce.
James raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “Or we could let Hamilton have it. Throw him a bone.”
Darcy rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what his friend was trying to do: use his hatred for Hamilton to motivate him. And it worked. He hated the thought of losing any deal, even a bad one, to that man. “I guess we could hear Chambers out,” Darcy conceded.
“Good choice, friend. Let’s make one more trip down South,” James said. He turned and walked out of Darcy’s office, practically skipping across the threshold. Amelia, the intern, followed closely behind James like a love-sick puppy. Darcy expected his partner to whisper something to make her giggle, but James just looked straight ahead, not even acknowledging the young girl.
Darcy leaned back in his chair and plopped his feet on his desk. He was going back to Savannah, a place he never thought he would visit again. He felt strange about it. Nervous? No, not nervous. Excited? Was he excited to possibly buy the best deal of his life? And beat Hamilton? Definitely.
He was only a week away from his quarterly board meeting. It was the first one since his board had recommended expansion, and he was eager to bring the group a great deal. He couldn’t wait to see the looks on his father’s friends faces when he landed a better deal in six months than any of them had in their entire careers. Maybe then they would stop calling him “Little Man,” the nickname his father had given him, which was endearing until he was eight.
Plus, there was one added bonus. Liz, the workaholic director, flashed through his mind. He could almost hear her telling him to leave the office. He couldn’t wait to see her face when he returned.
“Officially, this will be the last trip to Savannah,” Darcy said to himself. He took his feet off the desk and opened a spreadsheet. He was going to come up with a number that would make buying Chambers’s Media worth his time. If the old man didn’t take it, Darcy was leaving, and he wasn’t coming back. No matter what strange feeling he felt.
16.
The next morning, Liz woke up before her alarm. She scanned her closet, looking for the perfect outfit to wear on one of the most important days of her career and her personal life. She needed to save her job and Mr. Chambers’s company. And she wanted to look killer for her date with Hamilton.
Gray suit. Tan suit. Black Suit. White suit. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. She needed a dress that was pretty but still work appropriate. Her fingers glided across a seldom worn navy-blue wrap dress. She never wore it for work because it was cut a little lower than she liked.
Despite her hesitation, she threw it on. It hugged her body, dipping low in the front, but not low enough to
be inappropriate for work. Liz scanned the rest of her closet, but nothing else even hinted at date night while being work-appropriate. The navy dress would have to work. She put on her lucky diamond stud earrings and left her house before she could put on a suit.
Walking to work, her nerves rang throughout her body. It wasn’t like butterflies; it was like electricity pulsed through her. After her dating drought of the last year, it was fun to feel excited again. She forced her mind to stay rational. She barely knew Hamilton. He probably had twelve toes.
As soon as Liz arrived at work, her feelings of excitement were replaced by the mountain of new emails in her inbox. She started at the top, answering each question and request while watching the clock. Ten minutes before her meeting with Darcy and an hour before she saw Hamilton, Liz’s phone rang. It was Hamilton.
She walked out of the glass conference room where she was sitting next to Chambers before she answered. “Have you landed?” she asked.
“Lizzy, this time it is my turn to ask for a raincheck.”
The pulsing current of electricity left her body. This couldn’t be happening. Everything depended on seeing Hamilton, explaining the situation, asking for his help, and finally going on a date. “You’re not coming?”
“I’m so sorry. I wanted to see you.” His voice was truly apologetic.
She was desperate to save the meeting. “Should we set up a conference call instead?”
Hamilton cleared his throat. “It won’t do any good. My investors pulled their funding this morning.” Hamilton’s voice was barely above a whisper.
In a second, everything was gone. The man she’d counted on to save Mr. Chambers, her job, and her team wasn’t going to save anyone.
“What happened?” She knew it wasn’t her business, but she couldn’t help but ask.
A slight flutter returned to her chest as she waited for his answer. “Darcy and I use the same investment company. And, today, he convinced them to pull out.”
Liz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Darcy was worse than she thought. First, he didn’t want the company, and now he was actively keeping another potential buyer away. Who was this guy?
“Why would they do that?” Liz demanded.
Hamilton sighed. “This is embarrassing to admit, but he’s a bigger client than I am right now. They want to keep him happy.”
It was the first time in years that she’d hear a man be so honest and vulnerable. It made her like him even more. “Don’t be embarrassed; business is hard.”
“Thanks, Lizzy. I hate to let you down.”
A few seconds passed between the pair. Liz wanted to beg him to come anyway, but she didn’t want to sound desperate.
“Well, let me know if you’re ever in Savannah,” she said.
“You will be my first call. If you don’t mind, can I offer you a last piece of advice?”
“Sure,” she said even though she hoped this wasn’t last thing he said to her. She wanted there to be one hundred more things, one thousand more things.
“Just be careful with Darcy. He’s notorious for pulling out of deals at the last minute, even if all the terms are agreed to. And if the deal does go through, he usually fires everyone and brings in his own people.”
Wow, Liz thought. The last option couldn’t be any worse.
She heard a voice on the other side of the phone call his name. “Watch out for yourself. I’ve got to go.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Goodbye.”
“Bye, Lizzy,” Hamilton said.
Liz hung up the phone and wanted to throw it against the wall. Her last hope, Hamilton, had evaporated.
Liz looked through the glass wall into the conference room. Chambers was sitting inside. She took a deep breath. It was time for their meeting with Darcy, the last option Mr. Chambers had. Even if he came out okay, she knew as the newest director, she would probably be the first to go if Darcy took over.
As she stepped through the glass door of the conference room, she knew there was no hope left for her job. She looked down at her navy pumps, wishing she were wearing combat boots instead.
17.
“What’s wrong, Liz?” Chambers asked when she sat down next to him.
She didn’t know how to tell Mr. Chambers that Hamilton, the only legitimate buyer they had, wasn’t coming. She still couldn’t process it herself. She played with the tie on the side of her dress, smoothing it against her side. There were no words that would make this situation better.
She took a deep breath and twisted her body toward Chambers. “Hamilton’s out.”
“What happened?” Chambers leaned toward her.
Liz unlocked the tablet in front of her. “Financing problems.”
Chambers ran his hand over the smooth tabletop. “Good thing we’ve got another prospect,” he said. Liz’s insides turned over. She needed to tell Mr. Chambers that Darcy pulled Hamilton’s financing, but it didn’t matter.
“Sure.” Liz pretended to read emails on her tablet so she didn’t have to look Mr. Chambers in the eye and tell him his only other prospect was going to chop his company to bits and fire her.
“You okay?” Mr. Chambers asked.
She didn’t look up, but she nodded. “Yes.”
Liz was still rattled when Darcy arrived with his partner a few minutes later. The red-haired man walked in wearing a perfectly southern tan suit. Meanwhile, Darcy was totally buttoned up in a pitch-black suit and white shirt.
Liz stared at Darcy. Her heart felt like Darcy’s suit: black. Anger bubbled up in her throat as she looked at the tall man with the long reach.
Liz exhaled deeply and stood, offering her hand to her enemy. “Darcy,” she said.
He took her hand and shook it. For the second time, as their hand’s connected, she felt a spark. What is going on?
He stared at her as she willed her body not to tremble with fury. She exhaled again and forced her fury deep inside. She needed to keep a calm mind if she was going to be any use to Mr. Chambers.
“Liz,” James said, walking up to her and extending his hand. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced officially. I’m James. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Despite her anger, his kind, warm face made her smile. “Nice to meet you.” She shook his hand and refused to look at Darcy.
“Shall we sit?” Mr. Chambers’s spread his arms open wide.
Darcy and James nodded and sat down on the opposite side of the conference table from Liz and Mr. Chambers.
Liz could see through the clear, glass conference room wall, behind Darcy and James, and into the rest of the office. She saw her team members, Elise and Stella, smush their heads together, pulling out food from their lunch boxes and posing with it for #lunchfacetime—a tradition started on their first day. Stella balanced an apple on her nose like a seal with a ball.
Liz prayed Darcy wouldn’t turn around to see her team, but before she could pull her eyes off of the girls, Darcy turned his head to see what she was looking at and caught Elise with a banana between her teeth.
“They’re, um…” Liz started to explain the #lunchfacetime tradition but stopped herself short. There was nothing she could say.
Darcy looked back at Liz with a scowl on his face. “I’ve been clear with Liz about our position on buying Chambers’s Media.”
James put his elbows on the table and grinned at Mr. Chambers. “But we would love to hear what you have to say.”
Liz braced herself, ready for Chambers to give the snobbish man a piece of his mind for accusing him of fraud to his employee, but instead of yelling at Darcy, Mr. Chambers took the opposite approach. “Thank you, Darcy,” he said.
“For pointing out our accounting error,” Chambers continued. “I have investigated the cause, and it looks as if you were right. In light of these facts, I am willing to drop the price two million dollars. I think that will more than compensate your efforts.”
Darcy and Bingley stopped. “That’s a good deal,” James said quickly.
Liz watched a series of glances pass between them, and she read every single one. Darcy and James were interested, very interested.
Darcy cleared his throat. “We could make that work. What is being done to remedy your situation?”
“I’m hiring a private accounting firm to clean up the books,” Mr. Chambers said.
Darcy nodded and tilted back in his chair. Slowly the corners of his lips turned upward. His smile looked even more smug than his usual scowl. “Okay, we will take a look at the figures after they are done. Also we will need to find out the identity of the person responsible for the fraud. Either you can fire them, or we can.”
Chambers shook his head to Darcy’s request. “No, I can’t give you that information.” Liz knew Chambers would do anything to protect his daughter and late wife.
Liz looked at Chambers and wondered what he would do. She knew he wouldn’t give up his daughter. “But,” Chambers continued, “you can trust that it will never happen again. I’ve taken care of that.”
Darcy twisted in his chair. “Not acceptable. If we don’t know who committed this fraud, we can’t buy your company for any price. We would have to immediately fire everyone.”
Chambers sighed, and Liz held her breath. Then her boss put the final nail in the coffin. “I guess our meeting is over. This is a non-negotiable for me.”
James interrupted, brushing his strawberry blond hair out of his eyes, “I know people are kinder in the south, but covering up for a criminal isn’t necessary. We’re not looking to prosecute. We just need to know who this person is so this doesn’t happen again.”
Chambers shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
Liz sat between the two men. As much as she hated Darcy, she understood why he wouldn’t budge on this. He couldn’t have a fraud working at his newly acquired company. And she knew Chambers would not budge and expose his daughter either. They were in a deadlock.
Which meant she was off the hook. She wouldn’t have to work for Darcy or get fired by him. Liz coughed and stood to leave. “If you’ll excuse me.” Her voice cut through the stalemate. Darcy flicked his eyes up at her as she walked around the table.