“Why are we fighting?” It was a W word. She wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Because we both want the same thing.”
“I just wanted a picnic.” Her second-best undies could possibly burst into flames, and when he kissed her, because he was going to kiss her, the burn would be delicious.
He scanned her face. “You’re a good actor, but a lousy liar. What do you really want?”
His arms and his lips and the surprised grunts he made as the tension shifted from his body, softened, as he gave up not having fun. But she couldn’t push herself on him again, not now that he’d called her on it, even if he did appear to be so leashed, so wanting someone to light his fuse. And so willing to share the explosion.
“I want you to spot for me again. Introduce me to more trout and catfish and whales, men you loathe who have money to give away without half a thought.”
He stepped back. Picked up a corner of the rug and straightened it. Toed his shoes off and sat.
“And I want to understand how you worked that room like you owned it. How you make your money as a VC. I want you to tell me what venture capital is. Your website is useless, and nothing comes up when I google you. It’s like you’re not real.”
He opened the lid of the basket. “What kind of sandwiches?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I’m real and I’m hungry.” He unwrapped sandwich bags. “Venture capital is money provided to small companies and businesses starting out because they’ve got long term potential for growth. It’s a large-scale version of Dollars for Daughters. Do you want pastrami or meatballs?”
“Pastrami.”
“There’s a lot of risk. The company’s leadership or technology might fail. The way they predict the market might be wrong. Venture might as well stand for adventure. You could score the trip of a lifetime or find yourself in a flea-ridden hovel, in a dangerous neighborhood, in a foreign country, missing your passport and all your cash.” He patted the space beside him.
She went to her knees, then her hip, then stretched her legs out in front and crossed her ankles while fussing with her skirt. All because she didn’t want to look at Cal, with whom she was about to picnic, and who was complicated. When she looked up, he passed her the pastrami sandwich.
“A venture capitalist raises money for these companies by tapping the uber rich because they’re the least likely to have a problem if the investment goes bust.” He took a bite of sandwich and chewed. “This is good.” He took another. “Unless they’re greedy or ignorant and they don’t read the fine print. But mostly they understand the failure rate is high and the investment is speculative.”
That sounded deceptively simple. When D4D lent a woman money to buy feed for animals she was raising to sell, there was a risk the animals could sicken and die, and the woman wouldn’t be unable to pay the loan back.
“We’re in the same kind of business. We both redistribute wealth.”
She took a bite of sandwich. That was what D4D did, but why did Cal saying it like that make it sound like plain, simple theft? Robin Hood and his merry men stuff. She’d have to remember to ask Lenny. She was a business major; she understood how finance worked.
Cal balled his sandwich wrapper and pitched it into his office trash can. It bounced on the side and then fell in. “There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in high finance. A lot of playing within the margins of the law and market forces.” He peered into the basket and found the grapes.
“Are you the smoke or the mirror?”
“A little of both.” She watched him toss a grape and catch it in his open mouth. Did he have to make everything he did appear effortless?
“As to how I worked the room. It’s a skill like anything else. My father taught me.”
“You make it look natural. Why do you have no online profile?”
“Eat your sandwich. It’s deliberate. Less to manage.”
She took another bite; it was easier to digest pastrami on rye than what he was saying. “Do you dislike everyone you raise money from?”
He rummaged in the basket again and came up with the ginger beer, opening a bottle for each of them. “The very rich are very different.”
“But you’re rich.”
He inclined his head. “I’ve got nothing on a multibillionaire who works out how not to pay his taxes for thirty years. That guy is a real hero.” Cal took a sip of the beer and smacked his lips together.
“Then there’s the guy who owns coal power stations who’s funding fake research to say global warming is a conspiracy invented by NASA. And the guy who said he could revolutionize the pathology industry and lost investors billions of dollars on his lie.”
She’d struck a nerve here, and Cal wasn’t finished.
“We’re not even talking about the rich who are repugnant human beings, who actively discriminate against people with less opportunity, who are abusive, racists, homophobes, misogynists. Who are violent and unstable and terrorize their wives and children and never met a consequence they couldn’t buy their way out of.”
He held his bottle up, and the sunlight glanced off it. “The world belongs to the very rich in a way it doesn’t to the rest of us.” He brought the bottle to his lips and sipped. “And that means they get to do whatever the fuck they want, however the fuck they want.”
Fin plucked a grape off the bunch he had set out between them. There were bad grapes in every bunch, that didn’t mean grapes weren’t still delicious. “But there are laws, regulations.”
“Not for these guys. They buy themselves immunity with fancy legal teams and clever accounting, with the right friends and donations to reelection campaigns and causes that support their decision making.”
“But not every seriously rich person can be like that.” Lenny had been seriously rich, and she was the most generous person Fin had ever met.
“No. Some families have extraordinary honor, feel a weight of obligation, and spend their wealth improving the world. But they’re the minority. It’s a sad fact that the wealthiest Americans contribute less than two percent of their income to charity. And they tend to give it to colleges and universities, museums and the arts, or fashionable charities. They don’t give to organizations that serve the poor or the disadvantaged. They barely remember they exist.”
Fin abandoned her sandwich. “That can’t be right.”
“There are studies that prove it. The rich fund charities that fit with their elite lifestyle. People on low incomes are consistently more generous with more limited means, and they give to charities that help people in need. They pay it forward when they can as a kind of insurance for when they might need help themselves. Not something the rich have to worry about.”
If Cal was right about this, he really was the yellow brick road and the Wizard, and no amount of heart, courage, or smarts would get her what she wanted alone.
“Why don’t you do business with nice rich people?”
“Because I’d feel guilty when I lose their money. I like taking money from the ugly rich because they’re more likely to be assholes and it’s guilt free.”
“Any evil billionaire women?”
Cal set his bottle aside and took his tie off, undoing his collar, then both cuffs, rolling them back. “I’m sure they’re out there, but I haven’t met one yet. And I hope I never do.”
“You’re a shark.”
“That’s true. I swim in dangerous waters.” He pulled the package of crackers out of the basket. “Is there cheese?”
He found the cheese and unwrapped it, placed it on the plastic plate alongside the grapes, with the little plastic knife and a sprinkle of crackers.
“You like cheese?” she asked, because she didn’t know what to say about his view on the rich.
He handed her a cracker with a slice of cheddar on top. “I like this picnic. And I’m trying not to think about what it means.”
She ate the cracker and watched him watching her. He lay on his side, legs outst
retched, head propped on his hand.
She tugged at her skirt. He could still make her nervous. “I came here to convince you that you needed me. But that’s a lie. It’s me who needs you.”
“Because you lost your meal ticket when Jeffrey Bradshaw fucked up.”
She flinched, balling the skirt in her hand before smoothing it back out. “How do you know that?”
“I checked you out, Fin. I couldn’t let you in my shark tank if I didn’t know what kind of fish you were and who you swam with.”
Checked her out. There wasn’t much to know about her, she hadn’t already told him. “I thought I could learn from you and then do this for myself, but it’s not only about having the Cal Sherwood formula. It’s about being with Cal Sherwood.”
“I got you started. It will be slower on your own, but if you persist, you can do it.”
Persistence had never been her strong point. She’d read an article that said self-control was a failed construct, that the plate of cookies in front of you always won and the only people who could truly beat it were the people who didn’t like cookies in the first place. She’d always liked cookies, and Cal was the most delicious one she’d tasted.
“It won’t be the buzz of doing it with you.”
He rolled to his back, hands behind his head and closed his eyes. She lay on the rug beside him and looked at the ceiling tiles. In a moment, she’d have to pack up the picnic, shake his hand, and thank him. She’d have to walk out of his life and away from his yellow brick road and be on her own with no plan and barely rehearsed persistence.
“Hypothetically, there’s a way we could work together.”
She didn’t want to move in case that startled the idea out of him. “Like at the retrospective?”
“More or less. Remember your favor?” Who’d have guessed a twist of errant hair could be so lucrative. “You’d be my favor.”
She sat up. “I don’t understand.”
He followed her to sit cross-legged. “You made your target hold your drink while you fixed your earring. I’d make my target donate to D4D, while I line him up for something bigger.”
“Oh my god, you are the Wizard of Oz.”
“I thought I was Edward. But here’s the thing, Fin. If we work together there are rules.”
She came up on her knees and packed away the leftovers. “Like?”
“You’ll need a whole wardrobe of the right clothes.”
“Hah! That’s a huge hardship.” Was clothing a legitimate business expense?
“You’ll have to pretend to be dating me.”
“I wouldn’t have to pretend.”
“Yes, Finley, you would.” His sit-down-and-behave-yourself voice. The one that made her body sit up and react in confusing ways. “Because it’s work for both of us. It’s part of the game. And it got bent out of shape the last time I worked with a female partner, and it fucked things up for a lot of people.”
“Because you fell in love with her?”
“Because I didn’t.”
Oh, that female partner. “You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend. You know exactly what that sounds like, right?”
“That you are my girlfriend. What I’m saying is no more kissing. Absolutely no sex. We keep what we do strictly professional, and the moment we can’t do that, it ends.”
Did he mean that? They were adults, if they both wanted each other, what was stopping them? “But if—”
“This is not a negotiation. I bring you opportunities to take money from my whales for D4D as long as you play the role of my girlfriend in public and we have no intimate dealings in private.”
He meant it. She could tell by the way his face said, this is no picnic.
“But if I’m your girlfriend, we’re going to need to act like we’re together.”
He sighed. “Yes, we’ll need to be affectionate in public. I’m not saying that’s going to be a hardship. I won’t be acting. I like you. You know that. But I can’t get involved with you. The Everlasting project is critical for Sherwood and for me personally. I can’t afford to be distracted or have anything go wrong with the deal. When it’s done, we’re done. If you want your dollars with a fuck load of zeroes behind them, you need to play by my rules.”
She wasn’t giving up on her dollars. “You really are no fun.”
He stood. He offered a hand and she took it, coming to stand beside him. “You should take time to think about it.”
“I’ve thought about it.”
He dropped her hand to pick up the rug. “You’ve thought about how to get around the rules.”
She was giving up on having the man. “You’ve made it abundantly clear this energy between us isn’t something you’re into. You just got yourself the most uncomplicated short-term girlfriend ever.”
Chapter Ten
Cal had organized himself a new One Night Wife. They shook on it. He’d never felt grubbier. And in a life of graft there’d been plenty of occasions where that emotion could’ve reigned supreme. He’d hoped Fin would walk, and he was oddly saddened she’d chosen the money. But that’s what people did—ambition coupled with self-interest always triumphed.
It’s what he’d done with Rory. He was no one to judge.
“Wait here. If you want this, we start now.” He had a deal with Fin, but he still had to sell it to the rest of the company.
“But I—” She looked down at herself, the crazy cute outfit meant for fun, meant for the seduction she’d hoped might follow.
“There’s an event on Saturday night. You need to be ready.” And he needed to go put his case to a few family members before that could happen. This was going to be controversial. But he couldn’t see another way. “Thanks for the picnic. Don’t leave the room. Don’t touch anything.”
He left her with a bemused expression and headed for Zeke’s office, tapping on the open door. “Conference room in five.”
Zeke’s eyes came up. “Problem?”
“Solution.” He went in search of his sisters and Rory, then headed for Halsey’s office. Found him finishing a call and waited for him to disconnect. “Board meeting.”
“About?”
“Don’t look so worried? I haven’t done anything bad.”
“You mean today? You can’t blame us for feeling uncertain.”
“I don’t.” Uncertainty belonged outside the family.
With Halsey in tow, he headed for the conference room where everyone was waiting. He slipped into the chair at the head of the table.
“What are we here for, Cal?” asked Halsey. He’d stayed standing. Hoping for a quick meeting.
Cal took a breath. This had the potential to go very badly, except Fin had reminded him that self-interest and ambition were all powerful.
“I have the opportunity to make the Everlasting deal bigger than first planned. There’s a lot of interest. The pitch has gone better than expected, and I’ve hooked some prime assholes. I need to move on additional marks. It means a lot of entertaining.” He glanced at Rory, who dropped her eyes to the table. “I need a partner. On my own, I’m the lone wolf. I’m a threat. What I need now is a One Night Wife.”
“He’s right.” All eyes turned to Rory. He hadn’t banked on her support. “The One Night Wife keeps the other wives and girlfriends onside. She prevents any suspicion Cal is philandering and she acts as the favor. It’s a smoother operation all around.” She looked at her hands. “I can’t do it.”
“No one expects you to,” he said.
“You have a plan.” Halsey took a seat. “Are we going to like it?”
They were going to hate it at first. “I want to bring in an outsider.”
“No,” said Zeke. “No.”
“Hear me out. I’ve combed the ranks of the Archer, Robins, and Johns cousins, and there’s no one suitable. The outsider wouldn’t know anything. Only that we’re helping each other out, a business deal. Someone who has as much to lose as we would if things went south. Someone dependent on me, who I
can control.”
“Fin,” Zeke said. “Why didn’t I see that coming?”
Time for the Finley Cartwright story. He left out the kissing but told them about meeting her at the Blarney, about Dollars for Daughters, and testing how desperate she was with the Marilyn prank, and the offer to teach her to pitch. Finishing up with a description of how she did at the retrospective.
“She wants the money. Mentally, she’s strong but thinks of herself as a failure, as a flake. She’s out to prove herself. She knows it’s going to be difficult to get what she wants without me. We already have a dependency and a reason for her to play inside my rules. She’ll be the favor and need never know we’re running a shell game. She’s being conned the same as everyone else. And when we’re done, she walks away free and clear and none the wiser.”
“Except that she’s into you,” said Zeke. His posture was fortress nope.
“That works for us. She’s an actor. She can play the part of love interest easily,” he said, and felt a pang of discomfort when Rory turned her face away. “It’ll be strictly business between us, specifically to avoid any moral dilemmas.” He looked at Zeke. “What was your impression?”
“She’s smart and funny.” Zeke’s posture didn’t change. He wanted everyone to know he was opposed to this. “She’s a fast study, and she had no trouble charming the art crowd. I like her. I don’t like this. Outsiders are a risk, and we don’t need it.”
“I don’t like it either,” said Halsey. “I agree with you about Fin. She’s a useful asset. But the concept of an outsider so close to such a big scam makes me nervous. No outsiders is a hard rule. I don’t see the need to break it.”
“I’m calling Mom—”
Cal cut Tresna off. Round one had gone about as well as expected. “The alternative is that we back off a few commitments. Drop the cult bust, pull back on funding for the Pacific clean up. Let retribution against shysters running small time cons go.”
“The choice is we back off, or we allow an outsider in,” said Zeke, disgruntled. “The trash vortex is now three times the size of Texas. And I want that cult bust.” His entire posture now said I’m willing to compromise.
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