by Mia Ford
“Review it with my team?”
“Yes, whomever you have assigned as the point of contact,” she said. “I’d like to come to your office first thing Monday morning and spend the day reviewing the points that Allen feels are the most critical, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
I gave her a slow nod as an idea formed in my head. “Tell you what. Why don’t you come to my house in the Hamptons this weekend? That way, you and I can personally review the finer points of the deal. Really get deep into it. Sink our teeth in, so to speak.”
“To make sure no one gets screwed?”
She said it with a smirk on her face.
“Yes. Exactly. Unless they want to be screwed, that is.” I held up my glass and waited for her to do the same, a little silent toast to seal the deal. “What do you say, Katie the lawyer? Shall we spend the weekend doing little one-on-one negotiating?”
I tossed out the idea just to see how she would react. Would she be offended? Intrigued? Disgusted? Or would she, like me, jump at the chance to spend a little quality time together reliving the glory and fun of New Year’s Eve?
She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, like a lawyer assessing the finer points of a case.
She bit the inside of her lip.
For a second, I thought she was going to blow.
I glanced at the others to make sure they weren’t listening. Cass was doing a great job of keeping Reed and Allen busy, as per our plan before coming inside. They were enamored by her beauty and hanging on her every word. Cass could mesmerize a charging rhino into submission, so Allen Benson should be a piece of cake to contain.
It was good to know that if Allen wanted to be a thorn in my side over this deal, Cass would be there to pull him out.
No man could resist her.
Including me.
I had told Cass, “You keep Allen and Reed busy so I can have a private chat with this lawyer to see if he is someone we need to worry about. I had no idea at the time that this lawyer— he—was actually a she; and one that I’d slept with. Pulling off this deal should be a piece of cake.
“Well?” I asked after a moment of silence.
“I think Mollie the paralegal would jump at the chance to do a little…” she glanced over to make sure no one was listening. “One-on-one negotiating with you. However…”
I sighed and gave her a pitiful look. I said, “Katie the lawyer is not Mollie the paralegal.”
She picked up the wineglass and shrugged her eyebrows before bringing the glass to her lips. “Katie the lawyer has a fiduciary responsibility to her client to make sure he’s not getting screwed.”
“Very commendable of her,” I said, raising my glass. “But Katie the lawyer must realize, I’m not looking to screw her client.” That made her smile. “Come on, I already have my weekend planned and my calendar is booked solid for the next few weeks. This weekend is the only time I have to go over this contract with you. If we don’t close this deal quickly, it could be put on hold indefinitely. And I don’t think your uncle wants that.”
“Is that a threat?” she asked.
I held up a hand to ease her back into her chair. “No, it’s simply a fact, the way things work in my world. This is one of a dozen deals I have going at this moment. If it looks like this one is not going to work out, I’ll take the money we were going to pay your uncle and need to move on to the next one. It’s just business.”
She stared at me for a moment with hard eyes, like a fighter sizing up an opponent. “Are you having other people out to the Hamptons?” she asked, picking up her wine glass to hide her lips behind so I couldn’t see if she was smiling or sneering.
“Just you,” I said with a shrug. “Honestly, I’m having work done on my house there. I was going to drive up this weekend to check on things.”
The truth was, I hadn’t even thought about going to the Hamptons before the idea came to me just then. I was having work done, but nothing I had to worry about because my estate manager was overseeing everything for me.
We could have just as easily had our negotiations at my office or my penthouse or some hotel, but getting her out of the city seemed like a much better idea. The Hamptons are quiet this time of year, a perfect place for a quiet, weekend getaway.
“I’m not sure this is a such a good idea,” she said, biting her lip again. I could tell she was almost convinced.
“Look, I promise, business first. We do nothing but focus on the agreement until you are satisfied that your client is getting treated more than fairly in the deal. Then, if we want to get naked and…”
“Shhh…”
“Look, Katie the lawyer, if you don’t come, it’ll just be me in a big old house on the beach… all alone… with nothing but my memories of fun times with old friends.”
She dabbed her lips with her napkin and gave me the look I had been waiting for. “What time should I be ready to leave in the morning?”
“I’ll pick you up at nine,” I said.
“Nine it is.” She finally clinked her glass to mine.
“Excellent.” I pulled one of my cards from inside my jacket and jotted my cell number on the back. “Text me your address.”
I slid the card across the table to her and smiled.
She slid the card into her pocket without the others seeing.
We looked at each other for a moment, then joined in the conversation.
We spent the rest of the night trying to pretend that all was well.
She kept squirming in her chair as if it was hot and wet, and my cock refused to go down.
I couldn’t wait for the night to be over and the next day to begin.
Chapter 15: Katie
I know what you must be thinking.
What an awful girl she must be.
Self-centered.
Selfish.
Slutty.
Why else would she agree to go away for a weekend of sex and debauchery with a man like Conner McGee—a man she hardly knew other than a one-night stand where they both lied about who they really were?
I knew you were thinking that.
Because I was thinking it, too.
Although, I told myself that I was the one in total control, not him.
We would use each other as we did before, but this time, I’d have a higher purpose rather than just great sex with a total stranger. This time, there was far more than momentary pleasure on the line.
This time, what happened between Conner and I would affect countless others.
And I would not let them down.
I was the one who would have the upper hand because I knew what he was trying to do. And I was going to beat him to the punch.
Katie the lawyer might be a horny lass, but she was smart enough to know when she was being played. And too smart to not to turn it to her advantage.
Yes, I’d go to his house in the Hamptons for the weekend.
Yes, I expected there would be lots of wonderful sex.
And yes, by the time we got back to the city on Sunday night, my Uncle Allen’s fears would be allayed, and he could rest assured that selling the company to Price Bean & Whitlock was the right thing to do.
After Conner and I made our plans, I tried to focus on the dinner and the small talk rather than the tingling that was going on inside me. I told myself that business would come first before any hanky-panky began. I would be there representing the best interests of my uncle, not my own libido.
When I broached the topic of the agreement before dessert came, Cassandra waved her perfect hands through the air as if she were performing a feat of magic.
“Oh please, let’s not discuss business tonight,” she said. She put a hand on Uncle Allen’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “I find business to be such boring dinner conversation. Don’t you agree… Allen?”
“Well, I suppose…”
“I agree,” Reed said, lifting his glass. “Katie and Conner can handle all the boring detail stuff another time. Tonight, we eat,
drink, and make merry.”
“Works for me,” Conner said with a smile, lifting his glass. Everything seemed so staged, but I seemed to be the only one who noticed. I lifted my glass and played along.
Conner said, “Here’s to a long and profitable partnership between Benson Digital and Price Bean & Whitlock. May our ties be strong, our future be long, and ne’er do we wrong.” He gave me a wink. “That’s an old Irish saying from my grandmother.”
“To the future!” Reed said, clinking his glass with mine.
“To the future,” I said, echoing the others.
As we all drank, I watched Cassandra give Conner a smile with the wine glass at her lips.
It seemed that the cats thought the canary cage had been opened.
They didn’t count on this canary having very sharp teeth.
* * *
After dinner, Uncle Allen and I got into his car for the drive back to my apartment. He was a rich man who could have afforded any kind of car. He drove a ten-year old Toyota Camry and lived modestly in a one-bedroom loft downtown. He was truly an inspiration to me, although I would have been driving something a little more modern and living in a penthouse if it were up to me.
“I saw you chatting with Conner McGee,” he said, watching me from the corner of his eye, sounding very much like my mom. “What was that all about?”
“It was about their offer to buy your business,” I said, probably sounding a little more defensive than I should have. “We’re going to meet this weekend to go over every detail, line by line.”
“This weekend?” He frowned without taking his eyes off the road. “That’s odd.”
“Is it?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because guys like Conner McGee do not work weekends,” he said. “Hell, they barely work during the week. Are you sure he wasn’t hitting on you?”
I snorted a laugh. “Really, Uncle Allen? Did you see the woman he was with? Oh wait, of course you did. You couldn’t keep your eyes off her.”
“Hey, don’t fault an old man for appreciating a beautiful woman,” he said with a grin.
“You’re not an old man,” I said. “Not yet.”
“Nor am I an old fool,” he shot back. “I saw the way McGee was looking at you. He might have been talking business, but he was thinking other things.”
“You’re insane,” I said, shaking my head. “Guys like Conner McGee don’t give women like me the time of day.”
“It’s not the time they’re after,” he said. “Trust me.”
“Well, all I know is, he said he would be happy to meet me at his office tomorrow to review the contact personally, rather than put me off on his assistant or project manager”
“You’re meeting him alone?”
“No, of course not,” I lied. “His team will be there in case questions come up he can’t readily answer.”
“Well, that’s good do know,” he said. “I get the feeling that he wants to get this deal signed, sealed, and delivered as quickly as possible.”
“That’s my impression, as well,” I said.
“I also think having Miss Leone there tonight was just to keep me occupied while he took the time to see who I brought to the table.”
“You think that we were being played?” I asked, suddenly concerned that my flirting with Conner was not a great idea, after all.
“I think that McGee wanted to get a feel for the hotshot lawyer I brought with me,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that we were being played, but I still don’t trust them fully.”
“Maybe you should just walk away from the deal,” I offered, even though that would mean that I had no reason to spend the weekend with Conner McGee. I might have been wrong, but I believed part of the reason he wanted to see me again—aside from the sex—was to get me onto his team. What he didn’t realize was that no man, no matter how sexy, could make me betray my family.
“Maybe I should walk away,” Uncle Allen said with a heavy sigh. “But I need to do this deal, Katie. The quicker, the better.”
I got the feeling that there was more to the story than he was letting on. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Uncle Allen?” I asked. “You’ve gotten offers in the past that you refused to even consider. Is there a reason why you want this deal to happen?”
“I didn’t want to tell you, Katie,” he said quietly. “But my health is not good. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep running Benson Digital. And I don’t want to put that responsibility on anyone else’s shoulders.”
I shifted in the passenger seat to face him. The fact that he wasn’t well was not a total surprise. He’d gotten, and beaten, cancer several times before. It had been in remission for several years, but we all knew it was just a matter of time before it came roaring back and eventually took his life.
Cancer took my mother and grandmother.
Two of my brothers had already battled with it.
I prayed that the gene had not found its way inside me, but my health wasn’t the issue at the moment. Suddenly, the clock began to tick in my head.
“Tell me the truth,” I said quietly, putting my hand on his arm. “You’ve never kept things from me. Don’t start now.”
“The cancer is back,” he said.
“How bad?”
He sighed and flexed his fingers around the steering wheel. “It was detected early. I start treatment in a week. The doctor thinks I can beat it again, but there are no guarantees.”
He glanced over to give me a smile, as if I was the one in need of reassurance.
“The truth is, Katie, I’m tired. I want to quit the grind while I’m ahead and spend the rest of my life doing things I’ve always wanted to do.”
“Things like?”
“Travel the world. See Africa. Ireland. The Middle East.”
“What else?”
“Give away my money to people and causes that deserve it.”
He put his eyes back on the road and nodded slowly.
“I want to do good things with the time I have left. Selling the company at a premium to Price Bean & Whitlock will let me do that. But I’ll only do it if I’m certain my legacy can remain intact. The manufacturing plant, the jobs, the money it generates for the town. I won’t have the people who have been loyal to me for thirty years suffer because I’m tired of playing the game.”
“I understand,” I said, setting my jaw firmly. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen, Uncle Allen. You can count on me.”
Chapter 16: Conner
I thought about picking Katie up in my limo, with a full breakfast buffet in the back: eggs, bacon, muffins, fresh fruit, pancakes, French toast, coffee, juices. Then I realized that Katie was probably not the kind of girl who would be impressed by that sort of thing. She was a successful lawyer, after all, not some wide-eyed Irish girl come to the big city for the first time. She was already wary of me simply because we were negotiating two sides of a deal. She didn’t need to be impressed. She needed to be wooed.
So, I pulled up to the front of her apartment building, which was in a tony part in Midtown, meaning that she made a pretty good living at Yates Hamilton & Booz. I decided to drive my old 1972 Ford Bronco, which had belonged to my dad. It was a barebones little truck, with a huge steering wheel and hard bucket seats, but a heater that could thaw even the coldest New York winter from your bones.
The drive to my place in the Hamptons would take a couple of hours. While the little Bronco was not nearly as comfortable as my limo, it made for a fun ride. And when Katie saw it waiting at the curb, it made her smile… for a moment.
“This is your car?” she asked, clutching her hands to her chest as her breath steamed the air. She was wearing a heavy coat and hat, with a thick wool scarf around her neck and gloves on her hands. I took the overnight bag she had strapped over her shoulder and stowed it in the back, then opened the passenger door and gave her a little bow.
“This is a classic 1972 Ford Bronco,” I said proudly. “It belonged to my dad.
Don’t you love it? Go on, climb in.”
“It’s… interesting,” she said as she stepped into the cab of the truck.
“I knew you’d be impressed,” I said playfully. “By the way, this has a great heater. You’re gonna burn up in that coat.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said, sliding into the slick vinyl seat.
The window rattled when I closed the door. I trotted around to the other side as the cold wind bit at my nose and ears. Thankfully, the air inside the truck was toasty warm.
I climbed in behind the wheel and gave her a big smile. “Buckle up. There are no air bags in this baby.”
“Does it have brakes?” she asked as she pulled the seat belt around her waist. She looked around the cab and into the back seat. The horrified look on her face made me grin. The truck was filthy, food wrappers in the floor, empty beer and Red Bull cans on the seat, a couple of old blankets, a tackle box. I tried to remember the last time I’d used the Bronco. A camping trip, maybe. Or the last time I’d gone home to see my folks. I always drove the Bronco when I went home so my old man wouldn’t give me shit about being a pretentious asshole.