Cameron's Contract (11 page)

Shay looked at me with a
good luck explaining this one, buddy
.  

Blackwood’s tweed suit and shotgun hinted he’d planned on firing off a few rounds himself. A sixty-year-old businessman whose run for presidency never made it to the White House. Now his retirement was filled with board meetings and enjoying the lecture circuit a man of his status savored.

I took a step forward. “I wanted to thank you for taking the time to hear what Henry had to say.”

Blackwood gave a nod. “As I told your brother. I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”

“We appreciate that,” I said.

“Would you like to join us?” He raised his gun. “You boys probably haven’t shot off a weapon in years. I imagine you miss it.”

Shay and Mia swapped a wary glance.

“Actually.” I mentally ran through our options.

“I’d love to!” Mia burst out.

Our stunned gazes fell on her.

Shay reached for her arm.

“I’ll meet you boys later.” She pulled away and stood beside Blackwood, oozing enthusiasm. “Will your wife teach me?”

“She’d be delighted,” said Blackwood with a smile.

“We’ll send a car for you?” I said, proud of my girl.

Mia beamed, full of confidence. “This’ll be fun.”

Blackwood looked impressed. “Well at least one of you is game.”

I gave her a nod—a silent message to call me should she need rescuing at any time. But having known Blackwood all my life, she’d be in good hands.  

He led her off to join his wife in the garden.

CHAPTER 16

WE WERE AGAINST the clock and every vote counted and Mia knew this.

Shay had relayed to Mia how his meeting had gone and filled her in on Blackwood’s concerns. Mia would have also known the responsibility of her intentions, the need to get this right.

My confidence in her was unwavering.

The driver parked our Bentley SUV outside Carnegie Deli on
55th St.
and we picked up lunch, eating a selection of sandwiches and drinking Coke on the way to our next destination.

We pulled up outside board member Elliot Rice’s home at one in the afternoon, and within the hour I’d had his guarantee he’d support us. Of course the offer of inviting his Yale educated grandson into the company and fast tracking him through to a senior position in marketing had sealed the deal.

The rest of the day went surprisingly smooth.

In between visits, I enjoyed watching Shay and Henry interact. Their friendship was based on trust and a past that few would ever understand.

Their stories had them both cracking up, and Shay lessened the tension of what had happened back at Blackwood’s by having Henry talk about it.

His calmness had returned, and his self-awareness was a sign he was coping.

The car took us back to the Blackwood’s.

We picked up Mia in the early evening. She appeared in a flurry of wayward hair and sun kissed cheeks, then flopped down in the seat opposite ours.

“Well?” I said.

“We hung out in the garden for a few hours with me trying to shoot those suckers,” she said. “Nina, his wife, is on her third therapist, and we got some alone time to discuss Freud vs. Jung.”

We all leaned forward, fascinated.

“And?” Henry nudged her on.

“Mrs. Blackwood seemed to have a lot of unresolved issues,” said Mia. “So I just told her my opinion.”

“Which was?” I said.

“That we really have to stop blaming our parents. If they were messed up and we know that, we can use what we learned to empower us.”

“Fuck,” snapped Henry.

“You told her about your dad?” I said quietly.  

“And I told her how you worked out something so complex about my past from merely the evidence you’d gathered. That you saved me.”

Her honesty, her ability to find no shame in her transparency, silenced us all.

She pointed to Henry. “And I told Mrs. Blackwood how brave you are. Didn’t reveal anything personal. She knew a little of what happened to you from the papers. I told her you deserved a future at Cole Tea after dedicating your life to your country.”

“Mia,” I said. “That’s…”

A reaction to such a monologue could have gone either way.

Mia beamed at us. “Blackwood’s on board!”

We cheered together.

Henry collapsed back and laughed. “His wife persuaded him. Mia went through his wife.”

“Of course,” said Shay.

We were flying high from the exhilaration.

I’d surprisingly savored every second of analyzing the board members until I knew them better than they knew themselves, and proving just how much I could use this knowledge when with them. I’d never considered business to be this visceral. My work had always required a certain level of intuition, and until now any other profession had appeared dry and offered no similar challenge.

This revelation I was actually enjoying myself sent a thrill up my spine.

More importantly, it was good to see Henry calm again.

“We make an incredible team,” I told them.

“You know, we’ll be fighting over who gets Dad’s office,” said Henry.

“That’ll be you, Henry. Cole Tea’s new CEO.”

“Fuck,” he said. “That makes me sound so old.”

“All we have to do now is capture the remaining three votes from board members living out of state,” I said.

“They fly in tomorrow,” said Henry. “Bastards, they’re avoiding us.”

“Not for long,” I said.

CHAPTER 17

THE BOARD MEMBERS sat around the conference table,
Doug Malt being the only one absent. They didn’t need to know the reason.
 

My father sat at the head of the table with his fingers arched together in that familiar thoughtful pose. His frown now seemed a permanent fixture on that worn face. Dad was flanked by two members of his legal team. Henry sat at the other end, his gaze sweeping the room, having just delivered his speech about our vision for Cole Tea.

The response had been lukewarm. Betrayal lingered beneath the surface.

I stood at the back, and from this vantage I could read each expression. These men and woman who I’d won over yesterday weren’t making eye contact now.

An undercurrent of tension.

A shift in their body language.

What was that? Guilt?

I expected this. After what they’d done, having to face my father again had to be grueling for them, but there was something else…

Fear?

David Atwood from New Orleans, Remy Parker based in Las Vegas, and Kat Leonard from Illinois were still on the fence with their decision. These three had flown in this morning and there had been no time to talk with them.

Silence lingered—

Through that long glass window, the dramatic vista of New York spread out.

Cole Tower boasted one of the best vantage points overlooking Central Park. T
he tallest building in Manhattan, situated just off 56
^th
Street, it was lauded as one of the most noble of designs. It was built to withstand earthquakes and often featured in architectural magazines. Marble flooring, pristine fixtures, glass, mirrors strategically placed here and there, and its office and cubicles were spaciously designed to incorporate the atmosphere my dad had nurtured.
 

All one had to do was sip tea in the open café nestled in the atrium and savor the dramatic waterfall that cascaded down from ten floors. It fell into a carp filled glass pond lit up with gold lighting.

My dad’s decadence proved he was a complex man. He lived simply, remained accessible to his staff, and knew their names. So no one was more surprised than me when I’d heard these men and woman had turned their backs on him.

Having consumed enough Cole coffee to keep a small city awake for a decade, and not having slept for God knows how many nights now, I used this intensity to maintain pressure on those final three by pacing around the room, circling them.

This kind of uncomfortable I’d become accustomed to when prying open a patient’s psyche back in my L.A. clinic. I’d explored the depths of the human condition and not gotten lost along the way. That was easy
. This
was more challenging, and I was thriving under the pressure.

The scent of blood in the water.

We had them.

Henry had left them warily swapping gazes or merely staring into their beverages.

We’d provided a generous breakfast and served up Cole Tea and coffee in our signature mugs. Our logo on the cups, our crest on the napkins, our name hanging in the balance.

“Cameron.” Dad gestured for me to speak.

Adrenaline forged through my veins and my heart raced with the excitement of closing this deal and putting this charade behind us.

Remy Parker
broke the silence. “We were just as invested as you in taking Cole Tea forward.”
 

Remy’s use of past tense chilled my blood.

A seventy-year-old luxury casino owner who wore ill-fitting suits and had shifty eyes. I’d never liked him and could never understand how Dad had. I wanted him off the board.

“There must be changes,” he said. “The foreign market has evolved. We’re not keeping up.”

“We agree that recent developments have altered the landscape,” I said. “Which is why we brought on a dynamic team to implement changes. This man—” I pointed to my father—“removed the uncertainties for you and ensured each of you a return on your investments that far exceeded expectations. He knows this industry better than anyone. He’s lived and breathed this company, and taken us into the twenty-first century with the kind of transition most Wall Street businesses could only dream about. Yes, laws change. Yes, we’ve had to face the evolution of both political and foreign policies. We’ve stood strong, kept our employees secure, provided scholarships for their children, and enviable healthcare for their families.”

“Our competitors are winning,” said Remy. “Adapt or die.”

“There’s villages in Nepal,” I said. “Where my father drastically improved the mortality rates.”

Dad had built on the infrastructure of the village, placed a medical facility in the town, and had not just cared about the product at any cost. He’d introduced a new N
epali
tea into the market, producing the leaves in the eastern zones, and they were far superior to Darjeeling in flavor, appearance, and aroma. The method of processing the leaves produced at lower altitudes in the fertile plains provided an exceptional experience and was hailed by American tea connoisseurs as an award winning product.

“Nepali mothers once had to trek hundreds of miles on foot for medical care. No more, thanks to this man. Women with c-section scars, and the knowledge they may not make it, have been given the best chance of survival for them and their children by my father. You say adapt or die? This is adaption. Not just producing a product at any cost but taking in the human factor. Giving a damn about each and every employee and building loyalty. A legacy you once believed in.”

David Atwood
narrowed his gaze. “Shares have fallen. Faith in the business—”
 

“My father funded your run for senator,” I snapped back. “Got you your seat.”

“Of which I am eternally grateful.”

“Your concerns are ill founded,” I said. “The company is thriving.”

“When was the last meeting you attended?” he snapped back.

I lowered my voice, resting my hand on his shoulder. “David, we need you to do the right thing today.”

He sat back and gazed down.

We were close.

My focus turned to the remaining two members.

I inwardly flinched when I saw Shay gesturing to me through the glass. “Please, excuse me gentlemen.”

Shay headed off to a nearby cubicle.

I followed him out.

“We have a situation,” he said.

“Yes, we do. You just interrupted—”

“It’s not good.”

“Mia?”

Shay glanced over the cubicle to check we could talk. “There’s been an incident back in L.A.”

“For God sake, Shay, I’m in a fucking meeting—”

“Decker’s dead.”

“What?”

“My men were following him. He tried to evade us. He drove into a wall.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Adrian?”

“Turned up for work and then halfway through his shift disappeared.”

“He’s probably at the hospital.”

Shay shook his head. “No, he identified his brother’s body at the morgue then went off to work like nothing happened. Worked half his shift.”

“Any sign of grieving?”

“No, just presented like your regular sociopath.”

“Where the fuck did he go?”

“We’re trying to locate him.”

“Don’t tell Mia.”

“Of course.”

“Fuck!” I caressed my forehead.

“We’re watching his house.”

“I have to get back.”

“Breaking for lunch?” He nodded toward the conference room.