The Pickle Boat House (18 page)

“Shall I bring you a second plate, to make it easier to share?” he asked.

Hector’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s the second rack of lamb? We ordered two.”

“Uh, no, sir, I placed an order for only one.”

Hector threw his napkin down on the table. “What is wrong with you people? Do you see two people sitting here?” He got out of his chair.

“Hector, please,” said Maggie. She tried to grab his hand, but it had already come off the table, in a fist.

“No. They should be able to get this right. Go get your manager, now!”

“Hector, please, you’re embarrassing me. Please sit down,” Maggie pleaded. She reached again and managed to grab his hand and squeeze it. He didn’t respond. She squeezed again and ran her thumb across the top of his hand. Hector’s eyes darted to hers and held her gaze for a few seconds before she saw the fire in his eyes begin to dim. His eyes flicked back to the waiter.

“Bring us a second plate.” Hector sat down, wiped the back of his hand across his brow, and turned his attention back to Maggie. “Forgive me. It’s been a long day.” The fire in his eyes went out.

“Are you all right? I’ve never seen you so upset.”

“I’m fine. Forget it—bad day.”

He abruptly changed the subject. “Your research—you know this is vitally important, right? Any real progress?”

Maggie’s smile began to return. “Actually, there is. Someone is researching exactly the same family line that I am. What a coincidence, huh?”

Hector sat up a little straighter. “How do you know that?”

“The lady came over and introduced herself and asked for my help. She was really nice. She noticed we were using some of the same references.”

“Who?”

“She wrote her information down for me,” Maggie said, fishing the piece of paper out of her purse and handing it to Hector.

He read the name and crunched the paper up in his fist. “Vanessa Hardy. Did she say why she was she was researching this?”

“It’s her line, and she has a brick wall she can’t work through. She’s in a hurry to make the connection, but she didn’t say why.” Maggie stopped and cocked her head to one side as she studied the tension in Hector’s face for a moment. “What’s the matter? She couldn’t have been nicer.”

“I know all about her. She might have seemed nice, but she’s actually the single biggest obstacle to HYA in Nevis. Bad, bad news for our business. Stay away from her.”

“Hector, I can’t. I promised her I would help her. I even have a copy of the research she’s done so far.”

“Lose it. Distract her. Or better yet, mislead her. Keep her from completing the documentation on her line until after you complete yours and the company can act on it. Think of it as corporate competition. Don’t give up our advantage, Maggie. Okay? I know it’s hard for you to be tough, baby, but we’re talking business here—my family business. Can you do that for me?”

Maggie hesitated. Hector very rarely asked her for anything. “I don’t know. What’s the harm? She was really nice.”

“I can’t get into company business; you know that. You just have to trust me, baby. I’ve never been false to you.” He reached over and took her hand, and she felt her hesitation melt away. It was true; he had never done her wrong.

“Okay, I’ll try, but I’m not going to lie to her,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not good at that.” She thought for a moment and then began nodding. “I’ll avoid her.”

Hector smiled and patted her hand. It was a smile that few besides Maggie ever saw. “That’s my girl.”

They finished their dinner and headed back to Maggie’s place, where they spent several more hours together as he flirted and she blushed. Laughing and joking was easy for them—the easy way of a close couple—and they shared what they would do when they no longer had anyone to answer to but themselves. Hector left not long after midnight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Ryan knew that in the corporate world, where worth was often measured by the ability to size up an opponent and beat him at his own game, success need not always be associated with monetary gain. It was sometimes better to beat an opponent without any regard to who ended up with the most in his pile. That was Ryan’s only hope in going to New York. Without a doubt, Hector had communicated to his father everything that happened in Nevis—with his own slant on it, of course. Hector was a “payback’s a bitch” kind of guy. By now, management was not happy.

Ryan couldn’t outman or outplan HYA. He could only hope to have the upper hand by working quickly, with the inside information he did have, to create an uncomfortable atmosphere for HYA—one that would convince them that there were better uses for their resources than hunting him down as an example to other potentially wayward employees. Some might call it blackmail. Ryan thought of it more as a sensible meeting of the minds.

As he drove to New York, the hum of his tires on the road drone on like a generator powering his churning, racing mind. He would be direct and target the heartbeat of HYA: its founder and CEO and his own personal mentor, Hector Young Senior. It was his only hope of salvaging the compromised position he had put himself in. He drove with a white line fever up Interstate 95, through the Holland Tunnel, and into Manhattan. His preference would have been to swing by his brownstone, but he couldn’t chance running into someone watching for him there. Hell, he couldn’t even risk using his cell phone. So he checked into the New Yorker under an assumed name and spent the night protecting his assets—shifting money between various private accounts, downloading and e-mailing documents, and refining his strategy.

* * *

The next morning, Ryan was up and out early. Leaving the hotel, he made a series of turns and backtracks to make sure he was still alone, then pulled into a midtown parking garage. With tires squealing, he raced up to the top level, pulled quickly into a space near the elevator, and got out, inhaling deeply that familiar dry, dusty smell of New York. When the elevator arrived it was empty. Ryan took a key from his pocket, inserted it into the floor button panel, and punched a code.

The elevator lurched upward and opened at the penthouse level, onto a well-appointed lobby filled with bright light, dark wood, and soft, elegant classical music. He nodded to the secretary at the desk and proceeded through the wood-paneled double doors beyond her desk. She smiled briefly in acknowledgment and went back to whatever she was doing.

Classical music played softly against a backdrop of water trickling across polished rock surfaces. Rich brocade fabric in shades of gold and cream harmonized with sheer curtains as, across the room, a flight of origami cranes took wing.

“I could say I’m surprised to see you, Ryan, but then, you always were a ballsy guy,” said the distinguished-looking gray-haired man who looked up as he entered. “Since I can assume you’re not here to do anything for me, what can I do for you?”

“I’m here to ask you to accept my resignation from HYA. And because, if I didn’t come back, I’d be dead inside a week.”

“What makes you think you still won’t be?” The man didn’t smile or blink.

“I’m here to talk to you man to man, Hector.”

The man laughed quietly. “I’ve always enjoyed our discussions. Go ahead, I’m listening. Would you like to sit while you’re here?” Hector got up and moved over to a leather couch and directed Ryan to a chair nearby. As the older man sat he picked up a piece of black origami paper and began folding it as he spoke. “If I may start the conversation, is it true that you destroyed the one document that would have all but guaranteed our acquisition of the Nevis property?”

Ryan walked forward and put his hands on the back of the chair but didn’t sit. “That isn’t true. That deed would have guaranteed nothing. One descendant, possibly the only heir to Jeremiah Harwell, will never sell, not for any price.” Ryan took a breath and continued. “I have never betrayed you. I would call it a difference of opinion. We don’t need Nevis. The acquisition just doesn’t seem right. Pick another place along the coast. Nevis can’t be the only one.”

Hector gave a deep, hearty, amused laugh. “Son, that’s a pretty expensive difference of opinion. There is no right or wrong in the real world, only shades of gray. Someone is going to develop that land someday. It’s ripe for the picking. We have to have vision and seize our opportunities where they lie. It’s a race, the spoils go to the swiftest, and all that other rubbish you need to hear to feel good about all this,” he said, dismissing the thought with a wave of the hand holding the half-finished crane. He sighed and then fixed Ryan with his keen, cold eyes. “What bothers me most is that you defied the company, and when you do that you defy me. How can I ever trust you again? I don’t understand the betrayal on either a company or a personal level. The world was at your feet, waiting, Ryan. You stood to inherit everything I have. Everything I have was going to be yours,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought of you as a son, treated you like a son—certainly more of a son than that imbecile who bears my name. You’ve made the mistake, possibly a fatal one, of getting personally involved. Is it the woman?”

“Maybe.”

Hector got up from the couch and walked over to the window. He spent a moment looking out at the pedestrians two hundred feet below before turning around to glare at Ryan. “You’re giving up a lucrative career, not to mention playing with your life, for a
maybe
?”

Ryan didn’t respond.

“Victim to the feminine wiles, huh? There have been so many—why her, Ryan?”

“If I told you she was different, would you believe or even understand me?”

Hector Young shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s difficult for me to explain. I feel a connection to her in a way that I’ve never felt with anyone else in my life.”

“Ah, sex is cheap; connection, not so much. And you can’t walk away from her, even knowing that unless you do, you’re destroying your life?”

“No, I won’t walk away.”

Hector walked back over to his desk and sat down. Neither man said a word. They just studied each other, Hector with the pads of his two index fingers pressed together forming a triangle that rested lightly against his lips; Ryan just watching, trying to gather from the elder man’s face some clue to his thoughts and feelings. Ryan recognized the intimidation tactic. He had seen it used a hundred times, but he wasn’t sure whether, at this moment, he was seeing a tactical choice or just natural instinct.

“Ryan, you know too much. I can’t let you just walk away. It’s nothing personal; I think you know the high esteem I hold you in. But I’d be a fool to let you go, and I haven’t reached this position in life by being foolish.”

“See, that’s the thing,” Ryan said. “I know just enough to get
me
into trouble, but not as much as you think when it comes to getting HYA in trouble.”

“You know entirely too much,” Hector said dismissively.

“It’s not my intention to try to bring HYA or any of its activities to its knees. I want to cut all ties. I, uh, wouldn’t want to be forced into a position of using what I
do
know to guarantee that. But for argument’s sake, I could go that route. I’m not so stupid as to walk in here without first taking certain, um, precautions to ensure that I walk back out again.”

“You could be lying.”

“Could be, but you yourself have said I know too much. Put yourself in my shoes. What would you do if you were in my position? That should help you with how to respond to my request and what I’ve said. Are you willing to take the risk?”

“Ryan, you are so refreshing!” Hector said, chuckling in a paternal sort of way. “We need you here at HYA. Others should be so clever.” He paused, as if mulling over Ryan’s offer. “Very well,” he said as he rose and walked around the desk to Ryan, who was still standing behind the chair. “I’m not concerned about the damage you could do to HYA, and I have no intention of harming you, especially considering that the person you care the most about, you left alone in Nevis. It’s the principle of the situation. I can’t just let employees run amok, screwing over the company. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones on two conditions. One, obviously, is that you keep your mouth shut about HYA’s past, present, and future business.”

“I understand, and I can live with that. The second?”

“At some point in the future, I may need your assistance—nothing you can’t handle. I would expect your full assistance at that time.”

“And in return, no further interference?”

“None.”

The room was silent but for the muted strains of Verdi and the soft trickle of the stone fountain.

“I accept, with one condition of my own. I need a liquor license in Nevis.”

Hector looked over the rims of his glasses. “Liquor license? I think I can arrange that. What are you going to do with a liquor license? HYA could use a—”

“No, no strings. The license has to be totally independent of HYA.”

“Done,” Hector said, sliding the black origami crane into Ryan’s shirt pocket and gently tapping it with his fingertips. “Such a magnificent bird. Did you know that cranes mate for life?” The two men held each other’s gaze for several seconds.

Hector walked over to the office door but paused before opening it. “When you grow jaded with this new life—which I fully expect to happen—come back. HYA always strives to keep its brightest people.” Opening the door, he leaned out toward the receptionist. “Carol, would you please ask Oliver to escort Mr. Thomas down to the parking garage?” He turned to Ryan and extended his hand. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure doing business with you today, Ryan. Please leave your elevator key at the desk on your way out.”

Ryan shook Hector’s hand and followed Oliver out to the parking garage. The escort was, of course, more about keeping him out of other HYA offices than about keeping him safe. He also wasn’t surprised that someone had been snooping around in his car while he was inside. HYA was always on the ball and thorough.

He had never considered that the company would threaten Van’s security to get his cooperation. He could not get back to Nevis fast enough.