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.”