Chapter 24: Conner

Reed strolled into my office a few minutes after 8 AM on Monday morning. I had been at my desk for nearly an hour already, sipping the strong coffee my secretary had waiting for me and checking my email.

As was the norm, my inbox was crammed full of emails that had arrived over the weekend, which was a really stupid time to email someone like me because I didn’t even turn on a computer on the weekends.

There were over two hundred emails from clients, investors, the news media, random entrepreneurs looking for funding, random nonprofits looking for donations, and invitations to attend a variety of business meetings and social events.

My secretary would handle most of the inquiries, sending canned replies to those that warranted them and ignoring the rest. The ones that needed my attention she would prioritize and flag in the email program and I’d get to them after lunch.

Reed came in without a word and went to the bar to pour himself a cup of black coffee from the silver service. He tried not to slosh the coffee as he sat in one of the leather chairs on the other side of the desk. He smacked his lips and gave me a tired smile.

“You look like hell,” I said.

“You should see it from this side,” he said with a groan. Reed spent most weekends drinking and partying and looking for wife number five. He lacked the ability to be faithful to one woman, but believed that men with wives were more credible in business than men without. Whatever. I think he just liked having a woman to go home to after he was done whoring and partying.

“Another rough weekend, Reed?” I asked, giving him a sideways smile. He grunted something I didn’t understand and sipped the coffee while I finished typing an email to Katie. I read over it once more in my head.

Dear Miss O’Hara… Thank you for a VERY productive weekend. I think all parties will be very satisfied by the outcome. I know I certainly am… Yours truly, Conner McGee.

Very professional, yet filled with innuendo.

Perfect. I tapped the key to hit Send.

“Tell me about your weekend,” Reed said. “It was very productive, I assume?”

“You would assume correctly, sir,” I said. I leaned back in my chair and laced my fingers around the coffee cup. “The Benson deal is done. Legal is reviewing it this morning, but I anticipate no more bumps in the road. We close the deal this Friday at noon as planned.”

He lifted his cup and gave me a knowing grin. “Well done, my boy. And kudos to you for putting in the extra work over the weekend. Your dedication will not go unrewarded.”

“Oh, I enjoyed the extra work immensely,” I said. “I found it to be quite… pleasant.”

“Miss O’Hara did not disappoint then,” he said. “Will there be further negotiations between the two of you after the Benson deal is done?”

I shrugged. “I hope so, but that depends.”

“On her reaction after she learns that you are booting her dear Uncle Allen out of his company?”

“I’m not booting him,” I said. “The board will.”

“I’m not sure Miss O’Hara will see it that way,” he said. “You know how women are.”

“I do know how women are,” I said. “I guess we’ll just have to see how she reacts to the news. Hopefully she’ll understand it’s the best thing for everyone involved.”

“You can hope,” he said, nodding.

Katie’s smiling face flashed through my mind. I forced it to go away.

Reed asked, “So, how soon after we sign the contract do we put our plan into motion?”

“The plan is already in motion,” I said. “We have a potential buyer already lined up to take the manufacturing operation off our hands for more than we’re paying for the whole shebang. We will keep the computer chip patents and license the fuck out of them. They’ll generate hundreds of millions of dollars over the next ten years until they expire.”

Reed was grinning like a Cheshire cat because a nice chunk of those millions would go directly into his pocket as a senior partner. I’d make millions off the deal, too, but nothing like he would. He sipped his coffee for a moment and pondered the numbers in his head, adding to the list of expensive things he would buy, not because he needed them, but because he could.

He asked, “And how big of a shit fit do you think Allen Benson is going to throw once we have taken over the board and voted him out?”

I shrugged, because it was a moot point. “He can throw as big of a shit fit as he wants, but that won’t help his cause. He’s cashing out with a ton of dough, so he’ll have no right to bitch about anything. And no legal recourse.”

“Because the deal was blessed by his own niece,” Reed said with a sly grin. He lifted the cup again. “That was a convenient turn of events. You banging her on New Year’s Eve, then her turning up a couple of months later to be Allen Benson’s niece slash lawyer.”

“Yes, I guess it was.” I picked up my cup and started into it for a moment. The realization that I was not just betraying Allen Benson’s trust started to gnaw at me. I was betraying Katie’s trust, as well. Or at least that was how she would see it.

Ordinarily, that would not have bothered me. It was, after all, just business. And nobody was really getting screwed here. Allen Benson would walk away with millions and his beloved employees would get to keep their jobs. Probably. It wasn’t my fault that he was too stubborn for his own good.

“Feeling a little guilty, are we?” Reed asked after a moment of silence.

I didn’t see the need to lie.

I said, “Yeah, a little. Maybe.”

“You really like this girl?”

“Yes. I think I do.”

He shook his head. “She has no right to be upset, you know.”

“I know.”

“I mean, it’s not like you used her.”

I held up my hands. “I know.”

“She reviewed the contract in good faith, and you responded in kind.”

“Yes, Reed, I know.”

He kept pressing the point, thinking it would make me feel better about what I’d done. He said, “If she had raised the topic of the patents you would have spelled it out for her. Right?”

“Yes. Right.”

“It’s not like you were hiding anything to screw anyone over.”

“For fuck’s sake, Reed, I know all that.” I held up my hands to shut him up. “Enough already. It’s just business. Period. End of story.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “And yet, you still feel a little shitty.”

“A little.”

“Well, you did nothing wrong as far as I’m concerned,” he said. He took another sip of coffee and grinned at me. “The fact that you banged her all weekend had nothing to do with the deal.”

“She probably will not see it that way,” I said, frowning into my cup. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that she will see it as a betrayal. She’ll accuse me of using her and probably never want to see me again.”

“Oh well, that’s her loss then, isn’t it? It’s not like you don’t have women lined up around the block, Conner. And Cassandra Leone on speed dial. Christ, if I had that woman I’d never want another.”

I gave him a little nod, even though I was starting to feel more like a heel by the minute. I knew that the moment Katie heard that Allen Benson was being booted off the board and the manufacturing operation being sold; our little romance would probably be over.

I had four days to enjoy her company.

After that, all bets were off.

Oh well. That was how things worked in my world.

It was just business.

Keep telling yourself that, a little voice in my head whispered. You fucking asshole.

I ignored what my heart was saying.

It had never made me a dime.