Page 57 of Cameron's Contract
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. The tallest building in Manhattan, situated just off 56thStreet, 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. Thiswas more challenging, and I was thriving under the pressure.
The scent of blood in the water.
