Page 3 of The Lookback

It’ll be meteoric.

It’s an investment someone else made that they dropped on the ten-yard line, and I can’twaitto snatch it out from under their nose. I’m practically salivating, thinking about how much easy money I stand to make. I’ve been buying up shares from a dozen different holding companies, and inside of another week, I’ll have enough to make a decent proffer. I don’t usually go for takeovers by proxy, because proxy fights can get ugly fast. If they go wrong, they wind up costing even more than an up-front purchase offer, but in this case, with Gonzago holding onto so many Vitality Plus shares, it’s probably my only play.

The worst part of a proxy fight is meeting with all the major stakeholders and feeling them out without tipping my hand. I’ve done my research, and I know quite a lot about one of the biggest. Even so, it’s almost impossible to really know what the people you’re petitioning want until they’re right in front of you. I like to go in with every angle covered, and that’s just not possible in this circumstance. It makes me uneasy.

I’m about to get on the plane to head for Los Angeles for the meeting when my phone buzzes.

CAN YOU SWING BY BEFORE YOU LEAVE? David never asks like that. He’ll say he misses me. He’ll tell me that he can’t wait to see me again. But he never asks me to “swing by,” because he knows that it’s a thirty-minute drive each way to his resort in Dutch John. In this area, most things are five to ten minutes—but he put down roots a half an hour away. It’s irksome.

I want to tell him that I’m already heading out, but he knows I own the jet. It’ll leave when I tell it to leave, and he knows it. I mentally groan, but I change directions and head for his place instead of the local hangar.

I’m reviewing the basics of my position for tomorrow morning’s meeting as I drive, and I feel pretty confident that I can sway Mr. McFarland. I’ve never met him in person, and it took us three weeks to track him down, but I’m prepared to make him an excellent offer. I’m confident he’ll either sell me his shares, or agree to vote my way if and when I call for a vote of no confidence.

After all. . .who wouldn’t prefer to bring in Tom Brady over Eli Manning, really? Not that I know a lot about sports, but I try to keep important figures straight so I can understand the guy talk that permeates the boardrooms.

When I reach David’s resort, the staff wave as I waltz through the door, except for the men with earpieces—they nod and smile. I jog up the steps in an attempt to get some movement in before sitting on a plane all day, and then I hang a right around the corner to his office, entering the code to walk through the otherwise locked stairwell door.

I always walk through this way—not to take him off guard anymore, but because it’s the quickest way to reach his hippie cubicle space.

“Ms. Foster,” David’s assistant Ysandre says with a curt nod. “Mr. Park is currently in the conference room.”

I sigh and spin on my heel, thinking about the first time I came and how different it feels to visit now. But when I walk into the conference room, a rush of adrenaline floods my system just like it did that first day when I stormed his resort, looking for blood.

Because David’s not alone.

If I’m not mistaken, the people waiting for me in that conference room with him, shocked expressions on their faces, are his parents.

2

MANDY

Amanda has no real business experience, and she often misunderstands basic principles until someone takes the time to explain them to her. She’s also doggedly determined to do things her own way, even when her way is just bad. It’s frankly a miracle that she managed at all after her first husband Paul died.

But she does have something going for her that most people don’t—the uncanny sense of a bloodhound in sniffing out when something is just a bitoffin really any aspect of life.

I should’ve guessed that, after I put them off for several days, she and the girls would show up at my door, but they’ve been so busy that I thought I had a little time before it happened.

When I open the door, I’m careful to make sure I sound breezy and comfortable. “What on earth are you three doing here? I thought you were too busy to accost old ladies these days.” I lean against the doorframe so they can’t just push past me without taking a risk of knocking me over.

“You’ve been putting me off, and it’s weird you never want to meet here.” Amanda arches an eyebrow.

“What?” I ask. “No way. I may not be a newlywed with dogs and kids, but I also have things to do. I’ve just been busy.”

Emery swivels her phone around so I’m looking at my own text to her about why I wasn’t available to pick her up for breakfast yesterday. “You weren’t washing your hair all day.” Emery folds her arms. “You could have squeezed me in. And anyway, isn’t that a lame excuse women gave for being busy like, a hundred years ago?”

I press my hand to the back of my hair, hoping that the subtle color I got to darken it from fading grey to a slightly richer and more luminous grey isn’t too obvious. “I didn’t say I waswashingmy hair. I said I was doing it. And I did.”

“It does look nice.” Amanda narrows her eyes. “Did your friend already get here?”

My laugh isn’t totally normal, but hopefully they won’t notice. “My friend? Are you still going on about Tommy?”

“See?” Emery jabs Maren. “He is real.”

“We were beginning to think Emery had made him up,” Maren says. “She said that when she answered the phone, he said he was coming to visit, but it’s been months, and no one has ever shown up.” Maren narrows her eyes. “We’ve been watching.”

Like hawks, in fact, which is just more motivation for me to keep Tommy away from them. They’re too interested. “He’s real,” I say. “I just haven’t had the time or energy to want to host anyone lately.”

“But now school has started up again,” Maren says. “We’ve been so busy, how would we even notice if he did come?”

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