by Stephen Frey
“Or he was just trying to scare you.”
“Maybe. But I’ll remember that sound for the rest of my life. And I’ll remember what he said to the kid before he killed him.”
“Did the police find the guy?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you show up for your next shift?”
“I was there the next night,” she said. “I needed to buy textbooks. I needed to live.” It had been the longest night of her life. She hadn’t taken her eye off the door the entire time.
Lawrence took another sip of his drink. “You graduated cum laude from college, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then you got your M.B.A. from Duke.”
“That’s right.”
“Which is where you met Samuel Reese, your thenfuture and nowformer husband. You were divorced from him six years ago after only a year of marriage.” He hesitated. “What happened?”
“Mr. Lawrence, that’s a very personal question, and I don’t—”
“Angela, if you help me, I’ll help you.”
She glanced over at him, trying again to see beneath the brim of the Stetson. But he tilted his head forward slightly, blocking her view. “What does that mean?”
“I told you. We’ll get to that,” Lawrence said, standing up. “Your ex-husband is from a wealthy family?”
“Yes,” she replied uneasily as Lawrence walked around the table and sat down on the couch beside her. She was relieved when he kept his distance. He had turned toward her, putting his right arm on the back of the couch and resting his right ankle on his left knee. He was several feet away, but her entire body was tense. It had not occurred to her when her boss had told her to make this trip that Lawrence might want something not of a business nature, that in some way she was a pawn in a $500 million investment. “Based on their lifestyle, I believe my husband’s family had a great deal of money, but I was never allowed to know how much.” If Lawrence did make a move, what was she supposed to do? Scream? Tucker was out there, but he’d worked for Lawrence for twenty years. What was his incentive to helpher ? Besides, the men with the guns would keep him at bay, even if he did try to come to her aid.
“His last name is Reese, but yours is—”
“I retook my maiden name after the divorce was final,” she explained, anticipating his question again.
“I see.” Lawrence hesitated. “Are you okay, Angela?” he asked, reaching over and patting her hand.
“I’m fine.” They stared at each other for the first time at close range, but he didn’t dwell on her eyes as most men did. There hadn’t been that subtle double take. And she realized that Jake Lawrence wasn’t impressed as easily as most men. Attractive women didn’t faze him, probably because he rarely dealt with any who weren’t. “Why?”
“You seem a little nervous.”
“Not at all,” she lied, uncertain of whether or not to insist that he take his hand from hers. He could say it was simply a friendly gesture, and then she’d look foolish. She let out a low breath when he removed it from her lap.
“I like your accent.” He took another sip from his glass. “I’ve always enjoyed a slight Southern drawl. It sounds so nice. Especially in a woman.”
“Thank you.”
Lawrence stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “So you want to know why you’re here.”
“I am curious,” she admitted. “It seems odd to be whisked all the way out here to Wyoming in a private jet without any explanation. Don’t you agree?”
He smiled at her through the dim light. “I like a little mystery. Don’t you?”
“Not necessarily.”
“So you’re one of those people who doesn’t like surprises.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” His smile turned smug. “You probably wondered if I was going to make a pass at you.”
“No, I didn’t,” she replied, trying to act as though his suggestion was silly. “That thought never crossed my mind. My boss said this was a legitimate business meeting, but that the subject matter had to remain confidential so he couldn’t tell me anything. My boss and I have a good relationship. I trust him.”
“Do you now?”
Angela glanced up. “Yes. Why?”
“Just wondered.” Lawrence tapped the back of the sofa. “Well, here’s the deal. I’m working on a project and I want your help.”
“A project?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Yes. I’m considering taking a run at a public company. At acquiring it. And I want your assistance.”
Her anxiety vanished, replaced by a surge of anticipation. It would be a tremendous experience to work directly with a man like Jake Lawrence on the acquisition of a business. It would be something she could tell her son about years from now. Even if she ultimately ended up dealing with one of Lawrence’s aides most of the time, she’d still be the envy of some powerful people on Wall Street. “What kind of help?” John Tucker had been wrong about this meeting after all, and she couldn’t wait to tell him so.
“I want you to perform due diligence on the company before I actually make a public tender offer. I want you to meet with the company’s senior management on my behalf, prior to my making a final decision. I want you to carefully review their financial condition and gather a little market intel so we’ve got information others don’t. See, I always like to have an advantage, Angela. I’ll put you in touch with people who can help you there. Then you report back to me, and we’ll see what’s what.”
Even as the thrill coursed through her body at the prospect of developing a direct business relationship with one of the world’s richest men, she glanced down, disappointed. This was hard to say, but she had to be honest. “I think your staff may have given you misinformation about me. As I told you, I lend money. I’m not a merger and acquisition advisory specialist.”
Lawrence nodded. “I know that.”
“But—”
“Angela, you have a certain way about you I think may influence this company’s CEO to do the right thing. To do what I want him to do, which is to let me acquire his business without a messy public war. That wouldn’t do anyone but the lawyers any good. My aides recommended you for the job, but I wanted to make certain you’re the woman for the job, which is why I flew you all the way out here. If I didn’t make the appropriate advances before announcing the public tender, odds are the company’s CEO would try to repel me. Senior executives always panic when their company is threatened with a takeover. They think the first thing the raider will do is fire their sorry asses for keeping dividends low so they can pay themselves huge salaries and bonuses. And most of the time they’re right. And, if I fire them, then how the hell would they pay for their country club memberships or the love nests they maintain for the trophy girlfriends they hide from their age-spotted wives?”
Having to pay country club dues was something she’d never worried about, but a cheating husband struck a chord. “I don’t know.”
“Besides,” Lawrence continued, “when you make a loan to a company, you have to perform the same kind of due diligence I’m asking you to perform. You have to make certain it’s a solid business, right?”
“Yes.”
“And consider this. I’ll certainly want to borrow a good deal of money to pay for the acquisition.” He pointed at her. “Always use someone else’s money when you can. Even if you do have a lot of your own.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“I’m sure you have.”
“I’m still curious about why you want me to do these things for you.” Angela had learned that understanding a person’s true motivation—not the one they might be guiding you toward—was vital if you didn’t want to be hurt, if you wanted to correctly assess the risks and returns. “Why not ask one of those Wall Street investment bankers you work with to help you?”
“I want to keep publicity to a minimum,” he explained. “They’d leak it to their friends and th
e press before I hung up the phone. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Wall Streeters, they can’t keep a secret.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you wantme .”
“But your persistence does. Exactly what you’re doing right now is why I want you to work for me. My aides, who analyzed my investment in Sumter, heard about you, and, after they did some background work on you, they recommended you highly.”
She smiled despite herself. Then it hit her, and her enthusiasm faded. “I’m your mole,” she whispered.
“What?”
She grimaced, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“What did you mean by that?” he demanded.
She glanced up into his eyes. They were burning beneath the brim of the Stetson. “I, I—”
“You think what I’m really planning is the takeover of Sumter? That I want to use you as some kind of undercover agent?”
“I just thought—”
“Well, you thought wrong,” Lawrence snapped. “Although,” he said, his tone turning to one of amusement, “from what I understand, Sumter’s chairman is extremely concerned about my creeping ownership stake in his beloved bank.” He laughed harshly, as if that discomfort gave him a great deal of pleasure. “Hey, if I buy enough shares, I might be able to find out about the girlfriends he’s got stashed away.” He laughed again, even louder this time. “Then what would his wife think?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, glancing down. Maybe Jake Lawrence didn’t just kill big game for sport. Maybe he enjoyed destroying people’s lives, too. Maybe that was why he needed a personal army.
“That man will not be comfortable about the fact that you and I have talked.”
Angela glanced up. “Which man?”
“The chairman of Sumter Bank. Bob Dudley.”
She shook her head. “I’m just a vice president, Mr. Lawrence—”
“Jake,” he interrupted. “Please.”
“Jake,” she repeated. It didn’t sound right, and she wondered if that was because she didn’t feel she could trust him. “There are hundreds of vice presidents at Sumter,” she said. “I’m so far down the corporate ladder the senior people don’t even know who I am.” She’d met the chairman and president of the bank briefly at last year’s Christmas party, and each of them had given her nothing but a limp handshake and a fake smile before quickly moving on. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“Bob Dudley will grill you at length about our conversation as soon as you return to Richmond. Count on it.”
“I doubt he even knows I came out here.”
“Oh, he knows.”
“If you say so,” she answered skeptically.
“Don’t tell him anything specific when he asks,” Lawrence added. “Tell him only that we talked in general about a project I want you to work on for me. Don’t mention anything about a public tender offer.”
“All right,” Angela agreed. “But, assuming you’re right and he does want to grill me about our conversation, won’t my lack of details make him even more curious? And he may not appreciate the fact that all of a sudden I’m working for you when the bank is the one cutting my paycheck twice a month.”
Lawrence nodded. “You might be right. Okay. Tell him I’m thinking about leveraging one of my companies, and that the company operates in an industry you already have experience with. That you’d lead the debt financing and make lots of money for Sumter in the process. That ought to make him feel better. All right?”
“All right.”
Lawrence turned his glass upside down and finished what little remained. “So, will you help me?”
“I’d like to talk about the situation with my boss first. But if it involves potential loan business for Sumter, I don’t think he’ll have a problem with me working on it.”
“I can guarantee you he won’t have a problem with it,” Lawrence replied confidently. “As you pointed out, I own 8 percent of the bank.”
“That’s true.” The senior executives had to pay attention to Lawrence, whether they wanted to or not. For a public company as big as Sumter, 8 percent was a meaningful stake. “So what company are you thinking about buying?” she asked.
“I’ll let you know in a few days,” Lawrence answered cautiously. “I’ve still got a bit more preliminary information to gather before we go live on this one.”
“Oh.”Then why did you bother flying me all the way across the country? she wondered. She cursed herself silently. Maybe she shouldn’t question people’s motivations so often. “Is that all?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know you’re a busy man.”
“Stay awhile,” he urged, reaching across the couch and putting a hand on her knee. “I’ve still got a few minutes before Colby bangs on the door to tell me it’s time to go.”
“Okay,” she agreed hesitantly, easing back onto the couch.
“I like to get to know the people I work with,” he explained, sliding subtly closer. “All right with you?”
“Sure, fine.” Her instinct was to move away or stand up, but she didn’t want to irritate him.
“I think I remember from my notes that you have a son.”
Her body went rigid. Apparently nothing was sacred. “That’s right.”
“Sam Reese’s son?”
“Yes,” she answered stiffly.
“What’s his name?”
“Hunter.”
“I like that name. How old is Hunter?”
“Six.”
“I assume you got custody of him after the divorce.”
Angela glanced down. “No, I didn’t.”
“What?” Lawrence asked.
“Hunter lives with his father,” she explained quietly, wondering why Lawrence was playing this game. Or maybe he just hadn’t paid close enough attention to the information his assistant had prepared.
“How often do you see Hunter?”
“One weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.”
“Really? Well, I’m no expert when it comes to divorce and child custody, but don’t mothers usually get custody?”
“Usually.”
“What happened?”
Angela took a deep breath. “I was fighting a machine. My former father-in-law is an influential man in Richmond and he hates me. He hired a legion of lawyers from the best firm in town, and I only had enough money to hire a one-woman shop. I can’t prove it, but I think he paid off the judge, too. He doesn’t leave much to chance.”
“Why does he hate you so much?”
“Because my family was dirt poor,” she replied bitterly.
“But you graduated from one of the best business schools in the country. You pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.”
“Didn’t matter to him. He didn’t want me in his beautiful world, or his son’s. He wanted Sam married to a blue-blooded debutante from Richmond’s West End who grew up knowing all the right people from the day she was born. Not some nobody from a trailer park outside Asheville, North Carolina.”
“That’s terrible,” Lawrence said gently. He was quiet for a few moments. “Who filed for the divorce?”
Angela folded her hands tightly in her lap. “Sam did,” she answered.
“On what grounds?”
She hesitated, knowing how this would sound. She could refuse to answer or lie, but chances were good that Lawrence already knew, and all of this was just a test to see if she’d tell him the truth. “Adultery.”
“I’m assuming that accusation wasn’t true. Just a trumped-up charge for the lawyers to use.”
“That’s right,” she said. The truth was exactly the opposite. She’d caught Sam in bed with a woman one day when she’d come home early from a trip. “But the judge believed it,” she added, her eyes starting to burn. Angela thought it was mostly because two of Sam’s closest bachelor buddies had lied in court about having sexual relations with her while she was married to Sam. Lied about how she had seduced them, then we
nt into lurid details concerning the alleged trysts in front of a courtroom packed with Reese’s family and friends. And the lawyers had coached her accusers expertly. One of the men had even broken down on the stand, begging for Sam’s forgiveness across the courtroom. She could only imagine how much they’d been paid to perjure themselves. Probably six figures. Sam’s father hated her that much. He had hated her right from the start. But she’d believed all along that Sam was strong enough to be his own man. She’d misjudged the risks and paid a terrible price. “And that was all that mattered,” she murmured.
“I’m sorry, Angela,” Lawrence offered quietly. “Perhaps I can assist you there.”
She glanced up. “If you help me, I’ll help you” had been Lawrence’s words at the beginning of the meeting. “How?”
“A man in my position can wield a certain amount of influence. And often these things come down to who’s got the bigger gun.”
He didn’t have to tell her that.
“Candidly,” Lawrence continued, “there aren’t many guns bigger than mine.”
“Mr. Lawrence . . . I mean, Jake,” Angela interrupted herself, turning to face him. “That would mean a great deal to me,” she admitted, grasping the incredible opportunity that lay before her. “I miss Hunter so badly sometimes.” She hated begging but, when it came to her son, pride ran a distant second.
“Let me talk to my people.” He patted her knee again and smiled.
This time she smiled back, and slipped her hand into his. She hated herself for what she was doing, but Hunter needed her. And she needed him. “Thank you, Jake.”
“I can’t promise anything. Just that I’ll look into it.”
“I appreciate that so much.”
“There’s another thing,” he said, sliding his hand up her leg a few inches.
“What’s that?” She forced herself not to pull away.
“Why haven’t you been promoted to director yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“You told me earlier that you were a vice president at Sumter Bank.”
“Yes?”
