She moved to her windows, looking out over the street. This place was functional now, a little more her; even though there was no money to renovate as she wanted, Dina had decorated cheaply, had painted, hung a few mirrors. Already it looked more spacious. But she would have to do better if she wanted to sell.
She felt tired – so tired. She thought about Johnny, her mom, Hector, Meadow. Desperately, she wanted independence, to cut loose. There could not be any waiting, could not be any more limbo. Dina wanted a life, wanted power. She had come close, but something was standing in her way.
Hector Green looked about him. These were unfamiliar surroundings: the long, walnut panelled conference room; the green leather armchairs. Four lawyers sat opposite him with yellow legal pads, writing furiously, even though he hadn’t said much. A young man with pallid skin and a foppish haircut sat next to them, wearing an expensive suit.
‘And you are sure of this?’ The chief lawyer was a white-haired man of Hector’s own age, perhaps a touch younger. He was heavy around the middle and spoke with supreme confidence.
‘I’m afraid so,’ the young man said. ‘Miss Kane is a fraudster. She was involved in an unfortunate blackmail attempt on my family.’ Edward Johnson spread his hands. ‘Mr Green, you were successful on your own terms before she came along.’
‘She did bankroll the launch of Meadow.’
‘After your sweat equity,’ the lawyer said. ‘You designed the product; you worked around the clock. She was back at the shop selling things you ordered. In essence, it wasn’t bad for Ms Kane to ask to be paid. Our quarrel is with the ludicrous contract she had you sign.’
‘She could have asked for recoupment of her loan – even ten times over,’ Edward said, sadly. ‘Instead, she took fifty per cent. It took you a lifetime of learning to devise Meadow.’
‘She took advantage of an old man without proper representation. It’s eminently challengeable.’
Hector shook his head. He had no idea what to think. If only they would stop talking!
He blamed Dina for this. Why was she trying to stop him making money?
‘I would like to do the night cream, and retire.’ He shrugged. ‘It is very simple. I wish to go somewhere warm. I am old, I cannot work any longer.’
‘The problem is, it would be a Meadow night cream. And she co-owns the name – unless we fight in court.’
‘I can make it a different name . . .’
‘The Glamour store wants your branding: Meadow.’
Hector snapped ‘Then why are we here? She owns half. She has a contract.’
‘We can fight—’
‘I am not interested in work; I am not interested in fight.’
‘Mr Green, if you’ll allow me,’ Edward Johnson said, ‘Ms Kane does not have the money to hire lawyers for a protracted period. She has a cash crisis. My suggestion would be that you merely threaten her. The firm here can serve her the notifications, file the actions. We can bury her in paperwork. She’ll soon admit that you are the real owner of Meadow.’ He laughed. ‘You will be generous if you refrain from suing her for fraud – attempted theft.’
Hector gnawed on his knuckles, an old habit. ‘I want this all to be over.’
‘Do you think a twenty-year-old girl should steal a life’s work?’
He shook his head.
‘Then you have to do this. Are you willing? Mr Johnson is paying our fees.’
Dina was jogging down the street when the pretty student ran up to her.
‘Are you Dina Kane?’ she asked. ‘You know, who makes the Meadow cream?’
‘I’m Dina,’ she answered, startled out of her thoughts of Johnny. Brad had found him in Chinatown that morning, badly beaten up and dumped on the side of the street. He was in a hospital, and sweating and puking through withdrawal.
They said it was narcotics.
Johnny Kane was going downhill like a teen on a helter-skelter, faster than anyone suspected. The visit to Ellen had not gone well. Brad told Dina everything over a plate of spaghetti: the tight lips, the wooden hugs. Ellen’s new boyfriend was there, he said, and kept coughing every time Brad touched Johnny, or talked about their relationship. And Johnny asked for a drink, and left twenty minutes after realising there was nothing in the house.
‘I don’t know if she loves him. I don’t know if she really loves anything.’
‘She hates that he’s gay. My mom cares how things look, always has.’
‘Well, she’s going to have a dead son, if she’s not careful.’
Dina called up after that and begged one more time for money. She found a rehab centre up in the Catskills, a remote place with great therapists and a good reputation. Johnny should stay a month, maybe six weeks; that might cost sixty thousand bucks.
‘You must be kidding, Dina. Oliver and I are starting our own lives. Let Brad take care of Johnny.’
‘He’s still a student, Mom.’
‘Maybe his parents are richer than me. Anyway, Johnny needs to want this,’ Ellen said, piously. ‘I don’t feel he’s ready.’
Dina shivered. The gossamer thread she thought was there – Ellen’s love for Johnny – was tearing, weakening. She wondered which was worse, the revelation he was gay, or the news that he spent time with his sister.
Dina didn’t want to face that. She’d clung to the idea that at least Momma loved one of them. Today, she wasn’t so sure. The jealousy . . . the pathology in Ellen Kane . . . But at least Mom was making her own decision easy. If Ellen wouldn’t help – wouldn’t support Johnny – Dina would.
‘Well, I’m glad I found you, then,’ the student said, jerking her back to the street and her jogging. She slowed up, looking at the girl. ‘These are for you.’
She reached in a backpack and handed Dina some envelopes.
‘Excuse me?’ Dina gasped.
‘You’ve been served. I’m sorry. Have a pleasant run.’ And the girl took out a camera and, before Dina could move, snapped her holding the crisp white envelopes.
Dina looked up First Avenue, towards her apartment building, and her heart started to pound – with more than the exercise.
Shaman and Kebler, the envelopes were stamped. Attorneys-At-Law.
They were stiff, thick bond paper. She stopped and ripped one open.
Our client . . . fraudulent coercion . . . Intellectual property, rights and trademark . . . Advantage of the vulnerable . . . Suing for release of contract, costs and damages in the amount of ten million dollars . . .
Dina almost laughed. Ten million dollars? It felt like she barely had ten dollars. And, if she did, she’d need nine of them for Johnny.
Chapter Eight
‘I’m sorry,’ Eliza Sherman said.
She looked her young client over. Dina Kane was an interesting girl, one of the most unusual people ever to walk through her doors. She wanted to help her, but the kid had no money. Not enough to fight.
‘It’s just that they are such a big firm – corporate law experts. You have a great case, in my opinion, but they can file motion after motion. Without money, no firm is going to represent you. No-win, no-fee is a risk here, because they have so many lawyers.’ She squirmed a little; here was a twenty-year-old who’d pulled herself up from nothing, got fifty per cent of a hot beauty product and was about to get skewered. ‘Look, I can recommend some suburban firms, maybe. You’d need to try and get a bank loan. Or maybe you have a lawyer in your family . . . ?’
‘So, what would you do, if you were me?’
‘It’s a tough break.’ Sherman’s small, cramped office on Third Street was full of law books, with a small window that looked out on to another building. She did bread-and-butter stuff, lawsuits at work, slips and falls, corporate liability. ‘I think I’d hire a lawyer to write a couple of letters saying you’ll fight it all the way, and then I’d settle.’
‘Settle?’
‘Give back your half of the Meadow line. For whatever price they offer.’
Dina leafed through th
e letters again. ‘They don’t sound like they want to settle. Unless I sign it back, they’re going to sue.’
‘And you can’t persuade Dr Green?’
‘Hector won’t talk to me. The money stuff really changed him.’
‘Yes,’ said the lawyer. ‘It can do that.’
Dina sighed. ‘So, if I hire you to write the letters, how much could I get?’
Eliza shrugged. ‘I’d try for something small – you’re right, they don’t want to settle – like, maybe, fifty thousand dollars, just to make the headache go away.’
Dina almost choked on the water she was sipping from a white plastic cup. ‘Fifty thousand? That’s it?’
‘They’re a serious firm.’
‘Thank you,’ Dina said. The older woman could see her thinking. ‘Just one more question,’ Dina continued. ‘If I had the money to hire a firm like them, and I could fight it, would I get to keep my share?’
‘Oh, sure. I really think so. The contract is tight, you persuaded him to develop the cream, you took over at the store – your fingerprints are on everything. And the fact that you re-mortgaged your apartment . . . it’s all there.’
‘I appreciate your time.’ Dina rose to her feet. ‘What do I owe you for the consultation?’
Eliza Sherman felt a pang of pity for the kid. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said. ‘Good luck, Ms Kane.’
Dina sat at her kitchen table, an uneaten bowl of oatmeal by her side. She was lost in the Wall Street Journal and her laptop. Next to her was a simple white pad, with a list of names on it.
It was a short list.
So few men had the power to help her. And the name on the top of the list? Well, it was like approaching a legend.
Joel Gaines was one of Wall Street’s major mavericks. He was forty-one years old and a venture capitalist of the old school – not a dot com in sight. Gaines bought companies, broke them up and sold them off. He founded his first hedge fund aged just twenty-five and, by the age of thirty, owned a Detroit automaker, a travel agency in New York and several citrus farms in California. He had a bad reputation as a brutal player, with a ruthless eye on the bottom line. Gaines cut jobs and made companies profitable. He also started with senior management first. He had married early, at twenty-three, to a society beauty, Susan, who threw legendary parties in the Hamptons and sat on several charity boards. There were two sons, seventeen and fifteen. His partner, Bob Goldstein, was older and very respected. He provided the prestige, and Gaines did the rest.
Dina loved the story. She wanted to be like him. One day – maybe.
Her fingers reached for her cellphone, then hesitated. It was such a long shot. Why on earth would a man like Gaines agree to see her?
But one thing she knew: in her place, at her age, Joel Gaines would have made this call. He would have made all the calls.
The letters from the law firm were piled up in front of her, their threats written clearly on the stiff cream paper. She wanted out, she had no choice.
‘What’s on the list today?’ Gaines asked.
His assistant, Marian, placed a neatly typed list on his desk. Gaines always wanted a hard copy. He found screens distracting. Other bankers ran the numbers, did the algorithms; Gaines went out to the factories, talked to the workers, used the products. It was part of what made him the best.
‘You have the Japanese team here for the breakfast meeting.’
‘Very good.’ He glanced out of his huge floor-to-ceiling windows. ‘Bring them in shortly.’
‘The New Yorker is here to profile you at ten.’
‘We agreed to that?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very well. Twenty minutes, max.’
‘Yes, sir. Then you are talking to the union leaders from the plant in Milwaukee.’
‘They can have an hour.’
‘Lunch with Mr Goldstein.’
‘OK. We’ll go to Jean-Georges today.’
‘Very good, sir. You have forty minutes after that for emails and calls. I’ll have a sheet ready for you.’
‘Then what?’
‘Your personal trainer at half three and, at five, you are meeting the Mayor over the new construction site in TriBeCa. Your driver will take you directly home from City Hall at five forty.’
He nodded. Going home: that was the part of the day he liked least. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well . . . you did mention you might speak to that young woman who called, about the beauty cream.’
‘Yes. Cute. What was her name again?’
‘Dina Kane.’
‘See if you can squeeze in an extra phone call somewhere. I’ll take her pitch. Ten minutes.’
‘Oh.’
‘What is it?’
‘She’s waiting outside, sir.’
Joel blinked. ‘Did I say a meeting?’
‘No. She says she would prefer to speak to you face to face. She understands you will only have a few minutes for her; says she’ll wait. Do you want me to tell her to go away?’
He laughed; he liked a kid – of either sex – with balls. Mostly they were eager young Ivy League grads who’d watched Wall Street one too many times. Mostly they were men.
‘She can go away and come back after lunch, if she wants. Or she can wait. It may be several hours.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Marian didn’t argue the point.
‘Bring me some coffee, please.’
He had few vices these days, but caffeine was one of them.
Dina waited. She came prepared; she had her notes, her printouts, her projections, the case summary. And she had her phone. As the hours ticked by, she didn’t idly leaf through magazines, or stare out of the vast Gaines Goldstein windows at Sixth Avenue below. She read up and studied, digging through the Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, whatever was out there, following all the deals that Joel Gaines had ever done.
It was gripping. Dina got it immediately. There was a beautiful logic to the way he worked, mixed with a gambler’s touch that made it artful. The private jet, the exclusive prep schools, the house in the Hamptons – all of these were less interesting to her; they were just the natural result of the brilliant mind at work in the office behind her.
She watched as men were shown in to the inner sanctum and returned, hours or minutes later, awe-struck and babbling amongst themselves. From Japanese businessmen to a journalist and photographer to some hard-looking, weather-beaten guys in lumberjack shirts and jeans. It wasn’t clear precisely what he was doing, but from their reactions when they came out, he was doing it brilliantly.
It was exciting. It was thrilling. Another time, she might have been happy just to be in his presence. But not today. This wasn’t just a courtesy call, nor was she a mere fan. She needed him. She needed this deal.
Finally, at almost noon, his secretary emerged: immaculate in pencil skirt, silk shirt and kitten heels; an elegant fifty-year-old blonde.
‘Ms Kane – Mr Gaines can see you.’
She jumped to her feet, trying to calm her ragged breathing.
‘I must warn you, this was meant to be a phone call. Mr Gaines has an absolute maximum of ten minutes. Try to make it less.’
Dina knew better than to sass the assistant. She meekly nodded her head. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
The door opened into a cavernous office, exactly as she had expected. But that didn’t make it any less impressive. The soft woollen carpet in eggshell grey led up to a wall of windows at one end, and stark white walls on the other three sides, hung with enormous canvases of modern art; she recognised a Basquiat, a huge Warhol print, two others she didn’t know, but that still reeked of money. There was a large Wall Street ticker moving across one wall relentlessly, in an electronic banner.
Dina swallowed dryly. She was impressed, even a little aroused, despite herself. It was so in-your-face.
Gaines was sitting behind his desk, reading through some papers as she approached him. Dina took him in – the square, powerful shoulders, the muscled
body under the well-cut suit. He wore a plain steel watch, nothing fancy. His square-jawed profile was striking and he had salt-and-pepper hair cut very close to the head.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Gaines.’ She sat down, without being asked. There was a chair, and Dina didn’t have time to waste with pleasantries.
‘We were supposed to do this over the phone.’ Gaines turned and looked at her, and Dina flushed with surprise.
He was sexy. The eyes were dark, fringed with black lashes so thick it looked like he was wearing mascara. He had a large nose and a cruel, arrogant set to his mouth, which matched his aura of power and the muscles of his body. She flashed to imagining him in a gym, lifting weights.
‘Yes, sir.’ She dragged herself back to the present. ‘I thought I could get the point across better if I could see you.’
The dark eyes flickered up and down her body, and Dina felt desire licking at her.
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Go ahead, kid. Pitch me.’
‘I partnered with a man who ran a small beauty store – a chemist who hadn’t worked in years. I love beauty.’
He inclined his head a fraction of an inch, without paying her a compliment.
‘We were doing too well for the store, but he didn’t want to expand. I persuaded him to develop a great day cream. I put up the money for lab costs, packaging: a loan against my apartment, in exchange for half the product. It’s called Meadow and early orders are really good. Here.’
She passed over her fact sheets. ‘It could be a blockbuster, if we had the right distribution. A new Crème de la Mer.’
Gaines looked over them. ‘Congratulations. What do you need me for?’
‘My partner is suing me – for ten million dollars. They’re saying I stole half the cream from him. He wants to make other products in the line, without paying me. Glamour Store offered him a million bucks for a night cream.’
‘Messy.’
Dina swallowed hard. ‘I saw a lawyer and she says I can’t fight it. Even though I can prove I funded it, he hired this big-shot firm and they can file so much stuff, I have no money to defend the suit. I spent all I had on funding Meadow.’
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