Kate bit her lip as she dialed information for the phone number of Intercorp. Leaning forward, she jotted it on a pad, then she handed the phone to Gray. “I’ll talk to him, but you’ll need to get him to take my call first.”
He nodded, dialed the number, and shot her a quizzical look.
“The last time I saw Mitchell,” Kate explained in answer to his unspoken question, “Meredith was with him and she heard the things he accused me of being. When she walked away, she looked at me as if I’d just become invisible. Believe me, she told her husband all about it, and Matt Farrell won’t want to give me the time of day.”
“I’ll get him to take your call. There’s one more thing,” he added after he asked Intercorp’s operator to connect him to Matt Farrell’s office. “Wyatt is going to want some form of proof that Danny is his before he forks over ten million dollars. I have Wyatt’s DNA on record, and we’ll have Danny’s DNA in a few hours. If you will guarantee me that there is no way Danny is anyone else’s child, I’ll vouch for a DNA match now, on this phone call. If it turns out you’re wrong, I’ll retract my statement before Wyatt hands over the money and tell him there was a mistake.”
“There’s no mistake!”
He nodded, then spoke into the phone. “This is Gray Elliott,” he told Matt Farrell’s secretary. “Is Matt in? This is an emergency.”
Kate unconsciously held her breath while the seconds ticked by, and she thought of Danny out there somewhere with strangers.
“Matt,” Gray said suddenly into the phone. “I’m with Kate Donovan. Her little boy was kidnapped this morning. You’ll hear an amber alert any minute now if you turn on a radio or television set. Kate needs to talk to you. Before she does that, I want you to know that the DNA evidence will back up what she’s going to tell you. Here’s Kate—” he finished.
Kate stood up as she took the phone from him. “Mr. Farrell,” she said formally and firmly, “Mitchell Wyatt is Danny’s father.” Kate paused, waiting for some reaction, and when there was none, she forged ahead. “The kidnappers are demanding ten million dollars by nine o’clock tonight. I can’t even come close to paying that much money.” Again Kate paused, and again there was no reaction, so she drew an unsteady breath and said shakily, “Would you please ask Mitchell to call me? I’ll give you my phone number. Tell him … tell him I’ll sign over the restaurant to him in return, and I’ll find some way to pay him back the rest.” Tears constricted her throat, and Kate grasped the telephone harder. “Please, you have to find Mitchell and tell him. Danny isn’t even two yet and he’s out there somewhere with—” She broke off, swallowed, and got herself under control. “Tell Mitchell that Gray Elliott will show him proof that Danny’s DNA matches the DNA in Mitchell’s file at the state’s attorney’s office. Here’s my phone number at the restaurant. Danny and I live in an apartment above it,” Kate added quickly so that Matt Farrell wouldn’t think she was working as usual while her son was missing.
Finally, the silent man on the other end of the phone spoke. “I will call him,” he said, “and I’ll give him your message.”
“Thank you,” Kate said weakly. She’d started to take the phone from her ear when he added, “I’m very sorry about your son.”
That snapped Kate from pleading to ire. “Danny isn’t just my son; he is also Mitchell’s son.”
“I’ll remind Mitchell of that,” he said to her surprise.
Chapter Forty-five
CLAIRE DILLARD FINISHED READING THE CONFIDENTIALITY agreement that she was required to sign before she could work for Mitchell Wyatt, and added her signature. She passed it across the desk to his personal assistant, who slid it into a folder containing the rest of the employment documents Claire had been filling out since reporting that morning to the Manhattan high-rise for her first day of work. “What’s next?” Claire asked.
“That’s all there is,” Sophie Putnam replied with a warm smile, and closed the file. “You’re now an official member of the crew. Welcome aboard,” she said as she reached across her desk and held out her hand. Claire shook it, returning her smile.
They were both in their late thirties and happily married, with pleasant, professional attitudes, dark hair, and an obvious preference for well-tailored business suits and trendy shoes. “I think we’re going to get on very well together,” Sophie said, putting Claire’s thoughts into words. She settled back into her chair, glanced at her watch, and nodded toward a closed door on her right. “Mr. Wyatt’s conference should be over any minute now. In the meantime, do you have any questions or concerns about being Mr. Wyatt’s secretary that I haven’t addressed?”
“I do have one concern,” Claire admitted half seriously. “How long does it take before you stop noticing how incredibly handsome he is?”
Sophie laughed at her candor. “When you realize he does not play around with his employees, ever, you’ll relax and forget his looks—in two or three years,” she joked.
“Does he have a lot of girlfriends?”
Since Claire would be involved in facets of his personal life, such as arranging for theater tickets, making dinner reservations, and dealing with everything pertaining to his penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side, Sophie felt that question was well within reason. In a carefully noncommittal tone, she replied, “The lady du jour is Kira Dunhill.”
Claire’s eyes widened at the mention of the acclaimed Hollywood actress who was costarring on Broadway with Leigh Valente in a new play scheduled to open that night. “What’s Kira Dunhill really like?”
“She’s a little on the haughty side, but she’s so gorgeous and so talented, who can blame her?”
“Was that a tactful way of saying she’s a conceited snob?”
“Was I that obvious?”
“No,” Claire said with a quick, emphatic shake of her head. “I made an educated guess, based on the fact that she’s not only a movie star, but also from a wealthy, privileged background.”
“She’s only been up here twice,” Sophie replied as she picked up Claire’s folder and slipped it into her desk drawer. “The first time was a month and a half ago, right after they started going out, and when Mr. Wyatt introduced me to her, she barely bothered to give me a nod. The second time was last week, when she dropped by on the pretense of wanting to give him a book she’d bought for him, even though she knew he wasn’t going to be in the office that day. She hung around for a half hour, chatting with me and pretending she wanted us to be best girlfriends.”
“What did she really want?”
“Information about Mr. Wyatt—any little tidbits she could get about his friends, his business, his likes and dislikes, his background, his family, and the other women who’ve been involved with him. When she first started talking, she acted as if they’re practically engaged, but based on the kind of questions she asked, I think Mr. Wyatt must be keeping their relationship on a very superficial level, at least at this point. I’m telling you this as a warning, because she may try the same thing on you as soon as she realizes you’re his new secretary. Oh, one more thing before we change the subject. You asked whether he has a lot of girlfriends, and I gave you a flippant answer about Kira Dunhill being the ‘lady du jour.’ The actual answer to your question is that he works a lot harder than he plays.”
“What, specifically, does Mr. Wyatt do?”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie said, startled. “I automatically assumed you knew, since your former boss had several meetings with him recently.”
“I was one of the few people who knew Mr. Kenworth wanted to sell the company, and I knew his meetings with Mr. Wyatt were related to that, but he was very secretive about the meetings themselves. They always took place after everyone had gone home, and although Mr. Kenworth had me stay until the meetings were over, the only thing I did was bring files into the conference room occasionally and arrange for their dinners. I have no specific idea what Mr. Kenworth wanted Mr. Wyatt to do for him. I only know I was thrilled—and amazed—when you p
honed me last month to say that Mr. Wyatt’s secretary was retiring and you invited me to apply for her job.”
Sophie grinned. “Mr. Wyatt was more impressed with your professionalism and your ‘people skills’ than he was with your boss’s managerial skills and personal habits.”
“Mr. Kenworth tended to be abrupt with people, but he was always under a great deal of pressure from … various directions,” Claire said.
Her diplomatic reply made Sophie’s grin widen. “Yes, well, that’s inevitable when a man has a new French wife who is barely out of her teens, two ex-wives who aren’t getting their alimony checks on time, and a floundering corporation with an angry sales force that didn’t get their commission checks on time. Evidently, Mr. Kenworth felt it was your job to run interference for him on the telephone with all those people. By the way, Mr. Wyatt was amused and impressed by your tactful forbearance with the tearful child-bride’s telephone tantrum. He overheard the conversation when he was leaving.”
Claire was horrified. “I lowered my voice almost to a whisper and spoke to her in French, to make certain he wouldn’t know what was going on.”
“Unfortunately, he has excellent hearing, and he’s fluent in French. Evidently, so are you, which was another reason he decided to consider you for this job—Several of our clients are French, and many of our other European clients are more comfortable with French than English. That brings me back around to the original question you asked concerning what goes on here.” Folding her arms on the desk, she said, “To put it as simply as possible, Mr. Wyatt arranges mergers and buyouts of privately owned companies for our client companies around the globe. Sometimes, our clients already have a specific company—a ‘target company’—in mind that they want to acquire. In that case, Mr. Wyatt initiates the deal and negotiates it for our clients. Sometimes, our clients simply tell him what they want to achieve and they ask him to choose a target company. Unfortunately, not all of these target companies want to be acquired at first, and even when they decide it’s a good idea, there’s always a battle about the money involved. In return for successfully completing the deal, Mr. Wyatt charges an extremely large fee and also receives a block of shares in the company.”
She paused a moment to let that sink in, and then she told Claire with quiet pride, “Your new boss is renowned in his field for his global contacts, his judgment, and his negotiating skills. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that he’s absolutely brilliant at what he does.”
Very pleased with that information, Claire restrained the impulse to confess that she’d failed to question Mitchell Wyatt about the specifics of his work during her brief interview with him because she’d been frustratingly disconcerted by his handsome face and dark blue eyes. Rather than bring up an issue she was determined to somehow ignore in the future, Claire picked up a pen and pad of paper lying on Sophie’s desk so that she could make notes. “How many clients does Mr. Wyatt have?”
“Actually, he only agreed to meet with your boss as a courtesy to a mutual acquaintance of theirs. He stopped taking on new clients a long time ago, but the clients he does represent have become very prosperous and very acquisitive—thanks to his expertise. I described what he does for his clients, but there are many instances where Mr. Wyatt discovers two or three good companies that aren’t doing well, but that he thinks could thrive if they were merged and put under proper management.”
“When that happens,” Claire speculated, “I assume he contacts one of his clients and recommends that the client let him proceed with the buyout and merger on their behalf?”
“Sometimes he does that, but more often, Mr. Wyatt proceeds on his own. He buys up the companies, merges them, and creates a new management team out of the best members of the old teams. When the newly formed company shows a respectable profit, he sells it, but he continues to receive a share of the profits thereafter, as a condition of the sale.”
“He never keeps the companies he creates, no matter how successful he thinks they’re going to become?”
“No. He says that in order for a privately owned company to continue to thrive and grow, the owner needs to have a physical presence there, at least periodically.”
“And he’s not willing to do that?”
Sophie shook her head, remembering the night almost three years ago when she asked him about this issue. He’d just returned from his brother’s funeral in Chicago and was preparing for a two A.M. teleconference with a Swiss client who was trying to buy a company that Mitchell had created by purchasing and merging three small, financially embattled French manufacturing companies. He’d shored them up with his own money, restructured them, and handpicked the new management team, several members of which he came to like especially well. When the newly formed company began reporting sizable profits in a very short time, he’d been particularly proud, and since he flew to France frequently, Sophie had asked him why he didn’t keep the company for himself, instead of selling it to the Swiss client.
In a rare, unguarded moment undoubtedly caused by fatigue and the convoluted nightmare of his brother’s murder, his brief smile and nonchalant tone failed to disguise an underlying emotion that darkened his eyes and hardened his jaw. “I’m a nomad at heart,” he said. The following week he accepted an offer from a wealthy tourist who’d seen his partially completed house in Anguilla and had been trying to buy it. “I have apartments in four cities,” he told Sophie when she expressed her amazement at his decision. “I’ve decided that owning a house is a tether I don’t want.”
Rather than revealing that very personal discussion, Sophie said simply and truthfully, “He likes to maintain as much flexibility as possible in his work and in his living style, so be prepared for sudden, last-minute changes in his plans.” Deftly switching the conversation back to business, she continued, “I mentioned that when Mr. Wyatt sells a company he’s created, he’s contractually entitled to a share of the future profits made by that company. To make certain those profits are accurately calculated by the new owners of the companies, we employ two full-time auditors who travel from company to company, examining their books.” To help Claire understand the necessity of that, Sophie said, “Occasionally, the new owners decide to try to reduce their profit figures—and therefore, reduce the amount they owe Mr. Wyatt—by disguising personal expenses as business expenses and using company money to pay for them.”
“You mean personal expenses like a family vacation?”
Sophie laughed. “No, I mean personal expenses like a country estate near St. Petersburg and a Rolls-Royce!”
Claire started to smile, but a sudden eruption of infuriated, foreign voices from inside the conference room made her turn and glance uneasily in that direction.
“Don’t worry, both those men are thousands of miles away,” Sophie said with amused resignation. As she spoke, the men’s voices suddenly dropped below hearing level, and she added, “Mr. Wyatt just turned the volume down on the speaker system.”
“Oh, you mean they’re having a conference call?” Claire said with evident relief.
“They’re having a three-way teleconference,” Sophie clarified. To stop Claire from thinking that belligerence and shouting were a normal occurrence in the way Mr. Wyatt conducted business, Sophie added, “The voices you just heard belong to Stavros Konstantatos in Greece, and Alexi Radkov in Moscow, and the only reason Mr. Wyatt is involved in what’s going on in there is because Stavros asked him to act as a … well … facilitator.”
“Facilitator, or referee?” Claire asked wryly.
“You’re very astute,” Sophie said with a chuckle. “Alexi owns a large Russian trucking company, which he offered to sell Stavros. The two men agreed on the price and terms, and the preliminary documents were signed, but Alexi has started stalling, and Stavros is furious. Mr. Wyatt knew nothing about the deal until yesterday, but he’s superb at making things work out for Stavros when Stavros’s temper gets in the way of his reason. Stavros and Mr. Wyatt have been friends for a
very long time,” Sophie added.
Claire, who’d heard of the reclusive Greek tycoon, had jotted down his name on her pad, and in shorthand she wrote next to it, “bad temper—close friend of MW.” She jotted down the Russian’s name and a notation that he owned a trucking company.
Sophie waited until she finished writing; then she pushed back her chair and stood up. “While we’re waiting for Mr. Wyatt to finish up in there, I’ll show you around the office, although there isn’t much you haven’t seen already.”
Claire got up and followed her out of her office and across the reception area, a large room furnished with a modernistic sofa upholstered in soft beige leather and two pairs of matching chairs, all of which faced the windows. Behind the sofa, against the back wall of the room, was a large chrome-and-glass desk with a phone and chair for the use of busy visitors. A thick beige carpet with occasional random swirls of dark honey covered most of the reception area’s unpolished travertine marble floor, and a framed, impressionist landscape in shades of green hung on the wall above the desk. A few large ferns on travertine pedestals provided the only other decorative touches. The furnishings were sleek and expensive-looking, and the overall effect was intentionally minimalist, so that nothing competed with the dramatic view of Manhattan through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“These are the auditors’ offices,” Sophie said, pausing at a pair of doors that opened off a short hallway just behind the desk in the reception room. “As I explained, John and Andrew are rarely here.” Claire peeked inside both offices, each of which contained a wall of built-in file cabinets, a desk, and a pair of chairs that matched those in the reception area. From there, Sophie led her to the next, and last, door in the hallway. She swung it open to reveal a small but well-equipped kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a table, and four chairs. “Feel free to use this anytime you like,” she said.
As they walked back through the reception area, Sophie glanced at her watch. “Mr. Wyatt was supposed to be done with that teleconference fifteen minutes ago. He’ll be running out of patience any minute now,” she predicted with cheerful certainty. “In the meantime, let’s go into his office and see if there’s anything on his desk that I can give you to get started on. I know he has a file full of work somewhere that he’s saved to go over with you.”
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