What he didn’t like was the fact that she seemed a little rattled.
“Lizzie…” He kissed her softly. “You okay there?”
She ran her hand up the back of his arm and nodded.
“Lizzie? Did I hurt you?”
“Oh…no…it’s not that.”
“Talk to me.”
“I…ah, I didn’t know…” Her eyes dropped. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”
Sean went utterly still; he didn’t even breathe. Time became a meaningless measure of nothing important. “Lizzie—”
His cell phone went off again, the soft tone landing like a bomb.
With a curse, he shot out of bed and grabbed his boxers, holding them in front of his hips as he headed for his pants.
“What?”he snapped as he answered the damn thing.
#p#分页标题#e#
“Where the hell have you been?” Ah yes, Mick Rhodes. Lawyer. Friend. And when in that tone of voice, bearer of bad news.
“Just spit it,” Sean muttered. “What’s on fire?”
“Condi-Foods. Name ring a bell? Damn it, I called you five times this afternoon. Where have you been? You know the deal is shaky—”
“Skip the lecture and give me details.”
Mick swore a couple of times then launched into a news flash that set Sean’s teeth on edge. “The revised tender offer from the acquirer is coming in two hours from now. Condi-Foods’ board chair wants you and only you to render the opinion and he wants to hear it in person. So you need to drop whatever you’re doing and get your ass into Manhattan now .”
Sean cursed and reached back down for his trousers. Then realized he wasn’t getting dressed unless he made a quick trip to the bathroom. “I’m on my way.”
“Hey, there’s an idea—”
“I’ll call you from the plane.” Sean hung up. Dropped his arm. Looked over his shoulder. “I have to go.”
“Was that your boss?”
“Basically.” Actually, he was Mick’s boss, as he’d hired the guy to work on the legal aspects of these deals. But his pal was right to goose him. He’d left a two-billion-dollar negotiation hanging in the breeze today. So he could play Frisbee for God’s sake.
Not a smart career move. Or a responsible one.
Sean went into the bathroom, snapped off the condom and washed up. Without looking at himself in the mirror, he put on his boxers and his pants and headed back to the bedroom.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he said, picking up his shirt from the floor. He pulled it over his head and shoved his feet into his running shoes. “I’ll call you.”
Lizzie’s eyes grew remote. “Have a safe trip.”
“Lizzie, I’ll call you. I promise.”
She smiled slowly. “Okay…I’d like that. I’d really like that.”
***
Chapter Nine
Four nights later, in a conference room high above Wall Street, Sean lost it. Just lost it. And not in a calculated way intended to impact difficult negotiations.
He simply hit the wall. Then plowed right through it. “To hell with this.” He planted his big hands on the glossy mahogany table and rose from his seat. Leaning into his arms, he glared good and hard at the idiots who were wasting his and Condi-Foods’ time. “Get out.”
The head of the acquirer’s investment team blinked like a bad lightbulb in his Brooks Brothers suit. “Excuse me?”
“Get. Out.” This meeting had been a bad idea to begin with, but as the deal was at a standstill, Sean had agreed to the request for some face-to-face. He was not surprised they remained deadlocked, but it sure as hell didn’t put him in a good mood.
Then again, since he’d left Lizzie’s Saturday night, nothing had given him a jolly.
“Our share price is fair!” the man across the table hollered.
“No, it isn’t, and it’s backed up by air. You find yourself some better financing and come up on your number, then we’ll talk.”
“Damn it, O’Banyon! We’ve been working on this for the last four days—”
“And time has not improved your offer. Get. Out.”
There was a long pause and then they just started yammering on again about their low-ball valuation of Condi-Foods’ assets. One of them even had the nerve to push a spreadsheet at him.
Sean balled the thing up and tossed it into a wastepaper basket across the room.
Which effectively ended the meeting.
All six guys across the table stood up and, amid much huffing and offense, funneled out of the room as if the door were a drain. Before he left, the team leader glanced back at Sean. The man’s eyes were shrewd and that was when Sean knew. What had just transpired was a test of his resolve by the opposing side, not any kind of genuine stalemate.