Chapter Ten
Walsh stepped out of the elevator, adjusting his tie and checking the shine on his shoes. His father's suite of offices took up the entire twenty-first floor of a New York skyscraper. He had come here with his mother as a child, awed by this inner sanctum from which his father ruled. He hadn't understood then exactly what his father did, but he knew it was important, and that Daddy was powerful.
Now he knew what Daddy did.
Daddy was a pirate. A swashbuckling tycoon who preyed on the dismal circumstances of corporations too weakened to fend him off. Acquisitions. Takeovers, amicable or hostile. It really didn't make a difference to Martin Bennett. If he wanted a company, he would have it.
It took something like acquisitions to stretch his father to the outer limits of his intelligence and ambition. He was a raider. A marauder. And Walsh, God help him, was sitting at his feet to learn everything he knew. One day, this company would be his. He was determined that it would be on his own terms, but for now, he had to live with his father's.
Unmitigated adoration had burned bright for his father until Walsh was twelve years old and seen the man's feet of clay. He'd never forget the angry exchanges through the walls of their brownstone, or his mother's wrenching sobs after his father's infidelity.
Walsh checked his watch, shoving those emotions aside. Martin Bennett didn't deal in emotions. He dealt in power, results, and cash. Eyes incessantly trained on the bottom line and his ever-expanding interests, his dad had missed a lot of the smaller details of life, like his wife and son. In the grand scheme of things, though, did it really matter?
Not to Walsh. Not anymore.
"Morning, Claire."
Walsh greeted his father's assistant with genuine pleasure. He'd always liked her. He remembered the strange feeling of relief he'd felt the first time he came to the office and saw the staid, older woman who had replaced Laura, Martin's previous assistant.
Laura had been blond, voluptuous, condescending, and rude when his father wasn't around. The affair with her had destroyed his parents' marriage. The marriage had been unsalvageable, but at least Walsh hadn't had to look at Laura's smug face every time he came here.
"Walsh." Claire smiled, standing to give him a quick peck on the cheek. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good."
He hoped her usually omniscient glance missed the lines of fatigue around his mouth and eyes. It had been a long month, between making arrangements for Iyani and overseeing some additions at the Kenyan orphanage. He had only returned yesterday, per his father's summons. He had intended to head straight back to North Carolina, but Claire had called asking that he come to New York first.
"So why does he want to see me? I know you know."
Claire smiled a tiny bit, cracking her professional demeanor just enough to reveal her affection for him.
"You'll see." She studied him over her fashionable tortoiseshell glasses. "Go on in."
"Is my tie straight?"
He backed toward his father's office door, using his old standby-the boyish grin. She rolled her eyes and shooed him into the office.
"Unacceptable," Martin Bennett snapped into his cell phone. Walsh pushed the door open wider.
The opulent office always made Walsh feel like its luxury was closing in on him, from the expensive Persian rugs to the clean lines of the mammoth desk, set in front of the breathtaking view like a crown jewel. There was only one comfortable chair in the whole office, and his father kept that for himself. All the other seats were beautiful, but hard and unyielding, keeping you slightly on edge. Walsh knew this was just one layer of his father's design to maintain every advantage he could, no matter how small.
The office overlooked the crowded New York landscape. Seeing the breadth of the city made his father proud of the patch of urban jungle he'd subdued with the machete of his relentless ambition.
"I don't pay you to ‘think' you know things." Impatience pierced his father's every word. "I pay you to know, unequivocally without a doubt, what to do. Action, Miller. Not excuses. I want that company, and don't come back until you have it."
His father hung up without a good-bye. The weight of his considering look fell on Walsh like a steel beam. One Walsh had learned not to buckle beneath.
"Walsh."
"Dad."
"How's your mother? She has a birthday soon, doesn't she?"
"Um, she's fine." Walsh mentally scrambled to orient himself to this new tactic. One of the unspoken terms of his parents' armed truce was that they never asked him about each other. "Yeah, her birthday's tomorrow. I'm flying back today for the party."
"Hmmm. Still seeing that old man?" Martin picked up a heavy hourglass on the edge of his desk and flipped it over, setting it down with a thud before the sands could settle.
"Sam Whitby?" Walsh frowned, taking his eyes from his father's face only long enough to watch the sands' rapid fall in the new direction. "He's only five years older than you, Dad."
"He looks fifteen years older." Martin riffled through his catalog of disdainful expressions before settling on a sneer for Kristeene's suitor. "Don't know what she sees-never mind. None of my business. So you're back from another one of your little mission trips, huh?"
"It's not a … never mind."
Walsh couldn't be bothered to explain again why the orphanages were so important to him. Philanthropy was another planet to his father, a strange land where people actually cared about the well-being of others.
"There was a little girl from the orphanage who had a brain tumor. I took her to Rivermont for surgery. She didn't make it and I flew her back to Kenya to be buried there."
"Sorry about that." It sounded like Iyani could have been a goldfish Walsh had flushed down the toilet as far as his father was concerned. "I have my eye on a new company."
"Oh?"
Walsh kept his tone neutral. He approached each of these paternal conversations with tactical precision, careful not to volunteer too much information, but to wait for his opponent to make the first move, revealing how to best defend.
"Merrist Holdings." Walsh recognized the predatory gleam in his father's eyes, savoring the taste of coming conquest. "You familiar?"
Walsh kept his posture deliberately languid, but his mind executed a rapid-fire retrieval of any information he could recall about Merrist Holdings. It never paid to reveal excitement about any venture. He had learned early that his father invariably viewed emotions as leverage. For him to know you wanted something was to give him a weapon to use against you.
"I know very little about Merrist, Dad. Enlighten me?"
"You must know something." His father fired him a knowing look.
He always made it his business to know his father's next move. Part of the stratagem he employed to negotiate their relational minefield.
"I think Merrist was a family-owned operation. Medium-size logistics firm based in Burlington, New Jersey." Walsh lifted his Charvet tie to study the medallion pattern. "Recently went public. Established a Chicago branch about a year ago, which hemorrhaged profit. Now they find themselves with little cash flow. In addition to carrying some hefty debts they took on to open the new plant. Am I close?"
"So you are familiar." His father smiled, the closest thing to pride Walsh ever got to see in his eyes. "I want that company."
"And you want me on the team?"
"You are the team." Martin held his son's eyes captive for an extra moment before turning to survey the city skyline. "Can you handle it?"
"Of course I can handle it." Walsh made sure he didn't sound defensive or, worse, eager. "I've just never taken the lead on an acquisition before."
"Neither had I until I did it the first time." Martin challenged Walsh with his best alpha male look over his shoulder. "It's like sex. Grab your dick and figure it out."
"I'll be fine." Walsh stood, not giving his father the chance to dismiss him. "I'll have Claire send me any pertinent information we already have."
"Of course, you'll need to spend more time here, and less time in North Carolina." His father picked up that damn hourglass again, his face in its usual hard lines, but his eyes alert and careful on Walsh.
"Of course." Ah, the end game. Always control and manipulation. "The summer will be over soon anyway."