Alina rolls her eyes and pads out of the room. Good.
The voice on the other end of the phone launches into a business proposition, and instantly Alana is forgotten, last night’s conquest filed away along with all my other irrelevant memories. Then I get a whiff of a challenge. If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a business opportunity on the brink.
“What happened exactly, John? It seems like the resource management here has been abysmal.”
On the other end of the line, John, the representative for the board at Williams-Martin, the publishing group, sighs. Williams-Martin, John has explained, owns Basiqué—their heavy hitter—and puts out a bunch of other magazines that lose money every second they exist. Not that I give a shit about magazines. But this company is about to go over the edge, and I could stop it…if I choose.
“I can’t argue with that.” He sounds defeated.
I take another long moment to consider my options. I don’t need this business. People can’t stop giving me money hand over fist. Come up with your own revolutionary development in condom technology and watch your net worth shoot into the stratosphere. But I can’t get enough of this shit. I’ll probably find out that none of these magazine properties are worth anything, and I won’t feel an ounce of sadness about shutting most of them down. Maybe all of them. Who knows? I buy them out, I have all the power. And another successful turnaround will only increase my legitimacy.
A memory of my slimy, weakass father flashes across my mind. He wasn’t legit. I’ll never forget the day they came to arrest him for a laundry list of embarrassing white-collar crimes. It wasn’t until the trial that I saw him for what he was: a coward and a fraud. The last thing I need is to get into a situation that looks like it’s just more of his “creative accounting.”
This isn’t creative accounting. From what John has said, this is a bailout.
And who has more power than the guy writing the checks?
I’ll do it. Why the hell not? I can afford to lose a couple million if it goes south, and either way I’ll come out smelling like roses. If I can’t turn around some publishing company when they’re up against the goddamn Internet, I won’t be the first.
“Tell you what, John. I’ll bite. But I’ll warn you—I don’t plan on leaving power structures intact. I’m going to be doing some reorganizing.”
“We expected as much.” The relief in his voice is palpable.
“Be ready for a call from my business manager by the afternoon,” I say crisply, then let him thank me too many times before I disconnect the call.
The thought of the destruction I’m about to wreak on Williams-Martin has my blood humming in my veins. I could go another round right now.
But Alina is long gone. Sometimes you’re too hasty, Hunter.
My heart is still beating with leftover anticipation as I strip off my clothes and step into the shower. It’s just a pet project, something I wouldn’t normally pay much attention to, but I could use just this kind of distraction from all the shit that’s been going on.
All I need to do is get to the office.
Chapter 4
Cate
Sandra shuts herself in her office for most of the morning while I force myself to sift through the daily deluge of emails, tracking shipments, scheduling, confirming, confirming, confirming. It’s hard to type with jittery hands, a jittery mind. But the work never ends. There’s always another issue in the works, always another set of clothes, models, designers to slot into Sandra’s schedule. I have to get it done, or the afternoon will be a nightmare.
That bitch.
The thought bubbles up from behind my barricade of professionalism and I swat at it like it’s in the air in front of me, like I’d swat away a mosquito. Sandra isn’t a bitch. She’s demanding and hyper-focused on her work, and the problem she’s faced with—that we’re both faced with—is something I can’t help her with, even if it takes everything I have not to press my ear up against the doors to her office. A single word. A single word is all I need to take the edge off after what she told me this morning.
Her words reverberate endlessly in my mind. “Williams-Martin is bankrupt,” she’d said, slipping her reading glasses off and placing them precisely back into the drawer. “They’ll need a solution shortly. If one isn’t found, the office will close. In a matter of weeks, I assume.”
Instead of letting my mouth drop open, I pinched my lips shut to keep from screaming.