His dick twitched in agreement. Now would be a great time to push that robe open and try something new with the lovely Emerson Dyer. “As much as that idea just took top spot on the list of ways I’d like to spend my day, we need to talk first.”
“You and your talking,” she said, but her tone was playful. Emerson sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “Listen, I’m fine, really. It’s a business thing…and after sleeping on it, I feel much better about things.”
Connor reached for her hand, and she let him take it. He hoped it felt solid to her. Grounded her. Showed her that he wanted to be there for her. He ducked slightly to look straight into her eyes, and damn, if those big brown eyes weren’t trying to hide something.
“If you’re fine, then I just got drafted to the Nuggets,” he replied. “Look, I’m not going to push you. If you want to talk, I’m here. If you just want to sit and drink coffee together, I’m game. If you’d rather I just gave you some space today, I can be on my way. But I guess I’m kind of hoping we might be working toward something more than friends with benefits. I can’t make myself clearer than that.”
Emerson was silent for a moment before squeezing his hand. “I hope that, too. I’ve got a business problem. But I need to know that you’re serious…no, not that…that you won’t share any of the information I share with you.”
Connor held her gaze. “I deal with confidential mergers and business acquisitions. You can trust me.”
Trust me. He considered for a moment his father’s preoccupation with the Dyers and the circumstances of their first meeting. Unease crept through him. Sometime soon, he’d need to tell her about his father.
But looking at Emerson now, he wanted her to know she could trust him. Any ideas he might have had to purchase Dyer’s Gin Distillery were put to rest. He’d remove them from his acquisition list, unless Emerson decided to sell. There were plenty of other distilleries to buy.
His father’s obsession with her company would never be anything more than that. It had been an uphill battle to convince him to even consider buying Dyer’s. And it only served to give him and his uncle something else to disagree over.
“We’ve got a very real cash flow problem. Dyer’s Medallion is selling really well, which is a great thing. But at the start of the summer, we lost the events hall during that freak storm we had. The insurance hasn’t paid out yet. We got a lot of bad press because we had to cancel so many weddings. It got so bad that my sister had a mental health emergency.”
“That must have been really tough for you all. And then with your father…” He didn’t need to say more.
“Yeah,” Emerson said sadly. “Even before all this, it’s been a lot.”
“Is your sister okay now, though?”
Emerson nodded. “She’s not back at work, but she’s doing so much better. I fear this new issue will cause regression for her, though.”
“What else has happened?”
They sipped their coffee, as Emerson explained.
“The distillery is in an okay state.”
Connor listened as she explained Medallion’s demand, the equipment working flat out, and Jake being too busy to come up with a new product for the Medallion line.
“Your assets are just about keeping up?”
“Yes,” Emerson agreed. “So, yesterday, I went to the bank to see what options we had to get a loan for some improvements, only to find Dad took out a loan and spent it in round figures over the next few days, and I don’t know why. And because I naively went to the bank to talk to them about a loan for something my father apparently already asked for money for, the bank is suspicious.”
“Shit,” Connor said. A million thoughts flitted to mind, the main one being that the bank could recall the loan any day they wanted if Emerson couldn’t prove that they used the money for its original intentions. “How much was the loan for?”
“A quarter of a million. And we most definitely don’t have that money to pay back, on top of repairing the events venue, let alone starting any renovations.”
“What options do you have? What are your next steps?” He wanted to know what she had already considered before speaking.
“I’m going to spend today seeing if I can find out where those payments went. I have access to Dad’s old business email account, so I’ll see if I can find anything there. If he paid advances on anything, that would be so helpful, but I doubt it. I think people or products would have showed up by now.”
Connor thought about the situation for a moment. “What about the insurance? You mentioned you were due a payment?”
Emerson nodded. “Yeah, for the events hall. I’d asked Dad, but there seems to be a run of issues. They lost the initial claim, then took ages to send out an auditor. Dad said it could take up to ninety days to get the check just before he passed away. Then I forgot to change the business contact name after Dad died. I need to submit the paperwork before they’ll even talk to me.”
From what he remembered, Paul Dyer had passed away toward the end of July, which meant the check was only a few weeks or so away. “So you sit tight. Keep maxing out production like you’re doing. Can you lease equipment rather than buy it?”
“I’m going to have to consider all of that. Dad hated debt. I’d talked to him about taking out a loan to refurbish the factory, but he’d always said no…that we should save for it. We never could’ve considered that as an option before. That’s the main reason I feel so weird about the loan Dad took out. It was so unlike him.”
Connor had cut ties the previous year with a vodka
