“CliffsNotes version, please.”
“Flip it open, and we can dive in. We looked at thirteen assets. Seven from our original list, five new adds, and Dyer’s, as requested.”
Donovan mumbled in agreement. “Good, good.”
“Page three has the list of criteria and scoring process. Read through it and tell me if it makes sense.”
Connor leaned back in the chair. His father always did better with guided reading rather than Connor explaining it verbally to him.
“What’s this?” Donovan asked, pointing to one of the columns.
“Estimated bottle production. We don’t know for sure beyond publicly available sources from news interviews, company websites, et cetera, what the exact production volumes are for the privately owned distilleries…such as Dyer’s, for example.”
His father sniffed at the mention of the name. “And Paul Dyer is bound to have inflated the numbers on their site.”
Connor didn’t correct him that he’d gotten the number from Emerson when she’d been reviewing the production schedule while eating breakfast on Sunday. He’d knocked ten percent off the production volumes in the report. Let his father think the number was actually inflated when it was understated, he’d only think even worse of the company.
“This is good, Connor. Where are the recommendations?”
Connor flicked through his own copy of the document. “Page thirteen. All the backup is in the appendix.”
Donovan flicked to the page, studied it for a moment, then closed it and slapped it down on the table. “Dyer’s goes to the top of the list,” he said, suddenly.
“Sorry, what?” he asked, his skull feeling like a giant rock had landed on it.
“Dyer’s. I want it. And word on the street is we could get a great fucking deal for it.”
Emerson. Shit. Whatever his father knew had put a glint in his eye.
Play the fucking game, Connor.
“What’s the word you heard?” Did his voice sound tinny? Jesus Christ. He’d walked up those stairs ten minutes ago convinced he’d done a good enough job at hiding Dyer’s success, and without even reading the presentation thoroughly, his father wanted the company anyway. He needed to find his poker face. “I know I was pushing to acquire Dyer’s earlier, but it doesn’t make sense looking at these numbers.”
“They’re about to owe the bank. Loan gone wrong. Misappropriated funds. Who knows? Paul Dyer always was a crook. He stole from me, who knows who else he’d steal from.”
What the fuck. Dad knows already.
“Cameron caught wind of it through a friend at the bank,” he continued. “Apparently, Dyer borrowed some money to renovate and then siphoned it away somewhere.”
Man. Emerson was going to lose her shit when she found out his father knew. Wait, what was he saying? Emerson would never know because he couldn’t tell her about any of this. Fuck, how could he explain all this to her?
“I don’t want to move yet,” Donovan continued. “I want to wait until the deadline for the repayment has passed. Those Dyer kids will be either short of cash or screwed completely. Either way, I’ll get a better price than if we go in now. Knowing that, can you rework these figures on the company value and risk? I want the lowest of lowballs.”
Connor stood. “Got it,” he said as he walked toward the door. The sooner he was out of there, the less chance his father had of realizing something was wrong. “I’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.”
He had no intention of stealing Emerson’s company from beneath her, but he had to think through what he could do to distract his father.
“Oh, and Connor, Cameron is going to need to see this.”
“Well, I’ll let you take him through it,” he said without turning around. He needed a plan, time for him to think through the options. There had to be a way to get his father off the fucking topic.
He pulled the door open wide and let it close loudly behind him. Not exactly a slam, nothing deliberate, but satisfying all the same.
He jogged the stairs down to his office, and when he stepped inside, he did something he never did. He locked the door.
Perching on the edge of his desk with his back to the door, he took in the sun going down over the city and thought of Emerson again.
How far was he prepared to go to keep Dyer’s Gin Distillery in Emerson’s hands?
All the way.
The answer came unbidden.
His emotional response was way ahead of any intellectual considerations. But even thinking it through, he still came to the same conclusion. It didn’t really matter what the sacrifice was. If Finch Liquor Distribution only bought the second most attractive asset, it was still a fucking good deal. The greater concern was if his father approached Emerson directly for a deal. She’d never look at Connor the same way again. It would ruin what the two of them were building.
Perhaps he could do some more digging on the second best company instead, blow them up, ever so slightly inflate the numbers to get his father’s interest. And Cameron would never go into the depth of research Connor did to find him out.
Or perhaps he should come clean to his father, tell him about Emerson, and quit before he got fired.
Quit?
Could he really walk away from everything he’d worked for, everything he’d been promised? He could get another job…but what if it weren’t in Denver? He’d never be able to pull Emerson away from the distillery.
So that was the question he needed to answer.
If it came down to it, was he really prepared to risk it all for Emerson?
Chapter Ten
“What are you up to?” Connor asked as he placed a glass of wine next to her elbow.
Emerson looked up from the laptop she’d just switched on. The sun was setting over the Denver skyline in a breathtaking display of deep purple and orange, but the view couldn’t match Connor. He was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, a towel thrown casually around his neck.
Emerson
