Chapter 5
Lauren Hampton, ex-wife of Adam Hampton III, scanned the newspaper as she enjoyed her morning coffee. She grimaced as she read the headline in the business section about the Preston acquisition.
Preston Industries had been the catalyst in the nasty divorce she and Adam went through four years prior. Without her knowledge Adam sold her antique jewelry and mortgaged their summer home to raise capital for his father’s unsuccessful bid to take over Preston. That was the final straw in what was a growing list of grievances. When the dust settled, Lauren walked away from the eight year marriage with a settlement package that allowed her to travel extensively and maintain a fashionable residence.
The marriage was tumultuous from the start. He worked too much and she played too much. They were seldom on the same page. The exception being their time together in the bedroom. What they lacked in compatibility they made up for with their sexual appetites. The marriage was childless, although Lauren had conceived in their fifth year. She miscarried after three months when she was thrown from a horse during a jumping demonstration at the club. Adam was unforgiving. The unborn child had been a boy.
Things went decidedly downhill from there. What Adam didn’t know and she wasn’t about to tell him, was that the child had not been from his seed, but was that of a stable hand. Several times, in a fit of anger, she was tempted to throw it in his smug face, but realized that such an admission, while it would be personally satisfying, would damage her future prospects for a large divorce settlement. Even after the settlement she remained silent since nothing would have been gained by telling him.
Time, however, hadn’t mellowed Lauren. She eyed the phone as she weighed the pros and cons of calling Adam to congratulate him. The pros won.
“What do you want, Lauren?”
“It’s wonderful speaking with you too, Adam. I just called to congratulate you. I hope your father’s sanity, our marriage and the loss of most of your closest friends wasn’t too high a price to pay for your victory.
“I see that you’re still blaming your misfortune on everything and everyone else. When are you going to start accepting responsibility for your own life, and let bygones be bygones. Is that too much to ask?”
“Oh, getting rid of you was no misfortune for me. Actually, it was the best thing that could have ever happened. I just have to look around me to see how much better off I am,” an obvious reference to the luxurious life she was enjoying thanks to his generous divorce settlement.
“I’m going to hang up now, Lauren. It’s been so nice speaking with you again. Go back to your miserable existence.”
As Adam was hanging up, he could hear Lauren launching her parting salvo. “My life will always be wonderful as long as you’re not in it.”
She heard the click at the other end and smiled at the realization that she could still press his buttons. Memories of heated arguments flooded into her head, arguments that often went on for hours and which usually culminated in passionate lovemaking. She would always remember the great sex they had together, but then there were the bad times. Sadly the bad times took a greater toll.
During Adam Hampton II’s campaign to acquire Preston Industries he convinced his son to sell antique jewelry that Lauren kept for safekeeping in the family vault. He also persuaded his son take out a mortgage on their summer house at the shore, a mortgage he would obtain by forging Lauren’s signature on the real estate documents. They raised three hundred thousand dollars for the jewelry and seven hundred thousand for the mortgage. One million dollars bought a large block of Preston stock, but unfortunately the Hamptons still fell short of the votes required when Preston’s Vice- President of Finance, Kane Masterson, produced enough proxies, at the last minute, to outvote them. It was a bitter defeat for the Hamptons.
Months later, when Lauren discovered her husband’s betrayal, she threatened legal action and public exposure unless he agreed to an immediate uncontested divorce and a generous support settlement. Within three months she was a free woman.
Lauren had been deeply depressed over the miscarriage and the resulting loss of her husband’s affection. His fraudulent activities just added to the burden. She was tired physically and worn down emotionally. That all changed once she won her freedom. With money, she bought back her youth and beauty. She frequented the best clinics and spas in California and Arizona. Three months and a hundred thousand dollars later Lauren re-emerged into Old Brooking’s social scene looking at least ten years younger than her thirty eight years.
Chapter 6
Kane Masterson, CEO of Preston Industries, smiled as he sipped the eighteen year old Glenlivet scotch. It was his second glass of the morning and it was only 10 a.m. Drinking in the morning was not normal behavior for Kane, but today was a very special day. He was celebrating the events of the last two hours. Events that would reshape his destiny.
He arrived at his office at exactly 8 a.m., anxious to receive a call from a contact at the SEC that would confirm that shares of Preston Industries were estopped from floor trading at the stock exchange and that they were being subrogated three to one by shares of Hampton Industries.
The second call would be from his broker, confirming that all of his newly acquired shares of Hampton Industries were sold at the market. Give or take a few hundred thousand for fees, Kane anticipated proceeds from the transaction to net in the neighborhood of twenty million dollars; a neighborhood he has wanted to move into all of his adult life.
Both calls were received by 9:30.
At age thirty-five, Kane Masterson had been the youngest CEO in the company’s history. A graduate of Northwestern and Wharton, he was recruited by Preston Industries as a Senior Financial Manager. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the finance department, earning a reputation as a corporate hatchet man. His streamlining of the six corporate divisions saved the company three hundred million dollars and cut payrolls by thousands of jobs. These successes earned Kane a promotion to Vice President of Finance and a year later to the position of CEO. His ascent from Senior Manager to CEO took eight years. During the year prior to becoming CEO, Kane distinguished himself by managing Preston’s successful defense against the hostile takeover bid by Hampton Industries. Now the takeover was finally going to happen, but it was on his terms.
His calendar had only one entry for today, a 12noon meeting with Adam Hampton III. This was a meeting he looked forward to with anticipation. Two weeks earlier it was confirmed that Adam Hampton III had finally garnered enough stock to acquire Preston, the takeover that Kane covertly maneuvered Adam into making by releasing for sale, through dummy receiverships, privately held blocks of Preston shares. Adam was unaware that Kane was holding a trump card and that Preston, rather than becoming a crown jewel in the Hampton Industries group of trading companies, would become a drain on the corporation’s bottom line. Within a month, five key customers and four trading partners planned to transfer their business to a European consortium. The contracts had already been signed. Kane knew that this loss would precipitate a drop in Preston’s sales of at least forty percent and profits by more than fifty. This tightly held information was Kane’s dirty little secret. He came upon the details of the plans completely by accident; through a friend of a friend. There would be no possibility of him being accused of insider profiteering. He would have the last laugh after all and would walk away a multi-millionaire. Adam Hampton III would be left with egg on his face, the laughing stock of Wall Street.
Kane’s reverie was interrupted by the phone. It was his mother.
