“You ought to consider settling down,” Leo said. “It would be good for your image.”
“And she’s the kind of woman I should install in a house in the suburbs?” Bryce asked, nodding toward the redhead.
Leo scowled. “No, she’s the kind of woman you screw.”
Bryce had to laugh. Leave it to Leo to get to the heart of the matter. Hell, that was what made him such a damn good attorney.
“Get it out of your system,” Leo said, “and then come talk to me. Marjorie knows a lot of nice women who’d love to land you as a husband.”
Bryce shook his head, interested in neither landing nor being landed. He didn’t have the time for the sort of real relationship that would provide a solid foundation for marriage. Of course, considering his own parents’ marriage, Bryce had wondered if that mythical solid foundation even existed. He’d thought they’d figured it out. And then ten years ago their idyllic life had crashed and burned. His mother had been having an affair. A long-standing one, apparently, and she’d run off with her lover. All along, she’d put up the perfect front, projected the perfect illusion. And Bryce had never even had a clue.
He didn’t intend to let history repeat itself.
“What do you say?” Leo prodded. “The media’s been all over this Carpenter Shipping deal. Three hundred jobs, Bryce. That’s a lot of folks out of work. They’re saying you don’t care about the little people.”
Bryce ran a hand through his hair. “I know what they say, Leo. I also know what they don’t say—that whenever I buy a company and trim the fat, the business increases its efficiency by over twenty percent. That’s a lot of extra cash in the investors’ pockets, you know.”
Leo raised a hand. “I know.”
But Bryce wasn’t to be placated. “And why doesn’t the press ever report how we try to help the folks who end up out of work? No one ever does a story on how much severance we pay or about the people we’ve helped find jobs.”
He knew he sounded defensive, but he couldn’t help it. He’d worked his way up in the world, and no one had handed him any breaks. He’d bought his first building at nineteen, when he was just a kid earning a living doing construction. The ramshackle building in the warehouse district of Austin, Texas, had caught his eye—some hidden potential had been peeking out from under the grime and calling to him. He’d taken on extra jobs, pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion just so he could scrape together the down payment.
Two years later, he’d fixed the place up, sold it, and turned a tidy profit. He’d liked the cash, but, even more, he’d liked the thrill of putting the deal together. He’d reinvested his profits, turned a few more land deals, expanded into Dallas and Houston, and made his first million nine days shy of his twenty-fifth birthday. A small-town boy done good. And he’d just kept moving up from there.
Now Worthington Industries bought and sold companies. He had offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, and spent more time traveling than he did in his own house. As president and CEO, Bryce would find a company with a good product and a solid core of staff, but one that was weighted down with debt and excessive overhead. He’d buy it cheap, clean it up, and then sell it again, often to the employee-investors, who ended up buying a company that was more streamlined and profitable than the one they’d started with.
Yes, some people lost jobs, but that was the nature of the beast. And business wasn’t a charity. The point was to make as much money as possible for as many people as possible.
“I’m just saying that image is everything,” Leo said. “And your image would be a lot softer if you had a woman in the kitchen and a few kiddos playing in the backyard.”
“I’m paying you to be my attorney, Leo,” Bryce said, an edge to his voice, “not my public relations guru. And certainly not my social director.”
“Marj has been on my case for years about finding you a nice girl,” Leo said, ignoring Bryce’s gibes.
“Who says I’m interested in nice?” Bryce retorted, mostly to egg Leo on. “Besides, my image is fine.” At thirty-six, Bryce was one of the wealthiest and most eligible men in America. He had a love-hate relationship with the press, who—if they weren’t busy reporting that his latest deal was a threat to the civilized world—tended to fawn all over him because of his looks and his money. Considering how many magazine covers his face had graced, anyone not in the know would think he was a movie star. He wasn’t, although he’d dated a few on occasion.
“Investors like stability,” Leo said. “Home and hearth and all that shit. Especially in an economy like this.”
“Investors like profits,” Bryce said. “Especially in an economy like this. And I give them that.” He met Leo’s eyes. “I’m not about to get married just so you can haul out some dog and pony show.”
Leo held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, whatever. You’re a big boy.”
Bryce nodded and slammed back the last of his drink. That he was. He glanced at his watch. 9:00 p.m. “I want to go over the closing documents on the New Jersey property once more before tomorrow’s meeting. Can you have them ready by two?”
Leo glanced at his own watch, then scowled. For a second, Bryce thought he was going to complain about getting home to his own wife and family. But then the attorney nodded. “Not a problem. Hell, we can even work on the Carpenter deal. With the press breathing down our back and the employees threatening an injunction, I’m afraid it’s going to blow up in our faces.”
Bryce frowned. “It’s your job to see that it doesn’t.”
Leo just nodded. “Don’t I know it. Come on. Let’s head back to the office right now. Jenny should be finished with the changes,” Leo said, referring to his night secretary. “We can proof the pages over a pot of coffee.”
Bryce shook his head. “You proof them. That’s what I pay you for. I’ll be in at two to go over them with you.”
“What are you going to do between now and then?” Leo asked.
Bryce flashed him a grin, then glanced toward the redhead. “Work on my image, of course.”
THE ALARM ON Bryce’s watch started beeping at one-forty-five, and the redhead shifted against him and pulled the pillow over her head, her bare butt grazing his hip. He slid out from between the sheets, careful not to wake her. After all, the woman—he’d forgotten her name—probably was exhausted. As Leo had predicted, she’d been a wild thing. Exactly what Bryce had needed to get his blood pumping for another twelve hours of posturing and chest thumping in the deep, dark jungle of mergers and acquisitions.
He found his boxers in a pile on the floor, her bra and panties wadded up with them. His trousers were hanging neatly over the back of a chair where he’d left them, the crease still perfect. He buttoned up his shirt, not bothering to tuck in the tail, and hung his tie around his neck before slipping on his jacket. Her apartment was at Fifty-fourth and Broadway, twelve blocks up from Leo’s office. The September night was warm, and Bryce had energy to burn. He’d walk, then shower at Leo’s office. If the papers were in decent shape, he might even have time to get a run in on the treadmill before the gladiators entered the ring for the nine o’clock meeting.
A single red rose was in a bud vase at the side of her bed. He’d purchased the flower for her as they were leaving the bar, and now he plucked it from the vase and laid it on the pillow beside her. Then he pressed a kiss to her cheek.
She really was a sweet girl, and he’d been grateful for the diversion, the few hours away from all things corporate. Now, though, it was time to get back to it.
The