He cleared his throat. “I merely want to make you see the wisdom of selling while you can still fetch an equitable price for the company.”
“I am not selling. Period. End of sentence.”
“Then why bother to meet with me? That’s something you have made abundantly clear already in all your emails.”
“Because you refused to give up. I told you. If we met in person, then maybe you would finally see that I am dead serious about this. And I am. Dead serious.” She eyed him, her green eyes flashing, then took a step back. “Now that I’ve made my position clear, I have to get back to work. Good day, Mr. Barlow.”
She sat down at her desk—if he could call it a desk. It was really just a hoarder’s home away from home, one of those gray spaces in the sea of gray spaces, topped with a computer and a thousand pieces of paper scattered around the surface like crumbs. Chaos, that was what he’d call it. Definitely not the neat and tidy librarian he had imagined.
His own desk was usually close to spotless, the offices of Barlow Enterprises filled with little to no clutter, because it seemed the best thinking and ideas came in spaces that weren’t overstuffed. He almost wanted to suggest Savannah do a little tidying as a first step to helping her father’s company, but that would be helping her save the business, and his intention was to buy it.
Savannah pulled her chair into the desk, then turned away from him.
Well. Seemed Miss Hillstrand was going to be a tougher nut to crack then he’d expected. Mac leaned a hip on the desk across from hers. “You’re over your head here. You know it. I know it.”
“Are you saying you don’t think I’m smart enough to run this company?”
“I’m saying you don’t have the experience. You worked here summers during high school, then went off to college for a degree in history. Should we want to execute a repeat of the Napoleonic Wars, you’d be the first one I’d put in charge. But this is business, Miss Hillstrand, not a textbook, and that requires a certain level of...skills.”
“Skills you assume I don’t have.” She raised her chin.
“Skills I know you don’t have.” He’d researched her—well, his people had—and issued him a report. A report he could quote almost verbatim. Savannah Hillstrand had worked part-time in the factory throughout high school and college, filling nearly every role in production at one time or another. In between, she’d started a small remodeling business, restoring local homes to their former glory. She’d had a modicum of success at that business, but still returned to Hillstrand Solar in between projects.
It was possible that Daddy had financed her hobby of home flipping and just asked her to put in an appearance from time to time to keep up the family-owned business image. Either way, Willy Ray should have made his daughter at least get an MBA before he dropped the company into her lap.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said. “Or this company.”
“I know plenty,” Mac countered. “And the numbers don’t lie. Profits have dropped thirty-five percent since you took over. You’ve lost two of your biggest customers in the last month alone. Your line of credit was yanked by the bank after you were late on your last—”
She wheeled around. The pencil tumbled from her hair and landed on the carpet. “Are you spying on me?”
“Merely doing my research. I like to have all the facts before I buy a company.”
“Well, go dig up dirt on someone else.” Her cheeks flamed. “Hillstrand Solar is not for sale to your...chop shop.”
He arched a brow. “Chop shop?”
“Isn’t that what you do? Buy up companies and sell off the pieces? Regardless of how many people lose their jobs because you had to swallow one more little fish in your quest to be the biggest fish in the ocean.”
The truth stung a little, but Mac shrugged it off. Many of these companies were better off once he was done. And many of the owners were grateful to walk away with some money in their pockets. Soon, Savannah Hillstrand would be one of them. It was a matter of time before she agreed with him. “You are a fan of the simile, I see.”
“I just call it like I see it. Like my dad did.” She waved toward the door. “See yourself out. I don’t have time to argue with you.”
“You don’t have time not to listen to me.” The pencil lay on the carpet, a bright slash of yellow against slate gray. It seemed...lonely somehow. “Every day you insist on running this place is another day you are losing money. Let me guess...about twenty thousand a week?”
She stiffened and he knew he’d guessed correctly. “I have work to do. Work that pays the salaries of the people who work here, people who depend on me to keep that income rolling in.”
“Last I checked there was a classified section in the back of the newspaper. They’ll find other jobs.”
She jerked out of her chair and marched up to him now, her green eyes on fire. “Are you really that cold and callous?”
“I’m neither, I assure you. I’m a realist.”
“A realist.” She scoffed. “Another word for a corporate shark.”
He put up a hand. Her barbs weren’t anything he hadn’t heard before—and from his own father, at that. But for some reason it bothered him that Savannah thought he was that cold. “Before you condemn me as the devil incarnate, let me make this clear. This isn’t about your family legacy or some romantic notion of keeping a company afloat just because you inherited it. This is about business, plain and simple. My business is buying and selling. It’s smart financial sense for me to buy and for you to sell. You know that, deep in your heart. The company is struggling and it’s going to sink if you don’t climb in the lifeboat I’m offering.”
“But it’s my father’s legacy. Part of our family history.” Her voice wavered a little, her composure wobbled, a momentary break in the businesslike facade of Savannah Hillstrand. “He would be heartbroken if I sold it off.”
“And like I said, this isn’t personal.” He said the words, but there was something in him that was bothered by the tears welling in her eyes, that forlorn pencil on the floor. It had to be being back in the Stone Gap, because never before had Mac been so bothered by the decisions he made. Or the condemnation of one stubborn CEO. Stubborn and beautiful, he amended.
“The best time to sell is before the company runs itself into the ground,” Mac said, his tone growing gentle. “I understand you are trying to keep it afloat, and I admire you for that. I really do. But it’s better for you to give it a chance to keep on going with me than to watch it dissolve in the next few months.” He hesitated. “Look, I’d like to make you a fair offer based on the financials. Why don’t we go over the books together?”
Then he could deal with columns and numbers, instead of this heartbroken woman who wanted to hold on to an already-fading family legacy.
Her face fell, and Mac felt like a jerk. “I’m not saying you’re right, because I don’t think you are. But...” The fight had gone from her shoulders, the fire in her eyes extinguished. For a second, Mac wanted to take it all back, get on his motorcycle and leave town. But then he remembered his own mantra about this not being personal and steeled himself against that look in her eyes.
“Maybe it would be worth at least hearing you out,” Savannah said. “In case—and I mean that as a very slim just in case—I have a change of heart in the future.”
“It’s always better to be armed with information before you make a decision.” He was winning the argument but it wasn’t giving him any kind of satisfaction. Why? This was what he lived for—the pursuit, the capture, the success. But this time he didn’t want to win so much as he wanted to...
See