An Understated Dominance novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Offer

We walked along the river path behind the building, with his driver trailing us at a polite distance.

It was thirty-eight degrees and bright, and the Platte ran grey and fast beside the cinder track.

Gilbert Merrow walked with the cane but did not lean on it.

I kept my hands in my pockets and my face closed.

"You have a good company," he said.

"Thank you."

"I mean that. Most founders I meet are salesmen with a spreadsheet."

"You're a maker. It shows in the product. I own three of your jackets."

"Then you can buy a fourth on your way out."

He laughed, a short dry sound.

"I was told you had a temper."

"Colter didn't tell me he had a father, so we're both surprised."

"Fair."

He stopped at the railing over the water and looked down.

"I'll be plain, since neither of us has time for subtlety."

"My son walked away from me at twenty-four."

"I've waited twelve years for him to see sense, and he hasn't."

"I'm sixty-seven, and I have a company that employs eleven thousand people."

"There's no one else to leave it to."

"There's a board," I said.

"There is a board of vultures. There is one son."

"So you bought my company."

"Harcourt is buying your company."

"With your money."

"With some of it," he said. "You've done your homework."

"I've done an hour of homework, outside my own front door."

He turned to look at me.

His pale eyes had no cruelty in them that I could see.

That frightened me more than shouting would have.

"Here is my offer," Gilbert said. "It's a simple one."

"Harcourt's price is one hundred and forty million."

"I'll triple it."

I stopped breathing.

"Four hundred and twenty million dollars?"

"Paid to you, personally, at the closing."

"For what?"

"For doing what you've already started to do."

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