“Even if this is about some kind of vendetta, it won’t matter unless her husband can put his money where her mouth is.”
“I looked him up,” I admitted as I stared at the skyline I’d always loved so much, wondering where the hell my wife wasand if she knew about any of this yet. “Although I can’t be sure, it looks like he can afford it, Nate.”
“Okay, but the board can’t just sell without?—”
“They can if they’re planning to convene an emergency meeting,” I snapped. “They’ve wanted this from the beginning, a buyout that means walking away with cash in their hands.”
“Nora holds the sway here, doesn’t she?” Nate asked quietly. “Is this the part where we start worrying about what Harlan said about her?”
I didn’t answer him, pulling out my phone to call her instead, because he was right. With the voting rights on the board stacked the way they were at present, she would be casting the deciding vote. I pressed on her name, bringing the phone to my ear and praying that she answered, but she didn’t.
Without hesitating for so much as a second, I called Jane again, but her phone went straight to voicemail, the silence from the Thayer end of things suddenly becoming deafening.
“She’s probably with her family,” Nate said, trying to talk me down. “Or in a meeting. Don’t spiral yet.”
“I’m already spiraling,” I ground out. “I warned her. I warned Mallory to stay away from my wife.”
I dropped into my chair, raking a hand through my hair as my thoughts collided at full speed. If the board was pushing a sale, Jane was about to be blindsided. If Nora was in on it?—
No. I can’t go there yet.
I stood abruptly. “Get Zach on the phone.”
Nate didn’t hesitate. “I’m on it.”
I paced while it rang, my feet probably close to burning holes in the floor. Nate switched the phone to speaker, and when Zach answered, I didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Find out what the hell Thayer is planning. Now. I don’t care who you have to piss off, call in favors with, or yank out of emergency fucking surgery. Just get it done.”
“Yeah, I just saw the email myself,” he said grimly. “I’m already digging, but it doesn’t look good, Alex. None of those board members I’ve been working on are taking my calls and even the assistants are icing me out.”
“Keep working,” I said. “Call me the second you know anything.”
He hung up and I turned back to Nate. “I want your team to draw up a total buyout package for Thayer Steelworks.”
Nate blinked hard. Then his eyes widened to the point of pain. “Alex?—”
“Let’s go for a full acquisition,” I said. “End to end.”
“That’s just not feasible,” he said, incredulous as he shook his head. “Certainly not in the state they’re in right now. Plus, we don’t even know what we’re matching yet.”
“I’ll throw my own money at it if I have to,” I said. “I don’t care what it costs and I don’t give a shit what we’re matching. Just do it.”
Nate stared at me like he was wondering if I’d finally, fully lost my mind. “You can’t fix everything by writing a check.”
“I can fix this like that, though,” I shot back. “If checks are what these people want, it’s what we’re going to give them.”
He stepped closer to me and lowered his voice. “You didn’t break this, Alex. It’s not really yours to fix. These wheels have been in motion a lot longer than you’ve been married to Jane. I know how much you’ve done to?—”
I ignored him. “They arenotselling that company out from under her. Not while I’m still breathing and definitely not to that woman’s husband. It would kill Jane, Nate. It would kill my wife and she’d die of a broken goddamn heart. Do you really think I’m going to let that happen on my watch?”
“You haven’t talked to her about this yet, have you?” he said slowly. “What does Jane actually want here, Alex?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Because she won’t answer her phone.”
That scared me more than the board, the sale, the article, and all of it combined. I grabbed my coat again, once again heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” Nate asked.
“To find my wife,” I said. “Before this gets any worse.”
