“Why is it a conflict of interest for you?” Nate asked as I started letting the information settle.
Zach winced. “Colin and I are friends. We play pickup beer league hockey together a couple times a month.”
Nate rubbed his jaw, nodding but not saying anything else. As our food was served, Jesse and Will finally turned the conversation to something other than work, but as we ate, the gears in my head were turning. Puzzles like this were my version of comfort food—messy, fraught, high-stakes comfort food, but still.
From across the table, Nate’s eyes met mine and I knew we were thinking the same thing. This was a huge opportunity, but it was definitely a gamble.
Jesse and Will finally stopped bantering back and forth about the pros and cons of Zach’s snowmobile plan, but Zach himself was watching Nate and me, looking at us like he’d just dropped a grenade in the middle of the table and was now politely hoping someone else would pick it up before it exploded.
His eyes flicked between me, Nate, and our father. After thinking it over for another beat, I finally nodded. “Okay, so we offer to acquire.”
Zach exhaled, clearly relieved, but Nate did the opposite, inhaling sharply and rubbing one of his temples. “Whoa there, cowboy. We need to run the numbers before we offer anything. Thayer operates a four-billion-dollar enterprise. Even with that slip on their Q4 report.”
“Maybe five years ago,” I argued. “Before the public meltdown, the trial, the executive purge, and the fact that investors have been stampeding for the exits like the place is on fire.”
He didn’t disagree. Which meant I was right, but the truth was that even with Westwood and Sons’ money, buying outa billion-dollar company wasn’t something we could just do whenever we got bored on a Friday night.
Investing heavily, however, enough to wedge one of us onto their board and to stabilize them, redirect them, and quietly acquire the whole damn thing over time?
That was doable.
“Call Colin,” I told Zach, rising from the table once I was done with my steak. “Get a dinner together.”
Zach nodded like he’d been waiting for permission to breathe. “I’ll get it done.”
“Let me know when you have,” I said, then left the dining room and headed down the hallway toward my father’s study, the place where every uncomfortable conversation in my life had taken place.
I didn’t have to wait long for him to arrive. Douglas Westwood had a way of materializing silently, like a ghost who paid taxes and owned seven thousand-dollar pairs of shoes. He closed the door behind him, his head cocked with curiosity.
“Are you in here because you actually wanted to speak to me or did you just need someplace to think about everything Zachary brought to the table tonight?”
“Both,” I said. “While we’re here, we might as well get on with it, though. I know you were going to drag me in here at some point tonight anyway, so let’s just get to it.”
“Get to what?” he asked as he sat down behind his desk, blue eyes much too blank for my liking. It was unnerving. “I did want to pull you aside for a minute, but you beat me to it, so why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
“Who exactly is it you want me to marry? An Astor? A Kennedy cousin? Some obscure European princess looking to upgrade? Just tell me when and where to sign. I’m bored of waiting.”
Douglas blinked rapidly. “I didn’t think you’d bend so easily.”
“I’m not bending. I’m trying to get ahead of the migraine.”
He stood up and started pacing, his hands behind his back, thinking deeply in a way that made me suspicious. When Dad thought like this, it almost always led to more paperwork for me.
“Speaking of the Thayers,” he finally said, still not really looking at me. “I knew Court well. Unfortunately.”
I frowned. “What does Court Thayer have to do with you finding me a wife?”
“He’s got a bunch of kids. I believe he has a daughter, if I’m remembering correctly. But if my memory serves, they’re all young. Teenagers, I think.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “Great. So this has got absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. Who is it actually going to be, Dad?”
My father waved me off like he didn’t have time for this right now, but these last few months, before his sudden silence on the matter, marrying us off had been theonlything on his mind. “Forget about that. Tell Zach to host the dinner with the Thayer boy here. I haven’t seen the family in years. Court was the reason for that.”
He didn’t elaborate, but he also didn’t really have to. There was always history with the old-money set—alliances, betrayals, favors, or debt. Douglas didn’t easily forget about either side of any ledger, but when he didn’t say anything else, I left him to brood and headed back to the foyer to grab my coat.
Nate was already shrugging into his, a scarf wrapped carelessly around his neck. He shot me a worried glance as I strode toward him. “Did he set you up?”
“No.” I pushed open the heavy front doors. “He’s being weird about it, which is new. I expected him to harass me all through the holidays.”
