Page 29 of Kane
“You were his…”
“Daughter.” She shook her head ruefully. “Stepdaughter, actually, but he never made the distinction.”
“And you run the company with his son, correct?”
Jared knew the answer to every one of these questions before he ever accepted this meeting. The man was known for his research. She played along, giving him a patient smile. “Yes. Mike and I are very close. He would be here with me if he weren’t recovering from a car accident.” She paused, taking a chance by dropping the pretense. “Tell me, Jared, what is it you really want to know? Ask me, and I’ll give you a straight answer.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “If I do business with you, will I be working with Charlie Cooper’s daughter or Beau Griffin’s?”
No wonder he was working up to that one. She considered her words. “My father—the mayor—has taught me a lot about business. About making connections, managing money, persistence, and perseverance. Those lessons have made me more successful, and I use them every day. But everything else about the way I do business, I learned from Charlie. Honesty, honor, integrity. Those are my core values, and they shape all the decisions I make for the company he built.”
“Mayor Griffin is not someone who values honesty and integrity.”
It wasn’t a question, so she let the remark stand in the space between them. Either Jared could see past her family ties, or he couldn’t. Arguing about the merits of his decision would get her nowhere.
“What about Nathan Shaw?”
She tried to keep the challenge out of her gaze. “What about Alexa Bell?”
His eyes widened when she mentioned the name of his paramour. Berringer was largely a private man, but even a discreet affair traveled along the grapevine. “Touché,” he murmured.
“I don’t mean to be coarse, Jared, but the people who escort us to parties or warm our beds have nothing to do with the deal at hand. I wonder if you would have asked me the same question if I were a man.”
Dammit.
She didn’t mean to say exactly what she was thinking.
Temper had no place in a business meeting. It was a hallmark of immaturity. How many times had her father drilled it into her head? His lesson had been the catalyst for her Ice Queen persona.
She cringed, waiting for Jared to show her the door. There would be half a dozen other companies he could secure to do the job with a snap of his fingers.
Instead, he laughed. “Oh, you’re Charlie’s girl all right. Beau Griffin would never let me know I’d gotten under his skin. And for the record, yes, I would have asked a man the same question, though it would have been equally as rude. I simply want to be sure there’s no hidden agenda when someone wants to go into business with me.”
She held her palms up. “No hidden agenda.”
“Okay then. Cooper’s financials are good. No outstanding debts for the company or for you.” He stood when she nodded and offered his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Standing, she shook with her new partner.
“Now let’s talk terms.”
***
Kane
Kane hesitated with his hand poised to knock on Mike Cooper’s door. He’d seen the man a handful of times over the years, but always with the buffer of work between them. Even when he was so desperate for a paycheck that he’d sought his old friend out for a job, he’d approached him through the company.
No telling how Mike would feel about him showing up on his front porch at dinnertime.
Clamping down on the fluttering nerves in his stomach, he clenched his jaw and rapped on the door.
There was a time in his life he considered Mike to be family, as much his brother as Scott ever was. After things went south with Mandy, though, it was too hard to maintain the friendship. Mike and his sister were inexorably linked, and Kane needed the distance to heal.
He held up his hand, poised to knock again, then thought better of it. Maybe Mike wasn’t home, or maybe he wasn’t interested in a blast from his past. Shoving his fist into the pocket of his faded denim jacket, he turned toward his bike at the curb.
The door creaked open behind him.
“Kane?”