The Proviso (34 page)

“Yes, I do.” He began to write it out for her and he
felt her start beside her. He looked at her, because it was out of
character for her to show any emotion, even such a small thing as a
twitch.

“You’re writing with your left hand,” she
murmured.

“I’m ambidextrous,” he muttered, inordinately
pleased that she’d noticed that.

“Does your hand get tired?”

If I haven’t had a woman in a while, it sure
does.
Then he laughed at himself for his Beavis-and-Butthead
sense of humor. “Just depends on which hand’s closer to the
pencil.”
Heh heh.

“Ah.”

He figured that was about all she had to say about
that.

“For the rest of the week, you and I are going to go
over this employee list with a fine-toothed comb. Next Monday and
Tuesday, I’m going to clean house. You’re welcome to be here, but
you don’t have to be. I’ll take the heat for that; it’s part of my
job. Thursday and Friday, we’ll rearrange everyone according to
skills and interests.

“Christie’s and Sotheby’s are booked a year out, but
Christie’s has agreed to tentatively schedule us for February. In
the meantime, you can set the timetables for the screening tests
and the software betas, but I would like them working and possibly
in limited distribution by the time we go to auction.

“My underwriter is Blackwood Securities. Jack
Blackwood is very particular and very hard to get. He’s a friend of
mine and has agreed to do this for you at my request. He has a list
of specific things he’ll require you to have accomplished before he
starts drawing up your IPO. I have it on my laptop, so I’ll print
it for you later. I’m hoping that the auction of your Fords will be
the
last
thing we actually do to move you into his
territory.”

“Mr. Taight—”

“Sebastian, please.”

“Mr. Taight—” He sighed. “—I don’t want to take my
company public.”

Sebastian kept writing, feeling her watch him. He
betrayed everything about himself with every word he wrote, if she
only knew enough to make the right connections. He’d make sure that
by the time this receivership was over, she’d have all the clues
she needed to figure it out.

One year. It was all he could take. He’d give her
one year.

“When it comes right down to it, Eilis, whether you
want to or not is immaterial. We’re doing things
my
way now
because
my
way always works.”

Yeah, that was a good way to get her in bed.
Brilliant.

* * * * *

Eilis watched as he wrote faster than she could
type, listing everything. His handwriting on the left hand was
completely different from the right hand. The left hand flowed; it
wasn’t nearly as angular as the right hand.

In fact, everything he wrote with his right hand
looked like an American had written it; vertical, tall, bold.
Everything he wrote with his left hand looked European, like a
European copperplate.

She looked at his face as his wrote; it betrayed
nothing. This was effortless for him, just something he did.

He
fascinated
her.

Eilis certainly did not want to take her company
public, but if she protested too much, he’d get suspicious and
start Knox to digging deeper into her life than he already had, and
that was the last thing she needed.

None of this made sense. King Midas was really
trying to put her back on her feet. This wasn’t the evil Sebastian
Taight she’d heard rumors about all these years, but of course, no
one had told her he was drop-dead gorgeous, either.

She asked before she thought. “What makes you decide
whether to fix or raid?”

He stopped writing again and stayed still, looking
at his pad. She wondered if he didn’t even know his own pattern and
thus, no one else could. Then he turned his head and looked her
straight in the eye and said, “I take companies whose ownership
and/or management can’t be salvaged.”

She managed to quell any reaction to that. So, he’d
been serious when he’d threatened to rip her company right out from
under her. He continued,

“In the end, it all comes down to the people, the
leaders. I despise bad management. If the owners can’t be trained,
if they fight me—and remember, I only go to companies when they
call me for help—if they can’t be persuaded that their way doesn’t
work and thus, needs to be changed, I take it.” He stopped for a
moment and she knew he was letting that sink in a minute. It was a
threat, a promise, a fact. “I’m always willing to look at options
if they’re presented to me logically, but I’ve been doing this too
long to mess around with bullshit. And no, Wall Street can’t figure
out why I do what I do because they don’t know the players’
personalities like I do. And no, I’m not going to let the Senate
pound it out of me, either, so I’d suggest you keep that to
yourself.”

Eilis couldn’t help it. Her eyes widened and she
pulled away from him a bit at the distinct threat in his voice.

The corner of his mouth twitched up and his eyes
darkened to lavender. “Ah, she does have a soul underneath all that
Chanel.”

The only thing that saved her from his seeing her
blush was the heavy makeup. And then, because she couldn’t seem to
keep her curiosity in check, she said,

“What really happened at Jep Industries, with
Senator Oth?”

His cocked at eyebrow at her. “What do
you
think happened?”

Eilis studied him in return a moment, wondering if
this was a test or if he was fishing for her impressions. “I
think,” she finally said, carefully, “that his executive staff was
diverting cash flow and he either didn’t know or he couldn’t figure
out how to stop it and fix it on his own.”

His mouth twitched a bit. “Very good,” he murmured.
“So why didn’t I have them prosecuted?”

“I’m assuming because you couldn’t prove it without
getting Roger indicted.”

“Precisely. And why did I lay off twelve hundred
people?”

Eilis had to think about that for a moment, to think
about what she knew of Roger Oth and his company, to follow the
flow chart she’d built in her head from rumor, speculation, and
absolutely no facts. It took a minute, but then the entire plan
blossomed in her mind. “The 401(k) accounts were about to be
cleaned out. The only way you could stop the pending transactions
was if Jep Industries didn’t exist anymore.” He inclined his head
in what she realized was approval. “Then you dismantled Jep enough
that Hollander Steelworks could absorb it piecemeal without
arousing anyone’s curiosity.”

There was a light of great respect in his eyes that
warmed Eilis to her soul. “Yes.”

“Was that your idea?”

He shook his head. “Knox’s.”

Eilis started. “He’s a lawyer.”

“With a degree in accounting and a penchant for
taking the scenic route around a problem. Mitch Hollander needed
Jep’s products to stay in business and he begged me not to shut it
down, but we couldn’t find anyone qualified enough to run it. Don’t
think we didn’t try; too many businesses would’ve gone under
without Roger’s goods.”

“How long did it take you to figure out they were
stealing?”

“Three days. It took three of us two weeks to follow
the paper trail to its source.”

“And then another two weeks to shut it all down.”
Eilis fought the urge to betray any emotion. Jep’s circumstances
too closely mirrored her own, only Eilis hadn’t been able to call
for help.

“Yes.”

“You said you only go where people call you.”

“Typically, yes.”

“What about OKH Enterprises?”

He pursed his lips as he stared at her and it seemed
like he was wondering if or how much to tell her. “I don’t know why
you’d ask about that,” he said softly, and she knew she’d given
away far more than she’d meant to, just by asking. “The Journal’s
all over it.”

“The alliances are fuzzy,” she finally said, not
looking away from him.

His eyebrow rose. “Really? What do you think the
alliances are?”

“Before or after you were assigned as my
trustee?”

He sat back and folded his arms over his chest.
“Both.”

“Everybody I know thinks you’re at war with both
Knox and Fen. That’s the assumption I made until he assigned you to
me. Now, I don’t know what to think.”

“Really!” He seemed surprised by that and tapped his
fingers on his mouth. “Interesting. I didn’t know that was how it
was being read.” Then he went back to his work, not having answered
her original question and only leaving her with more.

* * * * *

32:
R.O.I.

Eilis watched him come in the door, as tall and
elegant as he had Thursday and the day before. She’d have said
arrogant if he were any other man, but Sebastian hadn’t come off as
arrogant once she’d met him, talked to him.

No, not arrogant. Preoccupied. Thinking, always
thinking. Living in his head.

The backpack he carried was an interesting choice
for a man who wore immaculate black (she wondered if he wore any
other color) custom tailored suits, crisp white dress shirts, black
silk ties, and never, ever looked rumpled. It didn’t take anything
away from his sinister air.

Sinister

Sin

Eilis thought Sebastian Taight looked like six feet,
two inches and two hundred twenty pounds of pure
sin
.

He stopped at a cubicle and introduced himself to
its occupant. Eilis tilted her head. That was . . . odd. Even more
odd—he went to several cubicles and introduced himself, shaking
hands. The cubicles’ occupants smiled and laughed. Sebastian
didn’t, but none of the employees who’d spoken with him seemed to
notice or care.

Why would he do that?

Eilis’s insides turned over at the thought that it
might be possible for him to take her company away from her through
her employees. Sneaky bastard!

But . . . nowhere in her dictionary of evils that
defined Sebastian Taight was an entry for sneaky. Oh, no. Sebastian
Taight was the most cunning of devils: He did it to one’s face, in
the open, where everyone could see. He was thoroughly
transparent.

Not that anyone noticed that.

Eilis had watched more than one CEO go down because
they didn’t believe his brazenness, his honesty. They’d been so
busy looking for schemes and machinations they never found that
they hadn’t seen what Sebastian Taight wanted them to see.

That still didn’t explain why he was chumming up
with her employees.

He worked his way toward her office without looking
up, without acknowledging her presence, by going to this cubicle or
that cubicle, talking to people. Eilis suddenly realized that she
didn’t know quite how King Midas actually worked. There were lots
of tales, lots of bitterness, lots of buyer’s remorse once owners
and CEOs had convinced themselves that Sebastian hadn’t done
anything for them but collect a fee. But nobody had described the
process
to her.

Perhaps she should just be grateful for the
knowledge that he wasn’t interested in raiding her company.

Finally he disappeared under her mezzanine floor and
she could hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. Soon, he had
dropped his backpack on the table and joined her at the window
again, as he had his first day at HRP. He was silent for a long
time, his hands behind his back. When he decided to speak, it took
every ounce of control Eilis had built up over the years not to
show how startled she was.

“May I make a suggestion?” he asked politely and she
somehow knew that if she said no, he would respect that, but he
would remember it.

I take companies whose ownership and/or management
can’t be salvaged.

“Please.”

“I suggest you not stand here watching your
employees work. It’s nerve-wracking and I don’t think nervous
employees are very productive.”

“I’m not
watching
them,” she said calmly,
hurt that he had found fault with her management style instead of
just her books and bad decisions.

“They don’t know that. All they know is they don’t
feel free to check email, instant message, surf the ’net on their
breaks or lunch. Whether they do those things on your time is a
delicate balance, but they need to know you trust them to do what
you hired them to do. By and large, if they’re surfing on your
time, they don’t have enough to do and they’re bored, or they don’t
like their jobs.”

Eilis said nothing. This was who she was, how she
validated her existence. Watching over what she’d built was part of
her morning routine.

“Obviously,” he said when she remained silent, “it’s
up to you.”

He turned away from the window and strode to the
table. Eilis watched him in the reflection in the glass as he took
out a laptop, pens, pencils, and a pad of his green engineering
paper—

“We do have office supplies, Mr. Taight,” she said,
turning.

“Sebastian, please. And yes, I’m quite sure you do,
thank you.” He sat then and opened his laptop. She watched the
screen as he promptly began to check emails, instant message, and
surf the ’net—and none of those things were related to business.
She waited for him to finish whatever personal business he was
taking care of.

And waited.

And waited. Half an hour.

She was outraged.

“Why are you doing that? You’re supposed to be
working!”

She knew she’d stepped into his trap before she’d
finished the question, but couldn’t stop the words from coming out.
“Object lesson number one,” he murmured, his stare boring into
hers. She kept her face carefully controlled and the rush of blood
to her face was hidden, thankfully, by the heavy foundation. She
fought to keep her composure.

“One thing you need to learn,” he continued softly.
“There is a breed of intelligent people out there you don’t seem to
understand because it’s not your breed. They need constant
stimulation. They think so fast that it only takes them fifteen
minutes to do something another person would need an hour to do.
You gain productivity when you understand, find, and exploit those
people to the hilt—and they will
thank
you for it.”