need it.
Like when?
With a burst of energy, she jumped from her seat and shoved the laptop into her bag before she got any more bright ideas that might include calling the company switchboard to get his voicemail. If she couldn’t write him an email under pressure, the chances of her doing better on the phone were slim to none.
Emerson grabbed her purse, set the alarms for the distillery and stepped out into the cool Denver evening air. Perhaps she’d call Ali to go out for a drink.
Anything to avoid the temptation of contacting Connor Finch.
Fuck, that’s hot.
Connor juggled the plastic container out of the microwave, switching between fingers and thumbs, and dropped it on the concrete countertop. The sweet potato, broccoli, rice, and chicken steamed as he nudged the lid off. He fought off the urge to cover the stuff in soy sauce or chili sauce or something that would make the food just a touch more interesting. Emerson had judged him correctly in her assessment of his eating habits.
Macros mattered, even if they sometimes tasted bland.
While it cooled a little, he grabbed a fork from the cutlery drawer and topped up his glass of water.
He pulled the leather stool from under the counter and perched on it. Fork in hand, he opened his laptop to study his latest project.
Dyer’s Gin Distillery.
Their Medallion gin was just as good as it was reported to be. So good, in fact, he’d had one more drink than intended yet he’d woken up with a head as clear as if he’d not taken a sip.
Emerson Dyer was already encouraging him to break his own habits.
From his first sip while playing poker, he was committed to learning more about the distillery, and he’d spent the last twenty-four hours doing as much research as he could about the private family-owned company.
Except there wasn’t much to find.
His father had always suggested he was heavily involved in the beginnings of Dyer’s Gin Distillery, but Connor couldn’t find a trace of his father’s name in connection with the distillery anywhere. Paul Dyer had completely erased his father from the narrative. Even in old online newspaper reports of the time, he couldn’t find any reference. Every source said the same thing, that it had been started by Paul and Rebecca Dyer. He assumed Rebecca was Emerson’s mother because not only did they share the same last name, they shared the same warm brown hair and cute smile.
Thoughts of Emerson onstage, laughing her way through her speech, made him grin. There had been pure joy in her words when she thanked everyone on behalf of her family.
In-between bites of food, Connor returned to Dyer’s social media pages, looking at photographs of the distillery. They’d obviously begun some kind of social media campaign at the start of the year. It was clear and consistently on brand. He wondered what firm they hired to do it.
But then the campaign had stopped. News articles revealed there had been significant damage to an on-site event venue that resulted in a significant amount of negative press, but that seemed to have eased up over the past couple of months.
Stopping social media presence was a mistake, one he’d fix when…
When? When he bought the damn thing? He needed to stop thinking like he already owned it. Dyer’s Gin Distillery had floated to the top of his proposed acquisition list even though he knew his father would have strong issues with it.
Videos from within the distillery gave him a sense of scale, but he wasn’t definite on the kind of volumes they produced. From his assumptions on the number of stills, the size of the warehouse, and their distribution channels, he would put them in the midsize distillery range.
The recipes were attributed to Emerson’s brother, Jake, a master distiller with an obvious palette and nose for botanicals. If he came up with these formulas, he could come up with others. And others meant growth. Especially if he could parlay his skills into other spirits, like a standout rye or a homegrown tequila or vodka. But it also meant that the success of the recipes hung on one person. Dyer’s was definitely more secure than other companies given Jake was a family member. But even family members could be convinced to leave and go to other enterprises, depending on the size of the paycheck.
Yet, in spite of not having all the information or a secure innovation strategy, he felt the usual rush of excitement in his stomach that came