was Dyer’s Gin Distillery.
Loan foreclosed.
Minimum deal. Wait until after loan foreclosure.
The words began to blur. Emerson’s head began to spin. She felt sick.
She reached for the envelope and peered inside to see if there was a note of any kind. But there was nothing. Just the presentation.
The next page continued under the heading Assessment of Assets.
Jake Dyer is behind Medallion’s success…
Emerson Dyer, new but competent CEO. Lacks experience…
She did. She couldn’t deny it. Never in a million years had she thought she’d be put in charge. And she’d rather her father still be here than be holding any important title. But to see it in 12-point Helvetica font was like a slap to the face. Harsh and instant.
Old assets in need of renovation…
Turn events hall into expanded distillery. Move into other white spirits? Tequila?
Tears stung as her anger began to boil.
Had he been using her to get information? She studied some of the numbers. A couple were wrong. More than a couple. They all looked low.
She reached for her phone and dialed Connor’s number. Wherever he was, he better have an answer as to why she’d been sent this. Or, more importantly, why he’d even written it in the first place.
She dialed his number, only for it to ring and go to voicemail.
She’d been a fool to trust him. Perhaps she should have done more due diligence about him before diving headfirst into a relationship with a man that she barely knew.
No.
Before she jumped to conclusions, she owed it to Connor to let him attempt to explain.
And she did know him…she knew him as intimately as a woman could. He couldn’t have been pretending to have a relationship with her for information, could he? Friday night couldn’t have been faked, could it?
She dialed the phone again and got his voicemail for a second time. His phone was never out of his reach.
What if he were ignoring her?
She turned to the third page. A simple pros and cons.
Under pros: Was initially a Finch asset before being taken over by Dyer.
She placed her phone down on the table and picked up the presentation.
…initially a Finch asset?
What? It had never belonged to anyone other than her father and mother. Why on Earth would Connor think it had ever been anything other than her family’s?
Oh my god. That night. When he’d come over, he’d picked her brain about the distillery. She’d told him everything she knew. She’d even shown him photographs. And he’d pushed back then, asking if there had ever been another partner. He’d wanted to get her to admit to something she couldn’t, that there had once been another partner. Had he been trying to catch her out or garner a confession of sorts?
But which Finch thought they had owned it? His father?
Yes, she’d definitely been a fool.
Emerson picked up the phone again, letting it ring again. This time when she got voicemail, she was ready.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Connor. But finding out I’m an acquisition target for you by mail is a shitty way to draw a line under things. And to think I let myself fall in love with you.”
When she was done, she steeled herself. For the first time in months, she was going home early. Somewhere she didn’t need to explain how the bottom had just fallen out of her world. She felt like the tail of the gin. Lost, unfocused.
She just needed to get home before she fell apart.
“You heard me, Connor. Is it true that you’re in a relationship with that Dyer woman?”
Donovan Finch stood behind his desk, his face flushed and sweating, a sure sign his father had moved beyond anger into rage.
When his father’s assistant had called to ask him to come upstairs urgently, he’d assumed there was a business emergency. A supply chain screwup, an unexplainable profit and loss gap, perhaps a negative press complaint. Emerson’s number had popped up on his phone as he’d jogged up the stairs, but he’d sent it to voicemail, knowing she’d understand that he had work to attend to.
When he walked into his father’s office two minutes later, his father had greeted him with a simple statement. What is your relationship with the Dyer woman?
His father wouldn’t be this incendiary about a rumor.
Connor wrestled with what to say next.
His phone rang again. Emerson. If his father saw who it was, he might just have a heart attack.
“What is it you think you know, Dad?” he asked as calmly as he could muster.
“I have it