CherrysJubilee (13 page)

As close as they were though—she, Patrick and Alan—there some things that she just couldn’t say to even them. Such as the fact that she had started becoming attached to them. To Connor’s assertiveness and flashes of kindness, to Jed’s intense desire to please, Erik’s strength, both internally and externally. To all three of them, with their desire not only to share her but to share with her.

For the first time since she’d moved there, her apartment seemed strange and empty.

She sighed. It would pass in time, she knew.

The scent of Connor was still on her skin. She changed into other clothes, clothes that hadn’t picked up his scent and wouldn’t remind her of the weekend.

Out of habit, she checked her voice and e-mail.

She missed them. That was something that she would never admit to Patrick, although she sensed that both he and Alan had guessed.

Then she settled down to answer the more urgent e-mails, pulling out her attaché to review the briefs in it, multitasking, burying herself in work, using it to distract her as she always did.

If her heart ached as much as her tired, well-used body did, she put it aside. She hadn’t asked for forever, just a fantasy, but a part of her wished…

It had been an incredible experience. She wished that she could repeat it.

Opening another e-mail, she went still, frowned, then sighed.

It seemed that even if she wanted to, she not only shouldn’t but couldn’t. And, really, she wouldn’t, even if she could.

Chapter Eight

It was no way to end a week. Almost three weeks had passed since the party Connor had thrown when he’d been formally acknowledged as CEO and already he wanted to throw something. The first thing being the papers in his hand. His grip tightened around them, crumpling them in his fist. Both Jed and Erik braced for the explosion. It was the coffee cup, though, that died a noble death, sailing across the room to shatter against the windows.

Not that either Jed or Erik blamed him.

“The board is calling for a no-confidence vote regarding me,” Connor said tightly. “The meeting is this afternoon.”

It was a complete surprise, not even a rumor of it had reached him. Nor had they given him any time to prepare.

Jed was still putting his own people in place. It was clear by the tightening of his jaw that he was furious with himself for missing it. He hadn’t gotten the pulse of the new arrangement yet. Not that that was any excuse as far as Jed was concerned, Connor knew.

“It’s not your fault, Jed,” Connor said. “Stop kicking yourself for not seeing it coming. I didn’t see it coming either. We all knew that they wanted my father, or someone more like him. Not me.”

Connor certainly didn’t blame Jed. Most of those in the company knew that Jed was his friend, so they would have taken pains to make sure he didn’t find out and risk letting Connor get wind of it.

They wanted him to give up his family’s company, had offered him a buyout. A quite generous sum, but money didn’t tempt him. On his twenty-first birthday Connor had inherited a much larger sum from the trust his great-grandfather had set up for him. The man who had built the company. The man he had been named after. Who had left the company in Connor’s trust.

“It hasn’t even been a month,” Connor said, his jaw tight. “How much did they expect me to accomplish in so little time?”

Especially with the chairman of the board, a job that should also have been his when he was named CEO, getting in his way, making decisions without consulting him and giving contradictory orders.

Connor had wanted the transition from his father to himself to move carefully, to go easily on everyone. He had not wanted to charge in like a bull as the heir apparent and arrogantly take the throne. They had carefully planned it. But if this latest attack succeeded, he wouldn’t have the chance to put the rest of those plans into action.

And he’d be booted out of the company his great-grandfather had started. The company was everything to him, virtually a part of him, something he had grown up with, his legacy, entrusted to him. As a boy, he’d started in the mailroom, working his way up through the company so he would know it, every inch of it, intimately. He stalked to the windows, frustration and fury evident in every line of his body.

Outside of cleaning out some deadwood and hiring Patrick Monaghan as their corporate chef, he hadn’t had much time to do much more. The memory of how Monaghan had gotten his position washed through Connor and with it the memory of Cherry. His body tightened. Even at a time like this he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Neither, he knew, could Jed or Erik.

Their nights out consisted of trying to find someone like her, someone they could share and play with as they had her. So far, with no luck. Oddly enough, they all missed her, even after only knowing her for that brief time.

It had been enough to know that she shared their sense of adventure, that she was warm and affectionate, that she was willing and curious as well as eager and as highly sexed as they were. Intelligent too. Capable of keeping up with all three of them and more than willing to indulge them. At the same time.

There were times when he thought they had lost their only real chance at fulfilling that…need.

He couldn’t help but wonder too, why she had left when it had seemed that she had been enjoying herself as much as they.

Watching his eyes, Jed could tell where Connor’s thoughts had gone as his friend looked out the window. Even in the midst of all this, or maybe because of it. Jed had missed her too and had finally gone to Patrick Monaghan for answers.

His eyes clearly pained, Patrick had shaken his head when Jed had brought it up. “I’ll tell her that you were asking,” he’d said, “but it’s up to Cherry to answer. There are reasons, very good reasons, why she can’t talk to any of you right now.”

That was all he would say but he was clearly conflicted.

If Connor lost his position at OI, both Jed and Erik knew it was likely that they would too, not that either of them cared about that so much. They wouldn’t stay if he went anyway.

But
they
wouldn’t be losing their legacy.

Jed said, “You’ve got a whole stable of attorneys here. Maybe you should talk to them, Conn.”

With a sigh Connor said, “I already called them. After the two of you, they were my next call. They’ll be here any minute. I want to meet with them well before the board gets here. We need to come up with a plan to avert that impending debacle.”

His secretary knocked at the door. Fiftyish, matronly, Beth’s round face was pale, her lips tight with unhappiness and disapproval. Her warm brown eyes glinted with righteous indignation and anger.

“They’re here, sir.”

“Send them in,” he said.

With a nod, she stood aside.

They filed in, wearing their dark, conservative suits, their faces grim, those in the lead mostly over fifty, white, heavy and primarily male. Connor thought they were prime examples of everything that was wrong with corporations. A whole bunch of people whose main purpose was to say,
No, you can’t
. Connor paid no attention as a phalanx of assistants, aides, toadies and sycophants followed them and took the seats lining the windows behind those at the conference table.

Taking his seat at the head of the conference table, gesturing Jed and Erik to seats on either side of him, Connor leaned back in his chair.

“All right, what are my options?”

The senior attorney, Marcus Warren, leaned forward, clasped his hands and looked at him steadily. “It depends on what is most important to you. Right now the last thing the company needs in the wake of your father’s death is a proxy fight.”

It wouldn’t exactly be a proxy fight, which Connor well knew. The company was still privately owned. It would be a battle between Connor, those he thought he could influence on the board and the remaining members. Should word get out about it though, confidence in the company would be shaken. OI’s competition would move in on their clients if management was at war.

Something they all knew.

Taking a breath, settling into his chair, his hands folded on his expansive belly, Marcus Warren said, “I’d advise you to take the offer.”

Connor sat back, looking at the man. “That’s not the recommendation that I’m looking for.”

“Mr. O’Donnell,” Warren said, with a small almost apologetic shrug, “you’re relatively wealthy. It’s unlikely that you’ll survive the no-confidence vote. Taking the offer will save you embarrassment. No one would blame you if you accepted the offer as stated here. It’s quite handsome.”

“The offer you helped to craft,” a voice said evenly but sharply from among those seated along the window.

Warren shot a look over his shoulder toward the far end of the room.

“Miss Stratford,” he said repressively.

She stood, a cool distant blonde, briefcase in hand, the epitome of everything Connor hated about corporate women. Her hair was drawn back smoothly and tightly into a neat French twist, not one out of place, her eyes hidden behind serious, shaded horn-rimmed glasses, her boxy suit designed to conceal her body. Her back was very straight, her chin lifted just so. Her makeup was a powdered and perfect mask, turning her skin to porcelain. Her mouth was coated with raisin-colored lipstick. Unlike the few other women in their sensible shoes, her stiletto heels defied the obviously strict and conforming dress code.

He noticed that she had great legs for a lawyer. As he surreptitiously eyed her legs Connor felt a momentary sense of familiarity. Of course, he had probably passed her or a dozen like her a thousand times in the halls and elevators, just as he passed the hundreds of people who worked in the building every day.

“Mr. O’Donnell,” she said, “the gentlemen here represent the company, not you. Many of those here were asked by the board to craft the opinion that you hold in your hands. They hardly have your best interests at heart.”

“Sit down, Miss Stratford,” Warren said sharply, visibly alarmed.

Ignoring him, she turned toward Connor. A strange sense of déjà vu went through him. He almost gasped but clenched his teeth to hide his reaction.

“If you want to keep your company, Mr. O’Donnell,” she said, “take me with you to the board meeting.”

“And you are?”

She looked at him. “C.J. Stratford.”

Disdainfully, Warren said, “Miss Stratford, what is it that you think you know?”

Her smile turned cold. “More than you do. You missed something. I tried to tell you that you couldn’t do it. You didn’t listen.”

There was certainty in her demeanor, calm confidence.

“
Miss Stratford
, please stay,” Connor said. “The rest of you can leave.”

When the room was empty of all but himself, Jed, Erik and the lawyer, he said, “What do you advise,
ma’am
?”

She looked at him squarely and smiled, albeit a little grimly. “First,” she said, “you’ll have to trust me. With all due respect to your late father, he allowed the board too much power. They’ve grown accustomed to it.”

That was his opinion too. Connor eyed her. He looked at Jed and Erik. Both smiled and shrugged, Erik turning away as a huge grin broke over his face.

In the end, what choice did they have?

Chapter Nine

The company boardroom was lavish and expensively furnished, the inner walls paneled in oak, the outer walls a broad expanse of windows that looked out over the city. Along one wall Patrick Monaghan’s people had laid out a buffet. The air of the room was redolent with the scent of rich food and spices.

Connor hadn’t been able to eat.

Having finished their luncheon, courtesy of the company, the board had gathered and taken their seats at the conference-room table, a group of about a dozen men and one token woman, not including Connor, Jed and Erik, when C.J. Stratford walked into the room.

It seemed that she had taken the time after their meeting that morning to change clothes. Into another suit, yes, but it was still a change, the color a light buttery yellow, so that she looked like a beam of sunlight among all the dark suits, drawing eyes to her.

She walked confidently, her stride even as she entered the room, seemingly unaware of the unfriendly eyes on her as she moved to join Connor at the head of the table. As aware as she must be that she gambled with not just his position at the company but her career if she lost, she gave no sign of it.

Connor didn’t miss that fact. She was taking as big a gamble as he. Another reason he’d chosen to take a chance on her.

She took the chair slightly behind and to his side, the position of his advisor and attorney, and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

“Trust me,” she said again, reassuringly.

It was a hell of a risk he was taking but he had no real choice.

The board meeting started with its usual opening, a reading of the minutes. A secretary would record the meeting by hand. Everyone looked from Connor to Jed to Erik.

They went straight to the first item on the agenda—the no-confidence vote.