Star Time (71 page)

The two skipped out of the building like children, all the way to the parking lot. His parking space was vacant.

"My new Mercedes!"
Stew screamed. "It's been stolen!"

He collapsed cross-legged onto the ground, holding his head in his hands. "I knew it couldn't last."

"The
car's
leased. It's insured," Susan reminded him. "You have nothing to worry about."

"You don't understand."

Even when suffering the worst of Patty's harassment, she had never seen him so distraught. "Stew, we'll call for a taxi."

"My last twenty thousand dollars!" he wailed. "I hid it from Patty in the trunk!"

He could hear God laughing at him all the way to the bank.

Greg told Judy, his assistant, to hold all his calls. He wanted time to prepare his thoughts in the hour before the board met. He was annoyed when she buzzed him.

"Your wife is here to see you, Mr.
Lyall
," she said nervously.

Greg stood as Diane diffidently entered. The chestnut hair was pulled back on the sides, away from her face, which was drawn and anxious. Greg had not seen or spoken with her since the night they separated. All communications had been transmitted through their lawyers.

"I was worried about you . . . with the terrorists," she said. "I was watching."

"I'm fine."

"I can see that. You look good. These last months I had pictured you not eating right, not getting enough sleep. I guess she takes good care of you."

"It isn't like that with her. We worry about each other differently from how you and I did."

"Are you still happy with her?"

"Usually.
You didn't come here just to ask that, did you?"

"Yes, in a way." Her eyes lifted. A light flickered in them. "I saw Doctor
Bascomb
yesterday."

"Is something wrong?"
Bascomb
was her gynecologist, Greg recalled,
society's
gynecologist.

She smiled uncertainly. "He told me I'm pregnant."

For a moment Greg could not comprehend the significance of the words. "You and I are going to have a baby?"

She nodded.

"How could you decide to have a child just to hold on to me?"

"I didn't know then there was another woman," she
said,
her voice catching. "We were still together. Please believe me. I wanted this child for my own sake. That finally became more important to me than my fears."

Her gaze was clear, her voice earnest and direct. Greg could not assess her truthfulness.

"I would have always regretted not having a child—our child—to love," she said. "My mother knew the danger, but decided having me was more important to her than her life. I don't want to spend the rest of my own life regretting my cowardice."

After pausing for a moment, she said, "I want our child to have a family." Her words tumbled out. "I'm as responsible as you for what happened to our marriage, maybe more—I was so much more inflexible. I love you, Greg. I've been miserable without you." Her eyes were turning liquid. "Please, let's start again. I'll try harder at this than anything I've ever done."

She paused, looking around her as she sought to regain her composure.

"You've done a fine job with the company, Greg. You deserve to stay on."

"You ought to tell that to your father."

"He doesn't know I'm here or that I'm pregnant." She forced her gaze back. "Between the shares of this company I inherited from my mother and what he kept buying for me or transferring over the years for tax purposes, I'm the largest stockholder in FBS. I own eighteen percent of the company."

"And he owns thirteen percent.
That total
of thirty-one percent gives him working control of the company."

"Before now there's never been any reason for me to vote differently from him. He was always watching things for me. But now . . . now I think . . . you should stay on. If you decide to put up a slate of your own directors . . . you know, in a proxy fight to win control from him at the next shareholders meeting, I'll vote my shares for you."

For a moment Greg was astonished by her offer, but then he realized, "The condition being that in order to obtain your support, I'll have to leave Chris and go back to you."

"Yes."

"I get to keep my job. You get to keep me."

Family was paramount to Barnett. Greg did not doubt that he loved his daughter enough to swallow his rage and deny personal ambition if Greg chose to return to her. If he asked them to, directors supporting him would change their votes. How could they condemn Greg's adultery if his wife and father-in-law did not?

"But I wouldn't want that to be your reason for coming back to me, no matter how much I want you." Tears overflowed Diane's eye and ran down her cheeks. "It will be different this time, I promise. A child will change things between us. We'll be a family, what you always wanted."

She halted, wanting him to understand what was most important. "Even if you don't come back, I want this child."

"So, do I," he said. More than she could ever comprehend.

He realized that regardless of her motive, her decision to have a baby was an act of great courage, perhaps even of foolhardiness. The gestation diabetes that had stricken her mother in childbirth was probably
hereditary. Her own life might well be at risk. In the face of such jeopardy, her intention to have a child suddenly overwhelmed him. He was both awed and frightened for her.

"Will you think about it, Greg?" she implored. "Really think about it?"

Diane's manner seemed unsure and suffused with unaccustomed humility. What if this woman who had always fought for dominance had indeed changed? Greg wondered. She seemed truly to want their relationship to be different from what it had been and to believe that they could accommodate better to each other and be content and satisfied. He did not delude himself that she would ever be scintillating like Chris, that she would ever ignite the fire in his skin.

In recent weeks he had steeled himself to the possibility of having to relinquish power and status. But that had been far easier to do when his chances appeared poor to retain them. If he forced a proxy fight, he was sure a lot of shareholders would recognize that he was turning around the company and would vote for his slate of directors. Adding Diane's block of stock to his side would drastically improve his
position,
perhaps even give him the victory. And he was all she wanted in return.

And that they
be
a family to their child. The anguish of growing up in a fractured household rose up within him as it had when he was a boy, making the sacrifice of his unborn child's future happiness feel unendurable.

"It's too much," he muttered, swiping at the tears. "It's just too much."

At that instant Greg feared that by choosing Chris, he would be repudiating
an integrity
at the center of his being purer and more insistent even than his love for her: the obligation he had detested his mother for reneging on and for which he had waited all his life to make good. Abandonment would be the ultimate sin.

"I hope you realize how much I'm offering you," Diane declared.

Greg stiffened.

"I didn't mean it that way," she protested. "I love you. Greg, please, please
promise
me you'll think it over."

She quickly drew a pen from the holder on his desk and scrawled a note on a piece of paper. "
Here.
In case anyone doubts you have the right to vote my shares."

"On condition that I go back to you."

"You're an honorable man," she said quietly. "You won't use that piece of paper unless you're coming back. My shares can win it for you. The choice is yours."

"You've said that I did a good job running
FBS, that
I deserve to stay on."

She nodded.

"Then support me against your father even though it won't buy me back."

Slowly, she shook her head, tracks of tears sparkling like icicles on her cheekbones. "Then I would lose both of you."

As she walked out of his office, Greg's eyes shifted to the portraits of FBS's on-air talent that hung on his wall. Most of those stars would flicker for their brief time and then sputter out, to be replaced by newer ones. Only a rare few possessed the appeal, the luck, and the relentless determination that made for lasting success. He focused on the photo in the center.

The photographer had managed to capture some of Chris's bright vivacity, the way she somehow lit up the air around her. A decade before, he had chosen Diane over her and never ceased to regret it. The years without her had taught him that she was essential to his happiness. Now some divine, bizarre grace had granted him a second chance to have her in his life and her love back. Was that enough?

Judging by the degree of formality with which they greeted him upon entering the spacious board room and took places around the oval table in the center, Greg was certain he could discern which directors were favorable, which unfavorable, and which still sitting on the fence, even without the count Abel Hastings had provided. Of the thirteen directors, Abel believed four would side strongly with Barnett, who also had a vote, come hell or high water. That block of five was comprised primarily of older, conservative men.

More narrowly focused on the company's bottom line and less on Greg's notoriety were the newer Board members, who supported him because of his progress in reversing the company's decline. Four appeared to be solidly on Greg's side of the ledger: Abel and David
Penner
, an investment banker whose clients owned a substantial amount of FBS stock; and Tom Blake, a commercial banker who held a lot of the company's debt. Greg had been made a director upon assuming the company's leadership. Counting his own, he had four sure votes.

Four directors were undecided. Barnett needed only two of those to oust Greg. Neither Abel nor Greg held out much hope for a rebellion among the undecided contingent, including Carolyn Flores, an economist and the lone woman on the Board, who probably felt beholden to Barnett for appointing her. They appeared to trust Barnett's
judgement
and share a belief that Greg's immoral behavior had demonstrated headstrong foolishness that might distort future business decisions.

First on the agenda, Abel would be presenting the Finance Committee's evaluation of the Carver-Markham offer to buy FBS.

After going over the pros and cons, he concluded, "The Finance Committee recommends that we neither accept nor decline the offer at this moment, but enter into discussions with
Evcar
while we study it further." He hoped that exploration of the takeover threat and the need to hide dissension on the board would at least delay Greg's termination.

Jay Dickenson, whom Greg knew to be
Ev's
ally and not in either camp, had been fidgeting in his seat throughout the
report
. Tall with graying sideburns and predatory good looks, he was a smoothly efficient politician who had served two terms in Congress. Presently vice chairman of a medium-sized life insurance company, he chafed for a wider and more lucrative range for his talents. As soon as Abel sat down, Dickenson called for the floor.

"That's nonsense, Abel. What the hell are we waiting around for? These people are offering twenty percent more than the stock was selling for on the stock market before the offer. If we don't grab it, the stockholders will sue the pants off us for acting against their best interests. The profit FBS is projected to earn next year is nowhere near enough to outweigh this offer. I say we recommend the stockholders take it. I'm sure a lot of others here agree with me."

Greg glimpsed a hint of alarm in Barnett's eyes. Perhaps the old man would be willing to join with him now to beat back the takeover. Greg waited for Barnett to speak up to denounce
Evcar's
bid, but he kept silent while several directors spoke in its favor. Then Greg realized the problem. Barnett was aware of something he himself was not: Dickenson had done a lot of legwork in the past three days to line up directors behind the offer.

Greg interrupted. "Can we take a break for a minute? I'd like to discuss this privately with the chairman."

He glanced at Barnett, who considered for a moment and then stood up.

"Ten minutes," Barnett pronounced, and moved toward the door.

"It looks to me that Dickenson thinks he has the votes to accept Carver and Markham's offer, or that he thinks he can get them," Greg said when he and Barnett were outside in the corridor. "We could both lose this company. You know that, don't you?"

"There's a strong possibility, yes."

"I'll be out as CEO. You'll be out as chairman."

"What are you getting at?"