My phone buzzes. Text from Dmitri, my CFO.
DMITRI: FoodFirst just made a counter-offer on CulinaryVision. $200M more than us.
DMITRI: Board meeting moved to Friday. You know Patricia Franklin wants your head on a platter, don’t you?
DMITRI: Thought you should know before you read it in the WSJ tomorrow.
I set down my phone and resist the urge to throw it through the window.
FoodFirst. Of course.
They've been circling Richard Francis’s company CulinaryVision for a year, possibly more. When I first convinced the board to acquired the company, I thought we had the inside track.
I was wrong.
And for the last six months, FoodFirst and StreamEats have been in a bidding war I can't afford to lose—not just financially, but politically.
Suspicions on the StreamEats board have died down a bit after I "confirmed" the marriage was real, but still, I’m sure Patricia Franklin is using every opportunity to paint me as reckless and distracted.
And I still suspect that if I lose this acquisition, my own board might try to force me out.
I pull up the revised budget projections for Weeknight Wins. Gina had processed the changes yesterday—increased production budget, better time slot, marketing support. Harper's show is now positioned as one of StreamEats' flagship programs for Q4.
It has to work.
My phone buzzes again. Different notification this time.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hey stranger. Been a while. You free tonight?
I stare at the message for a long moment before I place it—place her.
Natasha Bingum.
A corporate attorney with big clients and even bigger…assets, she’d singled me out at a charity auction, and we'd had a... arrangement. Twice a year, when schedules aligned and we both needed an outlet. No strings. No feelings. Just mutual stress relief and expensive hotel rooms.
I should say yes. God knows I need the distraction.
Instead I type out a response.
ME: Busy week. Maybe next time
The ominous three dots flash on my screen immediately.
NATASHA: Your loss. I saw the wedding video btw. Gaming chapel? Didn't know you had it in you.
NATASHA: She's cute. You could do worse
I delete my draft and close the message thread.
The problem—the deeply inconvenient problem—is that when Natasha texted, the first person I thought of wasn't her.
It was Harper Beaumont.
I run a hand through my hair and refocus on the acquisition documents. Because work is safe. Work is controllable. Work doesn’t sit in the back of your mind with soft eyes and a sharp mouth and a tendency to dismantle your composure one comment at a time.
Work doesn’t make you remember what someone sounded like when they laughed.
Work doesn’t make you think about?—
