There’s something oddly clinical about the fluorescent lights in the stadium’s executive conference room. Fitting for the task at hand, I suppose.
Outside the glass walls, the afternoon sun bakes the empty grandstands of the Mavericks’ ballpark, but inside, the air is freezing.
A thick manila folder sits in the exact center of the massive marble table. It contains the printed transcripts of forty-eight hours of toxic public relations, national sports blogs calling for a corporate boycott of Summerhill Executives, regional news anchors questioning my father’s ethical standards, and roundtables of experts valuing the loss that Austin Summerhill is likely to incur on this venture. Plus, a viral petition with sixty thousand signatures demanding the preservation of Sweetwater’s historic district. The town’s population barely cracks a thousand if you don’t count the university students who are just part-timers.
“This is an absolute circus, Campbell!” My father’s voiceis tight, full of disappointment and his usual brand of condescension.
He won’t look at me. He refuses to. His eyes are locked onto his legal notepad, his knuckles white around a Montblanc pen.
“The board in Nashville spent the entire morning fielding calls from institutional investors. The damage is compounding by the hour.”
Across the table, Austin Summerhill sits perfectly still. He isn’t wearing his suit jacket today, and his shirt sleeves are rolled up. Not a business white today, instead choosing a casual blue-and-white checked pattern. His forearms are nice, not that I’m looking.I’m looking.They aren’t anything like Jake’s, though. I feel smug about that.
“The investors are choking,” Austin says, his voice low. I think he means that only for my father’s ears. I suppose the rest of us are supposed to serve his whims, stepping outside for them to talk privately. He finally tilts his head, his gaze sliding toward me.
“You went and built a digital guillotine and put my company’s logo on the blade. Impressive.”
I sit straight in my leather chair, my hands clasped loosely on my laptop. Beside me, Sarah Blackwood adjusts her glasses and slides a fresh, redlined contract across the polished wood.
My father shakes with a single punch of a laugh.
“She can’t practice law here.” He’s referring to me.
“No, she cannot. But the partners at Kenmore and Wilkins can. You know them, don’t you?” Sarah’s voice oozes confidence, and I simply wait as my father’s hard-lined mouth falls into a delayed frown.
There’s only one firm that he considers to be more ruthless than his, and we hired them. Their headquarters are inDallas, and it turns out they’re big Roddy McKinney fans around that place. Since Roddy is footing the bill for their hourly rate, they gave us a break. Plus, I really think Alan Kenmore enjoys beating my father at his own game. College rivals do that to one another.
Kevin sits to Sarah’s left, his face pale. He’s sweating through his polo shirt but remaining firmly on our side of the ledger.
“Let’s stop the bleeding,” I say, my voice steady, cool, and entirely devoid of the trembling little-girl guilt my father has used to control me ever since my brother died.
“The terms are non-negotiable. If you want the viral campaign to drop, if you want the press releases detailing your predatory eminent domain filings to stop hitting the regional wire, you sign the amendment.” Sarah taps her finger on the proverbial dotted line, then tosses a pen on the paper.
My father finally snaps, slamming his fist down before leaning across the table. His face is a flushed, angry purple.
“You are completely out of your depth! You think a few thousand angry posts give you the leverage to dismantle a six-hundred-million-dollar deal? We will tie this town up in appellate courts until the stadium rots into the dirt!”
“Try it,” I counter quickly, leaning forward to meet his gaze. I don’t flinch. I don’t look away. “By the time you get your first hearing date, Summerhill’s commercial real-estate division will be considered toxic. No municipality in the country will touch a deal with a firm that targets multi-generational family ranches. You might win legal title in three years, Dad, but you’ll destroy the corporation to do it.”
I swivel my head and turn my focus on Austin.
“Is that what you want to tell the board?”
Silence drops over the room like a lead weight.
Austin doesn’t look at my father. He looks at me, a grim but somehow appreciative expression settling into the corners of his eyes. He recognizes a checkmate when he sees one.
“Give me the pen,” he says quietly.
“Austin, don’t?—”
“I said give me the pen,” he repeats, his gaze snapping to my dad. “The project is bleeding capital every hour we sit here. We pivot.”
For the next several seconds, the only sound is the scratching of ink on paper. Using the media leverage we built from nothing, I watch Austin and my father legally scale back the development plans to something that gives Kevin the golden parachute he was looking for in the first place and protects the people I’ve come to love.
Clause by clause, Sweetwater is carved back out of the corporate jaws. The historic downtown district is permanently removed from the acquisition map. Earl’s is legally protected. The local ranches are stripped from purchase orders, their borders secured. The entire mega-resort and waterpark development is legally restricted to a specific tract of unused, pre-zoned commercial acreage three miles outside the town limits, on the other side of the highway, completely separate from the beating heart of the community.
Sweetwater is saved.
