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Reed sipped and nodded. “He did, but apparently Benson no longer trusts his own in-house counsel. Hence, the outside firm review.”
I laced my fingers together and rested my chin on my fist. “Do you think Benson found out that his lawyer is on our payroll?”
“Maybe,” Reed said with a shrug. “Or maybe he’s gotten wind of our plans somehow.”
“How could that be?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “The only people who know what we intend to do are you, me, and my team, all sworn to secrecy with signed confidentiality contracts.”
“Maybe somebody on your team has loose lips,” he said, shrugging with his eyes. “Money makes people talk.”
“Bullshit,” I said, angry that he would even made such an accusation. My team was hand-picked by me, everyone fully vetted and trustworthy. “Nobody on my team would talk. I’d crucify them on the stock exchange steps and they know it.”
“You sure about that?” Reed asked, his dark eyebrows arching over his blue eyes. “I kn
ow that you and I are solid, but these young players we have now, I’m not sure how much a nondisclosure agreement means.”
“It means that we can sue them into the fucking ground if they breathe a word,” I said angrily. I didn’t want to believe that anyone on my team would have let anything slip. Still, I made a note on my iPad to have a meeting to read the riot act to them.
“So, you and I have a meeting tonight with Benson and the lawyer he’s hired to look over the deal.”
“I already have dinner plans with a client,” I said.
“Would that client be a particular socialite with tits that rival the size of her bank account?” He gave me a smile because he knew he was right. “Let me guess, she wants your advice on which diamond nipple rings to buy?”
“Fuck you,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Fuck me?” He grinned. “I wish she would, buddy boy. I wish she would.”
He was talking about Cassandra Leone, my on-again, off-again girlfriend for the last few years. Her father was a billionaire industrialist and she spent his money like it was going out of style.
She was blonde, beautiful, and busty, and could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. Sex with Cass was like going three rounds with Hulk Hogan. She was the wildest fuck I’d ever had. Energetic. Passionate. Creative. Nothing held back. Not afraid to try anything.
I always came away battered and bruised, but grinning like a fool and wanting more. Years ago, I thought she was the girl I would someday marry. Now, we were more fuck buddies than a couple, mainly because Cass did not have the ability or desire to be faithful to any one man. She loved me, she said, but she loved a lot of other guys, as well.
So, now we got together every week or two and fucked each other’s brains out, no strings attached. We were going to have dinner tonight and screw like rabbits afterward. I supposed I’d just have to put her off a few hours to help Reed put out this Benson fire. Hopefully, she’d wait for me to come put out hers.
“Just tell her to keep her thong on until you get there. This is more important.” Reed finished his drink and set the glass on my desk. He glanced at his watch. “We’re meeting them at the Roxie at eight.”
“Shit,” I said, blowing out a long breath. “Any idea who this lawyer is that Benson is bringing?”
Reed got to his feet and stood adjusting his diamond cufflinks. “Supposedly some hotshot contracts guy from Yates Hamilton & Booz.”
“Fuck, I hate Yates Hamilton & Booz.”
“I do, too,” Reed said as he walked toward the door. “The bastards are too honest for their own good. See you at eight.”
Chapter 11: Katie
“Is there a particular reason you think Price Bean & Whitlock is not telling you everything?” I asked, looking up from my uncle’s long conference table where the contract detailing the offer to purchase his company was laid out for my review. I picked up the financials page and looked over the numbers again. “I mean, this is a great offer, Uncle Allen, at least on the surface.”
“That’s one reason I’m a little suspicious,” he said with a sigh that told me he was tired of thinking about the offer, which would have put more than a hundred-million-dollars in his pocket. He sat back in the chair across the wide mahogany table and arched his graying eyebrows at me. “I think this offer may be too good to be true.”
My uncle was Allen Benson, founder and CEO of Benson Digital, a successful manufacturer of computer parts and chips in upstate New York. Price Bean & Whitlock was the Wall Street investment bank that wanted to buy his company for three-hundred million dollars, an enormous sum that was twice what the company was worth on paper, but we both knew investment firms often overpaid to block someone else from making a bid.
“I wouldn’t say the offer is too good to be true, Uncle Allen,” I said. “I would say they’re paying you a premium, probably so you don’t entertain any other offers.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. That’s why I wanted you to look over the contract. You’re the sharpest contracts lawyer I know, Katie. I trust your judgment.”
Allen Benson was my mom’s older brother. He was the smart one of a family of idiots and derelicts, leaving South Boston when he was just eighteen to attend MIT on a full scholarship.
