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Never again, she thought to herself. She wasn’t going to play the damsel in distress any more than she would allow a man to come into her business and X her out as if she were nothing more than an insignificant fly to be swatted away.
It took a good hour of talking and careful negotiation before Sabrina could safely say that she’d managed to secure her holdings with Harvey while effectively pushing out the competition, which was, in a word, Charles.
The man wanted to protest, if she was reading the storm brewing in his eyes, but she didn’t give a lick about how he felt. He certainly hadn’t considered her feelings in the process of his hostile takeover attempt.
“You have a fantastic rest of the day,” Sabrina said with a firm and overly friendly hug that had become customary between Harvey and her. He was always such a lush in the sense that he was a total womanizer, but he was old and relatively harmless, not to mention set in his ways, and whether or not she was a feminist, Sabrina knew that sometimes a person had to play the game to get ahead. In this, she was willing to make a concession, and so she did.
They all shook hands and walked their client out, and once they stood alone on the street together, Sabrina got down to business.
“What was that in there? You think you’re so damn smart that you can waltz in and take over as if you have a right?” Charles was beside himself.
Sabrina thrived on that kind of energy. She’d met it head on numerous times over the years, and she always found that, no matter how nervous or upset she was, when she witnessed it in the other person, it gave her an unparalleled strength, as if she fed off their instability. Today was no different. Charles Hargreaves couldn’t contain his anger, enabling her to be the calm, cool, rational one of the two.
“You should have expected it, Charles. Honestly, it’s nothing you haven’t done to me, right? And we all know, turnabout is fair play.”
“You can’t just take my client—”
“I think you mean my client,” she asserted. “Harvey has been a longtime, dedicated professional in this business for decades. He’s personal friends with my father, and of the family, and he does business with Colloway Corp because he wants to, not just because it makes good business sense—and I assure you, it does. Need I remind you that you needed us to bail you out, so before that ego of yours gets any more inflated, I suggest you realize who you’re talking to and just what kind of leverage I can wield. Not to mention, exactly what you stand to lose if you continue on this path.”
She leaned in, baring her teeth. “I have more friends in this city, in this country, than you have dollars to rub together, and I would know, because I personally reviewed your financial reports. So if you think for one second that I will allow you to come into my sandbox and throw dirt in my face, you have another thing coming. I will chew you up and spit you out before this day is through, so don’t push me.”
He couldn’t seem to find his words. Charles was, for once, speechless. “I’ll tell everyone that you’re spreading your legs for my boys. I’ll expose you for the harlot you are.”
“Go ahead,” she challenged, not sure where the words or the brazenness was coming from, but rolling with it. “Anything you say about your sons will be a direct reflection on you and your company too. So trust me when I say, if you take me down, I’ll take you down with me.”
As the words spilled out of her mouth, Sabrina delighted in the knowledge written in the creases of fear on his face that she had won this round. In words alone, she was taking down her enemy, an insidious element that she’d allowed into her world…yet she still didn’t have the answers she’d come for.
“Charles, I don’t want this to get nasty. Rather, I don’t want this to get any nastier than you’ve already made it.” She was going to be the bigger person in this equation if it killed her. “But your answer to my next question is going to be the deciding factor on how I proceed after I leave this sidewalk.”
She raised her arm to flag down a cab. In what had always been a harrowing process, she was shocked to see a yellow car with checkers down its sides veer out of mainstream traffic to pull up along the curb in front of her.
She’d have to make this quick and somehow do it with grace.
“How much of this did your sons know about? Were they a part of the planning from the beginning, maybe clued in in the middle, or were they your pawns from the onset? Answer wisely. I have my lawyers on speed dial and ready to act on my command.” She didn’t, actually, but she could. It wouldn’t take much effort on her part to sever their contract, since he was the one who violated it, and the laws that frowned on hostile takeovers and poaching were nothing to sneeze at either. She had to hope that Charles both knew and understood what was at stake. He should, since he’d been around for so long, but being from another country, she couldn’t be positive.
When he looked away, chin lifted in defiance, she released the hopeful breath she’d been holding onto and stepped toward the waiting car. “Okay then, I guess that answers my question. I’ll have my attorneys contact yours.”
“Wait.”
Sabrina paused with one foot inside the cab and turned to look at him.
Charles glanced at her and away then back again a few times, as if toying with what he wanted to say. Finally, he opened his mouth. “They had nothing to do with it. I keep close tabs on my boys, and when I realized they were involved with you, I had an idea, and I used your relationship to my advantage. I knew I could leverage it, so I did.”
“You mean blackmail. You intended to use it against me, regardless of how it would affect your sons.”
He nodded, mouth curving down, as if to say, “Yeah, well, what can I say?”
“You know there are laws against blackmail, Mr. Hargreaves. In fact, there are a lot of laws you’ve broken throughout this whole venture of yours, and I could have you thrown in jail at worst, and leveled with crippling fines at the least. Then your business would be mine for real, and you would be left penniless and alone. I doubt your kids would want to have anything to do with you if they knew what you’d been planning.”
“They don’t as it stands now.” His admission was, as it turned out, what she’d been waiting for. All the denials he could have spouted would have still left her with unresolved questions, but this…this one comment, spoke in a moment of great sadness and disappointment, was as honest as they came.
Withholding the smile that threatened to break free, Sabrina merely watched the man who somehow looked smaller all of a sudden standing there licking his wounds in the middle of a busy sidewalk as if he were nothing more than an island unto himself. She’d been on that island a time or two, and she knew just what a lonely place it could be. She almost pitied the man, but what he’d done—or tried to do—to her stopped that in its tracks. He was reaping what he’d sown and he’d get nothing from her.
“My suggestion, Mr. Hargreaves, if you wish to salvage any part of your business or its holdings with Colloway Corp is simple: go home. We don’t need you here, nor are you wanted. If you stay out of my way, my business and my life, I’m willing to extend a second chance. It’s a one-time offer and it’s not made often, so I would suggest you give it serious consideration because it won’t come around again. Also, it goes without saying that this may be your only chance at salvaging a shred of what you’ve lost today.”
She climbed inside the cab and told the driver where to go, then she watched Charles standing there alone as they pulled away…and didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy. At that moment, the only thing Sabrina was capable of feeling was an ever-expanding sense of happiness.
She had her answer, and it was the best one she could have hoped for. Now, she had one last thing left to do, and it was the scariest most exciting task of all.
