Billion Dollar Mistake by K.C. Crowne

Chapter 4

SAWYER

“Sir? Your coffee’s ready.”

I shook my head, coming back into the moment. My eyes had been locked onto the door, remaining on the place where I’d last seen what had to be the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

She was stunning. Her face was gorgeous, with blue eyes and milk-white skin and full, red lips that I’d wanted to kiss like crazy. Her auburn hair framed her face perfectly, and the pantsuit she’d had on was the perfect blend of professional and sexy as hell. My mind filled with images of having her in my office, her dressed like that as we chatted about business matters.

But the next part of the fantasy was far dirtier. I imagined her bent over in front of my desk, my hands on her slender, but round hips as I drove into her from behind, her pants gone but her heels still on. It was enough to make my cock pulse to life right there in the middle of the café.

“Sir?”

I snapped out of my pervy little fantasy and turned to see the barista, a mousey but cute college-aged girl standing next to me with an iced latte in her hand. She smiled in that winsome way that younger women tended to do when they were both flirty and nervous at the same time. A coed was far too young for me, though.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the drink. “Here, let me give you my card so you can ring me up.”

She kept on smiling, swiping her hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to charge you to remake a drink you didn’t even get to sip.”

“But you had to clean up and everything.” I took out my wallet and slipped a twenty from the billfold, reaching over and dropping it into the tip jar.

“Oh! Thank you!” she said, not having expected that.

“Let me ask you something,” I said, a thought occurring to me. “You ever see that woman around here? The one who bumped into me?”

She scrunched her face and looked away, giving the matter some thought.

“Sometimes. I mean, she comes in every now and then. She’s usually dressed in business stuff and working on her laptop. But I don’t know her name or anything.” Her eyes flashed. “Jolene! That was what the other guy said, right?”

“Jolene…”

God, something about her seemed so damn familiar. Or maybe her beauty had made such an impression that it seemed like I already knew her. Either way, I was stricken with curiosity and eagerness to get to the bottom of it.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at the barista. She smiled back before stepping behind the counter.

I glanced down at the iced latte in my hand as I went over to one of the tables and sat down, taking my laptop out of my briefcase, and opening it on the table. The drink was pointless – not sure why I’d been in the mood for an iced drink, something I rarely had. But it was tasty, nonetheless. And it was a damn good thing I’d ordered it instead of my usual black coffee; a spill like that could’ve been a disaster.

I took off the lid and sipped my drink as I watched the people of Whitepeak go about their business outside the window. It’d been years since I’d been in my hometown, and I couldn’t get over how little things had changed. Other than newer model cars parked along the streets it was still the same sleepy town it’d always been.

The strangest thing was, despite how eager I’d always been to move to Denver, to live in the big city, I was finding myself oddly drawn to the place. My eyes lingered on a young family, a mom, a dad, and a little girl who couldn’t have been older than three, playing in the shadow of the pioneer statue in the center of the park.

I had an idea. I took my phone and typed up a text to Zander. He’d lived in Whitepeak, the two of us having gone to the same high school together. There was a good chance he knew who this Jolene was. I fired off the text and set my phone back down on the table, my eyes drifting toward the family in the park once again.

My phone buzzed, bringing me out of my daydream. A quick check of the screen revealed that it wasn’t Zander, but a call from Mrs. Weller back at the office.

“Howdy, Andy,” I said, clicking here and there on my computer and getting the A-Train Construction files open and ready to review. “Miss me already?”

“Oh, terribly,” she said. “You know, whenever you’re not here gracing us with your presence, the office just isn’t the same. It’s more like a funeral than a place of business.”

I laughed. “So glad to hear that. I just want to be loved, you know?”

That got a laugh out of her. “Are you in Whitepeak?”

“I’m here.”

“And on a scale of one to ten, how nostalgic are you feeling?”

“It’s interesting that you’d ask, Andy. If you would’ve posed that question to me before I came here, I’d have laughed and said zero point five. But now that I’m here…”

“Ten?”

I barked out a quick laugh. “Let’s not go crazy. I’d say more like a five point seven.”

“Still pretty high for Mr. Penthouse in the big city,” she said. “Few are immune to the draw of a quiet, small-town life.”

“I’m not saying I want to live here again. More like the thought of coming in for business doesn’t annoy the hell out of me.”

“I’m sure the good people of Whitepeak will be most relieved to hear that,” she said, a tinge of playful sarcasm on her words. “But I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news in light of your newfound love affair with your hometown.”

“What’s that?”

“Your father is in the office now. He told me to tell you that he had a conversation with the owner of A-Train. Turns out the owner would rather speak to the CEO instead of the CEO’s son. You know how these things go.”

I sighed in annoyance. “These are the exact sorts of situations that wouldn’t be coming up if he finally just retired and made me the official CEO instead of doing this in-between thing where he’s still technically the man in charge while I’m doing all the heavy lifting.”

Something else occurred to me.

“Wait, he’s in town?”

“You’re surprised to hear that?”

“I talked to him earlier. I guess I assumed that he was over at his place on Jupiter Island – you know, like he is ninety percent of the time these days.” I sighed, realizing I was annoyed. “Sorry to dump all of this on you. But you know how it is.”

“I know how it is,” she said. “And you don’t need me to tell you why he’s been acting like this for the last few years.”

It was because of Mom, of course. But neither of us said the words.

“Anyway,” she said. “Your father wanted you to meet with him ASAP.”

“Huh? Did he say why?”

“Only that it was an important matter. Oh, and that he made a lunch reservation at the Winchester for one o’clock.”

I checked my watch and saw that it was a little before noon.

“And that means I need to get going. Thanks for keeping me posted, Andy.”

“Of course. And…one more thing. If there’s something amiss with your father, would you let me know? He seemed off when he came in today, like he had something huge on his mind. I just want to make sure the old fart’s OK, you know?”

“I will,” I said, smiling a bit at her referring to Dad like that. Andy, having worked with the Williams family since she was my age, was possibly the only person on the planet who would get that familiar with any of us.

We said our goodbyes, and once I was off the phone, I quickly packed away my things and took one more sip of the iced latte before replacing the lid and taking it with me.

Once behind the wheel of my Porsche, I found myself tossing over what Andy had said to me on the phone. If there was one thing about Dad, it was that he kept his emotions to himself. Instead of mourning Mom like he’d needed to, he’d devoted himself to jet setting across the world. He bought an expensive as hell beachfront mansion on Jupiter Island down near West Palm Beach and was using that as home base for his across the world adventures.

It wasn’t just the traveling – the man was dating like some out-of-control trust funder half his age. Every time I saw him, he’d be in the middle of texting with some sugar baby who he was all wrapped up in. I had a bad feeling about most of those women, too. Dad was, well, my dad, but I could still see that he was a hell of a catch. Cultured, good-looking, wealthy – the man was what plenty of women dreamed about snagging. But I couldn’t help but wonder if some of them were more interested in his pocketbook than anything else.

Anyway, point was that dad had been more interested in other things besides work these days. And he especially hadn’t been interested in processing his grief after what had happened to Mom. So, for Andy to notice that he’d been wearing his emotions on his sleeve, meant something was up. Not only that, but the Winchester, Dad’s favorite place in town, was where he liked to meet for serious business matters.

It was quarter to one by the time I was back in downtown Denver. I pulled in front of the tower where the Winchester was located and allowed the valet to take my baby on account of being in a hurry. After a quick elevator ride up to the fortieth floor, I was in the luxe, toney interior of the restaurant.

The place was old school charm, with white linen tables, wood accents, and enough brass to outfit a dozen orchestras. The dozen foot tall window walls gave about the best view of the city one could hope for – outside of my penthouse, that is. I nodded to the hostess, who let me know that Dad was seated at his usual table toward the back.

Dad laid his sharp, green eyes onto me as soon as I approached.

“There’s my boy,” he said in his deep, bass-like voice. “And look at that, on time for once.”

Dad stood up as I headed over to the table. With the two of us standing side by side, there was no doubt that he and I were father and son. He was as tall as me, with the same green eyes and cleft chin. However, while my hair was dark, his was a silver so brilliant that it seemed to glow. He was dressed in an expensive, tailored suit.

As he stood waiting for me to join him at the table, I was reminded that there was more to Dad than his looks and wealth. He had a certain gravity about him, a way of commanding people’s attention and always appearing to be the most powerful man in the room, no matter where he was. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted more than a few women casting surreptitious glances in his direction, as if they all wanted to know who he was.

“What’re you talking about?” I asked with a cocky smirk. “I don’t have the luxury of being late with my job.”

He took my hand and shook it tightly, pulling me into a quick hug before we sat down.

“You’ll have to forgive me,” he said as he sat back in his seat and crossed his legs. “Hard for me not to always see you as the sixteen-year-old Vineland Academy student who I was always getting notices about showing up late and cutting class.”

The table was set with crystal waterglasses and flatware polished to a mirrored shine. A bottle of red, no doubt the finest of whatever they had in stock, was placed to the side.

“And it’s been equally hard for me to see you as the sixty-five-year-old CEO who’s off swimming with the orcas and dating Zara models.”

Whoops. So much for playing it cool with dear old Dad.

He raised one of his silver eyebrows, cocking his head to the side slightly.

“Sounds like you’ve got some things on your mind,” he said. “Important matters always go down easier with a glass of good French cab.” He gestured to the waiter, who hurried over and opened the wine, pouring a taste for Dad. He sipped his sample slowly, closing his eyes and savoring it. “Excellent. Thank you, Martin.”

“Of course, Mr. Williams. Would you both like a little more time deciding on lunch?”

“I don’t see why we would. The steak frites for me, rare. And the same for my son – but make his a little less bloody.”

“Rare is fine,” I said to the waiter.

Dad shrugged, the waiter pouring us two glasses of wine before hurrying off.

“Now,” Dad said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Part of me didn’t want to go in for it. Last thing I needed was to get into a back-and-forth with dad about the way he spent his personal life. But the incident with the owner of A-Train was still fresh in my mind.

“This thing you’re doing,” I said. “It’s not working.”

“Tell me what you mean.”

“Where you’re CEO, but not CEO. I had this meeting with the owner of A-Train, only to drive all the way back home to Whitepeak to find out that he doesn’t want to meet with me – he wants to meet the man in charge. Well, does he know that for the last few years I’ve been the one running the show? I’ve been the one working with the engineers to make sure our tech is cutting edge; I’ve been maintaining relationships with the clients we have to ensure people are actually using our services. And what have you been doing this whole time? Zipping around the country with some new blonde on your arm every month, popping into the office whenever any of our big clients insist on talking to the old man. It’s bullshit.”

Dad said nothing. Part of me felt like I’d gone too far, another part felt like I hadn’t gone far enough.

“That all?” he asked, his temperament remaining even. “Because I have a feeling there’s more.”

There was, alright, but I wasn’t sure if I should go there.

Screw it.

“You’ve been like this since we lost Mom.”

There it was. Too late to go back.

“And I get it. I mean, I get it as much as I can get it. But the way you’ve been acting, this flighty shit where you’re the boss but then you’re not – it’s not working anymore. I’ll meet with the head engineers and go over their plans for the next quarter, only to find out days later that they haven’t even started because they were waiting for the OK from the old man. That kind of shit happens all the time now, and it’s starting to lead to some major inefficiencies in how the company operates.”

I felt relieved after I spoke, but Dad was still impassive. In fact, he took a slow, casual sip of his wine as if I’d just given him the rundown of some Netflix show he needed to check out.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No, nothing else. Basically, Dad, you need to shit or get off the pot. Pull the trigger and retire or come back to work and be there one hundred percent. Hell, I’m not even saying you have to put me in charge. Just hand it over to someone who’s going to be there.”

He nodded, taking one more sip of his wine. The mellow ambience of the restaurant’s light chatter, Nina Simone at a low volume, the din of flatware on plates, filled the air between us. For a moment, I wondered if he was going to tell me to screw off, to fire his own son for gross insubordination.

Instead, he smiled. Then he chuckled.

“Wait, what’s going on here?” I asked. “Is something funny?”

Dad shook his head. “No, not funny. More…very, very satisfying.”

Before the conversation could go on, the waiter arrived with our meals – two white, rectangular plates of steak frites, the tender, succulent-looking steak slices sitting in pools of dark red juices, the frites crispy-brown. Dad dabbed one of the frites in the steak juices and popped it into his mouth.

“Delicious,” he said when he was done chewing. Then he nodded toward my plate. “Try it – it’s as good as ever. Maybe better.”

I let out a frustrated sigh, knowing that I was dancing to Dad’s tune. I was hardly hungry but obliged him by stabbing one of the steak slices and putting it in my mouth. Sure enough, it was melt-in-your mouth delicious.

“Good, huh?”

“Good. Now, can we get to it?”

He smiled, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

“There’s a reason I’m so calm right now, and you’re so tense. And the reason is, I know what’s going to happen to the company. I know it’s in good hands.”

“Dad, I love you, but can we please put the kibosh on the cryptic talk?”

Dad nodded.

“First of all, I want to say that I’m sorry.”

This was a surprise. Dad had always been the stubborn type, the kind of guy who did what he pleased and if you didn’t like it, you could go screw yourself. Hearing him lead off with an apology was unexpected, enough to put me on the back foot.

“Things have been, well, they’ve been complicated since your mother passed. And while the way I choose to mourn is my own business, I apologize for foisting responsibilities upon you without properly framing them first. That’s no way to run an enterprise of thousands of jobs.”

“That’s good to hear. I appreciate your apology.”

He nodded. “So, while I’m not especially happy with my own handling of Praetorian over the last few years, the silver lining of my shirking of leadership has been that I’ve had a chance to see, from a distance, what kind of CEO you would be if given charge of the company. And I’m very pleased to see that you’ve not only kept Praetorian running, but that you’ve allowed it to thrive under your watch. Profits are up, you’ve created hundreds of new jobs, and companies from all over the world are getting wind of our reputation and wanting to do business with us. Frankly, I’d have to be an idiot to not see that you’re the man for the job.”

I sat back; a touch flummoxed from what I was hearing.

“And more than that, you coming to me and letting out full-bore all the issues you have with me…that takes guts. There’s not an exec or member of the board at Praetorian who’d have the stones to come at the old man that way.”

“Well, someone’s got to do it.”

He nodded. “Someone’s got to do it. And that someone is going to be you.”

Excitement rose inside of me. Dad was speaking the words I’d been waiting to hear for a long, long time.

“But it’s not going to be as simple as me handing over the company to you.”

“Well, sure. No doubt it’s a complicated process.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

A strange expression formed on Dad’s face, one that suggested he was about to say something that he wasn’t quite sure how to put into words.

“Sawyer…how’s your love life?”

I was taken aback. Dad had never been one to talk about personal life matters. The only time he ever brought up my love life was when he’d make the occasional crack about me not dating any woman for longer than a few weeks.

“My love life? Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

I sipped my wine and regarded Dad with a skeptical expression. “It’s…well, love life wouldn’t be the words I’d use to describe it.”

“Right,” Dad replied with a crisp nod. “There’s not much love in the way you do things with women. Sex life would be a better way to describe it.”

Hearing Dad say the word “sex” was enough to make my eyebrows flick up in total surprise. Dad had always been an old-fashioned sort of guy, the type who most definitely did not talk about sex.

“Well, call a spade a spade, I suppose.” I wanted to know what was going on, and more than that, I wanted to get to the bottom of this conversation before I had to hear the old man say the word “sex” one more time. “What’s this all about? Why the sudden interest in my dating life?”

Dad sat up straight, setting his fork down after popping a fry in his mouth.

“I’ll put this as plainly as possible, Sawyer – you’re the man I want to run Praetorian. But I’m not going to give the company over to you if you’re single.”

It took me several moments to process what I was hearing. First, there was the affirmation that Dad wanted to leave the company to me. More excitement built in me, the intensity so much that it was hard to sit still.

I kept myself in check, though, wanting to get to the bottom of what Dad had just said.

“What difference does it make if I’m single?” I asked.

“Because a single man is a man you can’t trust – the last sort of person you want in charge of a massive operation like Praetorian.”

I shook my head, confused. “How does that make any sense? Wouldn’t it be better for me to be single so I could focus one hundred percent of my energy on the company?”

“I know you, Sawyer. And you’ve always had part of your mind occupied by thoughts of your next conquest. I don’t want a man in charge of my company who has half his brain at the office and the other half thinking about the women he’s wining and dining and trying to smooth talk into bed.”

“OK…so, alright. I’ll get more serious about the women I date and try to find the right one eventually. Simple.”

“You’re right, you will do that if you’re going to run the company. But there’s more to it than that – you’re going to find the right woman in the next three months.”

I sat stunned. Dad stabbed a slice of his steak and brought it to his mouth, his demeanor calm and placid as ever.

“You…I…what?”

“Three months. That’s your time limit to find a woman.”

“You’re kidding, right? You have to be kidding.”

“Not kidding. I had my legal team draw up a contract. It’s a big pile of legalese that you’ll want your own lawyer to look over, but the gist is this – you find a woman and marry her within three months. If you don’t, then the company will be sold to one of the many holding firms looking to purchase it. Don’t worry, you’ll make a killing if it comes to that, and not one employee with lose their job. But if you want to be the man in charge, you’re going to need to find a woman to make an honest man out of you.”

I gave myself a few moments to let the words settle. Dad went right on eating and drinking, glancing aside thoughtfully as if trying to plan out the rest of his day in his head.

“I don’t understand. What does me being married have to do with me running the company?”

“Like I said, if you’re still dating, you have that draining your attention and energy. Having a woman, having a family, gives you grounding, and stability. It’s one thing to work to satisfy your own ambitions. It’s something else entirely to work to support a family. You’ll tap into momentum and ambition that you never knew you had. And that’s the sort of man I want in charge of Praetorian. I’d rather see the company sold off before I allow anything less.”

“OK, that makes some sort of sense. I still think it’s crazy, but I can kind of see where you’re coming from. But three months? I’m supposed to find the love of my life in three months? Don’t I need to date her and get to know her and then —”

He swiped his hand through the air, dismissing my words with a single motion.

“Do you know how long I dated your mother before we got married? Six weeks. All this nonsense about needing years to know if someone’s the right one – total bullshit. When you know, you know. All you need to do is open your heart to love and keep an eye out for that right woman. You’ll find her.”

Dad dipped a few more fries into the steak drippings and ate.

“But no one’s putting a gun to your head, Sawyer. If you want to hold on to your life of independence and play the field, be my guest. Take the money from the Praetorian sale and go for it. Hell, form your own company if you’ve still got the itch to work. Balls in your court, now.”

“And what about you?”

“Retirement. One way or another in three months I’ll be done with Praetorian, ready to spend my golden years in Florida, like a man my age ought to. I’ll be there with Janice – you’ll have to meet her before too long.”

Dad pushed up his suit sleeve and checked the face of his Patek-Phillipe.

“Anyway, I should get back to it. I’ll have my legal team send over the contract for you to look over.” He wiped his hands on his napkin and rose, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

“Good luck, Sawyer. I look forward to hearing what you decide.”

And with that, Dad was gone. I stayed at the table staring off into space, the restaurant bustling around me as I tried to process what I’d just heard. The waiter came by to take Dad’s plate and to top off my wine. When he was gone, my phone buzzed with a text – something from Zander.

Hey. Sorry, got slammed at work. Coroner back in Whitepeak named Jolene? That’s Jolene McCallister, dude. You don’t remember her from high school? Frizzy hair and braces, had one of those rolling backpacks?

I read the text, having forgotten all about the woman from the coffeeshop in Whitepeak. But as I processed the words, I did remember her. Jolene McCallister, dorky as they came, one of those girls who would turn in her tests convinced she’d failed only to get the highest score in the class.

It was hard to believe it was the same woman I’d seen. Jolene was so stunning that it was almost impossible to reconcile the image of her back in high school with the picture of beauty I’d seen at the coffeeshop.

I held the phone in my hands for a few moments, trying to decide if what I wanted to say was the right thing to do.

Fuck it.

Holy shit, that is her! Impossible to recognize her. You don’t have her contact info by any chance, do you?

It was a clumsy ask, but I didn’t care. Something about her was pulling me in her direction.

Contact info? What for?

I chuckled as I typed, figuring there was no sense in holding back.

You should see her now – major case of ugly duckling syndrome. Might see if she wants to grab a drink next time I’m in Whitepeak.

Of course, you would. A laughing emoji followed. Don’t have her contact info, but she works at the morgue in Whitepeak. You could always swing by if you were so inclined…assuming you don’t mind walking in on her wrist-deep in a corpse.

I laughed, firing off a text thanking him for getting back to me about Jolene. Then I set the phone down, taking my wine and allowing everything I’d just been through begin to process in my mind.

Jolene. I wasn’t the biggest believer in fate – we made our own fate, as far as I was concerned – but I couldn’t help but notice how odd it was that Zander had gotten back to me right after the conversation with Dad about finding someone.

Was the universe pulling me toward her? Sounded crazy, but yeah, I kind of felt that way.

Maybe I’d stop in and pay the good doctor a visit.

I smiled as I sipped my wine, suddenly feeling confident about the future.