Enright Family Collection (63 page)

“Humph.” O’Connor pondered this, then gestured for the young man to continue.

“There are already several shop-at-home networks, all successful. It’s a good investment, sir. The word on the street is that Valentine, who purchased the Home MarketPlace last year, is in trouble.”

“How could they have gotten the financing to purchase a multimillion-dollar business a year ago if they are in trouble?”

“I’m sure that you have heard, sir, that Edward Valentine had a stroke two weeks ago.”

“I was sorry to hear that, much as I can’t stand the son of a bitch, but what makes you think his board is thinking about selling any of his holdings?”

“With Valentine incapacitated, the ‘board’ is controlled by his wife.”

Delaney O’Connor “hmmph”ed once again, this time at the thought of Edward Valentine’s wife of little more than two years. Dolly Valentine was likely to become a young widow. A very wealthy young widow. Some women just seemed to have the timing for that sort of thing.

“And you think she might be interested in selling off a company here, a company there, while waiting to see whether or not old Eddie makes it through?”

“I received a call yesterday morning, sir. There are several companies going up for sale.” The young man slid several pages of data across the expanse of the wooden table and watched as Delaney O’Connor skimmed the numbers.

“Hmm. Interesting.” Delaney swiveled his chair slightly.

“More than interesting, sir. If approached properly, this could be built into a multibillion-dollar business.”

“You think so, do you, James?” Delaney looked at this latest hire on his advisory team, and swore to himself that they got younger every year.

“I do.”

“Well, then, perhaps I should give it some thought.”
Delaney stood and stretched his legs, a clear sign that the meeting was over. “Now, if you’d be kind enough to stop by at Mrs. Gilbert’s desk and ask her to come in . . .”

“Yes, sir.” Having been dismissed, the young man folded his notes and filed behind the others as they left the office, young James not knowing whether or not O’Connor had really heard a damned thing he’d said.

“Would you like your lunch now?” Pauline Gilbert stole a sideward glance at her boss as she entered the room and began to straighten up the conference table with practiced, efficient hands.

“In a few minutes.” He lumbered over behind his desk and leaned his left hip against the edge to take the weight off his leg, which was throbbing unmercifully at that moment, an old horseback riding injury having been aggravated these past few years by arthritis. Anyone else might have opted for knee and hip replacement, as had been suggested by his physician. But not Delaney. Totally terrified of any medical procedure that involved cutting into his flesh, he had preferred to work around the pain, which he had, over the past few years, come to look upon as an inconvenience more than anything else.

Delaney O’Connor, at seventy-something, was still a large and impressive-looking man. From his thick white hair to his polished wing tips, he wore an unmistakable air of certainty, of power. Success. Clearly, he displayed the sure figure of a man who had the world by the tail.

Pauline Gilbert knew better.

Pouring a cup of hot water for her boss’s tea gave Pauline a few seconds to observe him. Delaney was stressed, she could see that much. You didn’t work for a man for sixteen years and not know when something was wrong. He was, she knew, deeply shaken by the fax he had received late yesterday from London notifying him of his grandson’s latest car accident, in which he’d not only wrecked another of those ridiculously expensive race cars, but had managed to break one of his legs as well.

“The third car in as many years.” Pauline had shared
this bit of inside information with her widowed sister, Josephine, who lived with her. “Delaney is sponsoring him, but of course, his grandson doesn’t know it. Thinks his backer is a company that makes tires. Which it is. What he doesn’t know is that one of his grandfather’s subsidiaries bought the tire company a few years ago.”

And Pauline had shaken her head, pondering the mental faculties of anyone who would risk life and limb—not to mention a small fortune—for the pleasure and privilege of getting behind the wheel of one of those whiny little contraptions that she had seen on ESPN. Those race cars looked about as substantial as the matchbox variety, and just about as safe.

“Pauline, pour a cup for yourself and sit down.” Delaney gestured to the seating area of the office, where a sofa and two comfortable chairs were arranged in one corner.

He turned the television on by the remote and began to flip almost absently from one channel to the next.

Having fixed both cups, Pauline took a seat. It wasn’t unusual for her boss to invite her to sit and chat for a few minutes, or to have a cup of tea and watch the noontime news with him. She knew that despite his wealth, and his aura of assurance, he was a lonely man.

“What kind is it today?” He looked into the cup and sighed.

“Apple cinnamon.”

He grimaced.

“Pauline, how ’bout just one cup of coffee?” He winked and gave her his biggest smile.

“The doctor said it’s bad for your heart.”

“Half a cup?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.” She looked up from her seat on the gray leather chair. They went through this same routine several times every week. “Dr. Bryson said—”

“What does he know?” Delaney grumbled.

“He knew enough to keep you alive after that last heart attack,” she reminded him.

Delaney grunted an acknowledgment and turned to another station.

“You know what they said, Delaney,” she reminded him gently.

“Right. No excitement. No stress. No cigars. No coffee. Now, what the hell kind of life is that?” He banged his teacup down on the wooden tabletop and sat himself down right in the middle of the sofa. “Cigars and coffee I can control. But what is life without a little excitement every now and then? And how the hell do you eliminate stress?”

Having had the same conversation with her boss on countless occasions, Pauline merely sipped at her tea and watched the channels change on the big-screen television on the opposite side of the room. He went right past CNN.

Amazingly, he stopped right at Pauline’s favorite shopping channel, where at that moment a young dark-haired woman was displaying a wide gold bracelet.

“Pretty girl,” he said absently.

“Zoey Enright.” Pauline nodded, then added, “My sister and I watch at night sometimes.”

“What?”
The force of that one word seemed to punch the air.

“I said, Josephine and I watch at—”

“No, the girl.” He pointed to the screen. “The name. . .”

“Zoey Enright.”

Delaney sat mesmerized, staring at the monitor.
Zoey Enright
How many
Zoey Enrigh’s
could there be in this world?

“Delia Enright, the writer, is her mother,” Pauline added.

Yup. That’s the one, all right.

He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, watching the pretty young face on the TV screen, trying to sort out this new information and how best to use it.

Delia Enright’s girl After all these years. Imagine that.

Deep thoughts began to swirl around inside his head,
thoughts of Delia Enright, and her family, and the slender thread that had bound them together for so many years. Finally, a small smile began to play across his lips as he could see things falling into place. He hadn’t become one of the country’s most successful businessmen by not recognizing when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had presented itself. Delaney had never been afraid to follow his instincts.

“I’m going to buy it,” he said aloud.

“The bracelet?” Pauline frowned. Could Delaney possibly have a lady friend that she didn’t know about?

“No. The station.” He pointed to the television. “Shop From Your Chair or whatever it’s called.”

“It’s called the Home MarketPlace.” She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if perhaps he’d gone a bit daft.

One look at Delaney’s face confirmed it. He was grinning from ear to ear. He began to whistle.

Daft
may not be quite the right word.

“Pauline, get Phillip on the phone for me.”

Delaney stood in the center of the room, his hands folded across his chest, for just a brief moment not leaning on the cane to hold him up, staring at the photograph of his grandson that stood on the credenza behind his desk.

Well, now, buddy, looks like I may have finally found a way to bring you back for a while. God knows it’s time, son, I’m afraid you’ll never be whole until you’ve faced your old demons. I’ve done everything I could for you over the years, but that’s one thing you’ll have to do for yourself. And the only way to do that is for you to go back to where it all began. Forgive me, son, but I really think this is for the best.

Delaney studied the face of the young man he loved so fiercely, and indulged himself for a second, long enough to think that, with any real luck, he might even be able to keep him here, to someday take over the business that Delaney had spent a lifetime building. But of course, that was Delaney’s dream, not his grandson’s.

“Phillip is out of the office, Delaney.”

“Find him, Pauline. Tell him I said I want him to buy that”—He waved his hand in the general direction of the television—“shopping thing. Lock, stock, and personnel contracts. Tell him I want it to be quick and clean and to use one of the smaller companies as a front. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m the buyer until the sale goes through and I am sitting behind the CEO’s desk. Tell him that, Pauline. Quick and clean and quiet. And tell him I said ASAP . I want to take it over ASAP.”

He grabbed his cane and headed toward the door, with as close to a bounce in his step as Pauline had seen since before his arthritis had started plaguing him about seven years ago.

“Call Jackson and tell him I’m on my way over. Tell him I need a little legal advice today.”

“Oh. And one other thing.” He poked his head back into the room. “Call Walker in London and tell him we may be looking to sell Corona Tires.”

Pauline, caught in mid-stride, stopped dead in her tracks. No—she shook her head as if to clear it—
daft
didn’t even come close.

Chapter
8
 

Looking out the window of his second-floor London flat, Ben watched the cars amble slowly past, their headlights like so many flashlights just being turned on, as the dinner hour rolled near and the workday came to an end. It was cold, even for early January, and the heating system in the old building left plenty to be desired. He turned his back on the dying day, thinking how a nice fire would warm the room, and how pleasant it might be to sit in front of such warmth with a tray of dinner and a good book. Unfortunately, with both his right leg and arm in casts, laying a fire could prove to be difficult, if not impossible.

With his good left hand, he grabbed his crutch and hobbled over to the sofa, where he flopped down awkwardly and managed to maneuver his right leg onto the big dark green hassock. He shifted in his seat to find the spot most comfortable, and picked up the book that had been delivered that morning from the bookshop two blocks away.

Only Footsteps Away,
by Delia Enright.

For the third time that day, Ben flipped to the back of
the dust jacket to the color print of the author’s face. Well into her fifties by now, he guessed, Delia Enright was still one hell of a pretty lady. She had been his salvation, his and his mother’s, and he had never forgotten her. Deep inside, he had never stopped missing her and the home she had given them. But at fourteen, the trauma of losing both his mother and the only truly happy home he had ever known, had been unbearable. It had eaten a hole inside him that was so wide and so deep that he had never found a way to fill it, and so he had locked it all away, finding it much easier to push it all into the furthest corners of his adolescent mind and leave it all there, neatly wrapped and labeled. The night his grandfather had driven to Westboro to bring him back to Connecticut had been the last time he had seen Delia or her children or the house he had loved. Sometimes, when he had let his guard down, he longed to go back, ached to see Delia and Nick—even the faces of Nick’s sisters would have been like balm to a burn wound. But over the years, it had seemed that the pain of his loss had become greater than the sum total of his memories, and so he had chosen simply to close the door.

The only thread to that time in his life that Ben permitted himself to hold on to was Delia’s books. Each new book, each photo on the cover, would bring back the day that Delia had first entered their lives, and just for a moment, before the memories began to throb, he would allow himself a fleeting look back.

Ben’s mother, Maureen, had been working as a private secretary for a wealthy horse breeder outside of West Chester, Pennsylvania, when her employer’s son decided he’d like to extend her private duties to include something more than dictation. Maureen had been waiting with the car packed and ready to go when Ben got home from school that day. Assuring him that his baseball glove and cards were safely tucked into the back of the old station wagon, Maureen had driven off toward parts unknown, looking for a new place to live and a new job,
with no references, no savings, nothing but an old car, a few dollars, a ten-year-old son who would have to go to school the next morning regardless of where they spent the night—and a sense of humor.