“I’m sorry for that. I really am.”
“Ethan, I don’t know how I can continue to work for the OC. Whether I go along with this charade or not, every accolade I’ve ever received is now in question, every bonus wondered at.”
“No one would ever doubt that you earned everything you got.”
“Oh, they would. They will. They’ll start wondering if I’m getting special treatment, the easy sells.”
Room service knocked on the door and Ethan went to answer it. A cart was wheeled in heaped with dishes. Two bowls of soup, two plates each of salad, steak, pasta, a bottle of wine, two bottles of beer, and chocolate cake.
Mackenzie shook her head, a smile hovering at the corners of her mouth, and Ethan grinned at her. “I didn’t know what you wanted. Except I was pretty sure about the cake.”
She grabbed a steak and salad and beer and he did likewise.
He pointed to their plates and said, “See how compatible we are?”
“Uh-huh. I can see it now, matchmaking services based on what you eat.”
“Or perhaps based on what you won’t eat. If you don’t like fish, you don’t want to wind up with a fish eater.”
Mackenzie snorted and shook her head. “And there goes romance. What if love is putting up with stinky fish?”
Ethan eyed her. “That’s love? I had no idea.”
“I’m just saying that love isn’t all good parts. Sometimes there will be things you just can’t stand but they don’t matter.”
He watched her with a small smile on his face. “You’re a romantic. I would never have guessed.”
“I’m not. I just think that if there’s love, stupid little stuff shouldn’t matter.”
“Nope, you’re a romantic. Can’t talk me out of it.”
She sighed, reaching for a slice of cake. It was thick and rich and chocolatey and she felt a little less hostile about getting herself engaged to Ethan O’Connor after eating it.
She said, “So what happens if I go along with your crazy idea and agree to be your fiancé? Pretend that all the little things you do that drive me crazy don’t matter? Just how are you planning on making me come out on top after all of this?”
“First of all, there aren’t that many things with me. Don’t you know I’m Mr. Charming?”
“Uh-huh,” she said again and he grinned.
“And second of all, I’ll give you a share of O’Connor Capital.”
She sucked in a long breath, gauging his sincerity. He looked at her, no smile on his face, no twinkle in his eye. She opened her mouth to say something, say anything, and nothing came out.
He said, “It means that much to me.”
Mackenzie cleared her throat. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I’ll give you a three percent share. That’s worth about $100,000 per year, which is comparable to your base salary, but you’ll be the only outside owner. That’s how you’ll wind up winning.”
Mackenzie sat back in her seat. “Can you even give a portion away?”
He smiled slightly. “I need a majority approval. Mother, Grandma, and I all own equal shares, so I need one of them to agree to let me give you the shares. Luckily, my grandma likes you.”
“This much? And what happens when this ends? She still going to want me owning even a little part then?”
“You’ve worked for O’Connor Capital for seven years. You know sales, you know the business. I have no worries about bringing you on board as a minority owner. She knows this engagement won’t last and still thinks it a fine idea.”
A laugh escaped her lips. “Do I even want to know how your mother took it?”
He took a bite. “I didn’t tell her. I only need one of them to go along with it.”
She shuddered. “I don’t want to be there when she finds out. You’re crazy for even thinking of giving me a share.”
“I need a break, Mackenzie. A break from women, from drama, from the stupid tabloids. I need a break from Mr. Charming. I feel as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and one more rumble from any direction and I’m going right over.”
He sat back, looking at her. “I know I can trust you. I don’t need to worry about hurting you because you’ve never believed anything I’ve said. I can be myself around you.”
“That’s not worth three percent of your company.”
He closed his eyes and said softly, “I can’t see one more woman look at me like I’m the answer to all her prayers when I know I’m not. When I know in just a few short months I will be one more hurt. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially anyone I care about. I can’t seem to stop, though.” He opened his eyes. “I need a buffer. I need you to be my buffer.”
She stared at him, trying not to feel sorry for him.
He said, “And I know that you will only play for my team when I pay you. When this engagement ends, we’ll let it leak that I gave you a share of my company. And everyone will say how smart you were to get a chunk out of me at the beginning instead of standing there empty-handed at the end.”
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. She hadn’t quite realized
how
desperate he was. He was willing to give her a share of his company? She wasn’t going to be able to stand against him if that was any indication of what he was willing to pay. Funny that he would dangle a piece of his company in front of her though because she didn’t want that.
“I don’t want three percent of your company.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going any higher. It’s my best offer.”
“I’m not negotiating here. I don’t want
any
part of your company.”
He blinked. “Why not?”
“You can’t give away part of your company for a favor. You can’t. It’s not worth that much. I can’t believe your grandmother would even go along with this.”
“She wants it to turn out real.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “Because I almost beat you at softball?”
“I think because you threatened me. She can’t stand women who throw themselves at me, who fall for the O’Connor charm.”
“I can’t be the only woman who can keep my wits around you.”
“It’s a short list.”
She pointed to the growing stack of tabloids piled haphazardly on the end of the couch. “Getting longer everyday.”
He laughed. “I can only hope. I’ll need a few more women than just you to choose from if I ever want to find the woman who can see past the money. And the looks.”
“And the bullshit.”
He saluted her with his beer bottle and nodded. “O’Connors marry forever. If I’m going to give my wife half my shares when I get married, I’d better be damn sure of who I’m marrying. And she’d better damn sure be able to see
me
.”
Mackenzie choked. “Half your shares?”
“It’s tradition. When my grandfather married my grandmother, he gave her half of his shares. When my father married my mother, he gave her half of his shares. When I get married, I’ll give her half of my shares.”
She shook her head. “You O’Connors are crazy. No wonder you dump your girlfriends as soon as they start thinking marriage.”
“Maybe love isn’t putting up with stinky fish. Maybe it’s giving half of everything you’ve ever worked for, everything you will ever work for.”
“That’s not love, that’s stupid.”
He looked into his beer bottle and said with a sigh, “It’s being certain of who you’re marrying.”
“And if you never find the woman who is worth half your fortune?”
“I will. She’s out there.”
She couldn’t decide if she thought him incredibly sweet or the dumbest person alive. “Now who’s a hopeless romantic?”
He smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe a hope
ful
romantic.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, I’m not going to take one and a half percent from your future wife. I won’t take any shares from you. You’ll have to think of something else to get me to play for you.”
He stared into her eyes, then smiled. “Oh, Mackenzie. I can even trust you not to take advantage of my desperation? You’ll never get me to change my mind now.”
She saw that it was true. She should’ve negotiated for half his company, half his life’s blood. Now she’d never shake him loose.
He leaned back in his chair. “How about this? Take a little break from work and come be my fiancé. I will continue to pay your average salary for the last year, including bonuses, out of my own pocket. Then after a few months, when all this blows over, you can go back to work.”
“And you think I can go play fiancé for a few months, break up with you, and then go back to work for your company like nothing happened? That my clients would even still be there waiting for me?”
He was silent, knowing she was right but refusing to agree with her.
She said, “I can’t work for you now or after. I can’t go work for a competitor engaged to you, no one would hire me. They would be afraid I would spill all their secrets to you.”
“There’s more to life than working. Take a vacation.”
She laughed at him. “There’s more to life than working? That really just came out of your mouth?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of girlfriends to prove I am not a workaholic. How about you? Lots of boyfriends to prove there’s more in your life than work?” He froze. “Is there a boyfriend right now?”
Mackenzie mentally kicked herself. Now that would have been an excellent reason she couldn’t go along with his outrageous proposal.
“Yes, I have a boyfriend. He was understandably upset when he heard I was engaged.”
“Liar. You would have brought him up before this.” He leaned forward, taking her hand. “Come with me to New York. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. We’ll work something out, just come with me.”
She knew she would. She’d go with him to New York, disrupt her whole life, and come back to nothing when it was all over. But it had to be worth it to her.
“I will do this on one condition. I will take my accrued vacation time while we live out this little fantasy of yours. And at the end of it I get a nice severance package. Nice enough that I don’t need to find another job until everyone forgets that I was ever engaged to you.”
“You won’t have to leave the company. I’ll simply stay away from the L.A. office for a while.”
“I will
have
to leave. I will be your ex, Ethan. You said it yourself, your breakups are always ugly. There’s no way I could continue working for you. Are you willing to give up your best salesman for this?”
He looked her in the eye and said, “Yes,” but she knew he didn’t believe he’d have to pay the price.
She shook her head. “Let’s write a pre-nup.”
“Huh?”
“A pre-nup. I’m sure you’ve heard the term.”
“You know I don’t actually want to marry you, right?”
She went to the desk, searching for paper. “It’s an engagement pre-nup. I have about six weeks of vacation time. At the end of the six weeks, we break up and I quit. And that will be the end. I will move to a competitor, probably HGC, and you will go out and get another girlfriend, thereby starting the whole cycle over again and accomplishing nothing except losing all my sales.”
He slouched in his chair, folding his arms. “Not HGC. Anybody but them.”
She smiled. “Oh, I think it will have to be HGC. I can just imagine how much Bob Givens would love to hire Ethan O’Connor’s ex-fiancé.”
“He’s a putz. You’d hate working for him.”
“Probably. But I doubt I’ll see him as much as I’ve seen you. And besides, my severance package will be good enough that I won’t have to for a while.”
She spied his laptop and waved towards it. “May I?”
He nodded, following her as she went to flip it up, and leaning over her shoulder to see what she was doing.
“You’re willing to give me a three percent share for doing this.” She looked at him. “Which is stupid, and you’re not stupid.”
“Desperation sometimes leads to the same destination.”
She turned back to the computer. “Let’s be conservative and say the OC will grow at one percent a year and I will live another fifty years.”
“You know I really hate it when you call it the OC.”
“I know.”
“And one percent per year? That’s not conservative, that’s insulting. Let’s say ten percent.”
“For fifty years?” She twirled the chair around, forcing him to step back. “I didn’t realize you indulged in fantasy.”
He leaned back in, resting his hands on the armrests. “Frequently.”
She whirled back towards the desk and he hopped back before he fell flat on his face. “Mean, Wyatt.”
“Stop breathing in my ear, O’Connor.”
She didn’t even have to look at him to know he was smiling. He would like knowing he was getting to her.
She said, “And just for that I’ll say growth will be three percent. Ten percent is in your dreams.”
“And what discount rate are you using?”
“Fifteen.”
He barked out a laugh. “Fifteen percent interest for fifty years? Now who’s indulging in fantasy.”
“I’ve done it for the last ten.”
He put his mouth next to her ear and murmured, “Have you? Perhaps I hired you for the wrong position, after all. But let’s be a little more realistic and say ten.”
“If you’re not going to beat the market, what’s the point?”
“Let’s just see what you come up with.”
She worked on the spreadsheet for a few minutes, then sat back and they looked at the number together. Her heart started beating very fast.
“Well,” he said. “You should have been an accountant.”
“Looks to me like I can be anything I want now.” She swallowed. “Is it worth that much to you?”
She couldn’t decide if she wanted him to say yes or no. Talk about a mutually beneficial agreement. She just might throw in a kid or two for that.
And still, she knew, it wasn’t anywhere near half his fortune.
Ethan said, “If you really can get ten percent per year, I can just give you an even million. You won’t have to go work for HGC, at least.”
She wouldn’t have to work for anyone ever again. She could sell her house, move somewhere cheaper than L.A., and live pretty well.
He breathed in her ear. “You could just take a share of the company. It would practically be the same.”
Except she’d never be rid of him. “I don’t know why you keep trying to give away part of your company. Stop it.”
“I think my mother would like you if she could hear you protecting my interests.”