Flash Page 5

  Her mouth opened, but no words came forth. She closed it again. Briskly she removed her oxford-shod feet from the desk and sat up straight in her chair. She folded her hands in front of her. “I naturally assumed you’d want to be bought out.”

  “You assumed wrong. Naturally. Don’t worry about it. A lot of people make that mistake with me.”

  “But you can’t possibly be interested in running a company like Glow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because—” She unclasped her hands and spread them wide. “Because it’s not what you do. You’re a venture capitalist. You don’t run businesses, you arrange financing for them.”

  “I’ve been doing venture capital for over a decade. I’m bored with it. I’m selling my company, Sloan & Associates, to my vice-president. I’m ready for something different.”

  She stared at him. “You’re telling me you want to take an active role in running Glow?”

  “I’m telling you that I own controlling interest in Glow, and I will be calling the shots,” he said very patiently. “Is that clear enough for you?”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does to me.”

  She glared at him. “Venture capitalists are all gamblers at heart. You get your kicks from taking risks on wild-card investments.”

  “I’m ready for a change. On the plane trip back here to Seattle I had the opportunity to give the problem of Glow’s future a lot of serious thought.”

  She gave him a thin smile. “How nice for you.”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “The company is at a very vulnerable stage. It’s in a different position now than it was two years ago because of the R&D commitment. But it has not yet carved out a new, stable market niche.”

  “Glow is poised to do extremely well.”

  “One misstep during the next two years and the company will implode. If that happens, you and I won’t be sitting around discussing who’s going to be in charge. We’ll be hiring bankruptcy lawyers.”

  She stiffened. “Things aren’t that precarious. You’re trying to scare me into agreeing to give you full control.”

  “I’m not asking you for permission to take charge of Glow,” he said. “I’m telling you that I have already taken control of it.”

  “Glow has been a family-held business for nearly fifty years. You have no right to just walk in and take over.”

  “Correction. Glow was not a family-held business. It was owned by one man, Rollie Chantry. The fact that he employed most of his relatives at one time or another, is beside the point. None of them own any shares in the company.”

  “Correction,” she retorted smoothly. “I now own half of Glow.”

  “The last time I checked my calculator, forty-nine percent did not equal half of anything.”

  “Let’s get something straight here, Mr. Sloan—”

  “Good idea.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. He linked his fingers loosely together and watched her very steadily. “You’re a businesswoman, Ms. Chantry. Try to step back and look at the situation logically.”

  “Whose logic do you propose we use? Yours or mine?”

  He sighed. “Look, you know as well as I do that in order to take advantage of the recent expansion, Glow will need experienced management and guidance from a CEO who has a long-term vision for the company and a knowledge of the marketplace in which it must compete.”

  She gave him a politely skeptical look. “You?”

  “Me.”

  She hesitated, obviously searching for another tactic. Jasper knew the instant she found it because a glint appeared in her eyes.

  “There’s no reason that we can’t arrange to share the responsibilities of management,” she said crisply. “You might be very useful. After all, I am pretty busy with my responsibilities here at Light Fantastic …”

  “Forget it. I don’t believe in consensus management. Only one of us can be in charge of the day-today operation of the firm. You already have a full-time job running your own company.”

  “While you, on the other hand, are conveniently free to take over Glow,” she retorted.

  “Not only am I free to assume the task of leading Glow, I’m better qualified than you are to do it. I’ve had more than ten years’ experience overseeing technology companies as they moved through periods of growth and expansion.”

  “I’ve had a great deal of experience in business, myself.”

  “Is that a fact?” He raised his brows. “Let’s take a look at your qualifications for running Glow, Inc. I’ve done some checking. Your sole business experience appears to be limited to owning and operating Light Fantastic.”

  “So?”

  “So, your expertise is confined to running an event production company. Basically, Ms. Chantry, you put on very large parties.”

  Outrage had an interesting effect on the color of her eyes. They turned very green. He watched, intrigued, as she quickly regained her self-control.

  Very coolly she removed her glasses and set them on the desk. “There is a vast difference between putting on a party, as you term it, Mr. Sloan, and producing a major event for several hundred or several thousand people.”

  He gave her his best shot at an innocent expression. “Is there?”

  “The logistics of dealing with everything from city permits and health regulations to crowd control and public relations would challenge any CEO,” she said through her teeth. “To say nothing of coordinating vendors and suppliers. And then there is the artistic and design side of the business.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. But even if what you say is true, your background, extensive though it may be, is in a somewhat different field than my own. To put it bluntly, I’ve had a lot of direct experience with high-tech firms. You haven’t.”

  Her eyes were no longer cool. They were cold. “Let’s get to the bottom line here.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Uncle Rollie fully intended that Glow should descend down through the Chantry family. He left as large an interest in it as possible to me because he wanted me to take care of it for the sake of the present and future generations.”

  “I understand. Rollie was always very clear about his plans for Glow. I realize that he thought of it as a Chantry family asset.”

  “Exactly.” She brightened. “My uncle never intended that you would take over Glow. He planned to pay you back and get you out of the picture.”

  “That’s the funny thing about life, isn’t it? It often doesn’t turn out the way you plan it.” He sat back slowly. “I don’t want to argue about this.”

  “Really?” She shoved her glasses back on her nose and gave him another steely smile. “You seem to be doing a very good job of it.”

  “I realize your chief concern is that I will sell or merge Glow. I give you my word that I have no intention of doing either.”

  “Your word?” she repeated in a very neutral voice.

  “Yes. Ask around, Ms. Chantry. Anyone who has ever done business with me will tell you that my word is my bond.”

  She was silent for a long moment.

  “I don’t have a lot of options here, do I?” she asked eventually.

  He shrugged. “You could fight me every inch of the way, but I don’t advise it.”

  “Fight you?” She looked briefly interested.

  He smiled faintly. “If you take a strong, vocal stand against me, you could probably stir up some trouble at Glow, especially among your relatives and longtime employees. But if you force my hand in that way, I will probably end up firing the very people you’re supposed to protect.”

  She studied him with her assessing eyes. “You play hardball, Mr. Sloan.”

  “Only when I’m pushed into a corner.”

  “I’m the one in the corner.

  He did not dispute that. It was true. He was betting that she was a savvy enough businesswoman to realize that she had been outmaneuvered, at least for the moment. />
  She fixed him with a cool, warning look. “I want to be kept in the loop. I don’t care how small the issue, I want to know about it. I own forty-nine percent of Glow, and I have a right to know what is going on at all times.”

  Jasper recognized a tactical retreat when he saw one. He relaxed slightly. He had won.

  “As far as it’s practical to do so, I’ll keep you informed.”

  “I have a responsibility to the company.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” She held his gaze. “There were eight Chantrys in my parents’ generation. Uncle Rollie was the oldest. Seven of his brothers, sisters, and cousins, including my father, worked full-time for Glow for years. They have all retired on Glow pensions, and they depend on them.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Olivia did not pause. “At one time or another, nearly all of the kids in the family, including myself, had summer jobs at Glow.”

  “I see.”

  “Some of my cousins, Bolivar, for example, plan to work for Glow when they graduate from college. In addition, there are a great many people employed at Glow who have been there for many, many years. Loyal, hardworking people. I don’t want them hurt.”

  “I appreciate your concern. Like I said, I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ll consult with you whenever possible before I make major decisions that affect the future of Glow.”

  “How do I know you mean that?”

  He smiled. “Guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

  5

  The chess player considered the pieces on the board. A mistake had been made. A lack of sufficient information in advance had made it difficult to devise appropriate tactics.

  The opponent was proving to be unpredictable. But there was no reason that the original strategy would not work in the long run.

  The key was to stay focused.

  The game was about power. There had been so little of it in the early years, but now there was more than enough to do what must be done.

  6

  At eight o’clock that evening Olivia found her younger brother Todd at his desk in the back office of the Lancaster campaign headquarters. Lately, she could count on finding him there, she reflected. He lived and breathed the campaign.

  The Lancaster team operated out of a storefront located on Second Avenue in the trendy section of downtown Seattle familiarly known as Belltown.

  Through the glass window that separated Todd’s office from the main room Olivia could see the campaign volunteers gathered around their leader. Eleanor Lancaster was holding a staff meeting.

  “I hate to admit it,” Olivia said, “but we’re trapped. Sloan is in charge of Glow. At least for now.”

  Todd regarded her with serious green eyes made even more somber by his choice of eyewear, a pair of round, gold-framed glasses. “I don’t like the situation, Olivia.”

  “No one does. But we’ve got to play the hand we’ve been dealt.”

  The troubled look in Todd’s gaze deepened. He had always had a serious, idealistic bent, Olivia reflected, even as a child. He was an academic at heart. But underneath the studious, intellectual mien, there had been, until recently, a strong vein of humor that had nicely complemented the strength in his well-cut features.

  Unfortunately Todd had become depressingly more pedantic in the past few months. The change had started when he left his post in the political studies department of a local college to accept a position at the Allenby-Troy Institute.

  The institute was a small, prestigious, political policy think tank located on a pricey stretch of Lake Washington shoreline. Many of the papers it produced were published in influential magazines, journals, and newspapers around the country.

  No one admired Todd’s intellectual abilities and his professional accomplishments more than Olivia, but privately, she wished he’d stayed in academia. He might very well have developed this same tendency toward pomposity there, she thought, but at least he wouldn’t have fallen in love with a politician.

  Todd had been introduced to former state representative Eleanor Lancaster a few months ago when she had contacted the Allenby-Troy Institute. She had just resigned from her position in the state legislature to run for governor. She had sought the Institute’s professional assistance in crafting a coherent political platform that would appeal to the widest possible cross-section of voters.

  Todd had been one of the policy developers who had worked with her. They had hit it off immediately.

  Within days after she had kicked off her campaign, Eleanor had become the darling of the media.

  Olivia reminded herself that she should be grateful. After all, Light Fantastic had gotten the contract to produce the huge campaign kickoff event, and now it had one for the big summer fund-raiser.

  Nevertheless, she was still not quite sure how she felt about having a politician in the family, even one as dedicated, sincere, and hardworking as Eleanor Lancaster. She worried that Todd had been swept off his feet, not by true love, but by the potential of seeing his political theories put into action by a dynamic campaigner.

  “This afternoon I went on-line to get some information about Sloan,” Todd said.

  “And?”

  “There was surprisingly little. The man keeps a very low profile. But I found enough citations and references in the business news journals to tell me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To put it in a nutshell, you’re a little outclassed here.”

  “Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence,” Olivia muttered. “I can handle Jasper Sloan.”

  “There’s no point even pretending you could protect Glow if he decided to sell or merge the company.”

  “He gave me his word that he intends to keep Glow a closely held family firm.”

  “Damn it, fifty-one percent of it is now owned by someone who is not family.”

  Olivia flushed. “You know what I mean. Sloan said he wants to fulfill Uncle Rollie’s vision for Glow.”

  “You can’t rely on a thing he tells you. The man’s a venture capitalist. His every instinct is to go for the brass ring, the big payoff. You know as well as I do that the quickest way for him to turn a profit would be to sell or merge Glow.”

  “I offered to arrange to buy him out. He refused.”

  “Probably because he thinks he can get more if he fattens up the company and then sells it.”

  “He can only sell fifty-one percent of it,” Olivia reminded him. “Anyone who buys his shares would still have to deal with me.” She grinned. “That should be enough to discourage most prospective buyers.”

  Todd hesitated. Then the corner of his mouth twitched. He finally smiled reluctantly. “It would certainly make most smart people think twice.”

  “Thank you. I think. You know, I honestly don’t believe that Sloan wants to sell or merge.” Olivia recalled the look of unwavering determination she had seen in Jasper’s eyes. He was a man with a goal, and as far as she could tell, that goal was to make Glow work.

  She understood goal-directed behavior. She would not go so far as to say that she therefore understood Jasper Sloan, but she thought she had a handle on him. The two of them had a few things in common, she thought.

  “There’s another factor to take into consideration here,” she added slowly. “Glow was vitally important to Uncle Rollie. He wouldn’t have taken a risk with its future. He would not have done business with a man he did not trust.”

  Todd reflected briefly on that. “You’ve got a point.”

  A good one, Olivia assured herself. Her natural optimism kicked in as she warmed to her own logic. “Uncle Rollie was obsessive about acquiring information before he acted. He would have researched Jasper Sloan very thoroughly before he did a deal with him.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “If Rollie trusted him, it’s probably safe to say that we can trust him.”

  She broke off to help herself to a handful of chips from a bowl that sat on a nearby counte
r. She suddenly realized she was ravenous. She loved good food. Mealtimes however had been hit-and-miss lately. She enjoyed cooking, but she had not been able to spend any time in her own kitchen for days.

  She dunked the chips in the bowl of salsa, and put a large number of them into her mouth. Munching enthusiastically, she glanced through the window into the outer room. The campaign workers, mostly young and practically vibrating with eagerness, were still grouped around Eleanor.

  Outside, the street was still lit with the long light of the late evening summer sun. The sidewalk teemed with a mix that included the young and the restless, the terminally trendy, and others who, like Olivia, lived in the nearby condominiums and apartment buildings.

  Some of those ambling along the street were on their way to the tiny fringe theaters that filled many of the nooks and crannies of Belltown. Others were headed toward the taverns and restaurants that were scattered liberally in the vicinity. The rest were engaged in stylish loitering, their only aim to see and be seen. Green hair and nose rings gleamed in the late light.

  Sometime during the past three years downtown Seattle had come to feel like home, she thought. This was her neighborhood, and she thrived on its energy. She rarely even thought about the small, gloomy apartment she and Logan had shared for such a short time.

  “I hope you’re right about Sloan,” Todd said.

  “Don’t worry.” Olivia realized she was feeling more confident by the minute. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  Todd cocked a brow as he helped himself to the chips. “What good will that do?”

  She smiled. “I realize, dear brother, that Jasper Sloan looks like Godzilla in this partnership. But I’m not exactly Winnie the Pooh. If I don’t like the way he operates at Glow, I can make life a living hell for him.”

  “Hmm.” Todd grinned, looking slightly abashed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but that’s more or less what I told Eleanor.”

  Olivia frowned. “What’s Eleanor got to do with this?”

  Todd shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just that she knew that I was worried about what was going to happen at Glow. We talked. When I told her that if anyone in the family could handle Sloan, it would be you, she laughed and said I was right. Eleanor has a lot of respect for your flair for business.”