DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN Page 9

  Herb watched as Daniel unbuttoned his tailored-to-perfection suit coat and took a seat. But although Herb was watching Daniel, he was inwardly calculating a response. How, he wondered, should he handle this unexpected visit? Herb was a tall, wiry man who fancied himself a politician in the making. He was a brownnoser, a backslapper, a glad-hander. He was whatever he needed to be to keep his name in superior standing in the public eye until he decided what political direction he wanted to take. Daniel, as second in command at Dreeson, was always near the top of his need-to-please list of movers and shakers in the community.

  And he already knew why Daniel had come. But he couldn’t back down. Nikki Graham was besmirching his good name, and he couldn’t allow that.

  “So how have you been?” he asked Daniel as he sat in the chair beside him.

  “I’ve been good,” Daniel said, crossing his leg. “Just got back in town yesterday.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where from?”

  “Florida.”

  “Now that’s where I need to be. Florida. The sunshine state. This joint pain sometimes can be hell on earth. That warm weather in Florida is probably just what I need. But who has the time these days?”

  “You’d better take the time. Health is hard to regain once you lose it.”

  “You speak the truth, my friend,” Herb said. “But you always have been a wise man. That’s why I’d been meaning to call you.” This was Herb’s detour into distraction. This was his chance to get his pins in Daniel, and thereby any future political support, by getting one of his in-laws in there first. Besides, Herb was among those in town who believed a young girl like Nikki Graham wasn’t good for Daniel. He believed that if Daniel could just find that one right woman, he’d dump that child like a bad habit. And Herb knew just that right woman.

  “I wanted to call you,” he continued, “because there’s this very nice lady I want you to meet.”

  Daniel looked at Herb. They went way back, back in the days when they both served on the board at Alcoa. But Daniel was offended. They’d never been close to such an extent where Herb should have felt comfortable setting up dates for him.

  Herb, seeing his resistance already, addressed it. “Before you turn me down, just hear me out, okay? I’m not trying to interfere. It’s just that the lady in question is my sister-in-law. My wife’s sister. She’s newly divorced and readily available. And when I say she’s a looker? She’s a looker, Daniel, of the highest order. You should see her. Tall, blonde, nicely stacked.”

  “I’m not interested, Herb, but thanks.”

  “At least come to the house for dinner one night, and see for yourself.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “But she’s a ten, Daniel, and she’s readily available.”

  “But I’m not available, readily or otherwise,” Daniel said firmly and looked Herb dead in the eyes. “End of discussion.”

  Any other man spoke to Herb Poindexter that way and they’d be out of a job, or worse. But this wasn’t any other man. This was Daniel Crane, a man Herb knew wielded just enough power in town to be dangerous. He therefore smiled. “Okay, Danny, okay,” he said. “Enough of my matchmaking. You’ll be sorry you didn’t hear me out, but enough of that. I know you didn’t come all this way for that. I know your schedule is as busy as mine.”

  Busier, Daniel thought. This little detour already had his staff forced to reconfigure his entire schedule for today. “I came,” Daniel said, “because of what happened with Nikki yesterday.”

  Herb expected as much, although why the man even bothered still amazed him. But Herb knew he had to play this exactly right. He couldn’t afford to alienate Crane. “Yeah, it was a terrible thing,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the level of disrespect she showed our mayor.”

  “You fired her.”

  “Fired her?” Herb said. “I haven’t fired her. Not completely anyway. All she has to do is apologize to the mayor, and that’ll be the end of that. She’ll be right back at work and nobody will so much as bring back up that sordid episode.”

  “No apology,” Daniel said.

  “Look, I know you stand by your lady. But did you see that press conference?”

  Daniel leaned back in the chair and gently rubbed the top of his hair. “I didn’t see it, no.”

  “You should see it, then maybe you’d think twice about going all out for her.”

  Daniel said nothing. He knew her confrontation with the mayor was bad. Herb would not have fired her if it wasn’t. But he also knew that Herb, like some of his other so-called friends, believed that Daniel could do far better than a woman like Nikki. She was too young, they pointed out. Too inexperienced. Too something, they would comment although they’d never verbalize to his face just what that something was.

  To them he deserved what they had: either some air-headed beauty queen who stayed at home and produced boatloads of babies, or some female power player who fed their egos by producing boatloads of cash. Nikki, they felt, was just a gold-digging kid whose smarts and good looks managed to wrangle herself the golden catch. Daniel set them straight from the beginning, even to the point of telling a few that they could kiss his ass if they didn’t like his choice in mate, and those who remained in his circle of friends did indeed cut it out. But Herb was never in his circle of friends to begin with.

  “All right I get it,” Herb finally said when Daniel’s silent treatment forced him to give it up. “You’re standing by her. You’ve made that abundantly clear. But she was awful. I’m sorry, but she was. She got into a shouting match with Todd Bainbridge. With the mayor, Daniel. I could not believe my eyes. That’s just not done and she should know that. She represents my paper when she attend those pressers. She’s not representing herself. Hell, she represents you wherever she goes! And for her to be behaving like that? In my opinion she’s a young hothead who can’t be tamed!”

  “Since I have no intentions of taming her,” Daniel said, “that’s not an issue for me. She’s a fine reporter. Your best reporter, Herb, and you know it. And the fact that you would release her, when all she was doing was calling Todd out on his bullshit, upsets me mightily.”

  “But Danny, come on. She was out of line. All her black behind had to ---”

  Herb realized he had misspoke. He looked at Daniel. Daniel was staring at him.

  “She’s my lady,” Daniel said to him. “Whether you or anybody else chose to accept that fact is your business. But she’s my lady.”

  “Listen, Danny, I fully understand---”

  “When you disrespect her, you disrespect me.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just saying. . .” When it was clear that Daniel wasn’t going along with his nonsense, he exhaled. And accepted. “Okay, okay,” he said. “She can come back. All she has to do is apologize and we can---”

  “No apology,” Daniel said bluntly. “That’s off the table.”

  “Now, come on! It’s not as if I’m making an unreasonable request! The mayor’s office has been very good to my newspaper. We get our best leaked stories out of Todd’s office. I can’t lose that kind of access.”

  “She questioned the mayor’s policies, Herb. It wasn’t personal. She did her job. I will not have her apologizing to him or you or anybody else for doing what she was supposed to do.”

  Daniel knew he was coming on strong, but he was never ambivalent when it came to Nikki. Herb knew it. He knew it when Nikki graduated college, and Herb approached him about hiring her to work at the Gazette. Daniel knew it was Herb’s way of attempting to get Daniel in his pocket, so he made himself plain even then. He told Herb to hire her only if he felt she would be an asset to his paper. If not, don’t hire her, Daniel had said. But Daniel also made it clear that if he did hire her, he had better be fair to her. “If she doesn’t make the grade,” Daniel had said at the time, “don’t let our relationship stop you from getting rid of her. But be fair about it. That’s all I’m asking. If you hire her, you treat her right.”

&n
bsp; Now Herb was being accused of not treating her right, and Daniel could tell he didn’t like it.

  “All right,” Herb finally said. “She won’t have to apologize. But tell her to take it easy in the future, will you? Too many more displays like that and she won’t give me a choice.”

  Daniel sighed and nodded his head. “That’s fair,” he said as he stood. “And thank you.”

  “I’m glad to do it for you, you know I am,” Herb said, slapping Daniel on the back. “Because you’re my friend and I appreciate our friendship. But goodness gracious, man. How do you put up with her?” He said it with a chuckle, to lessen the sting, but it didn’t work with Daniel. “She’s too much lady for me,” Herb added.

  Daniel held his tongue. Getting Nikki back on a job she loved was the goal here. He held his tongue.

  “But while I have you in front of me,” Herb went on, “the weather’s supposed to be unseasonably decent Saturday. At least that’s the forecast now. How about we meet over at the club and see if we can get in a few rounds of golf? I want to talk to you about getting Dreeson to contribute to this foundation my wife is starting.”

  Daniel knew the drill. Since Herb just washed his back, it was his time to wash Herb’s. It was a brutal business.

  “Sounds good,” Daniel lied. “Check back with me later in the week.”

  “Great, Danny, thanks,” Herb said, they shook, and Daniel was gone.

  But as soon as he arrived back at Dreeson, ready to begin his day with no more detours, he also had to deal with his boss. Wayne Murdock, the company’s president and CEO, summoned him to his office less than three hours after he returned from Herb’s. He wanted answers, he said, about the chairman of the board.

  “What about the chairman?” Daniel asked as he stood in front of the old man’s desk.

  “What’s he up to?”

  Daniel just stood there. Murdock was sixty-three years old, with milky blue eyes and snow-white hair, a man brilliant in business but eccentric as hell. Daniel was second in command behind Murdock, and many of their senior executives often ran to him when Murdock and his ways were just too crazy for them to abide. But Daniel never went to the board. Murdock was no prize, but he had given Dreeson forty years of his life. That should account for something, he felt.

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Wayne,” he said.

  “The chairman, Daniel. The chairman! You know. What’s he up to?”

  “I have no idea what he’s up to.”

  Murdock looked at Daniel. Daniel was a muscular, strapping, almost unusually handsome man, with that smooth tanned skin, those large hazel eyes, and hair, not like the wild styles of the day, but neat and soft and trimmed low. He was a thirty-nine-year-old dynamo who Murdock knew was going places. He was, in Murdock’s eyes, the best they had. But Murdock also knew that he was loyal to him, and that very loyalty could be his undoing.

  “You don’t know, do you?” he asked him.

  “Don’t know what?”

  “They’re keeping you in the dark too, I see. Never a good sign. Never! That’s why you keep your enemies closer. Your friends close, but your enemies closer. But thanks for coming by anyway, Danny. Have a nice day.”

  And that was that. A one minute meeting about absolutely nothing. And absolutely everything.

  Once back in his office, after signing off on emergency press releases that couldn’t wait, he got to work on an enormous stack of files waiting his review. By the time Phillip Grayson phoned and asked for an audience with him, he was preparing for an upcoming meeting. But Phillip was his eyes and ears around Dreeson, the man who kept him in the loop. Oftentimes in corporations the size of Dreeson’s , the top two players, Murdock and Daniel, were often the last two to know.

  Phillip entered Daniel’s massive office with a stride that bespoke arrogance more than confidence. He was in his late twenties, with short, slick blond hair, small, blue eyes, and narrow, almost nonexistent lips. He was a well-connected staunch Daniel supporter who saw all and heard all and hoped that someday his hard work would pay off with the ascension of Daniel Crane into the CEO’s chair, and Phillip Grayson into Daniel’s chair.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” Phillip said eagerly.

  “What’s up?” Daniel replied without looking up. Daniel didn’t just have one meeting to attend, but a series of meetings to attend, and he was still reviewing notes. The few minutes Phillip requested was about all the time he had to give.

  Phillip helped himself to a seat in front of Daniel’s desk and sat on the edge of that seat, with his hands between his knees. And he got down to it. “You came to Dreeson, what? Ten years ago, right?”

  “Six, but go on.”

  “When the chairman brought you on board as second in command, there were rumors even then.”

  Daniel smiled. This kid, he thought. “There always are, Phillip,” he said. “That’s the nature of our business.”

  “Sure you’re right. But these particular rumors wouldn’t go away. It was assumed that Wayne Murdock, longtime CEO though he may be, was on the way out.”

  “And?”

  “And you were on the way in. That’s why you were brought here. To replace Murdock. Those were the rumors anyway. And according to my sources, those rumors are true.”

  If Phillip was expecting some rise out of Daniel, he was disappointed. “I’ve been hearing about Murdock’s dumping since I got here,” Daniel said. “It’s just good old-fashioned water cooler gossip, and nothing more.”

  “No, sir. This is different. They’re prepared now to ask for Murdock’s resignation. No more talk about it. They’ve got a timeline.”

  Now he had Daniel’s attention. Daniel looked up, and leaned back in his chair. “Do they?” he asked.

  Phillip smiled. “They do. And they want him out soon. Very soon. Murdock will claim he wants to spend more time with his family, and it’ll all be sold as if it was his idea to begin with. But this is the real deal this time.”

  Daniel thought about Wayne Murdock and he couldn’t help but empathize with the man. Murdock had worked his way up that corporate ladder and given Dreeson forty years of his life. Forty long years. And how does it end? With rumors and gossip and everybody knowing more about his fate than he probably did. But that was the name of the corporate game. Do it to them before they do it to you. He’s old and used up now, so let’s get rid of him. It was a game Daniel hated. Because it was a boomerang. Because just as surely as it was Murdock’s day, his day was coming too.

  “The search is on for a successor,” Phillip continued, so excited about the misfortunes of a fellow human being that it sickened Daniel, “and from what I hear the search is already over.”

  Daniel didn’t say anything. He did as he normally did when news came too quickly. He listened.

  “My sources tell me that you, not anybody else, but you are the heir-apparent.”

  Daniel still did not respond.

  “Say something, man, come on. I’m telling you what I know.”

  “I don’t think so, Phillip.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I may be on their short list, but I doubt seriously if I’ll make the final cut.”

  Phillip nearly jumped out of his seat. “Are you kidding me? I’m telling you CEO is yours to lose! You’re the best man in this entire organization! You’ve been practically running the place anyway, and everybody knows it. They’ll be merely going through the motions with other names. It’ll just be for show. Trust me on this!”

  Phillip had a way about him, an almost death-defying way, of drawing others into his web of excitement. Daniel could feel it coming on too. He could feel that surge of energy that excitement required, where the impossible was suddenly possible. But there were still too many unanswered questions. Still too many variables for Daniel. “How many others are in contention?” he asked Phillip.

  “Just window dressing.”

  “How many?”

  “I’m telling you the
y don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell---”

  “I asked you a question.”

  Phillip looked at Daniel and wondered why he even bothered. Daniel never treated him as an equal, not even when he was bending over backwards to sing his praises every chance he could. You would think the man would show him the highest respect. But he didn’t. Sometimes Phillip felt as if Daniel Crane didn’t respect him at all.

  “Two other men are in the running,” Phillip said. “Both are outsiders, long resumes, little personality, window dressing like I said. The position of CEO, I’m telling you, is yours for the taking.”

  Daniel, however, wasn’t ready to dunk that ball. Yes, it was promising news to be sure. He figured he would be on a short list of maybe eight, ten names if it came to that. But one of three? It was some damn good news if it was true.

  But Phillip could assure him until he was blue in the face, could tell him a zillion times that the victory was in the bag, that the position was his for the taking. But Daniel wasn’t about to spike that ball just yet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nikki’s firing was rescinded that same day. Herb Poindexter personally phoned and told her to return to work immediately. He admonished her for being disrespectful to the mayor, but he didn’t order her to apologize, which would have been the deal breaker for Nikki.

  She was so elated that as soon as she hung up the phone with the publisher, she picked it back up and phoned Daniel. But he was tied up and would have to phone her back. A response that didn’t surprise her at all.

  But she was beyond surprised when she arrived at the Wakefield Gazette newsroom an hour later, and walked into the editor’s office to see if she had an assignment. But Joe Paulson, she was quickly told, was no longer there.