She clenched the earpiece and leaned against the wall in silent exaltation. The news was not unexpected but still amazing. Who could have imagined that the crude, ill-mannered man she met a few months ago was primed to be appointed to the board of directors for the largest company in the world?
“Good luck, Liam,” she said, proud beyond belief of her older brother.
Her gaze strayed to the painting of Hansel and Gretel as they wandered out of the dark and dangerous wood. Gwen had her brother back. He was on his way to becoming a man who would fulfill their father’s wishes to protect the longevity of Blackstone College.
It would probably be an ugly battle at Uncle Oscar’s house, but Gwen had no desire to attend. Her home was at the college, and she would trust Patrick to help Liam through the labyrinth ahead.
Patrick walked alongside Liam as they approached Oscar’s Fifth Avenue home. It was three houses down from Frederick’s mansion and even more grand.
“Do you really think this is going to work?” Liam asked as he adjusted the starched collar on one of his new, custom-tailored suits. Gwen had been right about the suit. Liam looked like any other sharply dressed man of the city. Patrick’s best suit looked like a potato sack in comparison, but their clothes didn’t matter today. All that mattered was the set of legal documents Patrick had been working on for the past two weeks.
“You’ve got all the cards in your hand,” he said as they mounted the flight of marble steps. “Appointing you to the board of directors is a huge concession, but Oscar knows you have the unions in your back pocket. We won’t settle for anything less.”
Patrick’s biggest fear about the meeting was Liam himself. Dealing with him was like trying to tame a whirlwind because Liam still couldn’t control his impulses.
Patrick stopped directly in front of Liam and looked him in the eye. “Don’t you dare go off on a tangent. Stick to the script.”
“I’ll follow your lead,” Liam assured him, but Patrick still worried.
A butler answered the door and led them through several corridors lined with gilt-framed paintings and Roman busts on pedestals before they arrived in Oscar’s private office.
Oscar stood as they entered. Unlike the rest of the showpiece mansion, this was a working office filled with dark wood paneling and practical equipment like a telephone, file cabinets, and reference manuals. A separate table held a ticker-tape machine that tracked movement on the New York Stock Exchange.
Patrick reached across Oscar’s desk to shake his hand. “I trust Poppy and the little one are doing well?”
“Alexander is thriving,” Oscar said with pride. “He arrived in the world three weeks early, but the doctor reports he is as strong as any full-term child.”
They got down to business, and Patrick laid out their plans as concisely as possible. “Your father has had a change of heart about the creation of U.S. Steel. He fears sinking too much of the bank’s capital into a single entity and intends to vote against it.”
Oscar’s lips thinned. “My father may vote his thirty-percent share however he chooses, but he can’t scuttle the deal.”
Patrick kept up the pressure. “If Liam uses his ten percent to vote against the merger, it will be a black eye for the bank. A vote that close is guaranteed to fire up the labor unions.”
Oscar leaned back in his chair, his eyes hard. “You still don’t have a majority, and you don’t want to make an enemy of me.”
“That’s right, I don’t,” Liam agreed. “But I want a little something for my ten-percent vote.”
Oscar raised a single brow. “Proceed.”
“I want a seat on the board of directors of the new company. I know the steel business from the ground up, and I can make the mills a better place for every man toiling on the line.”
Patrick watched Oscar carefully while Liam spoke. A hint of a smile hovered on Oscar’s face.
“I could be persuaded,” Oscar said. “But it would come at a cost. My father has the power to award you that ten-percent share in perpetuity, but you aren’t ready to take them over. Not yet, and maybe not ever. If you sign a legally binding agreement to surrender those votes back to me, I’ll see that you have a seat on the board of U.S. Steel.”
Patrick and Liam had already discussed this. It was exactly what they expected of Oscar, and they were prepared to settle for it. Liam didn’t have the perspective to understand other aspects of the bank’s business, and all he truly wanted was control in the new steel company. All Patrick wanted was to save Gwen’s college. The college cost the bank three million dollars a year. U.S. Steel would make that much in a day.
Patrick met Oscar’s gaze across the desk and laid down his terms. “We want Liam on the board of directors and a clause guaranteeing the annual funding of Blackstone College in perpetuity. If you give us those two things, Liam will surrender his shares back to you.”
“We have a deal,” Oscar said, standing to extend his hand.
Patrick grinned and shook Oscar’s hand. This was exactly what they had hoped. Oscar had probably known what they would be asking, because he had given in too easily for this to be a surprise.
Patrick was ready to proceed to signing on the deal when Liam threw a wrench into the works.
“There’s one more thing I want,” Liam said.
A stone landed in the pit of Patrick’s belly. Why, why, why couldn’t Liam ever control himself? All Patrick’s senses went on alert, and he shot a warning glare at Liam, praying he wasn’t going to ruin this entire deal with an irrational demand.
Oscar looked just as guarded. “Well?” he asked, a hint of menace in that single word.
“I want the Black Rose.”
Oscar stiffened. “Out of the question.”
“Gwen said it belonged to my father and that she inherited it from him,” Liam said. “She gave it to you for nothing. I want it back.”
Oscar didn’t budge. “That yacht is important to me. I take my family out every weekend. I intend to do the same with my son as he comes of age.”
“Don’t ask me to cry over your poor deprived kids,” Liam said. “I had a miserable childhood without any doting fathers or weekend yacht rides. Crocket Malone pounded me into a man with his fists. I grew up in a freezing cold tenement because he was too cheap to buy coal, and when most kids were in school, I sweltered in a steel mill tending the furnaces. I only have one happy memory from my childhood.” He leaned forward in his chair as he locked eyes with Oscar. “I remember being on a boat with my real father. I remember facing into the wind and laughing with him as we threw crusts of bread up to the sea gulls wheeling above us. That boat was the Black Rose, and I want it back.”
Uncomfortable seconds ticked by, and Oscar narrowed his eyes in a glare. “I think you’re bluffing.”
“Try me,” Liam said. “If the U.S. Steel deal flies without opposition, you will be rich beyond all imagination. You can buy another yacht, but there’s only one Black Rose. I can’t get my childhood or my father back, but I can get the Black Rose back.”
The challenge hung in the air, and Patrick wanted to strangle Liam. This was precisely the sort of tangent he’d warned Liam against because it endangered the real prize, but the gamble paid off. Oscar caved, and Liam signed over his ten percent of the vote in exchange for a seat on the board of directors for U.S. Steel. The agreement would make Liam one of the most powerful men in the steel industry.