Offerings Read Free Page B

them. Kate started both fixing and tucking in Mack’s shirt. He’d just brushed his teeth. His breath smelled of mint.
    Kate lingered for a moment and then told Mack to look in her bag. Chris Franklin had given her two of Majik’s games. “Let me know how you like them this weekend and we’ll send him a thank you note.” She smoothed Mack’s hair, kissed him on both cheeks, and gave him a strong squeeze. He wriggled out of her arms. Kate thought he looked tired, but at least his eyes had gotten a bit of their sparkle back.
    She walked to where Peter was standing in front of the stove. They kissed on the lips, but just barely. He tasted of grapefruit juice.
    “Anything to report on the white knight front?” she asked. The expression on Peter’s face suggested she didn’t want to hear his answer. “I’m so sorry this trip took me away just when you needed me. I’m here now, though, for the next two days. I’m yours.”
    Peter took a step away. “It’s been hell, Kate. Just hell. Every waking minute I’m either trying to convince some employee or customer not to bolt or begging for some private equity fund to take a look at me. The only thing I’ve got going for me at the moment is that none of my competitors are hiring or have any capacity, so I haven’t fallen through the ice just yet.”
    “Want me to do some modeling?”
    “I don’t know what good that will do. The perception that Ascalon is about to shutter its doors has overtaken the reality of what we still have to offer.”
    “I’ll model lingerie if it will at least put a smile on your face.” Kate laughed. She took a step toward Peter but then stopped when his expression didn’t change a bit.
    “I didn’t think things could have gotten worse, but of course they did. Let me show you something,” Peter said. He walked across the kitchen to the nook where they kept the phone and a Gien bowl they used as their message board. It was the bottom of a soup tureen, actually, that Kate and Peter had found in St. Remy the year before Sarah was born. The lid was so badly chipped they paid only a few Euros, but Kate loved the way the vines of Algerian Ivy wrapped their way through pink and yellow camellias and the hummingbirds having their way with them. For years, they’d used the bowl to hold the mail and notes to each other as they rushed past each other on their way up their corporate ladders. At one time they put in small bits of endearment, little notes with nothing but a scribbled heart, but that was so long ago.
    Peter put both hands on the marble countertop. He seemed to be searching for the right words. Kate was reluctant to prod him.
    “The blood in the water attracted the sharks, as it always does. There are rumors floating around that you torpedoed a deal with Jack Carpenter last fall that valued Ascalon at over four hundred million dollars because you were talking to Ed Roth and wanted to take the deal to Drake so it could earn the commission.” He sounded more resigned to the legal theatrics on the horizon than accusatory.
    “That’s absurd.”
    “We’ve learned in the past three days, Kate, that absurd carries the day. The two of us have lost over twenty million on paper since Tuesday and that’s without this self-dealing coming out.”
    “Self-dealing?” Kate froze.
    “Our shareholders were given a death sentence this week. Even if we don’t end up selling to the Chinese, they’re not going to get more than a buck or two a share. They’re going to look for somebody to blame for the money they lost. That means they’re looking for a way to sue you and Greene and Drake. And of course then they’ll say I was in on it with you to drag me into the mess.”
    “Who told you this?”
    Peter took Andrew Butler’s business card out of the bowl. He held it in Kate’s direction. After Greene Houseman took Ascalon public it put Andrew on the board to watch its investment. It could hardly put Kate in that spot while she was