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“You come into my store, the store my family has owned for nearly eighty years, after having bought it out from under me, while I’m at work in my own office, andoffer me a seat?”
“I just meant—” he began, but I was on a roll. Whatever short circuit had happened earlier, and I was past it now.
“No, I know what you meant,” I said. “You think you can just walk in here and start ordering people around, including me, because you sweet-talked the board into selling you the shares that were supposed to go to me. You ripped this company out of the hands of the family that it belongs to, and you just think you can tell me to shut up and sit down and learn how ‘it’s all just business’ and ‘clearly, I don’t understand how these things work.’ Well, let me tellyousomething, Mr. McLaren. I have absolutely no intention of just lying down and taking this.”
There was a moment of silence as I breathed deeply, my eyes bulging with fury as he sat there stone-faced, letting me talk. I realized that he was altogether too calm. It somehow made me even angrier.
“Miss Brewer,” he said calmly, “may I have a moment to speak?”
“Sure,” I said, throwing myself into the chair. “Let me hear it.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking a seat across from me in the tiny office.
He had a folder in his hands, and he opened it up, flipping through a couple of pages before settling on one and looking back up at me brightly, as if I hadn’t just unloaded venom on him. It was unnerving in a professional sort of way, like he was just so used to people being upset that it wasn’t worthy of a bigger response than to wait for his turn to speak.
“Now, according to the documents I was sent, the basis of my decision to purchase this businesses’ majority share, as things have been steadily declining for years. Yet,” he said, seeming to suspect the interjection I was about to give him before I could even work the words up, “there is more behind these numbers than meets the eye. What I am seeing is some temporary losses that could be mitigated with a bit of a reimagining of the model and perhaps some simple sprucing up of the place.”
“Oh?” I said, the word falling out of me in place of all the anger-filled ones that had lined up.
“Now, when companies need to restructure or regroup, they benefit greatly from past experience and loyalty in management, this is true. But they also tend to need someone to guide them. With Brewer’s Grocery’s name value and reputation, I see a chance for expansion and acquisition, not the other way around. And when a business wants to expand and invest in their future, well, that’s what I do.”
“I see,” I said, my eyes narrowing as I tried to make sense of him. Was he just telling me things I wanted to hear? It was possible.Someone who looked like he did could probably make a living telling people what they wanted to hear, and the combination of platitudes and his jawline would make it very easy to fall for it.
“When I made the purchase, I admit, I didn’t do the amount of legwork I tend to do when making investments. I mostly purchased out of nostalgia and opportunity,” he said. “I grew up here in Murdock, and I’ve just moved back. I have every intention of preserving the history and legacy of the Brewer family and have no intention of pushing you off to the side. I want you to know that.”
“Good,” I said. “And I want you to know I will run this store how I see fit. This is my store. Mine. And I will go to court and prove how the board screwed me over. You might know about acquisitions and expansions, but you don’t know how to run a grocery store. I do. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, and I know what the hell I am talking about. So why don’t you stay out of my way? Go do something else and collect the money I’ll earn for you. I can do it myself and you can just be a silent partner until the court tells you to hand your shares back over where they belong. To me.”
Victor McLaren blinked again and then very slightly leaned forward in his chair. He had a small, polite smile on his face. There was no smarm in it. It was the smile of confidence. I hated it.
I also hated that a loud voice in my mind that wouldn’t shut up was also incredibly turned on by it.
“It won’t work like that, Melanie,” he said. “That’s not how I do business, or how business works in general.”
“Excuse me?” I began, but he interrupted me again with another hand in the air. I felt like ripping it off.
“I have no interest in bossing you around, either,” he said. “You are correct. I know about business acquisitions and expansions and investments, and you know how to run a grocery store. I understand this. It would be a disaster for you to leave and for me to try to put on a nametag and figure out how to make this place more successful.”
“Heh,” I said, openly laughing at the image of Mr. Business Clark Kent putting on a green apron and a nametag and wandering around the store aimlessly. He looked incredibly successful, and the way he carried himself seemed to solidify it. I wondered if he had even bought his own groceries in twenty years or if he had a personal shopper to do it for him.
Or a wife.
I didn’t see a ring though. Not that I was looking. Certainly not looking.
“I will be an active owner,” he said. “But I think you got a raw deal. If you have been working here this entire time and you actively wanted the ownership, then it is my opinion that the board not only sold you out, but also sold me a false bill of goods. I was coming into this investment with the belief that I was going to be received as a partner, not an enemy. I am just as angry at the board as you are.”
“You have no earthly idea how angry I am at the board,” I countered. “You couldn’t. It’s impossible. They betrayed me and my family in a way that can never be quantified by the English language. And forgive me if I have a hard time believing a successful businessman like yourself would have no idea whathe was getting into by buying this place. You mean to tell me you didn’t talk to the board about me? That you didn’t scout the location or talk to customers or anything like that? Because just the bare modicum of research would have told you that I have been here for years, and I planned on staying here until I could pass it down tomychildren as everyone who’s come before me has done. This is my legacy. My family. My reputation. And you can go to hell.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I said made complete sense, but at that moment, I didn’t care. It felt good.
As I stormed to the door, Amy appeared in my vision. She was such a sweet girl that I hated the thought of her getting caught in the crossfire. But she was stepping in the path of a dragon. She was bound to get burned.
“Mel, I have a customer at register four, he—” she began.
“I’m off,” I said, cutting her off. “Let Mr. McLaren handle it. Sink or swim.”
I didn’t even pause my stride as I headed right out of the front door. I left my purse inside the office, but I had my keys in my pocket, thankfully. I could come back for the purse. Making the point was far more important.
I got in my car, revved the engine, and pulled out onto Patterson, heading for home.
