“Good. I’m going to let my phone go to voice mail tonight.”
“You are? Why?”
She flushed and for the first time he realized that Dinah had a life outside the office. He always suspected she must, but they did work almost sixty hours a week so that didn’t leave much time for dating.
“I have a date and he told me to turn the phone off at dinner tonight if I wanted to see him again,” she said, her voice quiet and a little pensive.
“Okay, voice mail is fine. In fact, take the entire evening off. I don’t want you returning calls until tomorrow.”
“Does midnight count as tomorrow?”
He laughed. She was still his workaholic Dinah. “Of course it does.”
Dinah left a few minutes later and Steven sat back in his chair thinking about Ainsley Patterson. There had been something familiar about her, but he would have remembered meeting her.
He made plans for dinner and then started going through his executive staff. He called them all in one at a time and wrote down his impressions afterward. He had a list of people he thought were go-getters and could move the company forward. Unfortunately, there was a list of people who saw their job here as a paycheck only. He’d have to move them around and see if that sparked some enthusiasm. Otherwise he’d have to fire them.
No matter the outcome, it was only a matter of time before he had this company running like a well-oiled machine.
He wasn’t sure when it had happened—perhaps when he’d been a boy playing quietly in the sterile environment of his mother’s lab—but he’d always known that he could rely on no one but himself.
Three
Steven had to detour back to the Leicester Square store to fire that duty manager. He had his secretary send a message to his half brothers that he’d be late meeting them. It was odd to think that these men he’d known about his entire life but had never met were now such an integral part of it. He wasn’t too sure how he felt about that. He didn’t necessarily want brothers.
He’d never yearned for a family as a child and as an adult he’d found that making his own way in the world suited him. Family just hadn’t been part of his reality. His mum was always in the lab, and Aunt Lucy was busy with her life.
His cell rang and he glanced down to see that it was his aunt Lucy. Lucy was his mother’s twin, the nurturer in their family. She called him once a week to just check on him.
Aunt Lucy had tried to mother him, but Steven had always known she was doing it because she didn’t think his mum was. And that left Steven feeling…cold.
“Aunt Lucy.”
“Hello, Steven. How are you doing, dear?”
“I’m good. How are you?”
“Fine, dear. I heard from your mother that your father had contacted you.”
Steven sighed as he exited his building. He went to his car—a Vallerio roadster. He had an original 1969 model in his garage at home. The new roadster had all the earmarks of the original, but power for this new millennium.
“It was nothing. He wants me to run one of his business units.”
“And the others?”
Others. That was how his mum and Aunt Lucy referred to his half brothers. Was it any wonder he’d never been close to them?
“They are each running a segment as well. Whoever outperforms the others will be made the CEO of the Everest Group.”
“Sounds like your kind of challenge, dear. Will you be able to come home to Oxford on Sunday for dinner?”
He hesitated for a second. Not because he was considering it, but he wanted her to think he was. His aunt meant well and she was the only one of his relatives he talked to on a regular basis, so he always made the effort of at least seeming to want to spend time with her.
“Not this week.”
“Oh, well, maybe another time. Have a good evening.”
“You, too, Aunt Lucy.”
He hung up and got in the car. He drove through the congested London streets to the Athenaeum Club. The members-only club would afford them the privacy they needed to talk. To have a chance to get to know each other away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. Steven wasn’t used to the spotlight the way that Henry and Geoff were. But it didn’t bother him. He was enough of a businessman to know that any publicity was good.
In this day and age anything could be spun. He had made a dinner reservation for him and Ainsley at an African restaurant that he liked. He pulled up to the front of the club and the valet came to take his keys.
“I know I’m not a member,” a young woman said to the butler guarding the door. “I just need to send a message to Henry Devonshire. I know he’s in here.”
“I can relay a message for you,” Steven said. “I’m meeting him inside.”