The Protégé by Stephen Frey Read Free Book Online Page B

office.
    “I’d rather talk about Hush-Hush
now,
” Wright said, taking advantage of the fact that Gillette was speaking to him. “I don’t want to wait. It’s too hot.”
    To bring up a prospective investment in this meeting, a managing partner or managing director was supposed to run it by Faraday first, then send around a short memo on the company so the group had the basic facts—what the company did, how big it was, how profitable it was. Wright hadn’t talked to Faraday or sent around a memo.
    “Hush-Hush?” O’Brien piped up. “The intimate-apparel company?”
    “Yeah, that’s it,” Wright said.
    “What’s the deal?”
    “We’ve got the inside track to buy it. I have a friend in senior management who can help us ink it.” Wright nodded at Gillette. “I spoke to Christian about it earlier. He likes it.”
    “
What I said was,
you should get more information,” Gillette reminded the younger man, irritated that Wright had jumped the gun and was trying to make people in the room think he was already on board.
    “I’ll vote against that investment on principle alone,” Maggie spoke up. “I don’t care how great a deal it is. Their catalog is basically a porn magazine. It’s insulting to women.”
    “If it’s so insulting,” Wright shot back, “there must be a lot of women who like being insulted. Hush-Hush is growing at over eighty percent a year, and—”
    “I don’t care how fast it’s growing,” Maggie interrupted. “It’s not something we should get into.”
    “Hey, just because you don’t care about looking sexy doesn’t mean the rest of the female world doesn’t—”
    “David.”
Gillette’s sharp rebuke cut Wright off instantly.
    Maggie glared at Wright for several moments, then turned to look at Gillette when Wright didn’t look away. “Besides, it’s the fashion business,” she said, her voice cracking with anger. “There can be big revenue swings.” She took a deep breath. “Christian, for Everest to make an investment, you and all four managing partners have to vote yes. I’m telling you right now, I’d vote no. So we can all save ourselves a lot of time by cutting off this discussion right now.”
    Gillette folded his arms over his chest. Maggie was right. Buying any fashion business was risky, especially one like Hush-Hush. But he didn’t appreciate the way she’d tried to take control of the meeting. “Let me remind you,” he said, “the chairman of this firm can overrule any single negative vote. Got that?”
    She nodded quickly, understanding what he was saying—so much more than that he might overrule her if she chose to vote against the investment. “Yes.”
    Gillette looked back at Wright, irritated. “David, you know you’re supposed to talk to Nigel before you bring up something like that.”
    “But I thought—”
    “David.”
    Wright’s gaze fell to his lap. “Sorry.”
     
    “ YOU GIVE David Wright a lot of fucking rope,” Faraday muttered as he sat down in front of Gillette’s desk.
    It was six-fifteen. The managers meeting had broken up ten minutes before, and Gillette was checking out a story on the Internet. He put his shoes up on the desk and locked his fingers behind his head. “David’s a star, easily our top managing director. We both know that. He deserves some extra rope.”
    “Not as much as you give him.”
    “He’s a thoroughbred.”
    “He’s cocky as hell.”
    “He’s young, he’ll mellow with age. You and I can help him with that.”
    “Some of the other managing directors are grumbling.”
    “About what?” Gillette demanded, dropping his shoes to the floor. “Making a million dollars a year?”
    “There’s more to it than just the fucking money,” Faraday retorted. “People around here are like puppies, okay? They don’t like it when you pay a lot of attention to one person.”
    “Tell the whiners to find some investments for us,” Gillette suggested. “Right now, David’s the only managing