Family Merger

“Why?”

He was a very stubborn man, but she guessed he hadn’t made it to the top by taking no for an answer. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I don’t see a conflict. I can find you attractive and still work with you to understand my daughter.”

“Yes, but finding me attractive isn’t the same as trying to establish a personal relationship between us.”

“I didn’t say anything about a personal relationship. Did you say that because you find me attractive?”

She was trapped. The only way out was to be completely candid. “You know you’re an attractive man. I’m sure you’ve studied your personal appearance in minute detail, put it together like a well-orchestrated game plan, and use it to every possible advantage.”

He grinned. She wished he wouldn’t.

“Of course I do. Everybody prefers to be around attractive people. If they didn’t, half the people in movies and TV would disappear tomorrow. But we’re not talking business. We’re talking personal.”

“I’m not.”

“I am.”

“Mr. Egan—”

“Ron.”

“Mr. Egan—”

“I won’t let you finish that sentence unless you call me Ron.”

He had moved closer to her. She wasn’t easily intimidated, but she had to consciously stop herself from pulling back. She refused to give ground to this man even if her pulse had started pounding in a very unnerving sort of way, even if her normally logical mind was having difficulty maintaining the thread of her argument. Ron Egan was an absentee father who needed to be made aware of the damage his preoccupation with his career had done to his daughter.

“It’s time we went back. I’ve found your background very helpful, but—”

“We can’t leave.”

“Why?”

“You haven’t called me Ron.”

“I don’t need to.”

“I want to hear it.”

He was leaning on the railing, his weight on his left arm, looking up at her with the ingenuousness of a teenager trying to wheedle his way out of trouble. Only he was trying to wheedle her into it.

“Ron. There, I said it.”

“Don’t make it sound like a dose of bad medicine. Make it sound like you might even like me a little.”

“Look, I don’t—”

“Are you always this resistant with men?”

She didn’t understand why she’d let their conversation become so personal. “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

“I do my most effective work that way. When we do get down to business, it’s usually just working out the details of something we’ve already decided.”

“I’m not a businessperson. I’m a people person, and I find it easier to keep the two separate.”

“That’s a very interesting concept. Why don’t we have lunch and discuss it?”

Chapter Four

“Okay,” Ron said, lobster juice dripping from his elbows onto the tablecloth-size napkin tucked into his collar, “we’ve decided I’m a true pirate of high finance. I give no quarter and expect none. I think everyone should take responsibility for their own actions and not expect outside help. You blame my career, my pursuit of money and power, even my failure to marry again, for my abysmal failure as a father. I think we’ve covered me. Now I want to hear about you. What did you want from your father that you didn’t get?”

She’d known from the moment she agreed to have lunch with him she had to answer his question. She’d ordered lobster salad. He ordered a lobster in the shell. He’d surprised her by taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves. She understood why when he let the juice run down his arms to his elbows.

“Do you always eat lobster like that?” she asked.

“No. I can ease the little sucker out of his shell without getting a single drop on a linen tablecloth that costs more than some cars. But you’re not going to distract me any longer. You have me at your mercy. I want to become a better father. Tell me about yourself.”

She had tried, without success, to convince him that her experiences had nothing to do with his success or failure as a father, but it appeared the only way to convince him was to tell him what he wanted to know.

“My father was away from home much of the time. When he was home, he was always meeting someone or bringing them to the house. There never seemed to be any time when he belonged to just us, when nobody else could interrupt or call him away. The few times he did find himself alone with us—on a family vacation or for an evening at home—I think he was bored and restless. I don’t think he was interested in us.”

“I take it he never played with you as a kid, read you stories, or kissed you good-night.”

“Never.” She hoped she didn’t sound as if she were whining. It was a fact she’d accepted. She didn’t think too much about it until he kicked her sister Elizabeth out of the house. She had never forgiven him for that.

“How did you rebuild your relationship? Maybe I can do the same thing with Cynthia.”

“It’s not the same. I’m an adult. I don’t live at home.”

His gaze seemed to become more intense. “Are you trying not to tell me that you and your father don’t have a good relationship?”

She might as well get it over with. Ron Egan seemed to have a genius for finding the weak spots. “My father I and had a serious disagreement about ten years ago. We don’t see each other much.”

“How much is that?”

She stopped playing with the remains of her salad and looked him square in the face. “Usually once a month.”

“Since when?”

“Since he threw my sister out of the house.”

He took his napkin out of his collar, and carefully wiped his mouth and his hands. Then he sat back. “Tell me about it.”

She couldn’t believe she was getting ready to tell a man she’d known less than twenty-four hours about one of the most difficult episodes of her life, but for some reason she felt she could share it with him.

“My sister got pregnant when she was in high school. She was seventeen and wildly in love with the boy. My father wouldn’t let her marry him. And after she did anyway, he said they couldn’t live in his house.”