Page 4 of Second Time Around
Chapter 2
Will walked through heavy mahogany doors into the bar of the ultraexclusive Bellwether Club. He scanned the brass-topped tables and leather-upholstered chairs before spotting his host, Nathan Trainor. The CEO of Trainor Electronics stood as Will approached, a smile of welcome lighting his serious face.
The men shook hands and sat as a waiter materialized beside their table.
“Take your coat and tie off. Make yourself comfortable,” Nathan said after Will had ordered. The CEO had already shed his suit jacket and lounged in his rolled-up shirtsleeves. “There’s no dress code at the Bellwether.”
Will shrugged out of his own jacket. “Just can’t resist rubbing my nose in it, can you?”
Nathan’s gray eyes sparked with amusement. “It’s one of the few places where I can be a member and you can’t.”
“Do you think Frankie would accept me if I told her my father had disinherited me?”
“Too late. You’ve already made your fortune.”
“Without a dime from my family.” Will took a swig of the Macallan single malt the waiter had placed in front of him.
“Give it up, Chase. Your father paid for your fancy boarding school and Brunell U. You graduated with a solid-gold education and nodebt. Those of us who belong to the Bellwether Club had to start with nothing.”
Will held up a hand in defeat. “I hope to persuade Frankie to make an exception for me.” But he knew the tough Irishwoman who owned the Bellwether Club wasn’t prone to breaking her own rules.
He liked the Bellwether Club’s members precisely because they had made their fortunes from the ground up, the way Frankie had ... or as Kyra said, they had earned them. His old college friend’s name evoked a twinge of nostalgia.
Although technically he had built his multinational corporation on his own, Will had indeed started with major advantages, his education being the least of them. He had benefited heavily from the connections he had access to, old family friends with the kind of money that they could afford to risk on an energetic young man’s start-up idea, a young man they saw as one of their own.
His father might look down his nose at Will’s career choice, but he hadn’t prevented his son from using other people’s money to fund it. Will suspected that his father hoped Ceres would fail, and his shame at having lost the money of people he knew would drive him into the familial embrace of Chase, Banfield, and Trost.
Nathan raised his glass. “To having a hard-ass as a father.”
“At least yours came around in the long run.”
“Thanks to my wife,” Nathan said, sipping his drink as a soft light glowed in his eyes.
“You’re a lucky man, my friend.” Will leaned back in his chair. “So, are we here for business or pleasure?” He and Nathan had met when he decided to explore the installation of Trainor Electronics batteries as power backup for Ceres’s refrigerators. The technology was still experimental, so Will and Nathan had spent a lot of time together working out the issues.
“Refuge,” Nathan said. “Tonight is Chloe’s baby shower at our place.” Nathan’s wife was pregnant with their first child.
“I’ve been in your penthouse. You could hold four baby showers simultaneously without one overlapping the others.”
“Chloe says I hover.”
Will grinned. “Do you?”
“I express a rational concern at times.” But the corners of Nathan’s mouth twitched into a smile of self-mockery.
Will laughed outright. “You drive her crazy.”
“That’s one man’s opinion.”
“I’d trade you the baby shower for my mother’s Spring Fling in a New York minute,” Will said, grimacing into his glass at the prospect of attending his mother’s annual garden party for her friends and his father’s business colleagues. “Are you and Chloe coming?”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Since you’ve painted the event in such glowing colors, no. Actually, we’re flying to Florida that weekend to bring Chloe’s grandmother back up here for the summer.”
“Damn. I was hoping for reinforcements.” Will took a sip of his drink, letting the smooth burn ease his dread of the upcoming event. His father would throw verbal barbs at him. His mother would throw eligible women at him. His sister, at least, would have the good sense to disappear to the stables after making a brief appearance. “So you’re leaving me to the wolves.”
“It seems harsh to call your family ‘wolves.’”
“You’re right. Sharks would be more accurate. Larger, sharper teeth.”
