Page 29 of Ghost of a Chance
“I believe that would be a lovely idea. And yes, I know most of his friends, and those I don’t, Ian would most definitely know. Three days, do you think that’s long enough to organize this?”
Hector didn’t sound convinced, but Brad had every faith in Mom and Dad. Also, Morty might help and do some of the baking?
“Let me call my parents.” Brad already had his phone out. Two minutes later, he had two excited parents and a plan. “Looks like it’s a go.” Brad tucked away his phone and grinned at Hector, who returned it. “So, can you ring around today and ask them to keep quiet about it?”
“You bet. I’ll ring Ian from the office as soon as I get there.”
Brad whistled as he walked through the entrance to the café moments later, in search of an interfering meerkat.
He was in the kitchen, elbow-deep in flour. “Morty, thank you for playing matchmaker.”
Morty blew at his bangs, shifting the hair, only for it to flop back in his eyes as he grinned cheekily. “My pleasure.” His head tilted. “Did it work?”
“He’s my mate,” Brad exclaimed and did a bum wiggle when flour plumed in the air at Morty’s excited hand waving.
“Woo-hoo,” he squealed and boogied to Brad with the most uncoordinated moves Brad had ever witnessed.
Toby appeared in the doorway, rubbing at his eyes, glancing between them, his hair a little all over the place. “What am I missing?"
Chapter Seventeen
Lionel
It was just after lunchtime when Lionel put down his phone and ran a hand through his hair and around to his neck, rubbing at the spot where his tension had been tightening his muscles.
He had gone into the office that morning, determined to be proactive. Lionel refused to let Pennington’s bigotry impact his business. He wasn’t short of money. If and when Brad ever needed to leave work for a short time—if he was pregnant, for example—Lionel had plenty of funds to look after them both and any cubs.
They could be pups or cubs or a mixture of both. What would that make them? Cupups? Pucubs?Lionel didn’t care either way—he didn’t know if Brad wanted children, so the situation was moot for now. But Lionel was confident he could look after them both if needed.
Out of the six major lenders that he worked with for second-tier financing, two of them had Pride connections, and in his third-tier lender list, there were another three. He hadn’t received any emails or calls from any of them, cutting him off from their funds, except Lionel was well aware of how a pride banishment worked. Hitting the phone as he drank his first office coffee, with a list of client mortgages in front of him, Lionel started reworking the affected mortgages, seeking funds from non-pride lenders.
Of course, that wasn’t as simple as just making calls. There was a ton of paperwork associated with shifting loans from one lender to another, and then there were the clients themselves who had to be advised. With new loans, at least the clients would be able to adjust or increase their mortgages at a later stage if they wanted to, and in many cases the clients had already paid off part of their mortgages, meaning Lionel could get them a better interest rate for the refinanced amounts. “Hey, I got you a good deal on this” was a great way to lead into potentially awkward conversations.
To help sweeten the deal for his clients, Lionel let them know he would be paying all the legal fees associated with the swap over himself, so all they had to do was sign the new paperwork.
As he ticked off the last client on his list, Lionel was quietly confident that all of his clients’ interests were taken care of, and that his reduced pool of second and third-tier lenders were aware of the pride situation and were happy to keep working with him.
One of his third-tier lenders, Simon, a big blustery horse shifter who conducted most of his deals on the golf course, actually laughed when Lionel told him of his predicament with the pride. “Who the hell cares who you stick your dick into?” he’d boomed. “None of that has anything to do with how you do business. Pennington has no sense. Congrats on the mating, Li. We’ll schedule a golf game next week when all this has settled down, yeah?”
Simon was just the loudest of similar comments. Many of his lender friends knew of Brad, or more of Brad’s Dad’s company. “That guy’s got a lot of pull in the construction sector,” Peter, another investor, had announced. “If Pennington’s upset him, he’s not going to be getting much built in this town. Hope he knows how to use a hammer.”
Letting out a long breath, Lionel checked his phone and thought about lunch. It was still hours until Brad was picking him up for their date.
As if she were psychic, Jasmine tapped on his office door and then poked her head around it. “Are you all finished, Mr. Lionel?”
“The calls are all made, yes.” Lionel nodded. “I’ve sent through a whole stack of contracts for you to arrange to get signed. I’m sorry about all this extra work at such short notice, but if we can get this taken care of, then all of our clients will have security going forward. Which is the most important thing in this business.”
“I can take care of them this afternoon, no problem. I was actually checking to see if you were ready for lunch.” Jasmine walked in with something held behind her back. She pulled it around to the front, and Lionel could see it was a large box. “I didn’t have a chance to go to the bakery on my way to work, but I did hear through that nasty business yesterday that you have found your mate. I thought that should be celebrated.”
She came closer, and Lionel sniffed. Whatever was in that box smelled really good.
“I’m not much of a baker myself,” Jasmine said with a giggle, “but my grandmother’s recipe for pulled pork pie is the best you’ll ever taste, so I thought I’d make it for you. A celebration lunch, if you like to call it that, because matings should be celebrated. I do hope you like it.”
“Jasmine, that’s so incredibly sweet. Please tell me you’ll join me in eating it.”
“I was hoping you’d offer.” Jasmine quickly pulled plates and cutlery out of the box. “I never say no to my grandmother’s recipe, even if I did make it myself.”
“It is truly appreciated.” Lionel hesitated a moment and then asked, “About yesterday. If there’s anything you want to talk about, you know you can talk to me about it, don’t you? I realize what happened was not office-appropriate behavior, and you should never have had to witness that as part of your employment.”
