Worthy Opponents(48)

“Did the kids take it okay?”

“I flew out to see my daughter in San Francisco to tell her, and she was fine with me. She wasn’t surprised. I think she was relieved too. The atmosphere has been poisonous for years, and she and her mother don’t get along. Jennifer is too much like me, which irritates her mother. Zack was sad about it when I told him on the plane flying back from France. We were waiting till he got home to tell him. He’s adjusting pretty well. He says he wants to live with me, but that could change. And he’s finally going to college at the end of the year. Right now, he’s spending days at his mother’s and nights with me, because he can’t manage with his casts. So, I guess it’s all turning out okay.” He smiled at her. He didn’t look unhappy. In fact, he looked more relaxed than when she’d last seen him. And at the Met, the icy tension between him and his wife had been palpable.

“I think I’ll be poorer, but a lot happier. I’m not going to sacrifice my life to save on a divorce. If I live another forty or fifty years, I don’t want to be unhappy for all that. That’s what finally convinced me. Life is short, but it can be long too. Too long to be miserable.” He smiled at Spencer, and then they got back to business. “So, what are we going to do about your store? I take it you’ve given it some more thought, or we wouldn’t be here.”

“I have, and I always come out in the same place. It hurts, but I could live with the thirty-five or forty percent investment you spoke about initially. But the jump after that to your owning sixty to eighty percent of the business would kill me. I can’t give that up, Mike. I’ve worked too hard to preserve Brooke’s and bring it this far to give up control to someone else.”

“The trouble is,” he said quietly, “no one will invest in it unless you do. Those are the kind of percentages people expect, and I do too. And there’s no way to turn Brooke’s into a big moneymaker unless you make the kind of changes I was suggesting, make it exponentially bigger, move it uptown, or downtown, open branches around the country. It’s the kind of growth my investors would expect.” He was matter-of-fact about it, although sympathetic to how she felt.

“It wouldn’t be the same store then,” she said sadly.

“No, it wouldn’t,” he admitted.

“You wouldn’t accept less ownership?”

“I couldn’t. And you won’t make enough increase in profits unless someone puts a lot of money into it. Or you can keep it a small specialty store, but then it’s not an interesting investment for someone like me. You’ve got to go big and spend big to earn big, and it’s tough to do with the model of a store like Brooke’s, if you hang onto majority control and don’t give the investors a free hand to do what they need to do.” He looked regretful as he said it, and so did she. He knew how much the store meant to her, and how hard it was for her to let go.

“I can’t give up majority control, Mike. Not to that degree.”

“I know,” he said kindly, “but that’s what any big investor will want.”

“We don’t need stores all over the country, or a huge store. You can’t maintain the quality control that way.” He knew that too.

“At a certain point, it’s about revenue and return on the investment more than quality. There’s going to be some slippage if you grow.” She nodded. He was being honest with her.

“It’s everything my grandfather didn’t want, and I’ve been committed to maintain.”

“If you want serious investment money, you’ll have to give up control.” It sounded like a death sentence to her.

“I’m not that desperate yet. We’re doing okay.”

“Okay isn’t good enough. Paul Trask is right. You won’t last long with ‘okay.’ Only the big fish survive now, the small ones don’t. In order for my investors to accept a deal like yours, we’d have to own a very heavy majority. I can’t negotiate that down. No one would want the deal. Why don’t you think about it? The kind of money you could make on it long-term would be an important legacy for your boys. The money matters too.”

“I’d be giving up and betraying everything I’ve stood for. I’d be the sellout, the traitor. I can’t do that.” She looked him squarely in the eye and he respected her for everything she stood for but they both knew there was no way to make a deal.

“You’re a woman of principle, Spencer. But you’re paying a high price for those principles.”

“Better that than selling my soul, and my grandfather’s legacy.”

They had another glass of wine and talked about other things, but the deal they’d been talking about weighed heavily on them both. It was never going to happen. He wanted to invest in the store, but he had to do it on his terms, he couldn’t on hers.

“What about a smaller investor, who would ask for less?” she asked him.

“You won’t get enough return on the deal for a small investment. And a big investor wants control. That’s how those deals work.” She knew it too.

She was quiet when they walked out to the street. It had been a futile effort meeting him to negotiate, and he looked unhappy. He would have loved to invest in Brooke’s and work with her, but not on her terms.

“Call me if I can do anything,” he said as they stood on the sidewalk. He didn’t want to insult her by saying “if you change your mind,” because he knew she wouldn’t. She was too proud to give up her principles and too honorable to let her grandfather down, even if it meant giving up millions from an investor who would take control and change the store forever.