Bart had been seeing the same woman for the past year, as the boys reported to her after the rare times when they saw him for dinner or a brief visit. He never had them spend the night and didn’t want to. He said they were too hard to manage and too exuberant. He still couldn’t tell them apart, and didn’t try. She expected him to get married again at some point.
She currently had an off-and-on dating relationship with Bill Kelly, the account executive at the ad agency she used for the store. Bill was forty years old, had never been married, and enjoyed his freedom. The relationship was more of a convenience for both of them than a serious romance, and company when it suited them both. Neither of them wanted to get married or made strong demands on each other. They were both busy. Spencer had her hands and her life full with the store and the twins. For now, she didn’t need or want more than occasional companionship. Her marriage to Bart hadn’t inspired her to want to try again. The marriage had been a major disappointment. She was afraid now that any man she got seriously involved with would have issues about her dedication to her job. Her boys and the store were more important to her than any man she had met so far.
She smiled as she went from floor to floor on the escalator, casting a quick eye into each department, just to make sure that all was going smoothly and so that the store personnel would see her. It was a good reminder to them that she was a hands-on CEO, and that customer service was very important to her. She wanted every customer happy while they were there and delighted with their purchases when they left. Walking the store every morning was something she had learned from her grandfather. He had warned her not to get tied up in her office and forget to show her face every day to the staff and the customers. She had often walked with him on his morning rounds.
She had grown into her role in the past seven years, although Thornton’s shoes were hard to fill. But eleven years after his death, she was still trying, and hoped he would have been proud of her. Her father’s tenure had been brief, and of no benefit to the store. It was Spencer who added her own vitality and love to it.
When she reached the ground floor, she took the elevator back up to her office. She walked past her secretary in the reception area with a smile, closed her office door, and sat down at her grandfather’s desk. She could almost feel him smiling at her, as she started her day in earnest. She had lots to do today. She always did, and liked it that way.
She loved being busy, and feeling as though she had accomplished something at the end of every day when she went home to the twins. The store met her needs almost like a human being. It had a heart and a soul, which had been infused into it by the people who loved it. It was her turn to nurture it now, protect it and help it grow, until one day one or both of her sons would be old enough to run it, and she would pass the torch to them. Until then, it was her mission, and she rose to the challenge every day. She could see herself growing old there, as her grandfather had. And someday it would be her legacy to Axel and Ben. It was the best gift she could give them, just as it had been the greatest gift her grandfather left her, when she inherited the store from her father. She could already imagine changing the name of the store one day to add Axel and Ben’s name to hers, “Brooke and White.” But for now, until they grew up, the magical world of Brooke’s was hers.
Chapter 2
Mike Weston was a man who moved quickly and made rapid decisions, good ones most of the time. Harvard-educated, he was the son of hardworking middle-class parents. His father, Max, had made a fortune from managing his money well, building small businesses into big ones and selling them at an enormous profit. Max had an entrepreneurial spirit and an unfailing eye for moneymaking opportunities with simple ideas that others overlooked. He had made his first fortune buying lots in bad neighborhoods and turning them into parking lots and later garages. He sold them at a high price when the neighborhoods became gentrified. He had bought into the fast-food industry early on, franchise by franchise, and made a fortune on that. Mike’s mother, Beverly, had gotten involved in the internet shopping craze, with appealing, low-priced goods. With her husband’s help and sound advice, she had turned her business into a mammoth venture with minimal overhead and maximum profit, and was among the pioneers of the business. Now there were trucks with her name on them in every major city, and her own fortune rivaled her husband’s. Mike’s sister, Stephanie, worked for her.
Mike came by his knack for picking great opportunities with a Midas touch. He loved talking business with his father, he always learned something from him. Max had never gone to college, but he was brilliant at making money, and so was Mike. Mike didn’t build businesses from scratch the way his father did. He invested in them, in widely diversified fields. He invested in high-tech, the pharmaceutical industry, large real estate developments, minerals, and oil. He had learned something about fashion from his mother and had done very well buying low-priced brands and multiplying their volume of sales exponentially before he sold them or took them public. He had a nose for great deals and was highly respected for his successful ventures. He had a group of solid investors desperate to get in on his deals.