He looked subdued when he left a few minutes later, with much to think about. He looked at her longingly and wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t dare.
Spencer met with Marcy and Paul the next morning and told them what she’d done.
“I took the deal,” she said sadly.
“What deal?” Paul looked confused. “Did they offer us a new deal?” He looked hopeful.
“No, it’s the deal I turned down before. I give up forty percent of my ownership the first year, another twenty percent the second year, and twenty again at the end of the second year. He reduced it to fifteen percent, which would give them seventy-five percent ownership within two years, and majority control after the first year. I refused the ten-year management contract they offered me. I don’t want it. I couldn’t do a good job for them once they own me. They offered me seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year for ten years, which would give me financial security for a decade. I don’t care. I don’t want it. They would own me like a slave, and once they have majority control, you know they’ll change everything.”
“They’d probably fire all of us,” Marcy said. Paul was shocked that Spencer had accepted the rest of it. She was giving up, beaten by events.
“Maybe I should just sell them the whole thing outright. It won’t be the same after this. But I told him I’d only work for them for the first year to help them set it up. But after that I’d leave and it’s their baby.”
“What did he say?” Marcy asked her.
“He said he’d have to think about it.”
“Do you really want to accept those terms?” Paul asked her.
“No, I don’t. That’s why I turned him down before and was willing to fight to the death. But too much has happened now. We really have no choice. It’s pathetic. It took me seven years to destroy what my grandfather took sixty-two years to build. Even my father didn’t do as much damage in four years as I have, and he did a pretty lousy job, and never liked the business. I’ve put my heart and soul into it, and look where we end up.”
“It’s not your fault, Spence.” Paul tried to reassure her. “Times have changed. You can’t fight the deterioration of the neighborhood to this degree. If your grandfather could have guessed there would be a drug war here on our doorstep and in the store, he’d never have bought here. Between the fire and this, and the importance of the internet, it really is too much. So, what happens next?” Paul asked her.
“We sign the deal when he draws up the papers, and that’s it.” She was ready to sign away her life, and the company she loved.
Spencer went to see two more temporary locations with Marcy that afternoon that were even worse than all the ones they had seen so far.
She was thinking about Mike as they rode back to the office in the darkened store with the boarded-up windows. They were waiting for the new ones to arrive, unless they left them that way when they put the building on the market to sell.
“He kissed me the other night,” she said in a soft voice in the cab, and Marcy stared at her.
“Who did?”
“Mike. I cut my arm after the shootout when I went into the store to check on things. He went to the hospital with me when I got stitched up.”
“You never said you got hurt. And what was he doing there?”
“He came to look for me when he figured out where I was. He called me. I was there in the side street while the shooting was going on.”
“You never told us that either.” Marcy was staring at her intently, and at the dazed look on Spencer’s face.
“He spent the night in a chair, watching me sleep when I got home, to make sure I was okay. He kissed me when he put me to bed.”
“And sat watching you all night? And didn’t sleep with you?” Marcy said, and Spencer nodded.
“For God’s sake, he’s in love with you. That’s why he made you the offer he did in the first place. This deal is nothing compared to the investments he normally makes. I’ve read about him on the internet. The man is considered a financial genius. The last thing he needs is a small department store. I’m surprised his investors even let him do it. He usually makes billions for his investors on his deals. He won’t with this. It’s all about you, Spencer. Now it makes sense. It didn’t to me before.”
“Why not?” Spencer looked surprised.
“Because there isn’t enough money in this deal for him and his investors. It’s peanuts to them. This was all about you from the beginning. And if he kissed you and didn’t sleep with you the other night, I can tell you for sure the man is in love with you. Men don’t sleep with you when they love you, but they do sleep with you without a second thought when they don’t. It’s ass-backward, but that’s how they are. He could have had sex with you the other night after the hospital, and he didn’t. Instead, he sat up all night in a chair and watched you. Now it makes total sense, and he’s not going to want seventy-five or eighty percent ownership of your store without you. That ten-year contract was practically a marriage proposal. He won’t want this deal without you. I’m sure of it.”