Family Merger

Chapter Three

Kathryn had ridden in several Bentleys before but never in one she was certain cost more than three hundred thousand dollars. She was just as certain the car had never been down these particular roads. Neither had she.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Where I grew up,” Ron said.

They had left Charlotte and were somewhere in what she presumed was the far reaches of southern Mecklenberg County. It was an area where small farms were either still in production or had been allowed to grow into young forests. Some areas next to Lake Wylie had been developed into upscale resorts. Ron pulled off the road into the parking lot of a local fish camp, turned away from the restaurant, and drove into a strip of woods. When they emerged on the other side, she saw the trailer park.

Ron pulled the Bentley to a stop near a small trailer. The grass around it had been cut recently, but the steps had collapsed and the trailer had rusted badly. “That’s where I grew up.”

“Does anyone live here?”

“No. I still own it.”

“Why?”

“So I never forget where I came from.”

Kathryn looked at laundry hanging on lines, children playing in the spring sun wearing nothing but dirty underpants, two women looking tired and worn down, and a hound dog lazing in the sun. Kathryn felt as if she were gazing at the set for a black-and-white movie set in the fifties.

“I lived here until I was fourteen,” Ron said. “I was ten years old before I knew enough to hate it.”

“What happened?”

“We had court-ordered busing for desegregation. I got sent to a wealthy white neighborhood where I saw kids I thought existed only on TV. I came home and told my parents, but they didn’t care that I didn’t have a winter coat or shoes without holes in them as long as they had enough booze. The rich kids had so much stuff they didn’t bother keeping track of it. I got a coat from the lost and found. I even found a pair of shoes my size.”

He sounded as though he were talking about somebody else, but Kathryn knew he would never have held on to the rusting trailer if he didn’t still feel the hurt.

“When I heard one of the boys say Charlotte Country Day School was giving scholarships to smart kids, I made up my mind to get one. My parents didn’t want me mixing with the rich kids. They thought it would turn me into a snob. I didn’t know what was at that school, but I knew it was something I wanted.”

“I gather you got that scholarship,” Kathryn said.

He nodded. “But I didn’t get what I wanted. I was overweight, wore glasses, was smarter than anybody else in my class, and I was a trailer park kid. I had nothing to do but study hard so I could win a college scholarship.”

“To Yale.”

“And Harvard for my MBA.”

“Your parents must have been very proud of you.”

“My parents were supposed to come to my high school graduation. I was valedictorian. I wanted them to see what I’d accomplished. I wanted them to be proud of me.”

Ron’s voice had taken on a different tone, one she could only describe as trying to keep some fierce emotion in check.

“A friend talked them into going drinking instead. They were killed when he lost control of his car trying to outrun the police.”

“I’m sorry.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Don’t be. I don’t think they cared much.”

“Is that why you care so much?”

He turned to face her. “You can’t understand where I’m coming from because you’ve never been there. You can’t understand what drives me because you’ve always had everything—looks, money, acceptance.”

“Try me.”

Ron retrieved an envelope from the glove compartment. He opened it and pulled out a picture. “That’s me at sixteen, fat, glasses and all.” He pulled out a second picture. She was stunned to see it was of her debutante ball.

“Where did you get that picture?”

“Newspaper archives go back years.” He pulled out another picture. “This is what I looked like at eighteen when I worked at Taco Bell.” And another picture. “This is you.” The picture had been taken just before a group of students from her boarding school went to France on an exchange program.

“I won’t apologize for having advantages others don’t.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying you don’t know what it’s like to be poor, to not have proper food, warm clothes, toys at Christmas. Even worse, what it’s like being ignored, realizing nobody knows you exist, wouldn’t care if you didn’t. That really gets to you. You’ve been accepted your whole life just because of who you are. I’ve had to earn recognition, sometimes force people to give it to me. Well, nobody is going to ignore Cynthia. I’ll see to that.”

She was beginning to understand. It really wasn’t about the money. “But Cynthia does feel ignored…by you.”

“I’ve done everything I could for her.”

“You’ve paid someone else to do it. She’d rather it had been you.”

After an uncomfortable silence, she picked up the second picture. “You don’t look like that now. What happened?”

He grinned, and something inside her went all open and tender. She wished he wouldn’t do that. She didn’t like the effect on her.

“I had a late growth spurt, lost my baby fat, took up intramural sports and got contacts.”

“No hormones or steroids?”

“Just decent food and exercise.”

She smiled. “And shoes without holes.”

He smiled back. “And not from the lost and found.”

“Was it hard being a scholarship student?” She didn’t know why she asked that question. All the schools she’d attended had scholarship students. She knew they usually felt left out and unwanted.

“I hated it. I felt I ought to at least be given a chance to prove I could fit in. The other scholarship kids didn’t seem to care, but it ate away at me all the time. From that first day in the fourth grade, I swore one day I’d be so successful nobody could ignore me.”

He’d certainly done that. He’d made the cover of several business magazines during the past year. The Charlotte Observer had run a feature article on him. “I won’t pretend to understand,” Kathryn said, looking at the rusted hulk of the trailer, “but everybody knows who you are now.”

“But they don’t accept me. I went to their schools and played touch football with them. I have the money, but I don’t have the pedigree. I don’t have the family history.”

Kathryn remembered how her friends made comments about people with less money, looks and sophistication. There had always been an unspoken barrier that separated them, that constantly reminded them they weren’t good enough. She’d never really stopped to think how that must have made them feel. Rather than discriminate against them, she should have admired them for having the courage to tackle and overcome obstacles she didn’t have to face. “Not all our families have a history I’d want.”

“It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be well-known. Well, Cynthia’s going to have a history, even if it’s short.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want the same things you want.”

“Maybe not, but she doesn’t want to be a nobody.”

She felt sorry for him. His parents had died without giving him the love and acceptance he needed. His wife had died before he was much more than another Harvard MBA struggling to make a place for himself in the business world. Cynthia was too young to appreciate her father’s accomplishments. He had turned to the public to give him the feeling of acceptance and approval he couldn’t get anywhere else.

Her life hadn’t been perfect, but at least she had a family that loved her. Still, as much as she sympathized with Ron, she couldn’t lose sight of the fact her first concern was Cynthia. Ron was tough. He’d proved he could take care of himself. Cynthia had proved she couldn’t.

“Let’s go,” Ron said. “We’re conspicuous.”

Like a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car in a squalid trailer park wouldn’t be! He pulled to a stop at a boardwalk behind the fish camp that overlooked the lake. They got out. The breeze coming off the lake was refreshingly cool. It smelled of crisp water and honeysuckle.

“I used to watch the boats,” Ron said. “I’d try to imagine what it would be like to roar across the lake in one of those big boats without caring that my wake might capsize some little boat.”

“I always hated people who did that. Did you ever buy a boat?”

“Lake Norman is the place to be now. It wasn’t the same.”

Her father had bought a house at Lake Norman. He said Lake Wylie was for the middle class. “Did you do the other things you dreamed you’d do when you were finally successful?”

“I bought a house in the best neighborhood and sent my daughter to the best school in town. She has the best of everything.”

“What if she considers you the best of everything?”

“Cynthia knows I have to work, or we won’t have the money for all those things.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want them.”

“She would if she didn’t have them.”

“Maybe not so much.”

“Look, I can’t go to a company and say I’ll only do seventy-six thousand dollars worth of work because I need only seventy-six thousand dollars this year. They’d think I was a fool and hire someone else. I have to charge top dollar, or they won’t think I’m good enough to hire.”

“Even if it’s a million dollars?”

“You’re talking companies worth thirty, fifty, a hundred billion dollars. A million is pocket change to them. More than the cost, what’s important is the quality of the service, the expert personal attention to every detail. I have an office of fifteen full-time staff. That can double or triple depending on the job. Then there are bonuses and percentages. I have to get paid well. A lot of people depend on me.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that nothing can replace you in your daughter’s life.”

“Who do you think I’m doing all this for?”

He wasn’t getting the point. “Maybe you’ve reached the point where your success has isolated you from Cynthia.”

“I know it’s kept us apart more than I want, but I have to go where the work takes me.”

Now he was making excuses for doing what he wanted to do. She wouldn’t let him get away with that. “Every decision is yours to make one way or the other. Everything is a choice. Some of the choices you’ve made have hurt Cynthia.”

“I can’t help that.”

“Of course you can. It doesn’t matter that some decisions don’t work out the way you wanted or planned, they’re still your decisions and you’re still responsible for the results, for seeing that something is going wrong and doing something about it.”

She wondered what was going on in his mind as he stared out over the lake. Was he remembering his parents and his childhood here, his progression from school to school, or was he thinking of his wife and daughter? She wondered if his career left him time to think of anything else.

She wondered why he hadn’t remarried.

He was relatively young—the Observer article said he was forty—handsome and rich, characteristics that would make him the target of beautiful women the world over. Add to that intelligence, a vibrant personality, excellent taste in clothes and cars, and you had a catch of the first order. She was certain he wasn’t immune to women. She’d seen the way he looked at her.

Yet for some reason, she didn’t think he’d spent the last ten years traipsing through available bedrooms on both sides of the Atlantic. She had no knowledge of his personal life, but the articles she read failed to mention a constant companion. Even business articles these days rarely overlooked such interesting facts.

“Erin encouraged me to put my career first,” he said without turning away from the lake. “She didn’t want a family to hold me back. She said she would take care of things I forgot or was too busy to do. She wanted me to be successful.”

Kathryn remembered reading that Erin Egan had died of ovarian cancer.

“After she died I worked even harder. I felt guilty because I hadn’t achieved the success she desperately wanted for Cynthia, for all the other children we planned to have. She said we had to sacrifice in the beginning to get where we wanted to be in the end.”

Kathryn wondered if he was still so much in love with his wife he was still living his life for her.

He turned his gaze from the lake to her. “I’m not going to pretend I did everything for Erin, but we were like partners, each willing to do our part.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes.”

His smile seemed bleak, in contrast to the glorious spring day filled with sunshine.

“We were friends bound together by a mutual goal. I think that brought us closer than passion could. When she died, I was left to carry on alone. I realize now I should have known I had to reassess, but I thought Cynthia was too young to need me. I planned to work hard then so I could take some time off when she grew up. I guess I got too busy to realize the situation had changed.”

“She always needed you,” Kathryn said. “She just couldn’t tell you how much.”

“What can a grown man do with a little girl?”

“Love her.”

“I did love her.”

“I’m sure you did, but in a child’s eyes, love means being there, holding her hand, playing with her, telling her stories and kissing her good-night. Your physical presence counts far more than what you say.”

He turned back to the water. “So you’re saying I’m a failure as a father.”

Was she? She certainly considered her own father a failure, but she hesitated to make the same decision about Ron. If he hadn’t loved his daughter, he wouldn’t have left his meeting in Geneva. She didn’t know much about big business, but she did know people at his level weren’t expected to let anything interfere with their work. There was always somebody willing to make whatever sacrifice was necessary to reach the top. She wondered what his coming home would cost him.

“No. I’m just saying you haven’t understood what your daughter needed from you.”

“Do you?”

“In general. My own father has a career that keeps him away from home most of the time, but everybody’s different. Cynthia may not need what I needed.”

“What did you need?”

She hadn’t expected the spotlight to be turned on her. “What I needed isn’t important. It’s what Cynthia needs.”

“You’ve just said we’re not communicating well. If I can understand what you needed, maybe I’ll have a better chance of understanding Cynthia.”

She wondered if he looked at his clients the way he was looking at her. He was so earnest, so sincere, she found it nearly impossible to resist him. “Mr. Egan, I make it a point to keep my relationship with the families of the girls impersonal.”

“You have to try to understand the parents, or you can’t help restore a relationship that’s broken down.”

“I don’t attempt to restore relationships. I leave that to the girls.”

“How can you possibly say you’re doing your best for these girls when you leave out the most important part of all, helping them restore a family relationship that has broken down so badly they’ve turned to you for help?”

“My purpose is to provide a place for them to stay, a way to continue their education, a way to have their baby safely. I’ve taken classes in psychology and counseling, but I don’t consider myself a professional psychologist or counselor.”

“Then you’re not qualified for your job.”

She pushed back the anger. She had attacked him, and he was attacking back. It wasn’t much fun, but she guessed she could understand it. “I don’t think you understand my role here. I’m the administrator. I hire qualified people to do the teaching, counseling, career planning, the training in how to take care of their babies.”

“Then your understanding of what they want and need from their families is all you have to offer. So tell me what you wanted from your father. You wanted it very badly, or you’d never have done what you’re doing now.”

No other parent had asked this of her, but she’d never been this interested in a parent of one of her girls. There was something about this man that forced her to respond to him. She warned herself to be careful. He’d made a fortune persuading people to do things against their wills. Naturally he would use the same skills on her. He already had in persuading her to come with him today, in making her like him even though she disapproved of almost everything about him.

But maybe his question wasn’t as unreasonable as it sounded at first. He had taken a great chance when he left his meeting to come home. This was a second day and he hadn’t said anything about returning to Geneva. He clearly wanted to help his daughter. She had asked him to jeopardize something he loved, and he had done it without hesitation. Would she have jeopardized the shelter under similar circumstances?

She returned his gaze, searching his face for even the tiniest evidence of insincerity, of game playing, of one-upmanship, of anything that would indicate he wasn’t being entirely truthful.

What she found was a tremendously attractive man focusing his attention on her. He was asking about his daughter, but she felt he really did want to know about her, that his interest was sincere, not a vehicle to another objective. And she found she cared more than she wanted about his success. Or was it simply that this man was so attractive, so charismatic, she couldn’t help herself?

She hoped the answer wasn’t the affirmative. She didn’t want to feel even the slightest twinge of interest in a man who had put his career before his family. She didn’t want to be attracted to a man who would be more interested in pleasing others than in pleasing her. She had very strict guidelines for any man she considered dating. Not that Ron had asked her for a date, but she refused to be interested, even on a casual basis, in a man who didn’t satisfy her list of requirements. Ron Egan would bottom out before she got halfway through.

“Every girl wants something different,” she stated.

“I’m asking you to speak for yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because you interest me. I want to know what makes you tick.”

“A well-balanced diet, sufficient rest and regular exercise.”

He laughed. She hadn’t expected that. It was a deep, thoroughly masculine sound that reached a receptive place inside the core of her. The tug of attraction grew even stronger, her will to resist weaker. Warning bells went off in her head. This man is dangerous.

“Do you always keep men at such a safe distance?” he asked.

“You’re not a man. I mean, you’re the father of one of my girls. I don’t look at you the same as I would other men.”

“Why can’t you think of me as a man as well as Cynthia’s father?”

“Because it’s my job to see you as Cynthia’s father.”

“Does that preclude any other relationship?”

“I don’t have relationships with the fathers of my girls. It would be highly unprofessional.”

“Why? Would it cloud your judgment?”

“No, but—”

“Why not?”

She didn’t understand how the ground had shifted so unexpectedly, how she was now on the defensive.

“Are you always professional at any price?” he asked. “Don’t your emotions ever overpower your intellect?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t require that you believe me.”

“But I want to.”

“Why?”

“I might be a father, but I like attractive women.”

“Mr. Egan, this is not an appropriate conversation.”

“Call me Ron. And what’s inappropriate about a man telling a woman he finds her attractive?”

“It’s the circumstances.”

“Tell me what circumstances you find proper, and I’ll set them up.”

Just like her father. He thought money and power could solve any problem. But her irritation at his assumption didn’t smother a desire to answer his question. Nor did it stop her from wondering what it would have been like to have met him under different circumstances.

“I’m sure you’ve met hundreds of attractive women in the course of your career,” Kathryn said, trying hard to sound businesslike, “yet you were able to set that aside and concentrate on your business.”

“Sure.”

“That’s what you have to do now.”

“Why?”

He was a very stubborn man, but she guessed he hadn’t made it to the top by taking no for an answer. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I don’t see a conflict. I can find you attractive and still work with you to understand my daughter.”

“Yes, but finding me attractive isn’t the same as trying to establish a personal relationship between us.”

“I didn’t say anything about a personal relationship. Did you say that because you find me attractive?”

She was trapped. The only way out was to be completely candid. “You know you’re an attractive man. I’m sure you’ve studied your personal appearance in minute detail, put it together like a well-orchestrated game plan, and use it to every possible advantage.”

He grinned. She wished he wouldn’t.

“Of course I do. Everybody prefers to be around attractive people. If they didn’t, half the people in movies and TV would disappear tomorrow. But we’re not talking business. We’re talking personal.”

“I’m not.”

“I am.”