August looked around the table. Apart from Max, Lexi and himself, there were three other Kruger-Brent executives at the meeting. Harry Wilder, a gray-haired former academic with mad-scientist eyebrows, was nominally the most senior. A board member for a decade, Harry Wilder was a golf buddy of Peter Templeton’s, Kruger-Brent’s current chairman. Other than a decent handicap and an affable clubhouse manner, however, it was hard to see what value he added to the company. Nobody took him seriously, least of all August Sandford. The fact that Harry Wilder was the board member chosen to head up the Internet division did not bode well for any of them.
Next to Wilder sat Jim Bruton. Jim Bruton was an up-and-comer at Kruger-Brent. A dead ringer for a young Frank Sinatra, Jim’s most meaningful personal relationship was with his mirror. Second came his busty personal assistant, Anna. In distant third was his loyal wife, Sally, mother of Jim’s three legitimate daughters, Corinna, Polly and Tiffany, always referred to pretentiously by Jim as “the heiresses.” (His two illegitimate sons, Ronnie and Carlton, lived with their mother in Los Angeles, unbeknownst to Sally and the girls.)
To say that August Sandford despised Jim Bruton would be an understatement. But even August had to admit that Jim was sharp. He’d tripled the profits of the biotech division during his stint as head in the early nineties. Jim made no secret of the fact that he intended to make Kruger-Brent Internet his next money-spinning fiefdom.
Over my dead body, thought August.
Beside Jim Bruton was a young woman named Tabitha Crewe. Recently hired from Stanford Law School, Tabitha was attractive in a neat, regular-featured, hair-pulled-back-in-a-ponytail sort of way. Apparently she’d started and sold a small dot-com while at college and made herself a little nest egg, hence her assignment to the team. August looked at Tabitha’s impassive, makeup-free face and found it hard to imagine her having the get-up-and-go to start a washing machine, never mind a business. She seemed so…blank. Especially when she sat next to Lexi Templeton.
Now there’s a chick with a fire in her crotch. If she weren’t so obsessed with her prick of a cousin…how much would I like to screw all the haughtiness out of her? Sexy, opinionated, stuck-up…
“Mr. Sandford. Are we boring you?”
Jim Bruton was staring at August, a wry smile playing across his lips.
Yes, you’re boring me. You’re all boring me stiff.
“I apologize.” August returned the smile. “What was the question?”
“Mr. Webster here is proposing we make a formal submission to the board, asking for a bigger budget with which to make acquisitions. Ms. Templeton disagrees. Harry and I were wondering where you stood on the matter?”
August opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by Lexi. Her deafness made her speech slower and more deliberate. She also had a habit of moving her hands when she spoke, unconsciously signing her words. August watched her long, slender fingers perform their delicate dance and found himself wondering what they’d feel like wrapped around his cock. He started to get hard, which irritated him even more.
Lexi said: “I’m all in favor of expanding our online reach. What I’m not in favor of is throwing money at a random bunch of start-ups before we’ve done our due diligence. My cousin seems to think that no economic fundamentals apply to Internet companies. I disagree.”
“So do I,” said August.
Max glared at him. Jim Bruton and Harry Wilder followed suit. Both had clearly decided that the chances of a deaf woman taking over Kruger-Brent were slim to none, whatever Kate Blackwell’s will might say, and were pinning their colors firmly to Max’s mast.
If I had any sense, I’d do the same, thought August. I don’t even like the girl, so God knows why I’m defending her. But the fact was, Lexi was right. Max was talking out of his ass, jumping blindly and greedily onto the Internet bandwagon like every other Harvard Business School groupie.
“Any acquisition proposal we make to the board needs to be specific and backed up by hard data.” August stood up to leave. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have an important lunch appointment.”
That night in the bath, Lexi Templeton thought about August Sandford.
He’s not the ugliest man in the world, she conceded grudgingly, picturing his thick chestnut hair, strong jaw and almond eyes, offset by a butterscotch tan acquired, no doubt, on the beaches of East Hampton this past summer. Lookswise he was the exact opposite of Max. Brad Pitt to Max’s Johnny Depp. Or so August probably thought.
He’s almost as good-looking as he thinks he is. Not half as smart, though.
Lexi knew scores of August Sandfords at Harvard. Handsome, rich, well-educated, chauvinist pigs. Take one rampant ego, sauté lightly in wealth and privilege, top with a blue-chip business card, and voilà! August Did-I-Mention-I-Was-at-Goldman? Sandford. Yawn.
The bright young things at Harvard bored Lexi, but they served a purpose. She slept with all of them. Ever since the night of her sixteenth birthday party, when she’d lost her virginity to Christian Harle, Lexi had been haunted by the thought that her childhood abuse might have ruined her for sex as an adult. Having worked so hard to overcome her deafness, it was terrible to imagine that the pig might have won after all. That he might have turned her into some sort of sexual cripple. Determined not to let this happen, Lexi threw herself into college sex with all the single-minded fervor of a sailor on shore leave. Harvard was an education on every level: algorithms by day, orgies by night. Threesomes, bisexuality, sex toys, role-play; Lexi wanted to discover it all. To prove to the world and to herself that she was not a victim, that the pig had not defeated her. It was an open secret on campus that Lexi Templeton was the best lay at HBS. But an unspoken code of loyalty prevented her classmates from spreading rumors in the newspapers. Harvard was a closed world, a safe place to explore one’s wild side. Outside the college walls, it was a different story.