Her Silver Fox Read online

  HER SILVER FOX

  Koko Brown

  Dear Reader

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  Her Silver Fox

  Koko Brown

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is completely coincidental

  Her Silver Fox

  Copyright © April 2017 by Koko Brown

  Cover Illustration by Syneca at Original Syn

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Published in the United States of America

  TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Brioni

  Cerruti

  Maserati

  Coke

  Bengay

  Gucci

  CHAPTER ONE

  All of Patrick Kelly’s well-laid plans were about to come to fruition.

  In preparation, he’d dressed in his best suit, an off-the-rack three-piece Brioni. The day before he’d utilized his annual membership at Spiff for Men to lay the foundation with a shoeshine, glass manicure, straight-razor shave and hundred-dollar haircut. He wouldn’t trust anyone with his prematurely gray locks for anything less.

  Pleased with his efforts, Patrick smiled at his reflection in the elevator doors. Today would be the day when all his hard work and efforts were going to pay off. Along with passing out annual end-of-the-year bonuses, the Morrissey Group always promoted both a junior and senior associate and they were due to make someone partner.

  Over the last six months, Roger Wintrop ‘R.W.’ Morrissey had dropped more hints about promoting him than the pigeons crapping on the ledge outside his office window. In Patrick’s eyes, becoming partner was practically in the bag.

  This year had been a banner year for him. Why wouldn’t he get the promotion?

  He had the requisite education—a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell and an MBA from Wharton. He leased an apartment overlooking the Hudson with a walk-in closet filled with expensive suits, Italian shoes, designer jeans, and enough cashmere sweaters to wear a different one every day for a month. He even drove the right car, a black Maserati, which saw the inside of the underground parking garage more than Madison Avenue.

  More importantly, he was completely loyal to the Morrissey Group. With almost eleven years in the can, Patrick had come to them straight out of college as a wet-behind-the ears intern and steadily moved up the ladder to Managing Director of Global Securities. Year after year he exceeded his annual benchmarks. In the past year alone he’d made the Morrissey Group ten billion dollars richer with the successful merging of four conglomerates in the Canadian market.

  Confident in today’s outcome, Patrick stepped off the elevator and headed to his office.

  Per his usual routine, he spent his morning answering email, pouring over spreadsheets, putting out fires, and holding clients’ hands. What else was new? Not one to crack under pressure, they didn’t call him The Man of Stone for nothing.

  Even when his thoughts kept drifting over the brief, yet memorable thank-you- for-making-me-partner-and-its-an-honor speech, he pumped out the estimated capital and anticipated profit margins for a small acquisition, a multi-million-dollar takeover of a textile mill in Ohio.

  Still, his fortitude couldn’t keep his morning from derailing. The stick in his well-oiled wheel? A mid-morning call from Eamonn Kelly.

  “Today’s the big day, Pat! You’ve waked so had fah this. Ahn’t ya excited?”

  Patrick gritted his teeth. His father’s thick Boston accent (minus the obligatory R’s) always had the bone-jarring ability to transport him back to the cramped, two-bedroom row house and neighborhood crab-pot mentality he’d clawed out of more than twenty-five years ago. Patrick never cracked, but whenever his past collided with his present, his accomplishments seemed to dwindle in comparison to his colleagues.

  Hating the feeling, Patrick clutched the receiver as he visualized squeezing his younger brother’s neck. His anger didn’t last for long. Even if he possessed lips looser than a snitch facing twenty to life, Patrick could never hold a grudge against Liam. He and his brothers not only shared blood, they’d survived the neighborhood joke--Eamonn Kelly.

  While he struggled to regain his bearings, Eamonn continued, “Liam warned me ya don’t like people calling during the day, but I had to.” Hearing a sniffle on the other end, Patrick sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. Eamonn’smaudlin nature was one of the reasons for his downfall. “I’mI’m just so poud of ma boys.”

  Patrick attributed the tightness in his chest to the lemongrass shake he’d gulped down for breakfast. Not wanting his father’s mawkishness to ruin what had been an otherwise perfect day, he decided to rain on his parade, “I’m only guaranteed an annual bonus.”

  Eamonn cleared his nose long and hard. Patrick imagined him sitting on the front porch in his usual go to attire--a wife beater and Bermuda shorts. “Stop pulling ma bawls,” he groused. “It’s yah time. I can feel it in ma bohnes.”

  Patrick rolled his eyes. His father’s endoskeleton predicted everything. Too bad it didn’t foresee the day when he became the laughingstock of the neighborhood. The day their whole lives changed. The day his father checked out of life. Stopped becoming their father, ceased being a man.

  Before he could counter his father’s Irish sixth sense with another negative, someone knocked at Patrick’s office door. A second later, his assistant, Vanessa Yoon, poked her head in the door. She held out her wrist and tapped her watch.

  “Hey, da…” Patrick pulled at his tie, preventing the misstep. The old man had definitely gotten to him. “…Eamonn. I’ll call you later.”

  “Pat…” Barely above a whisper, Eamonn’s voice quavered. “You know we nevah talk unless I call.”

  And that’s how Patrick liked it. If it weren’t for Liam’s arm twisting and lectures about blood and family, he would’ve cut ties with the old man years ago. Still, he treaded lightly or he’d never hear the end of it. “Pops has been through a lot,” Liam would say. “Some people handle their grief differently. It doesn’t make him less of a man.”

  Annoyed he’d given his father this much of his time, Patrick stood up. He grabbed his suit jacket and yanked it on.

  “I’m busy, you know that,” Patrick offered the same lame excuse which exempted him from any and all family gatherings involving his father.

  “Alwight…alwight,” he relented. “But doan you go leavin’ me in the dahk. You gotta call me with the good newse. Or you know I’ll sit ‘round all day and worry.”

  What else was new? Patrick mused.

  “And you know how ma indigestion can get. Blessed Mary, the last time I ate a spuckie—”

  “Hey I gotta make tracks.” Patrick rubbed the back of his neck, ruffling his salt and pepper locks. A couple of minutes on the phone with his old man and he’d relapsed to Patrick on the Block. Instead of saying someth
ing he might regret, he hung up.

  Patrick took his time walking to the firm’s main conference room. As the man of the hour, he didn’t have to rush. They wouldn’t start without him. Hard to give a promotion to someone who wasn’t there to accept. Plus, he needed time to decompress from his call with Eamonn. Why couldn’t the old man let go? Leave him alone, remain in the past like everything else he’d left behind in Boston?

  Upon entering the firm’s boardroom, Patrick was brought up short. Not only had they not waited on him, but his customary seat, next to R. W., was already occupied as was every other seat. Standing room only, he would have to suffer the peanut gallery filled with lower management and select interns.

  Not missing a beat, he wouldn’t have made it this far up the corporate ladder without keeping a cool head, Patrick sidled over to the perimeter of the group. He ended up standing next to a perky, blonde intern who always went out of her way to pull him into conversation. Was her name Sydney or Paige? Patrick mentally shrugged. He didn’t need to remember her name. She was an intern after all and would be gone before Thanksgiving.

  Like a heat-guided missile Sydney/Paige turned and gifted him with a mega-watt smile. Patrick acknowledged her with a wiggle of his eyebrows, inducing a deep-throated giggle. Sexy, with long legs, Patrick would’ve banged her once, maybe twice, under different circumstances. He was a red-blooded American male bordering on man-whore, but he never took a shit where he ate.

  “This year has been a banner year for the Morrissey Group,” Roger Morrissey boomed. Stout and round as a barrel, the founder of one of New York’s most profitable venture capital firms believed he could make up for his height with his voice. “Despite the recession, we posted gains in every quarter, especially within the Canadian and Brazilian markets.”

  While Roger droned on like white noise, Patrick eyed the reason for his being bumped down the food chain. Tall, mid-thirties, and impeccably dressed, the man looked familiar, but a name eluded him. Not surprising. Patrick had a hard time remembering the people on his floor, and with more than one hundred and fifty employees in three domestic offices and four international, placing him would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

  The other man must have felt the knife twisting in his back because he turned slightly, made eye contact, and smiled. An innocuous gesture, and yet long enough for Patrick to finally recognize who’d stolen his seat.

  Xavier Silva. His counterpart in the firm’s Sao Paulo offices, but a virtual stranger since the other man only checked in with the main offices in New York City every six months. Still, he’d moved up the company ladder in record speed, becoming managing director of the South American market in five years.

  Poker face in place, Patrick nodded in return. Due to the current circumstances and the strange foreboding brought on by the man’s unexpected presence, he couldn’t dredge up a smile even if he tried.

  A round of enthusiastic applause pulled his attention back to Morrissey who was flapping his hands to tone down everyone’s enthusiasm. Good luck on that one, Patrick mused. Company bonuses paid off his graduate student loan eight years ago.

  “I see you all are satisfied with this year’s bonuses,” Morrissey shouted above the den. “Checks will be handed out at the end of the day. Everyone here deserved them and we strive to do right by our talent. Plus, you’ll be less inclined to jump ship to a competitor.”

  Tickled by his joke, Morrissey smacked his hand on the boardroom table and let out an inflated guffaw. On cue, everyone joined in, except for Patrick who remained stoically silent. A blood thirsty mercenary when it came to acquisitions, he refused to be a team player and never browned his nose to get ahead.

  “Next year’s outlook is even brighter,” Morrissey continued. “We are especially excited about the overseas market, which we would like to see grow exponentially.” Morrissey paused dramatically, looked in his direction and then looked away.

  Or was he looking at Silva? Patrick felt a strange tug at his gut, but he quickly dismissed it. Doubt was such a remote possibility it was almost laughable. In truth, it hadn’t been in his vocabulary in more than a decade. Since becoming an adult, everything he’d done had been deliberate and well thought out for the most likely outcome. This promotion was practically guaranteed.

  “And that brings me to this year’s promotions.”

  Patrick drew himself up, rechecked his platinum cuff links and cleared his throat. After all, he was the man of the hour and he always put his best foot forward.

  “This year we’ve decided to go in a new direction.”

  Patrick never sweated. At least not in a suit or outside of bed, but he couldn’t deny the cold, clammy feeling permeating his skin, specifically his palms.

  “This year we wanted to reward someone who consistently exceeded their performance metrics. They’ve contributed substantially to our annual profit margins, but most recently helped us behind the scenes to revamp our business model to better succeed in both the domestic and international markets.”

  Several months ago, Morrissey had grilled him about possibly overhauling the company model. Seeing it as his blueprint for his present success, Patrick suggested they not change a thing, especially when it was working.

  Feeling a crack in his mask, Patrick held it in place with a well-placed hand over his mouth. The twinge in his gut had also returned with a vengeance, like a sucker punch with brass knuckles.

  “We want to give voice to new blood and this person is an out of the box thinker. And we really admire that, especially when we’ve remained so on course we’ve blended in with every Tom, Dick, and Gordon Gekko out there. So, it’s an honor to introduce to you our newest partner, Xavier Silva.”

  To a round of applause, Silva stood and shook Roger’s hand. Morrissey’s newest partner fiddled with his tie and even had the gall to look sheepish. Patrick felt the skin strain over his knuckles as he balled them. There was no way someone at his level in their line of business still had a humble bone in their bodies or much less a conscience. There were too many skeletons in the closest for that to be still possible. Patrick ought to know. He’d dismantled so many companies, a reporter from the Wall Street Journal once dubbed him Godzilla. Humanitarian of the Year would never find its way on his resume.

  Luckily, Patrick didn’t have to suffer through Silva’s bullshit. His reality had shifted to a different frequency. Akin to being underwater, all he saw were the other man’s lips moving, and heard an odd ringing in his ears.

  Lucky for Silva. If Patrick heard “this is such an honor” or “this was totally unexpected,” he wouldn’t be held liable for the medical bill when the ER removed his fist from the back of his throat.

  Of course, eighty percent of Patrick’s anger was self-directed. He’d been tested and he’d failed. He had no one to blame but himself.

  “Are you coming to celebrate with us, Patrick?”

  Patrick blinked. Self-absorbed with analyzing the past weeks…year…heck, his entire tenure with the Morrissey Group, he’d missed Silva’s entire speech and even the perfunctory congratulations to the new ass they all needed to kiss. In fact, many of his colleagues had already filed out the door. The only people remaining were Morrissey and two partners practically salivating over Silva.

  He adjusted his gaze to look down at Roger Morrissey, at six-three, Patrick had to look down at pretty much half the staff.

  “Unfortunately, sir, I won’t be joining you.” Patrick thought of a reasonable lie to back out of a celebration that should have been his. In order to release some of the heat scorching his starched collar, her pretended to smooth his tie. “I have a ton of things I need to handle. Fires to put out and all.”

  Head reeling, Patrick watched Morrissey shake his balding head. “You’re always holed up in your office, plotting ways to make money.”

  “That’s why you keep me gainfully employed. I make you money, a ship load of it.” Patrick knew he sounded petty but he didn’t give a damn. The promotion should
’ve been his.

  “Then I’m pulling the tradition card. All managing directors are required to attend company celebrations.”

  Patrick gritted his teeth. He’d toed the line regarding tradition and it didn’t get him closer to adding partner to the end of his name. ‘Fuck tradition’, ‘fuck you’ and ‘fuck the goddam company model’ were on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he excused himself.

  Out in the hallway, Patrick hesitated. If he witnessed one more pat on the back or round of congratulations, he was going to put his fist through the nearest wall. How in the hell was he going to make it through lunch? He needed an outlet. Too bad he didn’t carry a change of clothes or he could’ve hit the gym. And Elley, the perky CPA on the fourteenth floor, was out of town on business or he would’ve pounded her into her desk. In love with him, she was always down for any and everything he suggested. Needing to regain his bearings and with no alternative in sight, Patrick made a beeline for the men’s bathroom.

  He’d barely splashed his face with a handful of cold water when Thad Anderson walked in, followed closely by his lap dog, Saul Gould. Like him, they were smartly dressed in three-piece button suits and oxfords. Anderson in the latest Armani, Gould in last winter’s Cerruti.

  “Godzilla!” Thad smirked. “Planning your next corporate invasion?” Thad stuck out his arms, opened his mouth wide, and started trashing air.

  Saul laughed and smacked Thad on the shoulder as they stepped in front of a pair of urinals.

  “Washing my hands,” Patrick replied, keeping his tone non-committal. If the sharks sensed blood, they’d move in for the kill. Patrick even took his time drying his hands, but his ruse didn’t save him from what came next.

  “What happened out there?” Thad even had the temerity to look appalled. “Saul and I predicted this would be your year.”