Acquiring Ainsley by Sara Celi & S. Celi

Author:Sara Celi & S. Celi [Celi, Sara & Celi, S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A Billionaires in Palm Beach Story
Publisher: Lowe Interactive Media, LLC
Published: 2018-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

The article had the top spot of Page Six’s website, and a screaming headline in bold, black lettering.

NEW YORK’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR TO MARRY PUBLISHING HEIRESS AFTER WHIRLWIND ROMANCE

We can’t believe it ourselves, but this story is a merger for the ages…

Below it, seven paragraphs detailed the proposal in Palm Beach (in front of dozens, and featuring a two-carat diamond ring, how romantic), our love affair (smoldering for years, insiders say, given how parallel these two families have been in business and beyond), the wedding (we hear in Palm Beach after the end of the season, since Ross has her social calendar already set, just like any good socialite of the Instagram generation), and the current state of my business affairs (an expanding empire). A few gushing sentences followed about how our families would finally unite after years of business duels, and then some complimentary photos of both of us rounded out the writeup.

And the article had no mention of my past. No allusion to the unpleasant memories I wanted to stay hidden. Nothing at all.

Good.

I closed the Page Six browser window on my office desktop and returned to the emails I’d been typing for most of the morning. It had been three days since the proposal, and one since my return to New York from South Florida. Plenty of things clamored for my attention, not the least of which included the acquisition of Ross Publishing. Thank god I didn’t have a board to answer to about big decisions like this one. Any competent CFO or COO would consider this deal ill-advised, given the size of debt and bloated spending of the company. Anyone who saw the kind of financial disclosures about Ross Publishing that lay on my desk would have demanded I reconsider the buyout.

But for me, the pursuit of the company wasn’t about how much money I might make, or how much I’d lose. It was about pride. It always had been. Win this, and I’d get to declare victory in the game my father had played for most of his life.

Maybe I’d get a few spoils of war, too.

As I considered this, my desk phone rang. When I answered it with the speaker button, Janet, my longtime assistant asked, “Mister McNamara, are you there?”

“I am.”

“I have your—umm, well, your new fiancée on the phone, Ainsley Ross.”

Electricity pulsed through me as I heard her say that sentence. It was the first time anyone in person had referred to Ainsley as my “fiancée,” and I liked the sound of her name and that title. Honestly, it pleased me more than I’d planned.

Interesting.

“Patch her in.”

“Right away, Mister McNamara.” She made an audible click, and Ainsley took over the line.

“Hi, Trevor.”

I struggled with what to say to her. How did I greet her? What was I supposed to say? We weren’t in love, and she wasn’t my girlfriend, but at the same time, she was also going to be my wife. I didn’t have a playbook for this.

Unusual for me. I hardly made any moves without calculating all of the potential outcomes.

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