blinked, a little thrown off track by his response to her passionate speech. “What?”
“You said you have life goals that you need this job to support. What are they?”
Sunny frowned, all sorts of discombobulated. “You really want to know...?”
Mr. Benton heaved a huge sigh. “You’ve already seen how much I value the bottom line, so you should just assume that I also value my time, since it’s worth a lot of money. Believe me, Ms. Johnson, I don’t waste it with questions I don’t want answered.”
Sunny adjusted herself in the black chair. “All right. I haven’t told Rick or your grandmother this yet, so I’d appreciate you keeping it to yourself until I do.”
She paused, waiting for him to promise, but he just stared back at her. The king on his chessboard, refusing to make any concessions to a mere pawn.
“I recently received a scholarship to earn an MFA in dance pedagogy—that’s basically like dance education—at New York Arts University. They’ll cover my tuition in exchange for me agreeing to teach in their dance program for low-income neighborhoods for the two years that I’m there. But they don’t provide room or board, and room and board isn’t exactly cheap—even in the outer boroughs where I’d be living...”
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed, his voice thoughtful, like he’d never even considered how the other half lived before.
Probably because he hadn’t, Sunny thought to herself before continuing on. “So you see why I need this job at least until August, along with all the other hard working dancers in The Revue.”
For some reason, Mr. Benton smiled. Smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Yes, yes, I do see now.”
She waited for him to expand on that statement, but he continued to sit there, his brow crinkled, like he was running some sort of calculation.
Sunny looked from side to side. “Does this mean you’re actually thinking about not cancelling the show?”
“Depends,” Mr. Benton answered.
“On what?” she asked when he once again fell quiet.
He sat forward. “On what you’re willing to do to make sure the show goes on.”
Cole watched as the showgirl’s eyes widened slightly, like a rabbit suddenly caught in a trap. He continued to study her every reaction, while calculating his next words. He could tell she was confused. Very confused, but he didn’t rush in with an explanation. He hadn’t gotten to the top of his business by not carefully evaluating each and every one of his business rivals before and after they sat down on his chessboard, and he considered this showgirl, Sunny Johnson, a business rival.
One who happened to be extremely sexy, with long legs and soft curves that made his hands itch to do more than talk business.
She was fascinating, not at all what he’d expected, not just because she was African-American—though Nora choosing someone outside their race for him to wed had certainly been a surprise. She was so opposite of most of the people he associated with in Vegas. Vegas was a town built on big gambles and everyone who worked there from CEOs to the guys who cleaned the pit floors tended to hold their cards close to the chest. But not this woman.
It was the wide-open expression that had really thrown him at first. Every emotion she felt shone clearly on her face. Starting with her initial attraction to him when they first met in his doorway, soon followed by her irritation and righteous indignation as she defended the jobs of her fellow dancers, and eventually careful pride when she told him about the little scholarship she’d gotten to NYAU.
In fewer than ten minutes, he’d figured out that she wasn’t quite the parasitic gold digger he’d assumed she must be when Nora had first brought up her name. But then again, she wasn’t exactly a helpless damsel in distress, either. He’d found that out when he tried to run roughshod over her pitch to save The Benton Girls Revue and gotten an earful back.
She wasn’t jaded, but she wasn’t easily manipulated, either. Cole valued frankness and candor in many of his business dealings. But in this case he had the feeling that straight-up asking her to help him deal with his grandmother’s outrageous demand wouldn’t go over too well, even if she truly did need money to fund her move to New York.
“My grandmother...she likes you a lot,” he said carefully. Then he waited for her to respond.
“I like her, too,” Sunny answered. “She’s a wonderful woman, and she always made sure my grandmother had a place at The Benton. I’m fortunate to call her a friend.”
Cole didn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed that his grandmother apparently wanted him to marry her biggest fan.
“Yes, she is an extraordinary woman.” Extraordinarily presumptuous, he thought to himself. “And unfortunately, she’s in declining health these days.”
Declining mental health—and that was technically only Cole’s opinion as of now, but tomato-to-mah-to.
Sunny’s eyes widened and she seemed truly worried. “Oh, no, I’m sorry to hear that. I saw her at one of our shows last week and she seemed in perfect health. She never said anything.”
Cole lowered his eyes, which he hoped was a good enough approximation of upset. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to show any feeling at all during a business negotiation, he wasn’t sure what it would even look like. “It’s not something she likes to talk about. Her good days are pretty good, but her bad days...” He deliberately let that sentence trail off. “Her bad days aren’t something I like to talk about, either.”
Especially now, when he was trying to convince this showgirl that his tough-as-nails grandmother was in declining health.
He pushed forward to the next topic. “But you’re right. I’ve been focused mainly on establishing The Benton Group as a national contender in the hotel industry over the last few years, but my grandmother had an episode this morning, and it made me realize, blood really is more powerful than money.”
Especially when that blood holds more power than she should in your corporation, he thought with an inner glare. Why his grandfather had willed Nora so many shares without limiting her power to use them, he had no idea. But if and when he ever got married, Cole knew he wouldn’t make the same error in judgment with his own wife.
Sunny put a hand over her chest and her eyes went soft as she said, “It is. It truly is. I miss my own grandma every day.”
“Ms. Johnson, I’m just going to level with you. My grandmother doesn’t have long. To the end of the year if she’s lucky, and it’s become important to me to make her happy during these next few months.”
Sunny nodded. “Of course. I completely understand.” She pursed her lips. “But how do you figure cancelling The Revue will make her happy?”
Cole kept his face composed while scrambling for an answer to her question. “The truth is cancelling the show was my way of trying to put some limits on her activities. I want her to get the rest she needs.”
Sunny
