left before his grandfather could say anything else, closing the office door behind him. The company headquarters was in Foothill Ranch, California, and most of the windows looked out over palm trees, more buildings and parking lots. Still, there was a greenbelt nearby and enough sunlight pouring through the lightly tinted windows to make the whole place bright.
Jamison’s secretary, Donna, looked up from her computer screen. She was comfortably in her fifties and had been with Jamison for thirty years. “See you, Luke.”
“Yeah,” he answered, giving his grandfather’s door one last look. He didn’t like leaving the old man like this, but what choice did he have?
Still frowning to himself, he asked, “Is Cole here?”
“Yep.” Donna nodded toward a bank of offices across the room.
“Thanks.” Luke headed over to see his cousin. He gave a brisk knock, then opened the door and stuck his head in. “How’s it going?”
“Hey.” Cole looked up and smiled. Even in a suit, he looked like a typical California surfer. Tanned, fit, with sun-streaked blond hair and blue eyes, Cole Barrett was the charmer in the company. He did lunches with prospective clients and took meetings with manufacturers because he could usually smooth-talk people into just about anything. “You here to see Pop?”
“Just left him.” Luke braced one shoulder on the doorjamb and idly noted how different Cole’s office was from their grandfather’s. Smaller, of course, but that was to be expected. It was more than that, though. Cole’s desk was steel and glass, his desk chair black leather minimalist. Shelves were lined with some of the toys their company had produced over the years, but the walls were dotted with professionally done photos of his wife, Susan, and their toddler son, Oliver—skiing in Switzerland, visiting the Pyramids and aboard the family yacht. Cole had always been more interested in playing than in the work required to make the money to do the playing.
Luke dismissed it all and met his cousin’s eyes. “Wanted to warn you that he’s still not happy about me leaving.”
Cole leaned back in his desk chair and steepled his fingers. “No surprise there. You were the golden boy, destined to run Barrett Toys…”
Bitterness colored Cole’s tone, but Luke was used to that. “That’s changed.”
“Only because you left.” His cousin shook his head. “Pop is still determined to bring you back into the fold.”
Pushing away from the wall, Luke straightened up. “Not going to happen. I’ve got my own company now.”
Cole swung his chair lazily back and forth. “It’s not Barrett, though, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. A start-up company was fun. Challenging, even. But it wasn’t like running Barrett’s. He’d poured a lot of work and heart into the family business. But feeling as he did now, that his grandfather didn’t trust him, how could he run Barrett’s with any sort of confidence? “It will be,” he said, with determination. “Someday.”
“Right. Anyway.” Cole stood up, slipped his suit jacket on and buttoned it. “I’ve got a lunch meeting.”
“Fine. Just…” He thought about Pop, rooting around for those papers and looking confused about why he couldn’t find them. “Keep me posted on Pop, will you?”
“Why?”
Luke shrugged. “He’s getting old.”
“Not to hear him tell it,” Cole said with a short scrape of a laugh.
“Yeah, I know that.” Luke nodded and told himself he’d done what he’d gone there to do—try one more time to get through to his grandfather. Make him see reason. Now it was time to move the hell on. “All right, then. I’ve got a plane to catch. So, say hello to Susan and Oliver for me.”
“I will.”
When he walked out, Luke didn’t look back.
Jamison stood at his open office door and watched his grandson. An all-too-familiar stir of frustration had him falling back into the old habit of jingling the coins in his pockets.
“You’re jingling.”
He stopped instantly and shot a look at his assistant.
“Didn’t work, did it?” she asked.
“No one likes hearing ‘I told you so,’ Donna.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t say it.”
“You were thinking it.”
“If you’re such a good mind reader,” the woman countered, “you should have known telling him that Loretta cried was a mistake.”
She had a point. No one who knew his wife would believe she’d given in to a bout of tears.
“Fine,” he grudgingly admitted. “You were right. Happy?”
“I’m not unhappy. It’s always good to be right.”
He scowled at the woman currently ignoring him as she busily typed up some damn thing or other. Donna had been with him for thirty years and never let him forget it.
Shaking his head, Jamison shifted his gaze back to Luke as he walked across the room, stopping to chat with people on his way to the elevator. He was leaving, and Jamison didn’t have a clue how to get him back. So it seemed it was time for the big guns.
“The woman you told me about. You still think she can help?”
Donna stopped typing and looked up at him. “Apparently, she’s pretty amazing, so maybe.”
Jamison nodded. He wanted his grandson back in the company, damn it. How the hell could he ever retire if Luke wasn’t there to take over for him? Cole was good at his specified job, but he didn’t have it in him to keep growing Barrett Toys. Jamison needed Luke.
“Well, I tried the easy way,” he murmured. “Now it’s time to put on the pressure.”
“Boss…if Luke finds out, this could all go bad in a huge way.”
He dismissed her warning with an idle wave of a hand. “Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t find out, won’t we? Make the call, Donna. I’ll be waiting in my office.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said as she picked up the phone and started dialing.
Jamison turned to his office, but paused long enough to ask, “Where are those statistics I asked you to print out for me this morning?”
Frowning, she looked at him. “I put them on your desk first thing.”
“You didn’t move them?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Right, right.” He nodded and tried to remember
