Alpha Billionaire Series
Loving the One I Should Hate Chapter 24

GRANT

I stood staring out over Lake Michigan. Mina would be in at any moment with my morning coffee, and it would be go-time for the day. I wouldn't be ready, but no one would know that. No one knew that my hatred for this view was growing day after day. Staring out at the water, which used to center my attention, now only reminded me of one thing, Mandy. "Here's your coffee, are you ready for today's run down?" Mina asked.

I turned and took the coffee from her. "Give me a few more minutes," I said, turning my attention back out the window. "Sure, I'll be back in a few minutes." She left.

Coffee was my mental trigger. It was time to stop reflecting, stop contemplating, and time to start doing. The problem was I felt trapped in a loop. I couldn't purge Mandy from my thoughts. Instead of fading from my memory like any of the women from my past, this one stood firm.

Memories of her grew more real, more solid. It was as if I could still feel her against my skin, taste her on my mouth. I should be able to remember the tiny details of her breathing, or how she would push her hair behind her ears as she focused. I should be losing those moments to time.

I didn't have to focus and drive to power through the day. I faked everything from the moment I got dressed until I fell asleep. I let out a heavy breath. It was another day to get through, another day that I didn't have Mandy. I slid into my desk chair and opened the folio where I kept my notes.

"Is now a good time, boss?" Mina stepped back into my office, her tablet in hand.

I gestured for her to take a seat and closed the folio.

She proceeded to list off my morning meetings.

"Clear my lunch schedule and my afternoon meeting. Make sure Dylan is available. Also, I'm going to want a car for the afternoon."

"Sure thing."

I hit my morning meetings with my standard aggressive style. Maybe a little too aggressive. I was faking it to everyone around me, especially myself.

MiMa Play had become my obsession. I needed to either own it or purge it from my system. With Mandy being involved, I didn't know how to proceed. If I pushed through the transfer of title, I would lose her. If I conceded their win, I would lose her. There was a pretty damn good chance I already had. There was finality in the way she threw that wine at me. I hadn't sent that shirt out for laundering, as a reminder, I pissed the woman I loved off to the point she threw wine in my face in public. I remembered everything about that meeting. I replayed it in my head like a video I could pause and rewind. She had been so hot-tempered but played it cool. Those moments of boring small talk, she had even included the weather. I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

She had been so close, and I hadn't touched her. Hadn't even reached out when there was an opening. What could I have said differently that would have had her coming home with me instead of tossing wine in my face? Was there any way that could have happened?

Acquiring MiMa Play was going to happen, one way or another. Not having Mandy in my life was unacceptable. How did I make it work out that I got everything I wanted, both the company and the girl? In the end that was the only acceptable solution. "Mina said you needed me to clear my afternoon. What's up?" Dylan asked as he stepped into my office after my last conference call.

"I need you to gather everything you have on MiMa Play and meet me in the lobby downstairs in thirty minutes."

"Sure thing," he sounded wary of my motivation, as he should.

Thirty minutes later I was striding toward a long black car with a liveried driver standing, waiting.

"Mr. Carpenter," my driver greeted me with an open car door.

"We're waiting for my colleague, Dylan Caufield," I said as I slid into the back.

"Very well."

I didn't have to wait long before Dylan joined me.

"What is this all about, are we getting lunch?"

"What do we know regarding the position MiMa Play is in regard to paying back their loan?" I asked.

"Last I heard they were financially strapped, but they were poised to pay us off before the deadline. It's been a little harder to track since one of the caveats on that loan was that it had to be paid back in a lump sum, and no instalment payments." "Okay. I want you to tell me everything you know about Amanda Wilson. I want all the insider intel you have from your cousin."

"You mean Mandy? Why? So, you can leverage personal information against her?" He sighed and looked out the window, all while shaking his head.

"I don't like this, Grant. It's very cutthroat, even for you."

"Since when have I not used the information to my advantage. I don't see how acquiring MiMa Play is any different than acquiring any other competitor?"

Agon Athletics is poised to take on European markets, only we have yet to replace the ideal product that would leverage us into an immediate market share. Kid-oriented sports play products were a good fit, and a good market to take internationally. MiMa Play had the perfect products, yet they had never been able to launch beyond regional success. It was a logical business move to acquire the company.

"MiMa Play has never been a competitor. Until recently, you only looked at them as a glorified toy company. You asked me to pull up our records on them. I'll give you those, but if you expect me to be some kind of middleman spy for you, I don't think that's going to work."

"You're her best friend's cousin," I growled.

"And you're supposed to be my friend, and yet you managed to not tell me that you met a woman who clearly is, was, very important to you. And you expect me to sit back and help you stalk her so you can steal the company her father left to her? If that's what's happening here? Let me out of the car now."

"That's not what's happening. Keep driving," I told the driver as I felt him slow the car.

"I know very little about what is happening with Mandy directly. It's not as if Vivica and I talk on a regular basis. But I can tell you what I know is going with MiMa Play simply by following the business closely. Do you want a recap of Agon's history, maybe that will give you the insight you need?"

I grunted. My needs and wants were currently not making themselves obvious.

"Sounds good," I said.

"Agon Athletics approached MiMa Play almost ten years ago after seeing their presentation at a sporting goods expo in St. Louis. The initial contact was with Mike Wilson. Initial feelers were sent for partnering in some fashion. Mike Wilson died about six months into discussions." "Wait, who was Mike Wilson?"

Dylan scrolled through notes on his tablet. "VP of operations and marketing. Looks like Mike Wilson was Ralph Wilson's oldest son. There is a note about a daughter, Amanda, but she was not involved in the business at that time."

"Fuck." I ran my hands through my hair. "Did you know she had an older brother? I didn't know she had an older brother."

"Yeah, MiMa Play was apparently named after Wilson's kids," Dylan reported.

"Mike and Mandy." It seems that I was missing some important historical information. "What happened after Mike died?"

"It looks like we didn't have any interactions with MiMa again until about three years ago. Our team contacted Ralph Wilson directly and he refused to even meet with us. We tried initiating multiple partnerships, and then taking over initiatives. That's when our campaign to acquire them started in earnest."

"So, when Ralph Wilson was desperate for money to help take care of his sick wife he took out a loan on terms that were nearly impossible to meet. F**k. Okay, I know you don't want to be some kind of spy, but I need to know, how is her mother doing? I was told she was in recovery while up at the lake."

"Didn't you ever see her?"

"No, I never met the woman."

"We're here, sir," the driver said as he pulled the car to the curb.

Across the street was a low brick business building with one of those pre-formed steel warehouses in the back. Several loading bays in a row provided dividers between different businesses. I stared at the front for a while before getting out of the car. "What is this place? Are you looking to buy the building?" Dylan asked as he followed me out of the car.

"I wasn't getting anywhere staring out across Lake Michigan. I wanted a change of scenery."

"So an industrial office building, in an industrial park was what you picked for inspiration?"

"I wanted to see what was making me so crazy. That's it," I gestured at the building across the street, and turned to Dylan. "That's MiMa Play. Some cut-rate office space in a warehouse. They don't even handle the manufacturing directly, and the distribution is outsourced."

I pointed. "That is what is destroying a family. There is nothing sexy about it. There is no power there. What is it in that building that the Wilson family is willing to sell off their family home and go bankrupt to protect?"

What was it that Mandy was willing to walk away from what we had? The most important thing, no person, inside that building to me was Mandy. The rest of it didn't matter. However, the rest of it was now the principle of the issue. And it came down to nothing more than ego and having to win.

"If there is nothing tangible there, why do you want it so badly?" Dylan asked.

I stared at Dylan. He was right, what was there that I wanted so badly? The answer was simple, yet extremely complex.

"Mandy."