Chapter 14 #2
When Hayden burst out laughing, she glared at him. “I don’t know why you think it’s so funny that I’m always hungry.”
“I don’t know why either,” he admitted, “but I see that I’ll spend a lot of my time feeding you in the future.” He looked over at her father and asked, “Why didn’t you teach her how to cook for herself so she’s not starving all the time?”
He turned to study his daughter.
She raised one hand. “Yeah, I know how to take care of myself. I just order in food when I want to eat. However, I don’t always want take-out food.
I don’t always want strangers coming to my apartment and dropping things off.
” She shrugged, facing her father and then Hayden.
“I just don’t want to be around people at all times. ”
Her father frowned, muttering, “I guess we could have taught you to cook some things.”
“You know yourself that, if you had to, you could cook quite a few meals,” she pointed out. “And, in your defense, I understand that you wanted to provide absolutely everything you could for me, but a little bit of self-sufficiency wouldn’t have hurt me.”
He sighed and agreed. “You’re right. It might have hurt my pride a little bit, but it probably would have helped you.” He turned to Hayden. “You cook?”
“I do okay, but I’m definitely not a chef or anything,” he said.
“He is a great cook,” she muttered. “I don’t remember it being such a big thing the first time we dated, but now his food is mostly what we’ve been eating, and it’s been wonderful.”
Her father nodded. “Goes to show you how life is changing, doesn’t it?” He turned to Jerome. “Go find out what’s taking the damn waitress so long,” he muttered. Then his gaze searched his daughter’s face. “Do you want me to pull all the funding from the university?” he asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” she hedged. “I guess it depends on how they respond.”
He nodded. “You just tell me to, and I’ll pull it. I’m sure a lot of other people out there can do some good with that money, rather than handing it to the people who are responsible for putting a target on your back. So, if you think it’s got a better place to go, just tell me.”
“I know lots of places that could use the funding,” she stated, “but you’ve never once asked me for suggestions.”
“No,” he admitted, “and, in all fairness, you’ve never asked me to make donations anywhere.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been dealing with charities for a very long time,” he began, his tone casual. “You’ve never asked me where the money goes. You’ve never asked me to send the money anywhere else. I was hoping you would one day take it over, but you seem to have been completely blind to all that.”
“I think mostly because you have a tendency to bark loudly when anybody goes against you.”
He frowned at her. “Since when were you ever scared of my bark?”
She smiled. “I used to be terrified of it.”
“Yeah, but that’s a used to be, right?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “It’s a used to be.”
*
“Good,” Amir stated. “So, in that case, why don’t you consider taking over the damn foundation?
You know what a pain in the ass that is for me.
I have to vet all these bloody companies.
I mean, I get all these other people to do it,” he clarified, “but still, it’s a pain in the ass. I’m about to cut it all.”
“You can’t do that,” she declared, frowning.
“But I can,” he argued, turning to glare at her.
“No, you can’t. People need help.”
“Then you’ll have to step up and … help,” he spat, growling at her. “Because I don’t have the time, the energy, or the interest in doing it all.”
She smiled at him and nodded. “If you are overwhelmed by it all, maybe I will.”
One eyebrow shot up. “I won’t give you a second chance on that because I do need help, as you so rightly pointed out. So, if you think you could take on some of it, it would be appreciated,” he muttered. “But you need to know it’s a lot of damn work.”
“Funny how just a couple minutes ago you wanted me to take over all the donations, now it’s some of them.”
“Well, I would oversee things.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I get full oversight of it all, or you just do it yourself.”
Amir seemed … shocked.
“I would be fully in charge, with no veto power on your end.” She smiled broadly as she considered the full implications of that. “I think I could do that,” she noted, turning to Hayden. “What do you think, Hayden? Do you think I could do that?”
“I think you would do very well at it,” he said, with a smile. “You have compassion, and you have heart. Both things are needed for that work.”
Amir cut in and argued, “Not necessarily, considering it’s my money.”
“Oh, no, we’re not going there,” she countered. “Having compassion and heart is necessary, and having people to hand out money is also necessary. But you don’t get to challenge me over my decisions. If I say that we need to help these people, you need to give me the leeway so we can do it.”
“As long as you tell me why we need to do it.”
“How about I give you a synopsis, along with my rationale for recommendations instead? I don’t expect you to rubber-stamp everything, but I don’t expect to fight you very often either.” She looked over at Jerome to see a big grin on his face. “Jerome, is this a bad idea?”
He shook his head, and her father’s forehead furrowed in an instant. “I think it’s a great idea. One of his biggest complaints is the fact that he has nobody to help with the foundation.”
“He has lots of people to help,” Andrea noted.
“Yes, but he’s not very good at delegating.” Jerome stopped abruptly, then looked over at his boss and shrugged.
“You might as well continue, Jerome. You’ve already shared some of your insights, so let’s hear the rest of it.”
He laughed, then turned back to Andrea. “Your dad has trouble letting go of control because he doesn’t trust that anyone would take his money or his interests to heart.
Now, if you were to take it over, he might fight you over the amount of money you want to give away.
Yet he would know that you were doing it from your heart and your head because it’ll be your money too that you are donating. ”
She shrugged. “It’s his money, not mine.”
“Exactly. That mind-set makes you perfect for the job,” Jerome stated. “Which also means that, from his perspective, you won’t be trying to screw him out of the money either.”
“That is true,” Hayden agreed. “I can see this being a good position for you.”
“What if I want to try journalism?” she asked, staring at him. And then she looked back at her father. “You know how I feel about that.”
“Yeah, I do,” Amir stated, narrowing his gaze. “You also know how I feel about it.” She went to stand up, and he placed a hand on her shoulder and nudged her back down again.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she snapped.
“I have no intention of it,” he began, “but believe me, if it comes down to your having a job that keeps you safe, where you get to give away millions of dollars, versus you going out in the middle of the night to meet potential kidnappers in a deserted warehouse district, you know which one I want you to do.”
She turned to her father. He was right, and they all knew it. She picked up the wineglass nearby, took a big gulp, and then coughed to avoid choking. When the coughing fits died down, she said, “Okay, so maybe that wasn’t my best idea—”
“Maybe?” Hayden interjected. “You are smart, but you are not cautious enough to be a journalist, at least not right now. And, while I would never want to crush your dream, I would feel better if you weren’t doing work that fed into your more impulsive and reckless tendencies.”
Andrea frowned. “I thought I was doing a good thing.”
“You were, until you got kidnapped, which got us further into this investigation. However, you could also do a good thing by overseeing your father’s philanthropic foundation.
Doing good and contributing is really important to you, so working in your dad’s foundation would be a pretty amazing experience, without creating more stress and drama between you two. ”