Darius #2
"No." Darius’s voice was flat, final, and entirely devoid of room for negotiation.
He turned his head slowly, his eyes landing squarely on Dr. Wineberg.
"While I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to travel here and express an interest in assisting us, Dr. Wineberg, any movement at this stage would be entirely premature.
We do not move forward on evidence we do not possess. "
"Let me check with my contact at the state archives," Dr. Wineberg began quickly, her voice tightening.
Darius caught the sudden, sharp flash of desperation in her eyes—a calculated, intense need that had nothing to do with a standard corporate consulting fee. There was an underlying motive here, something deeply personal that she was hiding behind her academic credentials.
"No," Darius repeated, cutting her off cleanly.
"If I require your services, I will have Baxter contact you.
Not before." He shifted his gaze to his cousin, his expression hardening.
"Baxter, thank you for enlightening me about this potential complication regarding the hotel.
But I am going to tell you one last time.
I am handling the Sanibel acquisition. It is my project, and you need to back off. "
Darius watched his cousin’s jaw tighten.
For weeks, he had been wondering why Baxter was pushing so aggressively to insert himself into the Florida timeline.
He ran a quick, silent calculation in his head, tracing the lineage of Baxter’s recent assignments.
The intense pressure from his cousin had only begun after Baxter took control of the Wayne Group’s new luxury resort development in South Carolina.
Darius looked closely at the body language between the two people sitting across from him. Then it clicked. Baxter wasn't driving this agenda for his own corporate advancement. He was doing it for the woman beside him.
Interesting. Dr. Wineberg was a stark departure from Baxter's usual type.
She wasn't one of the simpering, superficial women his cousin typically brought to company dinners. This woman was poised, deeply calculating, and significantly more dangerous. Dr. Wineberg carried herself with the distinct, unmistakable air of generational wealth. Then, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place in Darius’s mind. Her surname.
"Where are you from originally, Dr. Wineberg?" Darius asked, his tone deceptively casual. Her accent was subtle, a polished, aristocratic drawl with just a hint of the deep South hidden beneath her professional delivery, but it was just enough to confirm his suspicion.
"Charleston," Dr. Wineberg replied, lifting her chin slightly.
Darius nodded to himself. The pieces fit perfectly. Baxter’s sudden desperation to impress her, the irregular travel expenses, and the aggressive push to find a foothold on Sanibel all stemmed from this woman's influence.
"Are you by any chance related to the former senator, Harold Wineberg?" Darius asked, already knowing the answer before the words left his mouth.
"Yes, he is my father," Dr. Wineberg said, a cunning, well-rehearsed smile touching her lips.
She softened her posture slightly, but the underlying ambition remained raw.
"He still maintains a considerable amount of pull within the state’s historical and development boards.
If our interests align, those connections can be remarkably beneficial to the Wayne Group's future projects. "
Darius recognized the subtle threat wrapped in the promise of political favor.
It was an old, transactional way of doing business, the exact method his uncle had used for decades.
But Darius had never operated that way, and he never would.
Baxter had tried to use those back-room channels a few times in the past, resulting in a series of public-relations disasters that had left him on his absolute last chance within the Wayne Group. His cousin should have known better.
"Well," Darius said, glancing down at the classic silver watch on his left wrist once again.
"Thank you for the briefing and the warning.
" He looked directly at Baxter, his voice dropping into a cool, professional beratement.
"Although this entire conversation could have been handled over a secure conference call.
You didn't need to spend the company's time and money traveling all the way out to the Gulf when you should be on-site attending to the foundations of the Carolina project. "
The sharp reprimand landed heavily, the color shifting slightly in Baxter's cheeks as he felt the weight of the corporate hierarchy pressing down on him.
"I was simply trying to look out for our broader interests, Darius," Baxter muttered, trying to reframe his actions as loyalty. "I know how much the Sweet Blossom Bay acquisition means to the family name and how it honors the memory of your father."