Page 122 of Skins Game

Looks like Kingston was outnumbered this time.

He shut the door, but the long windows on both sides of the door showed the crowd of employees milling around out there. They weren’t plastered to the glass like zombie Halloween decorations, but they were out there, pacing, talking, waiting.

As he took his place across from her, she shrugged as if to say that she didn’t know how they got there, raising the shoulders of her black business suit jacket.

He’d worn a dark blue Dior suit, so both of them took the occasion seriously. Last time, she’d worn a sunshine yellow and white striped sundress, and he’d barely been able to concentrate.

He’d deliberately not tucked a pocket square into his suit jacket’s breast pocket.

She’d already looked at the empty space twice.

Let her make of it what she would.

“Okay,” Nicole said. “Let’s get started.”

The woman on the end raised her phone and touched something on her screen.

Nicole announced, “Fairways and Greens Un-Ionized and the management of Sidewinder Golf is now meeting for good faith negotiation and being video-recorded,” and she stated the date and time.

They did the identifying thing again. Kingston did not quibble on calling himself a partner.

After Nicole stated her name, the other two women on her side of the table declared that they were Gail Stein, attorney-at-law and Sidewinder legal department, and Becca Jamison, CPA and accounting department.

“Fairways and Greens Un-Ionized has a proposal,” Nicole started, reading from a prepared statement. “You have stated that Sidewinder Golf is insolvent.”

Kingston sighed. “Technically, yes.”

She looked up at him, her dark eyes serious. “And what does that mean,technically?”

“If you look at a simple balance sheet, revenue in, expenses out, EBITDA, etc., Sidewinder is deeply underwater and a foolish investment.”

“Then why have you been shoveling money into the money pit?” she asked.

“Because that’s not the only way to value a business. You will miss the best investments if you only look at red and black ink on a balance sheet. Growth is the most important indicator. I am always more interested in the product pipeline. Every company is only as good as its next product.”

She kept watching him with her dark eyes. “So you believe in the company.”

Kingston looked right back at her. “I believe in Sidewinder’s pipeline. I believe in the brilliance of its forthcoming products.”

“Tell me aboutthe bet,”Nicole said, her voice flat and raspy.

He inclined his head and opened one hand, a gesture of embarrassment. “So, it all started last New Year’s Eve when my three best friends and partners at Last Chance and I got roaring drunk, and there’s this other guy named Gabriel Fish?—”

“I don’t want to know the tawdry details. I want to know the conditions and dates.”

His little engineer was nothing if not pragmatic. “All five of us are to buy a golf-related business.”

“And that explains Last Chance’s weird golf-related buying spree.”

She had done her homework. “We work to increase its value. Results will be tabulated this December twenty-eighth for reveal on New Year’s Eve. Winning will be based on a calculation of net increase in value.”

“And what do you win? Bragging rights? Have you done all this to us forbragging rights?”

“A hundred million dollars ante, each. Winner take all.”

All three women rolled their eyes as they should.

Nicole asked him, disbelief lacing her voice like poison, “And youmadethis bet?”