Roulette Page 2

  Now, I’ve met a few charismatic people in my day—my mother, for one—and I’ve seen this before, at close range. This man has it, that thing that makes you shiver when he grasps your hand in his. The bits of silver in his hair and his silvery-gray eyes make me feel like he is made out of some type of gleaming iron ore.

  He looks straight into my eyes, giving his condolences. “Your father was a very good man. Sharp. We did business together.”

  “Thank you.” I don’t really know if there is a right thing to say, so I’ve resorted to a lot of thank-yous over the past few hours.

  “He and I understood one another,” Durchenko says cryptically.

  I nod because I have no idea what else to do. I don’t want this guy to murder me in my sleep. Nodding seems like a safe bet.

  “My deepest sympathies,” he says, but it’s like he’s trying to communicate with me using telepathy. He’s saying something about sympathies, but his eyes are boring into mine and it’s starting to freak me out.

  “Thank you,” I repeat. When he releases my hand, I feel like one of those cartoon characters who fly backward after extracting a finger from an electrical socket.

  “Please call on me if you ever need anything,” he adds, pressing a small business card into my palm. “That’s my private number.”

  I nod again, say thank you again, and wonder briefly if he and I will be stuck in some infinite loop of thank-yous and nods.

  “Very well.” He pats my upper arm and moves on to pay his respects to Alexei. I have the distinct feeling he wanted to say more about his business with my dad, but decided it wasn't the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances. I can tell without turning to look that Alexei is straining to remain his cheerful self as he accepts the man’s supposedly kind words, when they are so obviously enigmatic warnings of some sort. I don’t know if Durchenko is a murderer or just a billionaire businessman, but in Russia, lately, they are often two sides of the same coin.

  After everyone has taken a shot or two of vodka and a few bites of caviar, the small party breaks up and Alexei asks if I want to go for a late supper. I decline—I’m sick of being around people, even sweet and caring ones like Alexei—and promise to meet him at the corporate offices the next morning to deal with the business side of things.

  By noon the next day, my head is spinning out of control. Alexei is under the absurd impression that, now that my father is dead, I will take over Voyanovski Industries, his and my father’s thriving company, with paper factories and timber holdings across Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

  “This is what your father wanted! This is your legacy!” He’s not yelling at me, exactly, but it sounds like yelling in his guttural Russian.

  “Alexei.” I try—and fail—to stay calm. “You are not listening to me! I have a PhD in information and operations management! I’m supposed to be sitting in an office in the IOM department at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California! I’m a teacher!”

  “You must have known this is what your father wanted, Miki. How can you say you didn’t know that?” Alexei is beginning to sound desperate.

  “I came here specifically to tell you both that I’m about to get tenure at USC and this is no longer up for discussion. I’m a professor; I am not a businesswoman!” I recoil as I realize I sound like Landon.

  Alexei crosses his arms and purses his lips. He looks like a caricature of a disapproving maiden aunt far more than he looks like the COO of a very large company. He and my father worked together their entire lives. The Voyanovski brothers built everything from scratch, through all those years of political upheaval.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I snap.

  He raises his eyebrows and pretends to be accommodating. “Very well. So let me ask you, then: Why did you get a business degree? Just to talk about business? Or to actually do it?”

  I roll my eyes. “Quit trying to bait me. Of course I could do it, if I wanted to. But I don’t want to.”

  “You’re lying to yourself. You were born to do this.”

  “All right, look.” I lower my voice a bit. “I’ll do what I can about restructuring the Segezha deal, but that’s it.” He’s been fixated on this factory deal in a small town called Segezha. There’s a financing issue, and I’m actually kind of looking forward to seeing if I can sort it out. It’s all very contained, not like I’m taking over the whole company or anything.

  He claps his meaty hands together and stands up to go. “Excellent!”

  Now, I may be confused about my boyfriend and family dynamics and a whole slew of other Big Life Issues, but I am a serious whiz when it comes to finance, and Alexei knows he just scored a major point.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I stand up, too, and follow him toward the door of my father’s office. We’ve been sitting in the two chairs across from the big desk, neither one of us willing to sit in the dead man’s chair.

  The office is still bright, despite its old-fashioned, dark paneling. The crisp sunshine of early spring highlights a glorious midday view across Saint Petersburg through the tall windows. The roof of the Hermitage and the sparkling waters of the Neva should be having at least a slightly mollifying effect on my nerves.

  No such luck. I am totally keyed up. Excited. Not that I am going to tell Alexei, but there is that whirring part of my brain that can’t wait to dig into the bones of my father’s business. He was a spectacular businessman, and I want to see how he did it. And in a weird way, it makes me feel as if my father and I are still connected somehow.

  “I’m going to let the shareholders know that you’ve agreed to stay on—”

  “Alexei! I have not—”

  “Temporarily.”

  I sigh. “Okay, fine. Let them know I’m here this week and next to sort through some of the most pressing business.”

  After he walks out, I turn back to look at the office. What a nightmare.

  In addition to my PhD, I have an MBA in mergers and acquisitions. Ostensibly I am interested only in theory, but that’s like saying someone who plays poker with imaginary money feels exactly like someone who walks into a casino with $100,000 cash in her pocket.

  It’s not the same thing.

  I sit down in my father’s seat and open the Segezha file. As much as I hate to admit it, I love it. I chose a career in academia because it was safe. I don’t want to live on the edge, like both my parents—in their own ways—did.

  But Alexei doesn’t miss a trick. He knew I’d bite.

  CHAPTER THREE

  By the Tuesday of the following week, I am feeling kind of superhero-ish. Maybe I could swoop in once a month, clean up the occasional corporate mess, and swoop out.

  That idea comes to a screeching halt when Alexei suggests I actually call on some of Voyanovski’s larger clients and introduce myself.

  “No way.”

  He gestures at the piles of paperwork I’ve already gone through, the myriad minor problems I’ve already solved in just over a week. “But, Miki . . . you are the very good one at it.” He’s been brushing up on his English with me, and I smile at his funny grammar.

  “That’s different. That’s just numbers. And paper. I get numbers. I don’t get people.”

  He shakes his head. “That is not true. Look at you. You’re lovely.”

  “Oh my god.” I burst out laughing, then almost start crying. “You are so sexist you don’t even know you’re being sexist! What does being lovely have to do with the net present value of the financing you think we can get from Kriegsbeil? You’re a nutball.”

  “A what?”

  Alexei is fluent in English, but he always loves learning these quirky turns of phrase.

  “Nut. Ball. You know? A ball made of nuts? Crazy? Cuckoo?”

  He smiles. “Ah, but you say I am nutball when I first ask you to do all this cor
porate problem solving, and now look at you.” He folds his arms and nods his head, like he’s just proven Fermat’s theorem.

  He is irresistible. “Okay, I’ll grant you I’ve enjoyed getting to understand the company. But, trust me, I am not a people person. I am a numbers person. I know this about myself. Please believe me.”

  He shakes his head from side to side. “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “I don’t believe you. You are people person!” he declares in his slightly stilted English.

  “Oh, dear. Fine. Believe what you want, I’m not in the mood to argue. In the meantime, I think I can finish the cost analysis on the Segezha plant, and then you can call Kriegsbeil and Clairebeau to let them know what we’re aiming for.”

  “Ack! Kriegsbeil! They should get nothing, the dirty Germans.” With that, he turns and leaves the office. I laugh at his decades-old political hostility and turn my attention back to the spreadsheet on the computer screen in front of me.

  Alexei is right. I am happy to get lost in numbers. There are solutions. Clarity is possible. Definition. Finality.

  I work for a few more hours, figuring out the best way to sort out the Segezha deal. Basically, my father wanted to gradually offload the plant over the next few years by letting the German company Kriegsbeil be the lead investor and eventual owner. Alexei, on the other hand, believes Voyanovski Industries should retain control and find financing from multiple investors instead. Preferably non-German investors.

  One of the potential alternative investors is a French company called Clairebeau. I’ve followed its success in the business trade magazines: it’s a classic case of a young, ambitious CEO who turns a company around by taking needless risks. Just last year, I used Clairebeau as a case study for what not to do during a large-scale corporate restructuring.

  I open the file on the desk in front of me and pull out Clairebeau’s annual report. I stare at a picture of the cocky CEO, Jérôme Michel de Villiers. He’s your run-of-the-mill smoking-hot media mogul. Risk on a stick.

  Luckily, I won’t be the one dealing with him; Alexei will.

  I go through the file, make a few notes on a separate piece of paper. It looks like Alexei is probably right. It makes much more sense, financially, to spread out the risk of the plant renovation among multiple investors, German or otherwise. The long-term returns will be huge.

  On the other hand, there are a few scribbles in the file that make me think my father wanted to sell the plant outright, though his notes are vague. Some more digging shows Kriegsbeil has very close ties with one of Pavel Durchenko’s holding companies, and I remember the way he looked at me at my father’s funeral, with that stare of his. Still, there’s nothing anywhere to indicate that my father and Durchenko had an actual agreement, and I’m not about to strike up a conversation with an oligarch like Durchenko about an under-the-table one.

  When in doubt, I go back to the financials.

  I create a cost-analysis report, study different exit strategies, do more research into Clairebeau and Kriegsbeil, run more numbers, and after changing a few of my expectations, I decide I might as well lob some ridiculously high numbers to Clairebeau and see if they bite. They’d be idiots even to start a negotiation on these terms, but at least I can rest knowing I technically offered them the chance to bid. I send an email from my father’s account to Monsieur de Villiers and decide to call it a night. It’s late, and Mr. Parisian Playboy probably won’t get it until tomorrow anyway.

  I print a copy and save the file, then make a quick call to Alexei to let him know that I’m finished with the report and have sent an offering memorandum to de Villiers. I don’t bother telling him the outrageous nature of what I offered. I can hear the smile in his voice. “That’s my girl.”

  I don’t think he’s going to be so merry when he reads my recommendation, but I’m not in the mood to get into it right now. Despite the financial advantages of keeping the factory, a greater part of me wants to respect my father’s wishes—even if I don’t really understand them—so that’s what I am going to advise we do in my final report to the board.

  “Honestly, Alexei, if you don’t cut it out with the girl and lovely nonsense, I’m not going to do another thing for you or this blasted company. I am a number cruncher. I evaluate data and performance models. I am so not your girl!” I hang up on him and can hear his deep laugh from down the corridor after I end the call.

  The phone rings right away, so I assume it’s Alexei calling back to rib me. Instead, I’ve got an angry Frenchman perforating my eardrum.

  “Alexei! What the hell?” the voice booms in English before I can even say hello. “This offering is outrageous! Are you trying to bankrupt me?”

  “Who’s calling, please?” I ask, kind of stunned at the audacity of someone who can just launch like that. Of course, I know perfectly well who it is; I’m just stalling for a few seconds to think about my options.

  “Who the hell is this?” he barks.

  “I’m Mikhail’s daughter.”

  “No, you’re not,” he snaps back.

  “Yes,” I say, pausing for effect, “I am. I’m Mikhaila . . . Voyanovski.” It isn’t technically a lie; Voyanovski’s my middle name. Kind of. My legal name is Mikhaila V Durand. Just V. No need for a period.

  “Is this a joke? Mikhail never mentioned any children.”

  “I’m sorry—who’s calling?”

  “Jérôme Michel de Villiers.” He says it definitively, but with that silky accent coiling around the r’s. He says it as if the whole world should recognize his voice over the telephone. His arrogance is bizarrely appealing.

  I catch myself slipping. I should just hang up, let Alexei deal with him, but something about the man’s voice nips at me. He makes me want to tussle.

  “Hein? Monsieur Jérôme Michel de Villiers!” I say in my mother’s perfect French. He isn’t the only one with an immaculate Parisian accent around here. I take a breath to collect myself. “I assure you, I am my father’s daughter.”

  “Impossible! I would have heard about it—about you—in my own newspapers, at the very least.”

  My newspapers. His egotism is stupendous. “I’m sorry to disagree with you, but he was my father. My parents never married, and—not that it is any of your business—my father felt it was best to keep my paternity private.”

  Even the imperturbable Rome—as he is known in the tabloids to his million or so closest friends—probably hears the slight undercurrent of deep emotion that I’m trying to conceal.

  “Look. Sorry to get off to a bad start,” he says. His voice is suddenly soothing in a way that I find even more disconcerting than his arrogance. “I am very sorry for your loss.” He pauses. “But I was just handed this ludicrous contract and thought I was calling to discuss terms with Alexei. To negotiate. I’m really sorry about your . . . father.” There’s something bordering on tender in that sexy-as-hell frog voice of his.

  “We don’t need to get into all that,” I reply with dismissive ease. I shuffle a few papers into a neater pile on the already-neat desk. “Let’s discuss the contract.”

  What the hell am I thinking? I don’t know the first thing about how to negotiate this deal. In theory, I know everything about how to negotiate it. I teach lecture halls full of students exactly how to do it. How to analyze the information, how to effect change, what not to give. I write papers and publish them in highly respected academic journals. But this is real.

  And it’s thrilling.

  “Very well,” he says slowly. “Allons-y.”

  Good. The last thing I need from him—or anyone else—is sympathy.

  We go back and forth for a few minutes. Jérôme de Villiers keeps raising his offer but comes nowhere near the shocking amount I suggested. I finally feel like I need to put him out of his misery. Plus, his velvety French voice is starting to unnerve me,
and I want the conversation to end altogether. The way he says exit strategy and alpha makes me feel like he’s trailing his finger down my spine.

  “Look, Monsieur de Villiers, there’s really no point in going on if you’re not able to match the German offer. They’re a premium company, and we have no reason to go with you instead.” We have lots of reasons, and he knows it, but I am sticking to my guns.

  And he is justifiably insulted.

  For a few seconds, I think he’s ripped the phone out of the wall and thrown the whole mess out onto the Avenue Montaigne. I pulled up his website as we were speaking, and it shows the Beaux-Arts mansion where his offices are headquartered, in the eighth arrondissement in Paris. The place is stunning—over the top and showy—just like the man himself, probably. I am tempted to let him know his building is supposed to reflect the professionalism of a media conglomerate, not a brothel, for goodness’ sake. I hold my tongue.

  “Allow me to . . . enlighten you . . . whoever you are. Clairebeau has epitomized premium since my great-great-grandfather Ferchault de Réaumur invented the wood-pulp process. I am not going to be drawn into an argument about the comparative quality”—he nearly spits the words—“of some German parvenu like Kriegsbeil. Just tell me your best terms, and I will give it some thought.”

  “Very well, but I was merely trying to save you the worry.” I look at my father’s notes one last time, inhale, pause, then give him a slightly lower but equally offensive figure.

  “Miss Voyanovski,” he says slowly, but with clipped formality, “I congratulate you.”

  “Why, thank you.” I feel kind of proud of myself, actually.

  “Your shortsightedness is to be commended!”

  “What the—”

  “You go on and take that obscene German offer, you greedy little—”

  “How dare you!” My voice is starting to sound shrill.