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Nora jutted her chin into the air. “Max is coming in for the Businessman of the Year dinner on Sunday. Should I let him know he should stick around this time, and prepare to take his place as chairman of our board?”
Cole resumed typing. His grandmother may have had his grandfather wrapped around her thin finger, but Cole refused to take her bait.
And Nora seemed to understand that she was being dismissed.
She went to the door and put her hand on its chrome latch. “Understand, I’m not doing to this to hurt you or The Benton Group. I’m doing this because I care about you more than I care about this company.”
Whatever it takes for her to sleep at night, Cole thought with bitter resentment. But he refused to let Nora see that she’d actually upset him. He did as he always did, focused on his work.
After Nora left, Cole finished putting in his notes for his two o’clock meeting. But as soon as he hit the last keystroke, he picked up the phone to talk to his assistant, Agnes.
“Yes, Mr. Benton,” Agnes said when he buzzed her office line.
“Put in a call to Taylor Stratherford.”
“Junior or Senior, sir?” she asked. Taylor Stratherford Jr. was Cole’s personal lawyer, just as Stratherford Sr. had served as his grandfather’s personal lawyer. However, it was Taylor Sr., who also now served as the Non-Executive Director of The Benton Group’s board.
“Senior. Set up an in-person at his office as soon as possible. Actually I want to set up one-on-ones with every member of the board except my grandmother and brother.”
“Right away, Mr. Benton,” Agnes answered. She was too professional to outright ask why he was asking for these meetings, but he could hear the curiosity in her voice when she asked, “Anything else?”
Cole thought about it. “Yes, get the manager of The Benton Girls Revue on the line, and inform him of the following...”
Chapter 2 (#ulink_1310c6f1-454e-50df-8b03-b0dd425d750d)
Sunny came rushing into the backstage area of The Nora Benton Theater, still dressed in the yoga pants and tank top she’d worn to bed. And still chilled by what had happened less than thirty minutes ago back at her apartment.
She’d been so exhausted when she got home from her cocktail waitress shift on The Benton’s casino floor that she’d fallen asleep on the couch while eating a meal replacement bar. She lived alone—or so she thought. That morning, she’d discovered she had a roommate, when she woke up to the sound of the alarm on her phone going off and the feel of something pulling on her hand. She’d opened her eyes to find a rat staring back at her, its beady black eyes filled with determination as its mouth tugged on the bar in her hand.
Sunny let him have it, letting the bar go with a scream. And an hour later, she could still see the ridges on its long tail as it ran away with its treasure. She’d never be able to unsee it, and she had no idea how she was going to manage to get to sleep when she returned to her apartment after today’s rehearsal, knowing that it was still there, probably lurking somewhere inside one of her walls.
With a shudder, Sunny brought her thoughts back to her present situation. How to get to the backstage dressing room without being seen by Rick.
It was exactly eleven a.m., which was their call time for their monthly rehearsal in full makeup and costumes. But Rick Rizzo was old school. Being exactly on time was the equivalent of being late in his book. He wanted all his dancers backstage at least fifteen minutes early, and if he saw her skulking through the shadows, she’d likely hear about it.
She also didn’t want him to see the dark circles under her eyes. She’d never quite gotten around to telling the Benton Girls manager that she’d taken a second job as a cocktail waitress in the main casino. Technically, it was none of his business, but Rick was half stage dad, half control freak, and the show paid pretty well by Vegas standards with a salary, 401(K) and vacation benefits. If he saw how tired she looked without tons of concealer slathered underneath her eyes, he’d badger her until she confessed that she was planning to leave the show in late August in order to attend graduate school at New York Arts University.
They’d given her a generous scholarship, but it wasn’t enough to cover any of the extras, like food and books, or rent, which was no joke. The school was located in Manhattan and didn’t provide housing for grad students, but even a place in the outer boroughs of New York would set her back. So her plan was to work two jobs and save as much money as she could over the next three months.
But there was no need to tell Rick any of that yet. She knew how he’d respond: What! You’re leaving us? I gave you your first job. Bobby and I had you over for Thanksgiving Dinner every year after your grandma died, and this is how you repay me?
Sunny knew Rick had come to count on her, not only as one of his best dancers, but also as his “work wife”—a combination of gossip buddy, friend and backstage administrator whenever Rick went on vacation. And she knew he deserved better than her just handing him a two-week notice out of the blue, but she hadn’t worked up the courage to tell him.
Luckily, he was on the phone as she snuck past him backstage, telling whoever was on the other side of the line off good.
“How could you do this to me? Do you know who I am? Rick Rizzo! I made The Benton Girls Revue. And you think you can screw me over like this? I don’t think so!”
Sunny rushed toward the dressing room, happy she’d escaped Rick’s notice, but sorry for whoever was on the other side of that phone.
“Ooh, twin, you’re lucky Rick didn’t see you!” her friend Prudence said when Sunny dropped into her usual seat in the long line of makeup mirrors, after changing into her Benton Girls costume. Sunny’s and Pru’s costumes weren’t topless, but they didn’t leave much to the imagination, either, basically string bikinis, dripping in fake jewels. However, they did match, and since she and Pru were the only two black Benton Girls, with similar builds and the same big bouncy curl extensions, they often called each other “twin” when they were in costume.
“I know, right!” Sunny answered, slathering concealer onto the dark circles under her eyes. “The only reason I got away with it was because he was already yelling at somebody else on the phone when I walked in. I’m guessing it’s one of the newer dancers.”
The poor girl had probably called Rick to bow out of rehearsal, not realizing that Rick morphed from a loving dance dad into your worst tyrant nightmare when you broke one of his rules—like not skipping out on rehearsal without at least forty-eight hours’ notice and/or a doctor’s note for a fatal disease.
“Poor thing. But they’ve got to learn some way. I know we did.” Pru said. She nudged Sunny with her elbow. “One more thing you’re not going to miss about this place when you’re gone, right?”
Sunny gave her friend a grateful smile. Pru was one of the few people she’d told about her plan to study dance pedagogy at New York Arts University, and she’d been nothing but supportive. They’d both started out in the chorus line at the age of twenty-two, and were both now twenty-seven. A half decade was a long time to shake your can-can for tourists, many of which were only there to see the topless girls. Pru didn’t blame her for wanting to move on.
She just wished Rick would feel the same way.
As if summoned by her thoughts, their boss suddenly appeared in the doorway.
His face was lined with disgust, and she waited for him to inform the room that one of their newest hires had just been fired, but instead he said the last words she’d ever expect to come out of his mouth.
“It’s with a heavy heart that I have to inform you that The Benton Girls Revue has just been cut from The Benton’s line-up of shows.”
Stunned silence met his announcement until Pru stuttered out, “You—you mean tonight’s show has been cut? Just tonight’s show, right?”
Rick shook his head. “I’m sorry, Pru, honey. I wish I could say it was just for tonight, or that management was just cutting back the number of shows we put on. I suggested all of that and even offered to take a pay cut. But Mr. Benton’s assistant wasn’t hearing any of it. She said The Revue is cancelled. No more shows—not even a farewell one. Order came from The Third himself.”
Cole Benton III or “The Third” as some of the longer-time employees called him. Sunny had never met the CEO of The Benton Group herself, but according to Nora, he wasn’t anything like his grandmother, all work and no play with little to no sense of humor. Still, Sunny wouldn’t have expected this from The Third. His grandmother had started out a showgirl and surely he knew how much Nora treasured The Revue. Not only was the theater they performed in named after her, but she also came to see the show the second Tuesday of every month, and she’d even had the Benton Girls perform at her annual Christmas event to raise money for Lung Cancer awareness, which had taken the lives of both Sunny’s grandmother and Nora’s husband.
As if reading Sunny’s mind, Rick said, “Sunny, aren’t you besties with Nora Benton?”
“Not exactly,” Sunny answered. “She and my grandmother were very close friends.”
“Sunny’s grandmother was our first African-American showgirl here at The Benton, and then she went on to become one of our most prized seamstresses behind the scenes,” Rick informed the group, his voice somber and reverent. He held his hand out palm up toward Sunny and said to the rest of the dancers, “So you see, Sunny has both a personal and a historical stake in making sure our show goes on, and we can continue the story her grandmother began.”
Well, she wouldn’t quite put it that way. Though Sunny was proud of her grandmother for integrating The Benton Girls, that didn’t mean that she herself wanted to stay with the show forever like her grandmother had.
“Sure, I can give Nora a call,” she offered. “Though I’m not sure how much she can do.”
Rick waved his hand in front of his chest. “No, no, no. Not Nora. If she had any power in this organization, I’m sure we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”
True, Sunny thought. Nora loved The Revue. If she had anything to say about it, The Benton Girls would have kept going forever.
“No, we need you to go to the top dog himself,” Rick told her. “In person, so he can’t just deflect your call. How about it, Sunny? Will you go plead our case with The Third? Figure out a way to keep one of the last revues in Vegas going, so we’re not all out of a job?”
Sunny wanted to say no. She wasn’t exactly a master negotiator.
However, everyone in the dressing room was looking at her now with beseeching eyes, including Pru, her best friend, who really needed this job and the benefits it provided to support both herself and her little brother.
“Okay,” Sunny found herself saying against her better instincts. “I’ll go talk to Mr. Benton. I’ll go talk to him right now.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_fdb04cca-3d43-5824-b6e6-2ea0139f0ce4)
The Benton Group currently had holdings all over the United States, but Cole Benton had maintained the flagship executive offices near the top of the hotel’s original forty-story building. So Sunny didn’t have to go far to confront The Third. After getting back into her street clothes and borrowing a cardigan from Pru to wear over her tank top, it was only a matter of simply walking on over to The Benton’s main bank of elevators.
However, when she got inside the first elevator car that opened up for her and pushed the button for the 35th floor, her head began to fill with righteous steam. Seriously, how dare Cole Benton just cut their show without even a little bit of warning? What a prick, she she thought, as she walked past the empty receptionist desk, rehearsing the polite but passionate plea Rick had all but written down for her.
Sunny came to an abrupt pause in the doorway of the outer office. Then she checked the nameplate on the door. The wood-and-glass sign declared this to be the office of Cole Benton, the CEO of The Benton Group of Hotels and Casinos. However, his outer office was not only sparse, with just a simple black desk and a black leather couch to appoint it, but it was also empty, the chair behind the secretary’s desk currently without an occupant.
Sunny hesitated, all revved up with nowhere to go. What should she do? Wait for the secretary on the couch? Hope that she’d be back sometime soon? Or...
Her eyes went to the closed door, which was painted black, as if Mr. Benton truly wanted a soul to think twice before entering his inner sanctum. And it worked. Sunny’s stomach churned at the thought of actually going in there.
But she ignored the butterflies writhing around in her belly and concentrated on taking one step, then another, then a few more after that, until she could take no more. She was right at his office door now. She had no choice but to run away or to knock.
Her main instinct was to run away. She hadn’t even worked up the nerve to tell Rick she was moving to New York. Did she really think she had what it took to confront Cole Benton face-to-face?
But she had to do this, she decided in the end. For Rick, and her coworkers, most of whom she considered friends. She took a deep breath and raised her hand for what she hoped would be a polite but firm knock on Mr. Benton’s door.
Before her knuckles could touch the dark wood, the door swung open, and suddenly her field of vision was filled with a dark tie and a well-cut suit, covering what looked like a lean, well-muscled chest.
Her gaze traveled up. The man staring down at her had dark brown hair, a square chin and a set of green eyes so intense, they put her in mind of a hawk. She’d noticed his official corporate photo a few times downstairs in the lobby, him unsmiling with the hotel’s famous choreographed water fountain in the background. Just looking at him standing there in front of shooting jets of water had made her feel cold, as if looking at a picture of a snow-peaked mountain.
But now standing in front of him, his eyes were just as icy as they’d been in the photo. However, this time his gaze didn’t make Sunny feel cold. In fact, it burned into her, rooting her to the spot with electric attraction.
And maybe he was just as stunned by her appearance, because he also went still, as if someone had hit the pause button on his brain. But only for a moment, and then his crystal green gaze began a slow descent down her body...and all the words she had prepared suddenly flew out of her head.
They stared at each other like this for moments on end, him the hawk, her as scared and speechless as a mouse.
“Yes, what do you want?” he finally said, with only the slightest uplift on “want” to let her know this was actually a question. His voice was dark, precise—like a gun shooting bullets.
Sunny cleared her throat. “Hi....um, I’m—”
“I know who you are.”
“Really?” The words came out as a squeak. She tried again. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” He crooked his head as if he were trying to decode her, even though as far as Sunny knew, there was nothing to decipher. “My grandmother speaks very highly of you for some reason.”
“Oh, Nora, of course,” Sunny said, relaxing a bit at the sound of her friend’s name. “That’s so nice of her to say nice things about me. I’ve had a lot of fun helping her with the Christmas Lung Cancer event over the years. Though, I’ve, ah, never seen you at any of those events....”
This observation caused that green gaze of his to shutter. “No, I was too busy running the corporation that provides all the money for Nora’s charity events.”
This made Sunny’s nose crinkle. “Too busy even for your grandma? I mean if my grandma were still alive and asked me to come out, anywhere, I’d make the time.”
Cole’s lips thinned. “I suppose we have different ways of showing our relatives we value them. I think keeping my grandmother rich beyond her wildest dreams is enough, whereas you seem to think I’m neglecting her if I don’t show up at her little Christmas party.”
Sunny shrugged. “Money’s nice, for sure. Believe me, I know that,” she said, thinking fleetingly of her dream to move to New York. “But if I had to choose between a big old pile of money, or family, I’d choose family every time.”
Cole gave her a grumpy look. “I can see why she likes you if you go around spouting crap like that.”
“Excuse me, it’s not crap—” Sunny broke off before her temper could get away from her. Yes, Cole Benton was an ass who couldn’t be bothered to support his own grandmother, but unfortunately, he was the ass who could get The Benton Girls Revue back up and running. She had to be nice to him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Benton, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.” She pasted on a smile and went back to the script Rick had gone over with her. “I’m actually here as a friend of your grandmother’s to talk with you about your recent decision to cancel The Benton Girls Revue.”
Mr. Benton’s mouth twisted up. “Oh, that,” he said, his monotone making it clear how unenthused he was to pursue the particular topic of conversation. But then he surprised her by stepping back, and holding the door open for her. “I suppose you’d better come in.”
She did, glancing around the mostly black-and-white room before tentatively sitting down on one of the hard black guest chairs. The whole office put her in mind of a chessboard, and she had the feeling that the association was intentional, as if to say to visitors, “once you step into Cole Benton’s space it’s game on.”
And it became clear who was the king on this board when Cole Benton sat down in the much larger chair behind his white desk, steepling his hands over its glass cover. “Talk.”
Sunny swallowed and folded her hands in her lap. “As you know, The Benton Girls Revue is one of the oldest revues in Vegas, and even though I know it comes with its share of costs, it does still break even.”
“Barely,” Cole added. “And I’m not a fan of breaking even, especially when there are plenty of other shows interested in that space. Shows that would cost less and bring in a higher profit.”
“I understand,” Sunny answered. “But when you add in The Revue’s long history, anyone can see that you can’t put a money amount on its value.”
“Only if they don’t have an MBA,” Cole answered. “I’m assuming you don’t.”
What. A. Jerk. What complete and total jerk, she thought, trying to keep the lid on her temper. “No one knows the value of that history more than I do. My grandmother was the first black Benton Girl, and it really makes me sad to think her legacy won’t be able to continue on—”
“So that’s how our grandmothers met?” Cole asked. “While kicking up their heels on the Benton Girl line?”
“Yes, and that’s why—”
“Save it,” Cole said with a bored expression. “You’ve way overestimated the nostalgia factor. I’m a businessman first and foremost in all things, so I don’t care how old The Benton Girls Revue is. The fact is we’d make more of a profit selling the costumes and set pieces we’ve used in it than we would keeping the show going, and that’s what I value most, the bottom line.”
Sunny had tried. She’d really tried, but she couldn’t hold her temper back any longer. “Look, Mr. Benton. I’m not here about your bottom line, I’m here about the people who signed on to do a job in good faith and then had the carpet pulled out from under them today. Good people.”
The man behind the desk threw her a skeptical look. “Let me guess, good people like you.”
“Yes, good people like me,” she agreed. “I have no shame in admitting I need this job to hit my life goals. But also, good people like my best friend, Prudence, who has a younger brother she’s supporting all by herself. Two weeks severance isn’t going to cut it for her.”
“Life goals like what?”
Sunny blinked, a little thrown off track by his response to her passionate speech. “What?”
“You said you have life goals that you need this job to support. What are they?”
Sunny frowned, all sorts of discombobulated. “You really want to know...?”
Mr. Benton heaved a huge sigh. “You’ve already seen how much I value the bottom line, so you should just assume that I also value my time, since it’s worth a lot of money. Believe me, Ms. Johnson, I don’t waste it with questions I don’t want answered.”
Sunny adjusted herself in the black chair. “All right. I haven’t told Rick or your grandmother this yet, so I’d appreciate you keeping it to yourself until I do.”
She paused, waiting for him to promise, but he just stared back at her. The king on his chessboard, refusing to make any concessions to a mere pawn.
“I recently received a scholarship to earn an MFA in dance pedagogy—that’s basically like dance education—at New York Arts University. They’ll cover my tuition in exchange for me agreeing to teach in their dance program for low-income neighborhoods for the two years that I’m there. But they don’t provide room or board, and room and board isn’t exactly cheap—even in the outer boroughs where I’d be living...”
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed, his voice thoughtful, like he’d never even considered how the other half lived before.
Probably because he hadn’t, Sunny thought to herself before continuing on. “So you see why I need this job at least until August, along with all the other hard working dancers in The Revue.”
For some reason, Mr. Benton smiled. Smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Yes, yes, I do see now.”
