"Bernd, take a deep breath. We're on schedule and we've got to make sure we stay that way. Get hold of Grant and tell
him I want him to double‑check the regulatory situation for the Cambridge deal. I know he already has, but I want a memo from our attorneys by noon tomorrow. If there are going to be any roadblocks cropping up, we need to know about them now. We can't afford to be blindsided."
He clicked off the phone and tried to think. In the confines of a limousine, it was hard.
What's it all for?
Unknown to the world—but, unfortunately, known to his wife, Eileen—Winston Bartlett had a natural son. And that son, now in his own career, despised Bartlett. It was one of many sorrows he had long since learned to bear.
All the same, he increasingly regretted that he had made such a botch of their relationship. The man who was his natural son had done very well for himself professionally, had plenty of drive. And in fact Bartlett believed he himself deserved some of the credit for that. What he had done was let the boy fend for himself, which was exactly how Bartlett was raised. Make it with your own two hands. How else are you supposed to develop any character?
And it had worked. The pity was, he now hated Winston Bartlett's guts.
But Bartlett had begun thinking more and more about a legacy. What if he could make peace with that son and bring him into the business? Right now the closest thing he had to a son was Grant Hampton, and Hampton was a little too slick and expedient. Bartlett knew a gold‑standard hustler when he saw one.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convincing himself to make his natural son his sole heir.
Assuming there was anything left to pass on.