Bitter Business

Mayfair Regent Hotel. Every morning before the guests get up, the doorman goes over and chases off the homeless men who sleep at his marble feet.
    Theodore’s father made his money running guns and selling opium to the Chinese, but nobody built him any statues for it. Theodore proved his genius by giving some of that money away, thereby securing for himself and all the Millhollands to follow a level of respectability and influence that is beyond price.
    Unfortunately, from my point of view, it is also beyond escape. The Art Institute, the Lyric Opera,
    Pres.-St. Luke’s Hospital, the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago—go into any temple of healing, education, or culture in the Windy City and you’re sure to find the name Millholland carved somewhere into the hard, gray stone. It doesn’t help that my parents enthusiastically embrace their role as scions of philanthropy or that my mother, Astrid, and her coven of well-bred friends rule north-shore society with a grip so absolute that they are referred to as “the syndicate” only partially in jest.
    It’s no secret that I went to law school in order to escape them and the gauntlet of parties and shopping that in my parents’ world fills the gap between debutante and bride. But once I got there, I fell in love with the elegant rationalism of the law. By the end of my first year I’d concluded that I’d rather work hard at something I’m good at than to blindly do what was expected of me just because I was Astrid Millholland’s daughter. Daniel, with his long experience of dynastic families and difficult children, seemed to understand completely.
    No matter what I do, there will always be people who will not be able to look at me without seeing my entire family tree spread out behind me. There will always be rumblings that my success is not really my own—that it’s been bought and paid for with generations of Millholland money. Over the last few years, as I’ve grown more sure of myself and my talents as an attorney, I’ve become less hysterical about that stuff. Recently I’d been too busy to give it much thought at all. I was taking on new clients and new cases at a frightening rate. I’d begun to feel like a juggler who suddenly finds herself in the spotlight with one too many chain saws in the air. And that was before Daniel Babbage and his Cavanaughs.
    I was flattered that Daniel had asked me to take over the Superior Plating file. But I confess that I was puzzled, too. I am a deal lawyer, a specialist. Someone you call in to orchestrate a complex transaction or craft the terms of a tricky acquisition. My strengths are my technical knowledge of securities law and my tenacity as a negotiator. I’m the person you call in when you need your lawyer to play hardball with their lawyer, not when you need your client’s hand held.
    On my way to my first meeting with Jack Cavanaugh, as the bitter wind tossed snowflakes like confetti into the air, I realized that try as I might, I could not think of one good reason why Daniel Babbage would choose me to take over the Superior Plating and Specialty Chemicals file.
     

2
     
    Jack Cavanaugh’s house was one of those mansions that are all the more remarkable for being in the center of the city. On the corner of Schiller and Astor, just a few blocks from the thrumming commerce of Michigan Avenue, it was a tutn-of-the-century brick pile with a deep porch, tall windows, and massive pillars of red granite that had been polished to the color of dark blood.
    I paid the cabdriver, climbed the wide stone steps, and rang the bell. From deep inside the house I heard the high-pitched barking of a small dog. The yapping grew louder and more hysterical until the door was finally opened by a very pretty woman, not much older than me. She had classic features, long blond hair swept straight back from a high forehead, and skin that had no pores that anyone had ever noticed. She wore a red-and-black suit that I recognized from Escada’s spring line. Whenever she moved there was the faint jingle of expensive jewelry.
    “You must be Kate Millholland,” she practically purred, stooping to pick up the silly powder puff of a dog in time to prevent it from sinking its teeth into my ankle. “I’m Peaches,” she said, holding the shih tzu up next to her face. “I’m Jack’s wife.”
    Daniel hadn’t said anything about a current Mrs. Cavanaugh and I certainly hadn’t anticipated the elegant confection before