“Do you really think this is going to work?” Liam asked as he adjusted the starched collar on one of his new, custom-tailored suits. Gwen had been right about the suit. Liam looked like any other sharply dressed man of the city. Patrick’s best suit looked like a potato sack in comparison, but their clothes didn’t matter today. All that mattered was the set of legal documents Patrick had been working on for the past two weeks.

“You’ve got all the cards in your hand,” he said as they mounted the flight of marble steps. “Appointing you to the board of directors is a huge concession, but Oscar knows you have the unions in your back pocket. We won’t settle for anything less.”

Patrick’s biggest fear about the meeting was Liam himself. Dealing with him was like trying to tame a whirlwind because Liam still couldn’t control his impulses.

Patrick stopped directly in front of Liam and looked him in the eye. “Don’t you dare go off on a tangent. Stick to the script.”

“I’ll follow your lead,” Liam assured him, but Patrick still worried.

A butler answered the door and led them through several corridors lined with gilt-framed paintings and Roman busts on pedestals before they arrived in Oscar’s private office.

Oscar stood as they entered. Unlike the rest of the showpiece mansion, this was a working office filled with dark wood paneling and practical equipment like a telephone, file cabinets, and reference manuals. A separate table held a ticker-tape machine that tracked movement on the New York Stock Exchange.

Patrick reached across Oscar’s desk to shake his hand. “I trust Poppy and the little one are doing well?”

“Alexander is thriving,” Oscar said with pride. “He arrived in the world three weeks early, but the doctor reports he is as strong as any full-term child.”

They got down to business, and Patrick laid out their plans as concisely as possible. “Your father has had a change of heart about the creation of U.S. Steel. He fears sinking too much of the bank’s capital into a single entity and intends to vote against it.”

Oscar’s lips thinned. “My father may vote his thirty-percent share however he chooses, but he can’t scuttle the deal.”

Patrick kept up the pressure. “If Liam uses his ten percent to vote against the merger, it will be a black eye for the bank. A vote that close is guaranteed to fire up the labor unions.”

Oscar leaned back in his chair, his eyes hard. “You still don’t have a majority, and you don’t want to make an enemy of me.”

“That’s right, I don’t,” Liam agreed. “But I want a little something for my ten-percent vote.”

Oscar raised a single brow. “Proceed.”