Keith’s mind began churning. What was going on here? Was Machtel considering acquiring HyunCom, or entering into some kind of manufacturing or distribution partnership? That would make damn good sense. Machtel had the North American and European markets cornered, and HyunCom was the leader in Asia. Together, they would be a powerhouse and drive all the smaller players out of the market, taking their share. It was such a good idea, dammit, that Keith was disappointed he hadn’t proposed it himself.

Who was Jeff working with on this? Was there another bank involved? That would really gall Keith, to not even have been given a chance to compete for the business. Shaking off his annoyance, he walked briskly back to the reception area, where a smiling young woman was waiting for him in a narrow skirt and clingy blouse. She introduced herself as Rachel, Jeff’s second assistant, and appeared to be at least two decades younger than the assistant Keith knew.

“I’ll take you back, Mr. Olander. Would you like anything for lunch? I just brought in a sandwich for Mr. Erstine.”

“No, thank you,” Keith said, a little flustered by what he’d just seen, and now by this woman. How did Jeff concentrate with a nymph sitting right outside his door? He collected himself before entering Jeff’s office.

“Keith!” Jeff walked out from behind his desk to shake his hand and gestured for Keith to take a seat at the table, where his lunch sat, wrapped. “Sorry, have to make this a working lunch. Crazy day. Can Rachel get you something?”

“No, thanks. She already offered.” Keith gave a friendly wave in Rachel’s direction and watched as she left the office. He tried not to be rankled by the implied downgrade of their business relationship from their usual high-priced restaurant lunches.

“So, what’s going on?” Jeff asked, unwrapping his sandwich.

Keith was wary of asking directly about the HyunCom executives. Instead, he asked Jeff some detailed questions about the business and industry, for which he’d been prepped by his research analysts. How was quality control out of the new plant? Where did orders stand compared to last quarter? When did he expect the design for the new chip to be finished? In between bites of turkey sandwich, Jeff answered by simply repeating statements from the last quarterly earnings call. Growing impatient, Keith found himself unable to stay away from what he’d seen. “Do you have any major partnerships in the works? I have a couple M&A ideas I’d like to run by you. If you acquired one of the Asian market leaders, for example, you could really dominate the whole space.”

Jeff chuckled and shook his head as he tossed his crumpled sandwich wrapper cleanly into the trash can. “Keith, I’m just focused on running the business I have, maintaining quarter-over-quarter growth, and keeping our recruiting yield up in this market. We can’t hire people fast enough to support our growth.”

“Well, I hope if you ever have needs in that area, you’d come to us, at least give us a chance to help you out.” Keith hated sounding like he was groveling. “You’re a very important client to the firm, you know.”