Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steel

Dow Tech now as he did. He was so proud of his company and family that he was anxious to share both with her. He was so insistent about it that, in the end, it seemed rude not to go with him. She went upstairs and got her bags, and joined him ten minutes later in the lobby. And by three thirty, they were in Palo Alto, everyone in his office seemed pleased to see him, and wanted to know about the road show.
    “It's gone off without a hitch so far,” he said with a broad smile, and a glance at Meredith. “Thanks to Mrs. Whitman,” he told his colleagues. Charlie McIntosh had gone home after the lunch at the Fairmont. He wasn't a young man, and he was tired after a solid week of presentations. Meredith would have hated to admit it to Cal, but it was a relief not to have his cantankerous comments and negative opinions to deal with. It had been a strain working with him. And as they sat in Cal's office that afternoon, he commented on it. “I don't know what to do about him, Merrie. I thought he'd be on the bandwagon by now, but he's still mad as hell that I'm taking the company public. He's fundamentally opposed to it, for entirely sincere reasons. But it's counterproductive at this point. But because he feels so strongly about it, he resents the work it's going to represent for him, dealing with analysts, and the SEC, and shareholders. He just plain thinks we're wrong about all this. And he doesn't want anyone looking over his shoulder, not even me at times. He's going to make money on this, but I'm not even sure he cares. He just doesn't want me to do it.”
    “Let me talk to him,” Meredith said. She still thought she could bring him around. Charlie hadn't said anything that had hurt them yet, but he hadn't helped them much either.
    “I'm not sure that's the right tack,” Cal said cautiously. Charlie's resentment of Meredith had not abated, and he didn't want to aggravate it any further. “Let's wait and see if he calms down, and can make the transition on his own. I really don't want to push him.” Cal had a lot of respect for him, and Charlie had been a friend of Cal's father.
    “If he doesn't adjust his attitude,” Meredith warned, “your shareholders may not find him too charming.” She was still worried about it, as Cal was.
    “Poor old Charlie,” Cal said, and they went on to other subjects. He showed her a number of reports, and they talked about some new ideas he was developing, and once again, she was impressed by how creative he was, and how far ahead in his thinking. It was an important part of why he was so successful. And at five thirty he looked up at her, as he sat back comfortably in his chair, and asked her a strange question. “Have you ever thought about leaving investment banking, Meredith?” She was extraordinarily good at it, he knew better than anyone, but she also had a profound interest in high-tech business. “You'd be good at the kind of thing I do, and you'd probably make a hell of a lot more money.”
    “I do all right,” she said with a shy smile.
    “You'd make more here,” Callan Dow said gently. “If you ever decide to make a change, I'd love to hear from you, Merrie. I hope you know that.”
    “I'm very flattered. But I'm not going anywhere for the moment.” She and Steve were too tied into New York to think of going anywhere. He had a good job in the trauma unit, and she was married to Wall Street.
    “That could be truer than you know,” Callan Dow said. “In an old-guard firm the size of yours, Meredith, how high can you go? You're already a partner, but there are a lot of very old, very solid, very well-entrenched senior partners. You're never going to run the place. They'd never let a woman do that, and you know it.”
    “They might someday,” she said calmly. “Times are changing.”
    “Times have already changed just about everywhere else. Things are a lot slower moving in investment banking. It's the last bastion of the gentlemen who used to run the world,