Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (17 page)

“I’m not paying for
that!” I shout through what should have been that window. “You should go,” I
tell him. “I don’t know what you expected to find when you came here, but I’m
pretty sure once you leave, that glass is coming out of the salary I don’t make
anymore.”

“What happened to the old
one?” Nick asks.

Shaking my head, I
answer, “I’m not really in the mood for chit-chat, Nick. If you came here to
say something, I suggest you
spit
it out
already. Otherwise, I have to go back to being the piece of gum under
everyone’s shoe.”

“What does that mean?” he
asks.

I groan. “It means that
thanks to you, everyone in town thinks I’ve slighted them out of some magical
existence,” I tell him. “I don’t know how they got it into their stupid heads
that I ever had anything to do with how you spent your money or who you hired,
but now that thought’s in there, it doesn’t look like it’s going to fall back
out anytime soon.”

He purses his lips. “I
can talk to some people,” he says. “Maybe it’s not too late to turn them
around.”

“They’ll get over it,”
she says. “Sooner or later, they’re going to find something else to be mad
about,
and they’ll find another stooge to blame
for it. You should have called,” I tell him. “I could have saved you the trip.”

“Whether it’s out yet or
not,” he tells me, “there’s something I should have
said
a long time ago—”

“I didn’t know
you’d
be here,” Naomi calls from outside
the empty frame. Rather than use the door, she comes in through the window.

It looks like they got
the glass cleaned up, at least.

“Are you back in town for
a while, or is this more of a quickie trip?” Naomi asks Nick.

“We’re kind of in the
middle of something right now,” I tell her.

Naomi gives a cavalier
wave of the hand and turns her attention back
to
Nick. “You know, it was great seeing where you live, glimpsing your world,
sleeping in your beds …”

“What are you doing?” I
ask. “Can you give us a minute?”

“This one’s no fun,”
Naomi says to Nick. “You should have gone with the fun sister.”

What the hell is she
doing? I’d say she was trying to cause some argument between Nick and me, but I
told her this morning about the phone call. There’s no point.

Nick’s looking at me, his
wild
eyes begging me to save him, but I
don’t know where to start.

I growl, “Naomi,
wait
in the office. I’ll talk to you after Nick
leaves.”

“It looks like I’ve upset
her,” Naomi mocks. “I don’t know about you, but I’m more interested in people
who like to
be teased
. Do you like to be
teased, Nick?”

I start to say something,
but Nick speaks first.

“I don’t know if people
didn’t clap loudly enough at your dance recitals when you were a kid or exactly
why it is you think you need to be the center of attention all the time, no
matter what’s going on around you or who’s asking you to stop,” he says.
“However, your sister and I are having
an
important
discussion—rather, we were until you barged in and refused to
leave, which is how I assume you’ve managed to stay anywhere longer than five
minutes. Does it look like either of us finds what you’re doing the least bit
charming? It’s annoying and
rude,
and
what’s more, it’s repulsive. I’m standing here talking to your sister and
you’re making your stupid flirty remarks right in front of her, what the hell
is
that
supposed to accomplish, but
convincing us that you’re even more ridiculous a human being than we originally
thought? Now do what your sister told you and go wait in the office until we’ve
had a chance to talk. While you’re at it, try growing up: it may not be easy,
but trust me, all the people in your life will thank you for it.”

My mouth’s agape. Naomi’s
fighting back tears and I’m stunned where I stand.

“Naomi,” I breathe, “head
to the office a second and let me deal with him.”

My sister narrows her
eyes at me, but that only causes the collected tears to drop, so she goes. I
wait until she’s in the office and the door is closed and then I turn toward
Nick.

“I don’t know why you
came, and I don’t care anymore,” I tell him. “She may have been taking things
too far, but what you did was so far over the line I don’t even want to be in
the same room with you. Just go,” I tell him. “Go home and find another naïve
woman to prey on.”

He says, “I’m sorry if I
went too far, but—”

“Unless you’re going to
tell me you have an STI and I should get myself tested, there’s nothing you can
say I’m the least bit interested in hearing,” I interrupt.

He says, “No, I don’t
have an ST—”

“Great,” I interrupt
again. “Now get the hell out of my store or I’ll have you arrested for
trespassing.”

He stands there a moment,
his mouth moving like he’s saying something, but he doesn’t speak a word.

“Look at my face,” I tell
him. “Does it look like I’m playing with you?”

Nick scoffs and sputters,
but in the end he leaves. He’s nice enough to use the door.

My hands are trembling
and my mouth is dry, but I don’t waste any time getting to the office. I open
the door and before Naomi has a chance to part her bright fuchsia, over-glossed
lips, I’m asking, “Okay, so what the hell was that?”

Chapter
Fourteen

Turncoat

Nick

The news never broke. I
was waiting for my phone to explode with phone calls. I was even prepared for
the unflattering yearbook photos of me as a teenager for the sake of twisting
the blade, but it didn’t happen.

I got to the hotel after
everything fell apart at Ellie’s shop, but there was only one hastily-penned
message waiting for me at the desk.

“Marly called. Says it’s
urgent.”

Twice in one day, dealing
with Marly: That was too much. The next day passed, and even if she had the
secret to existence, I wasn’t ready to hear her voice. It takes about a week of
hearing every day how I’m already a ghost at my own company on top of the fact
Ellie won’t return my calls before I pick up the phone and punch in Marly’s
number.

“You’re an idiot.” That’s
how she greets me.

“I was right on the verge
of starting to miss you again,” I chuckle. “You called,” I say. “What do you
want?”

“It’s not going to matter
now,” she says. “You blew it by blowing me off.”

“Oh come on,” I say as I
look at myself in the hotel bathroom mirror, searching for my self-respect. I
haven’t spotted it yet, but I’ll keep looking. “You can’t stay mad at me,” I
tell her. “Now is this actually important or did you just want to rehash
everything for the millionth time?”

“It’s good to see you’re
taking this seriously,” she says. “If you took your company seriously, you
would have returned the call within five seconds of getting the message. I was
even kind enough to call the hotel so I wouldn’t chance to interrupt whatever
stupid gesture you were in the middle of with your stranger.”

“If this is another
conversation where you go on and on about how I’m betraying the soul of the
company, I think I can make do with the ones we’ve already had,” I tell her.

“Funny you should mention
the soul of the company,” she says. “First off, there’s no way you can save
your position. It’s not going to happen. Maybe if you’d called me back earlier,
we could have done something, but that’s done and over and we need to start
looking ahead.”

“Ahead to what?” I ask.
“And what do you mean I can’t save my position?”

“It was never about the
girl,” she says. “It was never even about taking the company to Mulholland.
They’ve been looking for a way to get you out of there for years, Nick.”

“Is there a part of this
conversation I didn’t have figured out the first time we sat down in the room
with them?” I ask.

“You know not everyone’s
been on board with your approach to your employees,” she says.

“This again?” I ask.
“We’re a multibillion dollar company. Everyone in that room could retire off the
salary they make in six months. The reason we’re so successful is people who
come to work with us want to keep working with us.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I saw
the employee training video. You came into money so fast you never learned to
think the way they think and they hate you for it, Nick. They hate it for what
they think it’s done to the company and they hate it because it hasn’t blown up
in your face yet.”

“So it’s about profits?”
I ask. “Of course it is, everything’s about profits. They think if we drop
employee pay, that’s somehow going to—”

“They don’t want to drop
employee pay, Nick,” she says. “Jesus, how did you ever get by without me
standing next to you? They want to lay off everyone and move the company
overseas. You have to start thinking like them or you’re never going to be able
to beat them. If they think fifteen bucks an hour for the guy that sprays the
plants is too much, why do you think minimum wage would sound better? Once
you’re gone, so is every one of the employees that helped build Stingray.”

“You want to know what I
find most surprising about that?” I ask.

Marly sighs. “Nick, if
you’re actually going to do something about this, we really don’t have time
to—”

“We have a guy who goes
around the office spraying the plants, and yet I have never seen him,” I say.
“I have a warneck dracaena, a weeping fig, and an umbrella tree in my office,
but I have never once seen the guy that comes around to water the plants. I
knew we had a guy because we asked about it, but the guy must be a ninja or something.”

“Are you done?” she asks.

“So they want to move the
company overseas,” I say. “Isn’t there something in the board’s bylaws
forbidding such an action?”

“Nick, it won’t matter—”
Marly starts.

“I helped write the
bylaws; you’d think I’d be more certain about that,” I muse. “They might be
able to kick me out, but they can’t move the company out of the country. You’re
a lawyer. If I remember right, you were there when we finalized the language.
Are you telling me there’s a loophole?”

“It’s less of a loophole
and more of an enormous gap in the fence,” she says. “The bylaws state that
amendment of said bylaws could only happen with both the unanimous consent of
the board
and
the approval of the
CEO. They’re not mad you want to move the company’s headquarters, Nick. They’re
mad you won’t move it further.”

“If I’m not the CEO, the
bylaws may as well not exist,” I say. It helps to say the words out loud. “What
was the last employee count?” I ask.

“Headquarters, nationwide
or worldwide?” she asks.

“Are they just laying off
US workers?” I ask.

“It won’t matter,” she
says. “If anyone in our stores or factories overseas keeps their job, they
won’t keep getting the same pay and benefits as their American counterparts.
Basically, everyone outside of upper management will make as little as
possible. This is the way it works in every other company, Nick. Now, are you
ready to get over your stupid pride and your blind idealism and start listening
to me?”

I pace slowly into the
main area of my hotel room. “I’m listening now,” I tell her. “What do we do?”

“First off, you need to
hire me back and in my old position, otherwise I won’t have the authority to do
a lot of the things I’ll need to do if this is going to work,” she says. “You
can keep Malcolm on if you want. He’s a bit cuddly for my tastes, but he’s not
totally incompetent.”

I sit on the edge of the
bed. “You’re asking me to trust—”

“I’m not asking,” Marly
interrupts. “I’m demanding that you trust me. If that doesn’t happen, there’s
nothing I can do for you. I crossed the line spilling the beans about Ellie’s
little shopping trip, but you know I’ve bled for this company just as much as
you have.”

I think about it a
moment. At this point, what do I really have to lose?

“All right,” I say,
“you’re hired. What now?”

“Now, you come back to
New York and our little cabal can have its first meeting,” she says. “In
addition to you and me, I think we can get by with just Malcolm and about half
a dozen lawyers. We don’t want too many people in on this.”

“Why don’t we just leak
this is what the board is trying to do?” I ask. “The employees wouldn’t stand
for it. Why keep them out of the loop?”

“The employees don’t
matter,” she says. “They matter to you and they matter to me and maybe a few
other people with minimal roles in upper management, but you break the news and
all the shareholders are going to hear is that record profits are headed into
their bank accounts. You’ll get plenty of sympathy from the public and even
some outrage from the employees, but in the end, all anyone’s going to remember
is that your company went back on its platform. They’ll hate you for a while,
but the only people who are even going to care in a year are the ones taking
their fancy new yachts out for a spin.”

“I can’t go to New York,”
I tell her. “Not right now.”

She snaps, “Nick, this
isn’t the time—”

“I’ll fly you all out
here,” I tell her. “Say it’s something about the Mulholland office, that we’re
having trouble getting permits or something.”

“Didn’t they finish
building the thing yet?” she asks.

“They’re working on it,”
I tell her. “Just make something up and make it good. I want you, Malcolm, and
however many lawyers—ones we can trust—it’ll take to fix this, and I want you
sitting across from me before the sun goes down.”

“I’ll make the calls,” she
says.

I look out the window of
my hotel room at the town that hated me, then loved me, and now wants to punish
Ellie for having known me. “While you’re at it,” I tell her, “maybe you can
start thinking of any last-ditch efforts to save my job.”

Her laughter isn’t a
comforting sound.

It’s only a few hours
before Marly’s leading what she called our little cabal into the hotel. I tell
the few people still working in the conference room to take the day and we sit
down together.

“Nick, I think you know
everyone here,” Marly says. “I’m sure it won’t surprise you to find out there
are no secrets between anyone in this group. You’re among friends.”

“How do we keep them from
moving the company?” I ask.

“Frankly,” Shel Avery,
one of the only lawyers in the room whose name I can remember offhand, starts,
“we can’t keep them from moving it.”

I remember Shel’s name
because at the very first company party we ever had, she ended up wasted and
puking all over the front of Daniel Reeves’s formalwear. It was love at first
vomit. I don’t think I ever liked that smarmy bastard.

“Then why are we sitting
here?” I ask.

“What she means,” Marly
says, “is that we don’t have executive powers and once you’re gone, we can’t
prevent the board from choosing whoever they want to replace you.”

“Oh,” I say. “That sounds
a lot better.”

“Will you shut up and
listen instead of blurting out your stupid comments for once?” Marly asks with
a beautiful smile cemented to her face.

The lawyers try to keep
their eyes from popping out of their heads, and even Malcolm slinks down a
little in his seat.

“Come on, people,” I say.
“This is grownup time. What are you telling me that I’m not getting?”

“What we have to do is
replace you with someone who shares your opinion on moving the company to a
low-wage, low-working-standards model,” Marly says. “We need someone who’d be
just as outraged as we are.”

“You just said we
couldn’t do that,” I observe.

“There’s one person they
couldn’t overrule to replace you,” Marly says. “Even if they fire you, he can
still take the company if he wants it.”

“Jacque,” I mutter. “It’s
not going to work,” I tell Marly. “He was pretty clear how much interest he had
in the company when he sold all his shares after we started making a profit and
quit.”

“I think this might
change his mind,” Marly says. “He believed everything you believed once. Don’t
let whatever history the two of you have together get in the way of saving
thousands and thousands of jobs.”

“I don’t know what bad
blood you think there is between him and I, but that was never the problem,” I
tell her. “He never wanted anything to do with the business itself. The last
thing he said to me before he left for good was that he’d only stuck around
that long to make sure I wasn’t going to let the board do what they’re trying
to do now.”

“That’s kind of the
point, wouldn’t you say?” Marly asks.

“I imagine he sees the
news just like anyone else,” I respond. “If he was going to come in and be hero
of the day, he would have made a phone call by now. I’m assuming that hasn’t
happened to anyone in this room?” I ask. “He sure hasn’t contacted me.”

“We need you back in New
York,” Marly says. “He’s still in Manhattan. You need to go talk to him and let
him know what these people are trying to do.”

“You think I can convince
him that easily?” I ask.

“You’re the one that
convinced him to take the company public in the first place and nobody else
could get him to sit down and talk about it,” Marly says.

I glance at the lawyers
and I glance at Malcolm. Even though Marly’s only been back at the company a
few hours, the people, at least the ones in this room, look to her for
guidance.

“What about you?” I ask.

“I’m not Jacque,” she
says. “He’s the only one. He’s one of the founders and the wording’s right
there in the bylaws.”

“I can’t leave yet,” I say.

“This can’t wait,” Marly
says. “The board is already drafting a letter to the shareholders requesting
their support in having you removed on the grounds of incompetence. They send
that
letter
and Jacque’s not ready to
step in, that’s the ballgame.”

“Give me the night,” I
say. “I’ll try calling him after we’re done here and I’ll get on a plane in the
morning, but I can’t
leave tonight
.”

Things may already be
over between Ellie and me, but there are some things I need to tell her before
I give up entirely.