Page 66 of Bossy Romance
Glancing at each of the people in my office, I speak in a level tone. “I’m going to discuss our options with the lawyers first. In the meantime, come up with ideas to wrangle this out of the public eye. We can’t deal with the falling stock prices until we fix the image of Vision Tech.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll get right on that.”
I pierce Roberts with my gaze. “We’ll have a meeting in an hour. Can you keep the shareholders calm until then? Assure them that we’re doing everything we can to fix this.”
“What exactly are we doing?” Roberts demands.
I glare at his tone.
He shrinks back, his eyes darting around. “They’re going to ask.”
“Assure them we are handling it,” I say through gritted teeth. “Can you not manage such a simple task, Mr. Roberts?”
He glances down.
“He’s got a point.” The PR director pipes up. “Shouldn’t we tell people that Adam didn’t steal those blueprints?”
I shake my head. “No one is going to listen to us at this point. We need to gather proof that can back up our statement and, to gather that proof, I need to talk to our lawyer first.” I frown. “Does anyone have any more questions?”
My voice is sharp and it cuts through the air like a knife. I’m not really inviting another problem right now and they know it.
“Good. If you’ll excuse me…”
They recognize my silent brush off and file out much slower than they did when they’d burst in. Unfortunately, they leave their worry behind.
I glance at the group of directors through the blinds. Their shoulders are tense and worry lines are wrinkling their foreheads.
I can practically taste their desperation.
It’s our first time taking a hit like this in public. After years of licensing new inventions, we’ve come across issues with patents and legalities. Most of the time, we’re the ones handing out the lawsuits though.
This is only our second plagiarism case, and the first one of this magnitude. The public being involved is a curveball and the bad press is mounting faster than I can manage.
My landline rings.
It’s the lawyer.
At once, all the strength leaves my legs. I fall into the chair, clear my throat and then pick up the phone. “Mr. Hall.”
We dive right into a discussion about our next steps, and I don’t like what I’m hearing.
“You’re saying, even if we have Adam’s blueprints, it’s not admissible?”
“That’s what I’m getting from the suit. I’ll need a little more time to untangle the red tape and get to the bottom of things but, from what I can see, Adam’s blueprint only proves that he built something new, not that he designed it.”
I stifle a groan. Fast-paced and worrying as the situation may be, what frightens me more is the fact that the blueprint got out. It’s illuminating a deeper problem than I have the energy to tackle.
“Adam would never steal from anyone,” I say firmly. “Whatever you do, I hope you attack this case from that angle. We will never admit guilt for something we didn’t do.”
“Understood.”
I throw the phone in the cradle and rub my forehead with my palm.
* * *
I’m feeling immenselyoverwhelmed and it doesn’t help that I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.