Page 13 of Dirty Rival

“You can. Sit. I need you to listen to me.”

She sits. “Are you being fired?”

“No. I’m working with Reid to make some positive moves forward and the plan is for me to reclaim the role of CEO.”

“And controlling stock?”

“I’ll have the opportunity to be majority stockholder, not controlling. Not now.”

“That’s not good.”

“A successful CEO of a monster company like this one is not bad.” It’s true, I remind myself. “We are going to be bigger and stronger.”

“Without your father?”

“This kind of thing happens often, and if we do what Reid Maxwell wants us to do, we’ll all have bright futures.”

“So you will be CEO, right?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.” I want to comfort her and tell her everything will be okay, but I’ve never made promises I can’t keep. I don’t lie. I hate lies. They’ve burned me. They’ve hurt me. I don’t want them to hurt anyone else.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“We made mistakes, Sallie. You know that.”

She nods. “Yes. The two big projects that went bottom-up in six months.”

“Yes. Stockholders don’t take kindly to those kinds of losses.”

“You were against those deals,” she says. “We did report after report to convince your father to walk away.”

“It’s done. We can’t look back.”

“You need to make sure the board knows you said no to those deals.”

“Reid knows.”

“Which is why you’re still here and your father is not. Will you get your father’s seat on the board?”

“That’s up in the air,” I say, and I hope it really is at this point. “For now, there will be a mandatory staff meeting at six. No one can miss it. Please arrange it.”

“I will.” She starts to get up.

“Sallie.”

“Yes?” she asks, settling back into her seat.

“Please don’t bail. If I make it to the other side of this, I’ll take care of you. I promise. I’ll make it worth your while.”

“And if you don’t make it to the other side?”

“Do a good job, and you might survive even if I don’t. I’ll make sure Reid knows how good you are, and you do the same.”

“He’s a hot piece of arrogant man. That means demanding and difficult.”

“Yes to all. Is that a problem?”

“Just one of my random observations.”