I started to make my way casually over, intending to accidentally-on-purpose interrupt their cabal, but before I was halfway there they broke apart and tromped over to the stage, clumping once again around Hunter.
I gave up all pretense of being casual and increased my speed, trotting over just in time to hear, “We need to talk to you inside, Mr. Knox.”
“I’m coming too!” I threw in.
Several of the board members started, not having seen me, but Ms. Standish just surveyed me and then nodded shrewdly. “I think that’d be best.”
I followed them inside, wishing I could take Hunter’s hand for comfort.
What the hell was going on?
#
Chuck.
That goddamn motherfucker Chuck was what was going on.
He leaned back in Hunter’s luxurious black leather armchair, sprawling out over it as if he owned it and everything else in the manor. “It’s quite simple. We’ve decided to remove Hunter as CEO and go in a different direction with the rebrand.”
I felt the floor falling out from underneath me. Anger and disbelief warred in my brain. “No, you can’t!”
“Damn right you can’t,” Hunter snapped, his fury cold and hard. “What the hell are you thinking springing this, Chuck?”
A board member shuffled her feet nervously. “This does seem a bit sudden, Charles. Perhaps if we took some time to reconsider…”
Chuck sighed regretfully. “You know I can’t do that, Irma. Not when the whole future of the company could be at stake.”
Irma sighed and looked back down again, cowed.
“There are rules, Chuck,” Hunter said, his voice ice. “There has to be a majority vote, there has to be a good reason—”
“There’s the very best of reasons,” Hunter said. “Oh, you tried to bury it, but Allison’s colleagues very obligingly dug it up for me. Remember Slade, Inc.?”
Hunter went still.
What had the Douchebros done now?
“The board doesn’t have your sterling memory, of course,” Chuck went on. “So I refreshed it, in the emergency meeting we had just now. Showed them all the evidence, all the meeting notes and memorandums which that young Chad fellow so enterprisingly fished up, all detailing how you drove that company into the ground in your reckless need to prove you were worth something out of the shadow of your grandfather. And you did it the same way you’re doing it to Knox, refusing to listen to the concerns of your board while proceeding with a costly advertising strategy that will strangle Knox Liquors like a noose and utterly deplete the profit margins.”
“Now, see here,” another board member cut in gruffly. “No need to be melodramatic. We just had some concerns. You tried a risky new strategy there with no statistical backing, and Chuck tells me you’re going with another untested one here, and well, I have to give a vote of no confidence.”
Chuck stood, hands clasped behind his back, his face mournful. “You’re a great kid, Hunter, you really are. I wanted to give you a chance. I looked everywhere for evidence that you could be trusted in such a high position—” he turned, meeting my eyes with a sly smile only I could see, “but even your ad exec doesn’t have faith in you.”
I gaped, dumbfounded. “What…what do you…?”
“‘He wants to run everything himself,’” he quoted. “‘He thinks the family name is sacred, that he’s a missionary.’ Does that sound like someone concerned about their fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders? You did say that, didn’t you?”
I could feel Hunter’s gaze on me, feel his eyes demanding answers.
“Not like that—” I pleaded.
He raised his voice. “You did say that, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t like that—”
“I believe you were most worried about him running the company into the ground before he’d admit the company needed an advertising strategy in the first place?” Chuck continued. “You kindly went on for some time in this vein, all about how he distrusted advertising methods and would prefer not to utilize anything other than word of mouth. How you were so worried that he was only going along with your particular scheme in order to placate your sister, who he is currently dating. I’ve passed your information on to the board; they saw my point of view much more clearly after that.”
I heard Hunter next to me, a sound as if he’d been stabbed.
“It doesn’t matter!” I protested. “Look around you; the rebrand is launching! And it’s a strong campaign. You can’t stop this!”
My voice cracked. I couldn’t look Hunter in the eye; I knew exactly the look that would be in them, the hurt, the betrayal…
? Also By Lila Monroe
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