Black spots swam before her eyes and her chest constricted on a breath that simply could not be taken. Her eyes flew to Irene.
“But you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, to hurt Palmers. I was doing what you asked me to do. I uncovered the mole here, who was feeding information to Josh Tremont. I brought you the Flinders information.”
“The results, unfortunately, speak for themselves,” Adam said. “I’m sorry, Callie, but you know the process. Pending a full investigation, you’re being stood down from your job.”
Nothing in his voice betrayed the camaraderie they used to share. No hint of what had been a strong friendship, before she’d started to even work for his mother, remained.
Callie’s eyes flew back and forth across the table, settling on Irene. Silently, she beseeched the older woman to support her, to tell them they were wrong. To make it clear that she would never deliberately do anything to hurt the family.
“Irene?” she implored.
Irene wouldn’t meet Callie’s eyes and Callie knew in that instant she’d not only been set up by Josh, she’d been the fall guy for Irene Palmer at the same time. What a fool she’d been to think she mattered to anyone. She was little more than collateral damage in a power play she’d never stood a chance of understanding. All these years she’d believed she was worth something to Irene, worth something to Palmers, yet all along she’d been expendable. Groomed to do a job and discarded when she was no longer useful.
Her devastation was complete. And to think that she’d wanted to protect Irene from the proof of her husband’s infidelity. How naive could she have been? If the cool derision on Irene’s face right now was any indicator, she probably had known about Bruce’s affair all along.
Adam motioned to someone outside the boardroom. The blur of blue that denoted one of the security team materialised beside her.
“Callie, I’m sorry. But we have to do it this way.” Adam followed her and the security guard out of the boardroom, his voice tinged with genuine regret. “If there was anything else I could do—”
“You could believe me, Adam. You could believe that I am the innocent party here,” she pleaded.
“I do believe you, Callie. And, trust me, I’ll find a way to get to the bottom of this. At the very least I’ll make sure you get a strong reference.”
Callie looked back into the boardroom—at the accusation painted on many of the faces there, at the distance she now knew lay between herself and the woman she’d considered a mentor and friend.
“Good luck with that,” she said bitterly.
In a state of numbed resignation, Callie allowed herself to be escorted from the building and down to the parking garage to her car, and as she drove out into the bustle of Auckland, she knew her life would never be the same again.
A burst of rage bloomed inside. Rage at Irene for letting her take the fall for what she’d been asked—no, had been expected—to do. Irene had manipulated her just as effectively as Josh Tremont had. She’d trusted both of them, and in doing so it had allowed each to play her like a puppet in a sideshow.
She hadn’t even been given an opportunity to present her side of the story. The unfairness of it all settled like a ball of lead in her stomach. She’d sacrificed her relationship with Josh to protect them, to protect Irene and Bruce, and ultimately Adam and everyone who worked at Palmers. Yet she’d failed spectacularly.
She tried to rationalise the fact that if Palmers hadn’t been so hungry and hell-bent on getting ahead of Tremont Corporation, in a competition that had become decidedly unhealthy, they’d have taken the time to thoroughly and carefully analyse Josh’s notes and see for themselves the pitfall they’d rushed headlong into. Their greed had overrun their good sense, but, ultimately, she was responsible. She was the one who’d given them the information, no matter how fallacious it had turned out to be. Information that had been given to her in confidentiality. Whatever Josh’s intentions had been when he’d made those notes, she and only she had been the one to abuse them. She had made the conscious decision to pass the information across to Palmers.
It was a frightening thought. She’d become so determined to be accepted, on being part of a whole, she’d compromised her own integrity. First with Josh and then with Irene. Yes, they’d used her, but she’d let them. And that was the most galling of all.
It was time to stand on her own two feet. To stand up for what she believed in and what was right. No more being a pawn in the hands of others.
Somehow, some way, she was going to undo the harm she’d done. And she would start with Josh Tremont.