Catching the CEO (Billionaire's Second Chance)
Page 15
I want to be with her. Forever.
Which meant, for the first time since he was old enough to understand his destiny as a Reid, his company was no longer his top priority.
She is.
“Hell,” he whispered.
This was going to take some getting used to.
Grabbing the drinks, he took the long way back to the stairs to buy himself a few more minutes to think through these late-night revelations.
A lamp was still on in the living room when he started across it. Bending down to switch it off, his eyes caught on a file that had been tossed on the side table. He meant to look away. Really, he did. But the file had fallen open, and his gaze caught on one word he couldn’t ignore.
Malpractice.
Unable to help himself, he picked up the report and started reading.
And wished, by the time he finished, that he’d taken the short way after all.
Chapter Nineteen
Caitlyn stood at her office window, her mind filled with memories of the night before. She’d woken when Damien had returned with water. Something about him had seemed different. A little wilder than the man she’d fallen asleep with had been. When he’d reached for her, there’d been a ferocity to him that still sent a shiver down her spine at the memory. She didn’t know what had gotten into him walking down the stairs, but she crossed her fingers for a repeat tonight.
A smile curved her lips. She’d liked this feeling of knowing she’d be seeing him in a few hours. No more guessing at whether they were together or whether he’d disappear at a moment’s notice.
Now everything was so much more…
Real.
You’re in deeper than just dating, a snide inner voice whispered.
Yes, I really am.
She didn’t want to play house for a few months before going their separate ways. She wanted…
Forever.
A tremor went through her. She wanted the rest of their lives. Damien was the first man who’d ever made her want to put him first ahead of everything. Company, family, common sense. He came first. And while that should terrify her, after their confessions last night, it didn’t. She believed in her partner, and if he said he was in, then she’d trust him.
She was still smiling when a knock sounded on her door.
“Come in,” she called, moving back to her desk.
Her VP came in, looking more haggard than she’d seen him in a long while.
“What is it?” she demanded.
Jeremy shook his head. “It’s the Q11 drug.”
“I read over your briefing yesterday. How could this have happened?”
He collapsed into the chair by her desk. “I don’t know.”
“It was the third-party tester we used?” she asked, taking her seat, too.
“Yes. We did our due diligence. There’s no way we could have reasonably known they were falsifying the data.”
“We were still about to release a drug to the public without proper testing,” she pointed out. “We definitely submitted false information to the FDA when we applied for our approval. If this ever got out…”
“It’d be the end of the company,” Jeremy finished for her. “I know. We’d lose our consumers’ trust. The FDA could blacklist us, and I don’t even want to think about what would happen to our stock prices. But that’s why we won’t let it get out.”
“How?” she said. “We need to recall any pills still out there in testing and destroy them. And there’s no way around informing the FDA. They need to look into any drug tested through that company. Who knows the damage they’ve done across the industry? If we’re not the only ones to use them, then there could be other dangerous meds out there.”
“We’ll handle this quietly.”
“I want legal brought into this. Have them vet every step of the process. We cannot afford any more mistakes.”
“I hear you. Everything will be by the book.”
“I also want to know if anyone has had any negative reactions to the Q11 at any stage of testing. If we need to make any sort of recompense, I want to be proactive about it. This was our fault. We’re not hiding from that responsibility.”
“The tester facility—”
“Was still one we approved. Whether they hid the truth or not, this is on our heads now. ‘I didn’t know’ isn’t a good enough excuse for causing what could have been a national health crisis. Not if this gets out to the public.”
“No one knows but us. We’ll keep it contained.”
“See that you do, or we’ll all be out of a job.”
“On it.” Jeremy shot from his seat as he raced from her presence.
Caitlyn ran her hand down her face. This was bad. Catastrophically bad. She needed to notify the board. And her parents.
A groan escaped her. They already thought she’d lost her mind with her choice of boyfriend. This latest mishap would not inspire any confidence in her abilities.
I could be replaced for this.
It’d happened on her watch. The board would be within their rights to want a new CEO. She’d make a good public scapegoat if it came down to the only way to save the company.
Her thoughts turned to Damien but this time, not in a romantic context. If Reid Enterprises learned about this mistake, she’d be sunk. It was just the break they needed to drive Brooks Corp out of the market. He could bury her with this.
For the first time, she understood the magnitude of the conflict of interest they had right now. If this information fell into Damien’s hands…
She closed her eyes. Heartbreak would be the least of her problems.
Shaking off the fears, she reached for her phone. There were a dozen uncomfortable calls to make. Damien was a problem for later.
If she could figure out how to face him with her company in jeopardy without tipping him off that there was blood in the water.
…
He canceled all his appointments for the day. Denied every meeting request and took his phone off the hook.
Safe and alone in his office, Damien said on the couch, scotch in hand despite the early hour.
There he tried to figure out what the hell to do.
Caitlyn had made a mistake. A big one. Big enough to end Brooks Corp if it got out.
And he was in a perfect position to make that happen.
A tip here, a whisper there. It’d be so simple. Once key members of their industry found out, it would only be a matter of time before the public outcry began. Larger firms could have ridden it out, but Brooks Corp was still growing. If he applied the right kind of pressure in the right way, they’d go under. Then he could buy their remains for peanuts. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t taken advantage of before. Business was business, they’d both agreed.
Except this wasn’t just business to him anymore. Not when the woman he was falling for was caught in the very middle.
He leaned his head back against the couch and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. The company or Caitlyn. Which did he pick?
His father wouldn’t have hesitated. Hell, he probably would have stolen the files themselves from his lover’s house.
If he was the man Jonathan Reid had raised him to be, he shouldn’t be wavering, either. The company came first. Always. Screwing over a girlfriend would have fallen pretty low on his father’s list of priorities.
He pushed from the couch and paced the office. Who was he? The man who’d grown up raised by servants and ignored by anyone who shared his DNA, or the man Caitlyn cared about? The one she’d stared up at with a tenderness that had made his heart clench. Was he really willing to give that up?
He closed his eyes. Caitlyn’s parents had been right. They were playing with fire, and there was no way to stop one of them from getting burned this time.
Stopping at the window, he stared out over the cityscape that usually filled him with a sense of accomplishment. This time it did nothing to calm his inner turmoil.
What kind of man am I?
What decision did he make?
He could be either his father’s son or the man Caitlyn deserved. But he couldn’t be both.
The door banged open behind him. He turned, ready to berate whoever had interrupted him, only to find his mother heading straight for him.
With a sigh, he finished the last of his drink with a bracing gulp.
“A little early, isn’t it, Damien?” she asked when she reached his side.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere, Mother. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You’re going to love me.”
“You’re my mother. I’m genetically designed to do that already.”
She rolled her eyes, waving the paper she was holding in front of him. “I mean, really love me.”
He took the papers from her and skimmed them. It didn’t take him long to figure out what he was reading, and when he did, ice slid down his spine.
“Brooks Corp has gotten themselves into a bit of a scrape,” she said, happier than he seen her in years.
“How did you discover this?” he asked, looking down at proof that Caitlyn had used a substandard lab to test a drug she had then planned to release to the market.
“Please, I know everything that happens in this industry. This is what I used to do for your father, as well. People get loose tongues when they drink, and I’m an excellent hostess. I learned about this lab years ago and made a friend who gave me the heads-up whenever they came across information I might find…useful.”
“You set a trap and waited to see what competitor fell into it.”
His mother twirled her blond hair around her finger. “Exactly.”
“Instead of reporting a potentially dangerous lab to the FDA.”
“Pah. You know as well as I do that testing at that stage is more of a courtesy.”
“It’s really not.”
She waved her hand. “We don’t use them, I made sure. There’s nothing we’re liable for.”
“I wasn’t worried about the legality of your actions. It’s the morality of it I was questioning.”
She laughed out loud. “I will never know where you picked up that moral compass of yours, but let’s keep it out of this conversation, shall we? I have a friend at one of the local papers, and he’s agreed to break the story. Once it comes out, I’ve arranged for a few other papers across the country to pick up the story. All we have to do is sit back and let Brooks Corp go down in flames. Our hands are clean.” She shrugged. “Relatively.”
Rage flashed through him along with a desire to protect that was so instinctive it surprised even him.
“That’s not how I run my business. We don’t rely on tricks.”
“This isn’t a trick. This is capitalizing on an opportunity. They made their own mess. We’re merely ensuring we benefit from their self-destruction.”
“Us publishing an article isn’t their self-destruction.”
She chuckled. “All right, so we helped them along a little. Does it matter? The result will be the same whether it’s now or in six months when this all comes out anyways. Don’t give them time to come up with a countermove.”
“I don’t lead my company this way.”
Irene stepped closer and reached up to pat his cheek. It was the first time his mother had touched him of her own volition in years, and he stiffened at the contact.
“I know,” she said. “As much as he tried, you are not your father. I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad, but it’s the truth. Which is why I did this.”
“What?”
“The article, the direction events are moving, that’s all on me. You can make your own decisions with a clear conscience. When Brooks Corp goes under for this, it won’t be on you. No one can blame you for my actions.”
Caitlyn can. And will.
He might not be directly involved, but she wouldn’t see it that way.
He turned away from Irene, rubbed the bridge of his nose. If he did nothing, Brooks Corp would likely end up closing its doors. Even if he stopped his mother, it still might. Caitlyn had made a mistake even he would have trouble surviving. The only saving grace was that she caught it before the meds went to market, but he wasn’t sure the public would find her internal recall forgivable if any of this came to light.
With time and privacy, she was a strong enough CEO to course correct. If he held his company back, she might come out of this alive.
“Wait,” he said as he walked away from his mother.
Stalking to the other end of the office, he leaned against the window and tried to face his choice.
Caitlyn or his company. It was no longer a hypothetical question but a cold, hard decision staring him in the face.
Last night he’d stood in her kitchen and decided she was the woman he wanted a lifetime with. Today the landscape was radically different, but did that change the revelations of the night before?
What do I want my future to be?
What his father’s had been? A brilliantly successfully, yet utterly cold, legacy?
Or did he want more?
A family, a home, a wife who loved him as much as he adored her. It was a choice none of his family had made before him. If he was a Reid through and through, it would be an easy decision.
He looked out at the city as a new resolve solidified within him. A decision he was so sure of there were no hesitations, no regrets in his mind. He knew, without a doubt, that this was the only choice he could ever make.
Walking back to his mother, he faced the woman who’d given him life and said something that would forever change their relationship.
“No.”
Irene blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I said no.” He stepped past his mother and went to the sideboard table to refresh his drink. Filling a second glass, he handed her the tumbler.
“What do you mean?”
“Recall whatever you’ve done at the paper,” he said. “If a single word of this is printed, I will hold you to blame.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“This is our chance to take out the competition. We have to strike now.”
“No, we don’t. If the FDA comes after Brooks Corp, which they very well might, that’s on them. But I won’t pave their way to hell. Leave it alone, Mother.”
Her jaw dropped. “I did not raise you to be this weak.”
“You didn’t raise me at all.”
Irene sucked in a sharp breath but soldiered on. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I’d like to remind you I helped your father run this company for decades.”
“Yet he left control to me.”
“Men and their sons,” she snarled.
“Must have been a knife in the chest,” he said, understanding for the first time how frustrated she had to have felt.
“You ran the company well,” she said.
“And provided you the cash to live your life in the leisure you wanted.”
“Some things are about more than money.”
“Yes, they are. Which is why I’m saying no.”
“Morality isn’t—”
He laughed. “I wish I was noble enough to believe I’d make the same decision if it was any company caught in this net. Who knows, it’s possible I will in the future. We all use third-party testing. Any one of the major players in this industry could have fallen into your trap. Perhaps I should be less quick to judge. And to act.”
“What are you saying?”
A smile twisted his lips. “I’m saying that you’re attacking the woman I’m going to marry, and I don’t appreciate it.”
Irene stumbled back, shock etched into her features. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said, raising his scotch to his lips without ever breaking her gaze. “I’m in love with Caitlyn Brooks.”
The words rocked him even as they left his lips. It was one thing to think them in the safety of his own mind but quite another to say them aloud. Especially to his mother.
And that was one decision he’d never regret.
“You can’t be that stupid,” his mother said, her voice harsh.
He didn’t flinch at her disapproval. Instead he stared down at the woman who represented the last of his family and knew that if he had to cut ties with her to be with Caitlyn, it was no great loss. He’d spent next to no time with her family, but even that was enough to show him his future children would be better off with Caitlyn’s mother in their life rather than his.
I have nothing to lose.
Not in the arena of family.
“Damien, you can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack,” he said, his mind already on Caitlyn. He needed to see her. Tell her. Would she believe him? With the malpractice suit over her head, she might think this was a tactic.
Which meant he might have many nights in his future where he’d need to prove with every touch, caress, and kiss that all he wanted was her.
There was no doubt in his mind he was up to the challenge.
“You can’t have feelings for that milksop of a woman.”
Instead of being insulted he just grinned. “That milksop has taken me down so many pegs I don’t like to think about it.”
“They are an inferior family.”
“I couldn’t care less about bloodlines.”
“You could marry the largest heiresses in the country.”
“I’d rather marry Caitlyn.”
His mother stared him down, banking, no doubt, on him folding first.
Except he was nothing but calm as he met her gaze.
He’d been fascinated with Caitlyn for years. She’d started as an annoying presence in the boardroom when her father was grooming her. Then she’d become a formidable adversary that had no qualms about taking him head-on. And last, she’d transformed into the one person he couldn’t breathe without.