Tony calmed. She felt liberated, released from the burden she’d been carrying alone.
“I wasn’t sure what would happen with you, so I didn’t come prepared to stay overnight, but I, um, want to.”
Sheila grinned slightly. “I hoped it would all work out for us, and it seems it has. How about you?”
“Yes. We’ve both apologized enough. I’m fine.”
Sheila touched Tony’s cheek. “I have a new extra toothbrush for you.”
Tony took Sheila’s hand, kissed it, and then leaned over and kissed Sheila on the mouth. The kiss seemed to go on endlessly, and Tony nearly started to cry again, but another feeling was taking over—arousal.
Tony broke their kiss. “Can we skip the hot tub?”
Sheila laughed. “Yes, we can. Absolutely.”
They walked to the bedroom hand in hand. Without breaking eye contact, they took off their clothes, heedlessly dropping them to the floor.
Tony hadn’t let herself dwell on the idea that after her angry departure she’d never see Sheila again, let alone touch her. When they were finally together in bed, naked, they hugged, both seeming to want to go slow and savor the moment. The full import of what she’d nearly lost struck Tony hard, mingling with her relief, and she held on to Sheila so tight that Sheila winced.
“Sorry,” Tony whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I can’t believe I almost let you go. That was so wrong.” She teared up again.
“I’m okay. Shh. Don’t worry. We’re here, together. The present is the only thing that matters. We’ve made our apologies. We can talk more later.” Sheila moved away so she could stroke Tony’s breast, slowly at first and then more firmly. Tony relaxed into Sheila’s touch, which was soothing and stimulating. Her inconvenient feelings of remorse drained away. By the time she reached orgasm, her mind was blissfully empty of everything except Sheila.
“I remember how this feels,” Tony said. “I’d tried not to think about it when we were separated. That would have made me hurt worse.”
“Self-protective reaction. I did indulge in some sensate memories though. I told myself that all was not lost…yet.”
“You are always the optimist,” Tony said, drily.
“Yes, I am. That’s an outgrowth of my work, and Buddhist practice, of course. Not always the best path, but I’m not ready to let it go. Here we are talking and…”
“Yeah, I guess, but I’m ready to stop talking again.”
They were lying close together, and Tony gently rubbed Sheila’s thigh as she recovered from orgasm. She rolled over on top of her.
“Who’s the dead beetle now?” She bit Sheila’s neck.
“That would be me. Happy to be.”
“Good,” Tony said and made love to her as though her life depended on it. Maybe it did.
* * *
It was not going to be easy to convince Roy he had to step away from his company, but it was the only route to take. Sheila gathered Gary, her mother, and one of Roy’s other close friends, and they sat him down.
At the end of all the speeches they made, Roy didn’t say anything for a long time, but when he finally spoke, he was surprisingly cooperative.
“You all have a lot of nerve treating me like I’m mental, but I guess it was the only way to get through to me. I don’t feel that well, but I haven’t wanted to believe anything was wrong with me. I wanted to be back in tip-top shape, but the doc told me to not be overly optimistic. I’m going to do what you ask and retire. I’d like to still be in the loop, but I will not try to tell you what to do at Pacific Partners. I’m done. There’s one thing. Gary, can you lobby the other partners about elevating Sheila to full partner? It’s time. But it ought to come from you and not me.”
“Dad—”
“It’s what I want,” Roy said with a spark of his old stubbornness.
Gary grinned. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
* * *
As Tony laid out her situation to the attentive and kindly man sitting behind the big desk, she held on to Sheila’s hand. She wasn’t afraid anymore, or uncertain. Whatever this man thought she ought to do, she’d do it and stop having second thoughts. About anything, really. That was over. She was going to move into Sheila’s place in a few days.
He listened, and Tony admired his listening skills. He took notes as she spoke, but he made eye contact, nodded, and smiled a few times. Being heard gave her a great feeling. Sheila and Tony had spent a few more hours talking over the unraveling of their relationship and acknowledging again the part each of them had played.
“First of all, no one can sue you for talking to a reporter. Your NDA isn’t enforceable if a potential crime or a regulatory violation is involved.”
Tony was so relieved, she almost fell off her chair.
“I’m going to respond to that letter you received with all that scary nonsense. From now on, they have to talk to me, and I’ll talk to them. You are not to reply to any communication, written or verbal, from GHS. That’s my job.”
Tony squeezed Sheila’s hand, then smiled at the attorney and said, “By all means, please. You can take over. I don’t ever want to talk to them again. I don’t want to see them.”
She emailed Tomas Avery, and they spent a good amount of time on the phone as he interviewed her. He expressed his gratitude unreservedly and promised he would still regard her information as on background and only refer to her as an employee. Tony thought that anyone in the know who read the article would likely be able to tell what her job was and who she was, but she wasn’t worried.
She talked to Gordon, who’d hired his own attorney. They agreed that it was better for them to tell what they knew rather than be frightened and try to hide. Gordon’s attorney told him the same thing as Tony’s. They’d done nothing wrong. Global Health Solutions, in the person of Erica, had done some truly bad things, and no amount of bullying from them ought to be tolerated.
Sheila and Tony, along with the rest of Silicon Valley, watched and waited to see what would happen next. With the publication of Avery’s article in the Washington Post, it was as though someone had flipped a switch. The news coverage of Erica Sanders abruptly stopped being laudatory.
Right after the Post article broke, Erica appeared on a cable-TV investing show. She was defiant and combative as the show host coaxed her to take some measure of responsibility and explain what the reporter had written. She would not in any way admit that her vaunted technology was worthless. She blamed the messenger, i.e. reporter, and she blamed her employees.
Sheila and Tony watched from the comfort of their couch, glasses of wine in hand. They looked at each other and shook their heads. She was never going to change.
“It ticks me off that she’s blaming us for what she did, or didn’t, do.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of unsurprising though,” Sheila said.
Erica dropped out of sight. The news about her continued though. The Security and Exchange Commission charged her with fraud.
“That’s good, right?” Tony asked Sheila.
“It is, but the SEC is notoriously lenient when it comes to penalties and holding people accountable. It’s only a civil violation.”
“Oh,” Tony said, deflated.
“Cheer up, love. The latest gossip says both she and Huey are going to be criminally indicted.”
“Oh, great,” Tony said, upbeat again.
Sheila was philosophical about losing the investment in GHS, which she considered inevitable.
She told Tony, “You win some and you lose some” is the motto of the VC world.” The loss hadn’t actually officially happened yet, but it was coming as far as Sheila was concerned, and she wouldn’t be blamed for the debacle. The rest of the companies in her portfolio were doing fine, and one went public to the tune of a couple of billion. But the SEC verdict resulted in a drastic devaluation of GHS’s worth, which, as Sheila explained to Tony, was all on paper anyhow.
The other partners were understanding, and
most of them said it could happen to anyone. They agreed with Gary and Sheila, that even Roy, with all his experience, wasn’t able to tell something nefarious was going on. Incompetent CEOs were one thing, but criminal fraud was something else. They knew about Sheila’s attempts to raise an alarm about Erica and GHS. They were contemplating a lawsuit to try to recover some of their investment.
Sheila was elevated to full partner on Roy’s recommendation, and he retired. He showed up at the offices only sometimes, as he had agreed.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I guess I should have known Erica was too good to be true.”
“Dad, nobody knew. It wasn’t just you.”
* * *
A year elapsed, and Pacific Partners took their investment loss as a tax write-off. Everyone mostly wanted to try to forget about it. Sheila dove into working with brand-new start-ups. There was never any shortage of people with big ideas. Sheila was stricter with her starry-eyed CEOs. She gave them more reporting requirements and more benchmarks to meet, and she made them take an ethics class, then incorporated all of it into their investment agreements.
Tony had almost recovered from what she identified at last as a form of PTSD. Though it went against her principles, she allowed Sheila to persuade her to go to therapy.
“Why would I want to relive all this? I want to forget it.”
“You just think it’s over, that it’s gone, but it’s not. Trust me.”
Yet therapy was much different than she’d imagined. The therapist explained to her that she’d experienced trauma and would heal from it, but she had to talk. Over time, therapy worked, and she stopped feeling as though she’d lost her mind and like something terrible was about to happen to her.
From being in the news practically every day, Erica became invisible. She was just gone.
Sheila joked, “It’s not like I miss her or anything. She’s not a friend. She almost made us break up.”
“Yes. Let’s blame her. I like that. She made my life miserable for almost two years. The beginning was good. Also, she’s why we met. I guess I can be a little grateful.”
“But only a little,” Sheila said, grinning.
A new biotech company from Mountain View recruited Tony, and she happily returned to a workaday life that had her commuting fifteen minutes from their condo to a laboratory that was far more about science and scheduling testing than drama and lies.
* * *
Tony wasn’t surprised, but she was still a bit unnerved when she was served with a subpoena to appear for a deposition. Richard, her lawyer, had told her it was likely. She and the rest of the world heard on the news that Erica and Huey were indicted for fraud in US District Court. It turned out as Sheila predicted. Tony thought wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud were oddly innocuous names for what Erica had done.
“These are felonies,” Sheila said. “This is some serious shit.”
Tony laughed. But then she asked, “You won’t get any of your investment back, will you, if she’s found guilty?”
“That’s unlikely. All that money she was getting will go for lawyers’ fees.”
On the day of her deposition, Tony sat with Richard beside her. She was nervous, but it was okay. After all, she wanted to see Erica held responsible for what she’d done. Sheila couldn’t be present, but she was close by, in another part of Erica’s lawyers’ office.
Erica sat across the table from her, with Harry Blevins. Richard had told her this might happen.
“It’s not usual, but it’s a sign what you’re going to say makes them nervous, but don’t let it bother you,” he’d said. “They’re trying to psyche you out, intimidate you. I’ll make sure they don’t. I can tell you not to answer a question if I don’t like it.”
To say the least, Erica lacked her usual verve. Truthfully, Tony thought she looked defeated, drained, and barely even acknowledged Tony. She didn’t even seem to recognize her.
The deposition was grueling, but Tony wasn’t afraid anymore, and when Erica’s lawyer, the fearsome Harry Blevins, interrogated her and tried to make her waver or trip her up, Tony was very grateful that Richard answered.
At dinner with Sheila and Richard later, Richard told them that when he saw a video of the government attorneys questioning Erica, he was struck at the time by her demeanor.
“It was a lot like how she looked in your deposition, but she actually had to answer questions. Most of the time her answers were ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t remember.’ I didn’t think it was a great strategy. She could have used the Fifth amendment.”
After Tony looked at the videos, she and Sheila had been fascinated at the change in Erica.
Tony said, “For someone who always projected extreme self-confidence and was so talkative, it was eerie.”
“She was amazing. She was one of those people who they say can talk the birds down from the trees,” Sheila said. “I was dazzled by her, like everyone else. And, like everyone else, I was fooled.”
“Isn’t it funny?” Tony said. “After all of Erica’s efforts to protect the GHS ‘trade secrets,’ there weren’t actually any trade secrets to protect. She was just hiding the fact that she had nothing.”
“And we bought it,” Sheila said, sadly, shaking her head. “What does that say about us?”
“Most people want to trust others, believe people have good intentions and integrity,” Richard said, “But often, people don’t. We’re not well equipped to tell when other people are lying. That’s a number-one concern for lawyers but not most folks. We want to trust.”
“But I still don’t understand why she did what she did,” Tony said
“I don’t either,” Sheila said.
They both looked at the lawyer, who shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t have any insight, if that’s why you’re looking at me.”
“We should have asked a lot more questions or demanded a lot more background information to back up what Erica was telling us,” Sheila said thoughtfully.
“Yes. I’ll agree to that.” Tony smiled. “Trust but verify is a rule I’ve always applied to my lab work, and I think I’ll apply it to everything and everyone from now on.”
“Me too,” Sheila said. She, Tony, and Richard clinked their wineglasses.
“Here’s to honesty and transparency in all things,” Sheila said.
Looking at Sheila fondly, Tony said, “Here’s to us.”
About the Author
Kathleen Knowles grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but has lived in San Francisco for more than thirty years. She finds the city’s combination of history, natural beauty, and multicultural diversity inspiring and endlessly fascinating.
Other than writing, she loves music of all kinds, walking , bicycling, and stamp collecting. LGBT history and politics have compelled her attention for many years, starting with her first Pride march in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1978. She and her partner were married in July 2008 and live atop one of San Francisco’s many hills with their pets. She retired last year after working for twenty years as a health and safety specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
She has written short stories, essays, and fan fiction. She is the author of nine novels.
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
A Love that Leads to Home by Ronica Black. For Carla Sims and Janice Carpenter, home isn’t about location, it’s where your heart is. (978-1-63555-675-9)
Blades of Bluegrass by D. Jackson Leigh. A US Army occupational therapist must rehab a bitter veteran who is a ticking political time bomb the military is desperate to disarm. (978-1-63555-637-7)
Guarding Hearts by Jaycie Morrison. As treachery and temptation threaten the women of the Women’s Army Corps, who will risk it all for love? (978-1-63555-806-7)
Hopeless Romantic by Georgia Beers. Can a jaded wedding planner and an optimistic divorce attorney possibly find a future together? (978-1-63555-650-6)
Hopes and Dreams by PJ Trebelhorn. Movie theater manager Riley Warren is forc
ed to face her high school crush and tormentor, wealthy socialite Victoria Thayer, at their twentieth reunion. (978-1-63555-670-4)
In the Cards by Kimberly Cooper Griffin. Daria and Phaedra are about to discover that love finds a way, especially when powers outside their control are at play. (978-1-63555-717-6)
Moon Fever by Ileandra Young. SPEAR agent Danika Karson must clear her werewolf friend of multiple false charges while teaching her vampire girlfriend to resist the blood mania brought on by a full moon. (978-1-63555-603-2)
Quake City by St John Karp. Can Andre find his best friend Amy before the night devolves into a nightmare of broken hearts, malevolent drag queens, and spontaneous human combustion? Or has it always happened this way, every night, at Aunty Bob’s Quake City Club? (978-1-63555-723-7)
Serenity by Jesse J. Thoma. For Kit Marsden, there are many things in life she cannot change. Serenity is in the acceptance. (978-1-63555-713-8)
Sylver and Gold by Michelle Larkin. Working feverishly to find a killer before he strikes again, Boston Homicide Detective Reid Sylver and rookie cop London Gold are blindsided by their chemistry and developing attraction. (978-1-63555-611-7)
Trade Secrets by Kathleen Knowles. In Silicon Valley, love and business are a volatile mix for clinical lab scientist Tony Leung and venture capitalist Sheila Garrison. (978-1-63555-642-1)
Death Overdue by David S. Pederson. Did Heath turn to murder in an alcohol induced haze to solve the problem of his blackmailer, or was it someone else who brought about a death overdue? (978-1-63555-711-4)
Entangled by Melissa Brayden. Becca Crawford is the perfect person to head up the Jade Hotel, if only the captivating owner of the local vineyard would get on board with her plan and stop badmouthing the hotel to everyone in town. (978-1-63555-709-1)
Trade Secrets Page 25
