by Lexy Timms
“Oh, believe me, I have nothing bad to say about Zander. I'm sure that he's excellent at what he does, and that his help is invaluable to Mr. Reid. But he's also a subordinate. Which means that he can't really say anything and expect Alex to listen. Because Alex has veto power. What he really needs is someone on equal footing with him. Someone who can take care of the company in the same way he does and give him some time to spend with his family.”
“And that someone would be...?”
Him, of course, Mark thought bitterly. As though he hadn't been trying to get his claws into Reid Enterprises all along. How stupid were they not to see that? Maybe it was time for Alex to get some new board members, because the current ones didn't seem to be all that great at their jobs.
“Well,” Nicholas said, “I can't tell you who it should be, because I'm not exactly impartial. I would say choose someone who also has a lot of stock in the company. Someone who will genuinely care about it.”
And Nicholas just so happened to hold the most company stock after Alex. Mark's jaw tightened until it almost hurt. He could see now why Alex had been so wary of Nicholas, and so sure that Mark would do something stupid because of him. The man seemed to practically mesmerize people. He had the board members practically eating out of his hand. There were a few more, Mark knew, probably the ones he hadn't been able to get to, but they weren't enough of a majority to actually save Alex's place in his business.
Of course, Alex could just fire them all and run the business completely on his own, but that wouldn't help at all with Alex's family situation, and as much as Mark hated to admit it Nicholas had actually been right about that. Alex was going to have to choose between family and work, and even though Mark was sure he already knew what Alex would choose he didn't think the board had any right to shoehorn themselves into that decision. When Alex chose family over work, then they could start talking about trying to find someone to help fill the gaps. Until then, they needed to leave it alone.
“That someone wouldn't happen to be you, would it?” one of the women asked. He thought it was the first woman who had spoken. She sounded less like she was asking something from a business perspective, and more like she was flirting with him.
“Not unless the board thought it was a good idea,” Nicholas answered. “I wouldn’t want to assume anything.”
He was assuming a lot of things. Including assuming that Alex wouldn’t catch him.
What they needed was a way to force him out. Make him sell all of his stock in the business and ensure that he wouldn’t ever buy any more. The problem was that Mark had no idea how to do that.
The conversation changed, then, and they didn’t talk about Reid Enterprises anymore. Mark pulled off the headphones he’d been wearing, setting them down on the table with the laptop, and called down to Christine to let her know that he was taking messages again. There hadn’t been any for him in the time that he’d been listening to Nicholas schmoozing the board.
He needed something that he could prove. At least to Nicholas. Some kind of leverage. He straightened up and pulled his laptop closer, typing a search into Google.
Chapter 14
Alex’s phone rang. Without looking at it, he reached over and picked it up, answering the call. “Alex Reid.”
“Alex,” his brother’s voice said, “it’s Mark. Listen. Don’t hang up. Please.”
He was halfway to hitting the end call button, but Alex paused at the request, debating internally. Jamie had told him that he shouldn’t cut his brother off, and Alex knew that she was right, but it didn’t stop the anger from rising when he thought about what Mark had done.
“If you have a reason for calling,” he said finally. “You have two minutes to explain it.”
“I know what Nicholas is up to… and I know how to get rid of him.”
Alex went very still. The hand that had been on the mouse, flicking through pages, paused. “You what?”
“I know what Nicholas is trying to do,” Mark said, too quickly. “I heard him talking with some of the members of your board.”
“You heard him talking with members of the board?” Alex said, slowly.
“Yes,” Mark answered. “At the country club. He brought some of them in.”
“He took my board members to your club?” The guy had balls. Alex had to give Nicholas credit there.
“He was going over this bullshit about how you’re having to decide between your family and your business, and how it’s not fair to you to have to carry all the weight of Reid Enterprises when you have a wife and babies at home. He’s trying to convince them to force you into setting up a partner who would have as much control as you do over the business.”
“Meaning him,” Alex said flatly.
“That was the meaning I took from it. They were eating out of his hand. I don’t know how he does it.”
“He’s an excellent liar.”
There was no answer from Mark, and in the silence Alex turned the news over in his thoughts. So Nicholas was trying to sneak into his company through his board. It wasn’t a surprise. But the fact that Mark knew was. And Mark had said he knew how to stop it.
“So what are you proposing, then, to stop him?”
There was another pause on the other end of the line, and Alex wondered if Mark had changed his mind.
“I hired a private detective,” Mark said. “And got some information on Nicholas.”
That stopped Alex cold. “You did what?”
“I looked into Nicholas’s background,” Mark said. Alex could hear the nerves in his voice. “I don’t know why you didn’t before, honestly. A guy that powerful, and that corrupt, has to have some kind of dirt in his past. He tried to cover it up but he couldn’t hide all the evidence, no matter how much money he threw at it.”
“Threw at what?” Alex demanded.
“I need to tell you in person,” Mark said.
“You think he’s going to find out if you tell me over the phone?”
“No,” Mark said. “But I’d really like to actually talk to you face to face, Alex.”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Okay, Mark. Drop by the house whenever you have some time tonight. I’ll be home by sometime after five, or six.”
***
Mark knocked on the door at six, and Jamie hurried to open it. Alex watched from the kitchen as she wrapped his brother in a hug. Jake danced around their feet, whining excitedly. When they both walked into the room, Alex stepped forward and, after a moment’s hesitation, hugged his brother as well. Mark’s arms held him tight for an instant, and then he was moving back, grinning. The expression was a little uncertain, but it was there.
“I take it you’ve decided to let me back into the family fold?” he asked, not as much of a joke as he had obviously hoped it would be, because his voice caught at the end.
Alex looked at Jamie, who gave him a look that said he had better give the right answer, and he smiled at Mark. “Yeah. I guess I’m not as good at holding grudges as I used to be.”
Mark laughed then, and some of the weight lifted from Alex’s shoulders. Despite his stupidity, their relationship hadn’t been completely destroyed.
“Tell me what you have on Nicholas.”
Jamie moved back toward the twins, who were sitting on a blanket on the floor, playing with blocks. She crouched down next to them, but Alex could tell that she was still listening to their conversation.
“Right,” Mark said, pulling out a file folder he’d been carrying under his arm and dropping it on the table. “So last time,” he went on, “you didn’t have Nicholas arrested because you couldn’t prove anything against him, which meant that he was free to come back. This time, you still can’t prove anything against him on a business side. He’s too careful for that. I’m not sure this’ll even work for police evidence, but you can definitely get it out to the press, and no one is going to want to set him up as a partner in Reid Enterprises after that. It’s time to use the media the way they like to gobble sh
it up on you.”
Mark opened the folder and revealed several pages of typed information, as well as a small stack of pictures. Alex picked the first one up and found himself looking at a car with the front crushed in, skid marks on the road behind it.
“What is this?”
“That,” Mark said, “is the car that Nicholas hit, killing the driver.”
There was a gasp from Jamie and then she was standing beside them, looking down at the pictures, too, one hand over her mouth.
“How do you know that it was him?”
“There was a witness on the scene who called in the license plate of the hit and run driver. Strangely enough, the call never came to anything. The officer in charge of the case just dropped it, and everyone kind of forgot. Meanwhile, a formerly very nice Aston Martin showed up in one of the less savory parts of the city, all identification removed. No owner ever stepped forward to claim it, but Nicholas did file a police report stating that his own car, coincidentally the one that showed up two days later, had been stolen.”
“If the car was stolen, or even if he claimed it was,” Alex said, “then there’s no proof that he was driving it.”
Mark pulled another photo out of the pile, this one a traffic camera shot showing Nicholas behind the wheel of a car. “This was taken the night of the crash. Just minutes before, actually. No one followed up on it.”
Alex took a step back from the file on the counter, his thoughts spinning. Nicholas had hit someone and run, then paid the police to cover it up. You couldn’t pay the police, could you? Or it might only take one bad cop.
“I can’t believe he would do something like that,” Jamie said. She paused. “Actually, I can.” Shaking her head, she turned back toward the twins, who were completely oblivious to the tension going on over their heads, cooing and giggling as they built block towers and knocked them down again.
Alex stared at the photos. “If we take this to the press,” he said slowly, “that’s it for Nicholas.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Mark grinned. “And I think we take it to the police, too. But even if they can’t do anything about it, the press isn’t going to let his money get in their way. He can’t pay them all off. They’re going to have a field day with this.”
“And like you said, once people know that he’s a killer, they’re not going to accept him anywhere near Reid Enterprises. Even if he still keeps his stock, the board isn’t going to listen to a thing he says. He could sell it cheap and do a little damage, but the company is big enough to recover from that.”
For the first time since he’d discovered that Sunrise Investments was buying up his stock, Alex could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And once this was dealt with… He turned to look at Jamie, watching her wiggle a block as she held it out toward the twins, Lilli reaching to grab it. Once this was done, he could give some of the workload to Zander, and spend more time at home with his family, where he belonged.
“So,” he said, turning back to Mark, “how do we do it?”
“Should we go to Nicholas first?” Jamie asked. “Let him know what we have and ask him nicely to back away? Maybe he would take the chance to get out without losing his reputation.”
“Why should we do that?” Mark asked. “He hasn’t done anything but torment you and Alex. Do you think that he actually deserves a chance? Playing nice with this guy isn’t going to stop him. He needs to be hit hard. He’s ruthless.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he does or not,” Alex said. “If we go to him with it before we go to anyone else, he’ll find a way to get out of it. He has a lot of money, and good lawyers. It has to be enough of a shock that he can’t get out ahead of it.”
Jamie sighed. “Okay. You’re right. I guess I just hate the idea of going after someone like that.”
“He came after us like that,” Alex reminded her. “He’s not worth your sympathy, Jamie. You remember what he did to Gina.”
Jamie’s expression hardened and she nodded. “Yeah. I do. Okay. Nicholas goes down.”
***
It was easy enough to get the story out to the press. All they had to do was anonymously send photocopies of the relevant files to half a dozen different publications, and the rest would be done for them. The files they sent to the police Alex also sent without his identity attached. He didn’t want it getting back to Nicholas that he’d been involved. Not when it could put Jamie and the twins in danger.
The news hit fast. There were more than two dozen articles on the hit and run in a matter of hours. Alex didn’t read them but he did skim through the headlines, Jamie reading over his shoulder.
BILLIONAIRE’S BIG MISTAKE.
Sunrise Applications CEO Paid Off Police.
Jail Time for Nicholas Again?
“I guess that’s done then,” she said, straightening up as Alex closed the browser window.
“And good riddance,” Alex agreed. He turned around to face her, standing up from the chair and wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her in against him.
Jamie tipped her head back so she could meet his eyes, the smile that had been far too rare recently on her face.
“I think,” he growled, “that you and I have some lost time to make up for.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
Instead of answering, Alex leaned down to press his lips to hers, her mouth opening to the kiss so he could taste her. Her arms reached up to wrap around his neck, and Alex was about two minutes from scooping her up and carrying her upstairs when his phone rang. Reluctantly, they broke apart.
“I’ll just be a minute, baby,” Alex said as he picked up the phone, answering without looking at the screen.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Nicholas shouted before he’d even put the phone to his ear. “Don’t try to deny it! I know it was you who sent that story to the media! I don’t know how the hell you got it, but you’re seriously stepping over a line here.”
“Stepping over a line the same way you did? Same way you had my ex-girlfriend pretend to be pregnant? Same way you tried to wiggle your way in using Gina? Same way you tried to mess with Jamie? Or do you mean the same way when you decided to try to insert yourself into my company by manipulating my board members with nonsense about how I couldn’t handle Reid Enterprises and having a family at the same time?”
On the other end of the line, Nicholas was startled silent for a minute. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said finally.
“No?” Alex looked up at Jamie, who was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest, obviously aware of who he was talking to. “Because I have it on some pretty good authority that you had several of them out to play a round of golf at Little Lake Country Club. Which, as you may remember, is owned by my brother, Mark. Or did you forget that?”
Nicholas sputtered. “Your brother’s an idiot.”
“Really? He’s the one at fault here? Did you think that it wouldn’t matter to him that you’ve been trying to undermine me for years? We’re family, Nicholas. Family watches out for each other.”
“Then family also goes down together, Alex,” Nicholas spat.
“No,” Alex said, “it doesn’t. And here’s why.” He took a few steps forward, then turned on his heel and paced the other way. “The only reason that you got away with your completely underhanded behavior is because you’re rich, and because you had a good reputation. But it doesn’t matter how much money you have now, Nicholas. My board isn’t going to let you anywhere near them. All those people who would have followed you when you left Mark’s country club before this happened aren’t going to go anywhere with you now. You didn’t just commit some kind of business faux pas. You killed someone. And while a few police officers might have looked the other way because you waved some money under their noses eight years ago, they can’t now. The whole country is watching them; they want to know that even rich men aren’t above the law. And the mother of that kid you killed? She’s not going to go away.�
� Alex shook his head. “I almost feel sorry for you, actually. Because you’ve lost all your leverage. Your stocks are already tanking. Your reputation is ruined. And by the time you get it all back together again, you’re going to be enough of a nobody that there won’t be a thing you can do to me or my company.”
“Why?” Nicholas hissed. “Why do it like this, Alex?”
“Because you wouldn’t stop. I tried to be nice about it, even after what happened with Gina, but you kept coming after the things and the people that I care about, and I couldn’t let that keep happening. So I stopped you.”
There was silence on the other end of the call.
Then Nicholas laughed, a short, sharp sound. “I guess we all do what we have to,” he said.
The call ended.
“I guess we do,” Alex said quietly. Nicholas had nothing. No leverage. Nothing to retaliate with.
“Do what?” Jamie asked, coming forward from her place by the door.
Alex looked up from the phone in his hand and smiled at her, holding out a hand and wrapping his arms around her as soon as she came close. “What we have to,” Alex said, “to keep our families safe.”
She looked up at him. “So it’s over?”
“It’s over,” Alex answered. “For real this time.” He grinned down at her, drinking in the lines of her face and drawing her closer to feel the warm press of her body against his own.
“And I think that you and I had something we were in the middle of.”
Instead of giving her a chance to answer, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her upstairs to the sound of her laughter.
Chapter 15
“I think maybe I’m finally get the hang of this,” Mark said, looking down over the golf course as the setting sun painted it gold. “Or at least figuring out how to keep going on five hours of sleep and in constant crisis mode.”
Erica, standing at his side with her arm linked through his, laughed. “I think it’s actually the first one. Things do seem to have calmed down a little lately.”
