Page 71 of Designed for Disaster

“Shall we put your motion to a vote, Mother?” I said, a wave of calm washing over me. There was no reality where the board would vote to plunge Saunders back into that chaos. “All in favor of removing me as CEO?”

I looked around at the familiar faces of the board members. No one moved a muscle.

“All in favor of me remaining in my current position?”

Hands shot up around the table. The vote was unanimous. “Excellent. Now that that matter has been put to bed, shall we call an end to the meeting?”

The board nodded, climbing to their feet, gathering their things. My mother stayed in her seat, vibrating with rage. The second the last board member cleared the table, I cornered her.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded. “What did you really think you’d get out of a stunt like that?”

“You took this company away from me,” she snapped, still bitter after all this time. “You and your grandmother.”

“Leave Dee out of this,” I spat out.

“Do you know what I had to put up with all those years just so I could hold on to my work?” she said.

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Of course I knew—it was all she ever talked about. Work was the only thing she had ever given a damn about. Maybe there was a time when she’d cared about my father too, but I’d certainly never witnessed it. Her disgust over the affairs had made her withdraw from him more and more over the years, all while she threw herself even harder into her work. To hell with anything else, including her own sons. To hell, even, with the fact that by the end, she was activelybadfor the company, hurting productivity as she feuded with my father and forced the whole staff to be stuck in the middle.

Even now, all that mattered to her was reclaiming the power and authority she used to have, and she didn’t care who she had tohurt along the way. I knew Natasha wanted me to resolve things with my parents, but there was no way we were ever going to be one big happy family.

“You think I wanted this?” I hissed. “I had much better things to do with my life than clean up after you and Dad.”

“You had no business getting involved.”

“I’mthe only reason there’s anything left of the business,” I said. “Or do you not remember how you and Dad tried to run it into the ground?”

“Saunders was all I had left after everything. But now it’s gone too.”

“Last I checked you havetwosons. But, of course, neither one of us counts compared to your work.”

“Don’t give me that sniveling act,” she said, crossing her arms. “You’re not a child anymore, Trent.”

“You’re damn right about that. I’m a grown man, and I understand the world well enough to see you for what you are.”

“And what’s that?” she sneered.

“A failure,” I shot back. “You gave up everything for your work, and you were never truly a success, even with that. How could you be when you brought no soul to it at all? You were never interested in the actual creative process. That’s why this place stagnated under your leadership.”

She scoffed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I do. Because I’ve got a great designer on board now, and I’ve seen the vibrancy she brings to everything she touches. She’s going to help shift the face of Saunders, and she’ll do it becauseshe genuinely enjoys the act of creating. It’s inspiring. You never had anything like that.”

“Oh, you mean Natasha?”

Some instinct in me triggered at the smug tone in her voice. That tone never meant good things.

“That’s your new little designer, isn’t it?” my mom pressed. “Yes, we’ve met. Nice girl. Well…maybe not nice. Butsmart,definitely. A real go-getter. Just look at all the information she was able to get for me. About Dee. And Jimmy. And the issues you’ve had with the new line.”

What? All the information she’d just tried to use against me had come from Natasha? That wasn’t possible. There was no way Natasha would have spoken to her without telling me first. “You’re lying.”

“Am I? No…I don’t think so.” A hideous smile curled across her face. “Even your oh-so-special Natasha knows the only thing that matters is the bottom line. All I had to do was dangle a little bit of money, and she couldn’t wait to share all the details.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“Maybe it’s time you start thinking about the kinds of people you trust,” she said. “Take it from me. People love to pick you apart when you’re sitting at the top.”

No. Natasha wouldn’t have accepted money for something like that. My mother was just trying to hurt me.

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