Page 26 of The American

“And you want to develop it?”

“The company wants to acquire it, give Thad a cut, and then turn a nice profit.”

All her ethical bells were thundering in her ears and throughout her brain. Did Thad know about this? Was he going to take a cut on the sale of his own properties? They could possibly go to jail for that. “Is this why you brought him on?”

Zachary shrugged. “His presence here serves many purposes. This marketing bit is giving us more exposure than we’ve ever had. Everyone wants a piece of us, and our resorts are selling out faster than they ever have. Just about every line is doing better since the surge in press coverage.” He brought a cup to his lips and then winced as he swallowed. “But his inside knowledge and ownership of some of those juicy bits of land is paramount to it all. I mean, come on, Sage. You could do this CEO job with your eyes closed. You don’t need him, not really.” He cleared his throat. “But we do need him for everything else he offers.”

She thought about everything Zachary said, and her distrust of Thad increased. Not everyone was ethical in business. So many did anything they could to get ahead, but she had thought Thad above such things. “What do you want me to do?”

Zachary came to sit in the chair beside her. “You are not without certain…charms.”

“What?” She scooted away as far as she could.

“I want you to convince him to work with us on the real estate deal.”

“Why would I do that?” A seed of hope bloomed. “So he’s not all in yet?”

“If you do, I’ll give you forty percent.”

“What? That’s huge.” Her heart pounded. Careers were made and destroyed in moments just like this one. If she declined his offer, she would be fired and black balled. If she accepted, she would be committing a crime, and if discovered, would be fired and black balled and never hired again.

Zachary leaned forward. “If we can get this deal, we and all our future families can retire for several decades.”

She nodded. “I’ll think about it.” The answer was no. She already knew it. No way could she be involved in something like that. The blood pulsed through the back of her ears. But what should she do about it now?

She made her way back to the conference room with Thad and the brainstorm-ers. She would also need to handle this mess. She needed a moment to clear her mind, but she didn’t have a moment. So instead, she opened the door and stepped back inside.

The room was quiet and Thad was standing up at the front.

The white board was full of a new calendar, notes, marketing ideas, product suggestions; it looked as though a whole rewrite of the company were taking place.

“What’s this?”

“Welcome, Sage.” Thad handed her a folder. “This is the result of our group’s brainstorming. I can’t wait for you to see it. They had some brilliant ideas. Their ground level information is incredible.”

She pinched her lips together, choosing carefully what she might say next. “I appreciate the enthusiasm.” She put her hands together. “You all know of course that most of these things have already been decided upon, voted upon, and are in the early stages of implementation. Breaking that lovely process up will be costly, in time and resources.”

“Sage, perhaps if we could present these ideas to you. It is difficult at best to understand—”

“I’m sure I can understand it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Just a quick glance at the board and I can see that in a matter of a few hours you are exploring significant changes that took weeks to put together.”

“Perhaps they are needed. From my calculations, the plan was not as efficient, nor as productive, as it could be. The group came up with—”

“I see what you came up with. It could be wonderful, but until it’s been thought through, researched, and discussed for some significant amount of time, I’m going to stick with what we decided weeks ago, and I approved.”

“Perhaps we should consider just a few changes.”

“I think in this instance, we should stick with the one of us with a business resume.” She wanted to bite her tongue right after she said it, but he needed to be reminded of who was hired to do which jobs in this partnership.

The expression on his face froze and the silence in the room felt thick. His eyes flitted through the people on their production committee. “Thank you for your work on this. If you’ll excuse us for a moment?”

He walked to the door and held it open.

Sage’s smile was tight when she exited.

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