Page 16 of Indecent Secrets

“Of course.” The man’s smile felt like it was being forced out of him by a puppeteer.

“I’m excited to get started,” Jack said, with a kind of sincere eagerness that was either woefully, hysterically genuine or hilariously fake. I couldn’t tell if he was playing these men or if he was just trying to be straightforward in an attempt to cut through the bullshit. “I’ll see you all at the board meeting this afternoon.”

It was a clear dismissal. The men all filed out, leaving the gray-streaked woman with her notepad, Jack, and myself.

“Leigh, this is Rebecca. Rebecca, this is Leigh. Rebecca’s the woman they kindly assigned to me to serve as my executive assistant. I’ve been informed this makes her kind of like my TA?”

Jack sent Rebecca a questioning look, as if he was confirming this with her. Rebecca gave an encouraging smile and nodded at him.

“I’m so glad you have people helping you,” I told him, making my voice as sincere as possible. “One of the number one things that I tell people is that you’re only as good as your team. A CEO is more the face of the company than anything else. The captain might say where the ship is going but it’s up to the crew to make that actually happen, so it’s important to appreciate the people who are helping you actually make your plans a reality. Nobody can do it alone.”

“I definitely can’t,” Jack said with good-natured self-degradation. “Rebecca here has been at the company for years and I’m shocked it’s taken her this long to be snapped up for such a position.”

Rebecca’s face froze for a second, and then relaxed again. Hmm. Something to do with those rumors about Lawton, I figured. She wasn’t young and attractive enough, and probably not male enough, either.

“Well, I’m happy to help the new Mr. Lawton as we move forward with the company,” Rebecca said.

“And do you know how you want to move forward?” I asked, meeting Jack’s gaze. “You say we need to innovate. Do you already have a plan?”

Jack’s face fell. “That’s the problem. I’ve done enough studying to understand that our company is… not doing as great as it would like to be. Or as it should be. Financially we’re still in the black for now, but from what I’ve been told, we won’t be for long. My uncle was resistant to change and so he wouldn’t adopt new policies. This whole office reconstruction…” Jack made a gesture to encompass the office I’d just walked through. “…was done against his will and he threw a fit about it, apparently.”

I nodded. “Well, I can’t tell you just yet exactly what will work best for the company. I’ll need to do more research. But I’m sure…” I looked at Rebecca. “If you’ve been at this company for a while, you’ll probably have some ideas, or you’ll know other people who’ll it’ll be good to ask?”

“The board has plenty of ideas,” Rebecca said, but she sounded hesitant, like she was saying it because she felt she had to.

“I’m not going to listen to the board,” Jack snapped. “They’re trying to oust me, for one thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted the company to nosedive so they could use that as an excuse. They’ll claim I did a bad job as the leader and that’s why everything’s falling apart when it’ll be on their advice in the first place.”

That was definitely astute. Corporate takeovers were standard in this world as everyone tried to climb their way to the top and amass as much money and power as possible. But a newbie like Jack Lawton wouldn’t ordinarily see it coming. The fact he could already suspect that these men were setting him up to fail reminded me, again, this guy was smarter than I’d initially thought when I met him at the party.

“Why don’t we conduct a private survey?” I suggested. “I’d be happy to handle it. Rebecca, if you have a few people you think it would be wise to talk to, I can interview them and get a possible plan together.”

Then I turned and smiled at Jack. “I’m sure you’ll have your hands full with learning the day-to-day running and this way we can do it without the board getting suspicious from keeping their eye on you.”

“I think that could work,” Rebecca said. “I’ll get on that. And remember, Mr. Lawton, you have a meeting in an hour for lunch, and then the advertising department has a presentation for you at two.”

Jack nodded, already looking a bit overwhelmed. “Great, thank you Rebecca. I’ll review those files that you put together for me.”

He walked around the desk to sit down at his chair, and I saw there was in fact a thick stack of files sitting there waiting for him to go through. Rebecca nodded, smiled at me, and then left the room, probably to go to wherever her desk was.

I picked up some of the files to flick through them, feigning vague interest but actually hoping I could find something to weaponize in here. “How are you actually feeling?”

“Like I want to fire everyone,” Jack muttered. “It’s pretty damn clear the head of the board thought that he and the others would gain control of the company after my uncle’s death and they’re looking for the first excuse to legally get rid of me.”

“Can you discuss it with legal?” I asked.

He sighed and scrubbed a hand along his jaw. “You remember David Weston, the legal guy from the party?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s one of the advisors for the company. The head of the board is his father.”

Oh, wow. “Didn’t realize that it was so incestuous this high up the corporate ladder.”

“In legacy places like this, apparently it is,” Jack sighed.

The files in my hand detailed everything from the latest ad campaigns to the quarterly earnings to the stock market projections to the security company that took care of the building. This was a hell of a lot to go through.

“This is probably more work than you do for an entire school year.”

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