Page 42 of Dirty Deals

Her feelings were complicated. She liked Nik more than any man since her initial attraction to Michael more than a decade ago. She had been so wrong about the kind of man Michael was. She didn’t trust herself. She could not risk falling for another man who might expect her to surrender her identity.

“I wanted to talk to you about Ava’s birthday. I’m trying to figure out what would make a good gift for her. What do you think she would like?”

Jules hid a smile at the almost helpless look Nik wore. This man, so self-assured and arrogant about almost everything else, was putty when it came to their daughter. “Mom and I already bought her a bicycle. I’d be happy to add your name to the card.”

Nik’s brow furrowed, and Jules resisted the impulse to smooth away the lines. Finally, he shook his head briefly. “I appreciate the offer, but I’d like to get her something from me. Is there anything else you can suggest?”

Jules mentally sifted through the ideas she and her mother had come up with but rejected for various reasons. “There is one thing,” she said slowly. “Mom and I looked at buying her a playhouse for the backyard. She likes to be outside and play make-believe, so we thought it might be something she’d like. We decided on the bike instead. I think she would love that as a gift.”

Nik’s eyes gleamed. “Great. I’ll take care of it.”

CHAPTER28

Halifax was turning into a complete clusterfuck, and Nik wanted nothing more than to fly back to Vancouver and leave it all behind. He’d arrived that morning tired and grumpy. Ava had been upset about his leaving so soon after moving in with them and had had a meltdown when he’d told her he was leaving.

His daughter had demonstrated that she had inherited the Costas temper and stubbornness, even if she usually had a cheerful outlook. When she was angry or frustrated, she let everyone know. He had wanted to placate her by giving her anything she asked for. Jules had refused to give in, and eventually Ava had calmed down and accepted that Nik had to leave. He hoped this wouldn’t happen every time he had to travel. Ava’s unhappiness had been too painful.

Ava’s distress had meant it took a long time to get her ready for bed, leaving him pressed for time to get to the airport. He had planned to let Jules know in the most intimate way how much he would miss her, but that had been impossible. Instead, he’d indulged in a long, slow goodbye kiss and a whispered promise to make it up to her when he returned.

Nik had tried to sleep on the six-hour flight, knowing there would be little time for rest for the next few days. The time change and the long flight meant he’d arrived outside the headquarters of Novotex shortly after eight in the morning. By the time the CEO rolled in at nine, Nik had security and the RCMP waiting.

The termination and arrest had been the easy part of his day. The rest of it had been hours of staff meetings and trying to reassure the employees that the company was healthy, to prevent them from stampeding for the door. One of his last meetings had been with the head chemist, a brilliant woman who led the research and development lab. That meeting had left him impressed with her skills, and her candour. Meera Patel had wasted no time telling him about the actions of the former CEO, whom she had suspected of trying to cut their funding to sabotage their research. And then she’d turned over the information to prove it. Nik had spent the last two hours poring over spreadsheets, surveillance recordings of the lab that she had made covertly, and stacks of requisitions that had been denied. Everything pointed to the CEO not only trying to sell the drug formula to another company but trying to destroy this one after he left. Nik was still shocked at how badly the CEO had tried to harm the company. On the upside, Meera had impressed him with her determination to thwart that sabotage, hiding the research she was doing on a new drug to treat diabetes.

Nik’s computer chirped, and when he hit “Accept,” Charles’s face appeared on-screen. “How bad is it?”

Nik had sent a brief email letting Charles know things were worse than they’d thought, but he hadn’t provided details. Now he needed to bring him up to speed. “Bad. The company will recover, but the damage is extensive. It looks like he’s been cutting back on research funding for at least two years. Every promising drug, every breakthrough, was buried in red tape and budget cuts. Meera thinks we can still save a couple of them, turn them into marketable drugs. The bad news is, at least one product is pointless, because our competition already brought their product to market. We’d be in a lot more trouble if she hadn’t realized what he was up to and started misleading him about the research she was doing.”

“Damn him. I suspected something wasn’t right when the monthly reports stopped showing up, but I’ve been swamped with several companies down here and didn’t have time to deal with it. Do we have enough proof for criminal charges?”

Nik sighed. “Well, I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure. The RCMP did arrest him, citing economic espionage. Is there enough evidence for a conviction? No idea. I’m turning everything over to our legal team to deal with the Crown prosecutor. For now I’m focusing on finding a new CEO and starting to repair the damage that’s been done.”

It was going to take months to recover from this. If he could get a CEO in place quickly, he wouldn’t have to stay to mop up the mess. If the CEO search took a long time, though, he’d be away from Ava and Jules far longer than he wanted. He had promised Jules he would be in Vancouver for Ava’s birthday, and he would. He didn’t want to have to return to Halifax afterwards. He was motivated to find someone fast.

Charles cursed again. “This is the last thing we need right now. I’m dealing with major issues at another company. I can’t get bogged down with this one.”

As managing partner, North America, it was Charles who usually dealt with administrative issues at the companies WYCK held majority stakes in. It had surprised Nik that Charles hadn’t wanted to handle Halifax himself, but this explained everything.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I wish there was, but no. Take care of the problems in Halifax for me, and keep me posted on the criminal case.” Charles ended the call.

Nik was more determined than ever to resolve the mess in front of him and get back to Vancouver at the earliest opportunity.

Nik’s first goal had to be finding someone to take over the leadership of the Novotex operation. Meera Patel had seemed like an obvious choice, but when he’d mentioned it, she’d refused immediately, citing her love of research and development, and her loathing of all things administrative. Instead, she had provided him with a list of people that she thought might be a good fit. Add those names to his own list of contacts, and with any luck, he could find someone before the news of the actions of the ex-CEO created more stakeholder anxiety. He needed to start calling people.

It was evening by the time he’d reached most of the people on the list. Several had turned him down, but a few had been interested enough to agree to talk to him, and he had scheduled meetings with them over the next week. The new CEO needed to be more than capable; they needed to be the right fit, to be able to build trust with the remaining team in order to bring the business back from the brink of disaster. It was a big job. Now all he wanted was to grab some food, get back to his hotel, and video chat with his daughter as promised. Thinking about Ava cheered him up. He couldn’t wait to see her face, even if it was through a computer screen. Thank goodness for the time difference, because although it was late in Halifax, Jules and Ava wouldn’t even have had dinner yet in Vancouver. He’d lost track of time while he was wrangling CEO candidates.

He also hadn’t had time to start looking for Ava’s birthday gift. Her birthday was only weeks away, and he needed to get on it. How had Jules done this all by herself for the last four years? Her job was as demanding as his, and she’d done everything. Yet he was struggling to find time to buy his daughter a birthday present. He resolved to do more, take some of the pressure off Jules.

“Daddy!” Ava’s face filled his screen, too close to the camera. All he could see was her eyes and nose. When Jules pulled her back and adjusted their position, he could see Ava was wearing her favourite pyjamas, and her blonde hair was still damp from her bath. Jules sat beside her holding the tablet. She was halfway out of the frame, but her cheeks were pink, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. A pang of longing hit him. He wished he were in Vancouver with the two of them, not across the country for work.

“Hey, baby. How was your day?”

Nik listened as Ava chattered on about her day at preschool and what she and her friends had done. “Look at the picture I made.” Ava held up a picture of a house with four people in front of it. “It’s you, and me, and mommy, and Grandma. See? It’s a picture of us when you get back home.”

Nik swallowed past the lump in his throat. The picture she’d made was of a family, her family, and now he was part of it. “It’s a beautiful picture. I can’t wait to see it in person.”

“When are you coming home? Will you be back for my party?” Ava’s lower lip started to tremble.

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