Page 56 of Handling the CEO

“Fine, McMaster,” the older man in a golf outfit agrees in the end, “you made your point, and I am sorry about the predicament. Although I am not particularly close to Tabitha, she is a lovely girl and if she wants to stay with you, I can’t in good conscience fight you, especially after the videos.”

“But Ram!” his wife pleads with him, but he is having none of it.

“Shut up Miranda, look at the mess you made—and you!” He points at Richard. "You are fired! She may strut around being CEO, but I own that company and I don’t need a blackmailing scum working for me!”

Richard’s face is white now and tries to get up and leave.

“Why don’t you wait a minute, Simmons,” I say. “The fun is just about to begin! And Lexington, you may want to stay for this part as well. Our next guest is about to arrive!”

“What do you mean? Who is missing?” the billionaire asks.

The guy in the corner Marcus bought in earlier starts shifting uncomfortably, probably suspecting who else is coming.

DJ comments, ignoring the question, “Isn’t it a bit weird how you all Big Men talk to each other using your surnames?”

“No, not really, just a Big Men thing,” I answer playfully, in the ‘groove’ now. “Anyone wants something to drink? We got coffee and tea, just don’t throw them at me,” I inquire, looking at Miranda, who is whispering with her solicitor, still trying to get the upper hand. But by the look on Ms. Pruitt’s face, she is as exasperated as we all are with the former model’s antics.

We don’t end up having any beverages as the doors open again and finally, Michaela enters the room typing on her phone, and we now have everyone in one place.

“Rich, I got your text and came as soon as I could. Luckily I was just around the corner with X-Access. Did you get the software? What the…” She freezes as looks up and sees eight pairs of eyes on her.

“Ah, glad you cut the bullshit and admitted straight off the bat that you know my ex-husband,” Dahlia amuses herself. “Oh, and Richard, you may want to put a new password on that phone of yours.” She throws him his mobile she accidentally ‘found’ when she walked him into the building.

“Umm yes, after you stole the code the other day, I reached out to Lex Aviation to work on the project jointly.” Mike manages to turn the facts around with what I can see are years of expertise. And thinking back, I wonder how many times in the past 15 years she used these sorts of explanations on me.

“Joint project, is it? If I ask Miranda here, will she say the same thing?” I enquire, and I can only enjoy the anger in my stepmother's eyes as she glares at my ex-VP. “But now that you are here, let’s do some introductions. The Lexingtons and our lawyers were here to discuss our custody arrangement for my sister before we go to an official hearing. Simmons, you know him well—he just lost his job trying to blackmail my girlfriend. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Mike?”

“I know nothing of any blackmail,” she grits her teeth.

“I am quite surprised you’d say so. Especially as I don’t need to introduce you to our boy—Cole—here, right? Come on man, say hello to your… mother dearest.”

There are gasps throughout the room, and interestingly, Miranda looks as shocked as everyone else. The young man has the good sense not to answer and cowers in his chair even more, as our guests stare between him and the silver-haired woman.

“Nothing to say? Bizarre how your son is in the same house when I get filmed in a less-than-ideal state. Lucky we can prove that I never took anything, and that I had no intention of doing so.”

“There is no proof it was my son that recorded you. You have nothing to accuse us of. Everyone knows you took the boy under your wing, invited him to parties and all that.”

“Perhaps, but a mighty coincidence, don’t you think?” Dahlia asks, as in a well-rehearsed play. We may have rehearsed a bit, I admit. When we decided on a ‘tell-all murder mystery’ reveal, we had to prepare for some of their counters. “Even more interesting, how you held onto it up to now, as by itself, it clearly didn’t stand on its own. No, you waited until Jon had something to fight for more than the company. The Board may frown at his playboy/party state, but it wouldn’t have been enough to throw him out years ago. But now that you heard—probably from Richard—that Jon had a chance of getting custody, you gave it to my ex-husband to use to get my work. What we didn’t understand up to recently is why? You had Jon thrown out, but we still had a contract for McAv to use it exclusively for years!”

“That is strange,” Ramsay comments like he is part of the conversation. “Is it because my wife announced it, and Simmons needed to show something?”

“We also thought so at first,” I begin the convoluted explanation. “But why would Mike care about your company? We are rivals in the end. As it turns out, she really doesn’t. She does, however, care about money and power, and certain friendships she cultivated throughout the years.”

DJ pulls up a series of emails we got from Anya. “As you can see, these are all from Michaela Jones’s work email to a certain ‘Mr. Smith’ email account. So very innocent. But let’s see some of the actual discussion. They really should have used a secure messaging app.”

From: Michaela

To: Mr. Smith

We signed her. No code ownership, but will take whatever she puts on the server.

From: Mr. Smith

To: Michaela

Good start, get this done and we can talk government contract.

From: Michaela

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