Page 41 of Billionaire Corruption

After the phone call ended, I went for a walk outside, even though it was quite a cold evening. I wanted to clear my head.

There was a message from Grace, telling me about the latest developments with her brother, and I thought about her reaction when I told her about Jerome. The way she’d kissed me at the hospital, full of promise and anticipation. Offering to help her pay for her brother’s medical bills had been a stroke of genius. It was the perfect way to draw her back to me. I knew I had to show her that I wasn’t some kind of cold-hearted corporate scumbag. She would never be with someone like that. Grace was pure and decent, honest, and full of integrity. It was ingrained into her personality, a part of her DNA.

It occurred to me that she, in many ways, was the opposite of me. I was not decent or honest, and I would never have described myself as having integrity. It felt strange having these thoughts. In my family, these values had not been important. Instead, we were told to be ambitious and competitive. Being successful was more important than anything. Even at school, at high school sports games, my father pushed us to win, to be on the top teams. He couldn’t stomach losers. They were weak and poor. Survival of the fittest, I can still hear my father say. Apparently, it was my grandfather’s mantra. Even though our family was long past survival and was doing well, it was somehow never enough.

It had shaped me into the man I’d become.

I didn’t know why Grace’s decency was so appealing to me. I had never been attracted to people like that before. Righteous, religious, conservative people were always a little boring, I thought. Pencil pushing, rule makers. The traffic cops of society, not the big thinkers, not the innovators, the creative sorts. This is where I had always seen myself, as being part of the crowd that achieved things, that made things happen.

I had made things happen with Ladden. I had been instrumental in the push across Europe, opening the offices in six countries. There had been a big bonus for me at the end of that first year, a performance bonus that I felt I had deserved. I invested almost all of it in an investment I had heard about on a dance floor at some crazy party where almost everyone was high and drunk.

When I woke up the next day, I remembered the name of the healthcare company I’d heard the night before and saw it was a supplier in the UK, currently facing a lawsuit. The share price was low, investors were worried. But if the lawsuit failed and the company won, it would result in big business with the government, with all the countries associated with the Commonwealth and possibly beyond. It was a gamble, and I took it. My hunch paid off. Handsomely.

I’d always trusted my gut, not matter what it said or where it pointed me.

Right now, my gut said Grace was the way to go.

I wanted to see her again.

Feel her again.

I wasn’t thinking about the future, or a relationship. All I knew, was that at this point in time, Grace was one of the few good things in my life. I was always glad to see her face, hear her voice. And what she was saying, made sense. More importantly, she was right. I felt myself drawn to her, shaped by her opinion. I did want to be better in her eyes, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. I had never questioned my ways before, maybe it was time I started.

Chapter 17

Grace

“Hey Fatty!”

My father grinned at me on the computer screen. Sunday nights were usually our nights to check in with each other. Fatty had been his pet name for me since I’d been a young girl, all skinny legs, and knobby knees. He was always trying to get me to have another slice of bread or a biscuit to fatten me up.

“How are you, Dad?”

His face at times went fuzzy. There was another storm raging over the Atlantic, and that affected the signal.

“All good here. Tell me about Toby.”

I told him how the EKG had shown heart arrythmia and when the doctor spoke to Toby, he’d admitted he’d been taking Adderall to help him study at school. Even though he didn’t have ADHD or anything, some kid had been selling the pills at exam time and he found they’d helped him.

“And that gave him heart problems?”

“That, and his low iron count. He has to take supplements for that too. He’s home now at least, I’m so glad about that. I was really worried.”

My father’s face clouded over.

“That boy! What was he thinking?!”

My father had always had a quick temper and he was hard on Toby.

“All the kids are doing it,” I told him. “He didn’t know it was going to affect his heart like that. He said he would stop. His grades are fine.”

“He still wanting to go to San Diego?”

“He’s all fired up, just wants to surf.”

My dad shook his head, clearly unable to understand the desire to lie in the sun on the hot beach and think of nothing but babes and waves and beer.

“What about you, honey? How’ve you been?”

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