One Bossy Offer (108)

Was she telling me the truth?

Was my father a predator?

Was he ever as madly in love with my mother as I believed before she died?

Hell, did I even know the man?

Has my whole goddamned life been an illusion?





A few days later, I’m stuck in another meeting with Bradley and Lucas Truman, the head of Legal.

“I’ve reconsidered sitting on our asses. Why wait for someone else to make a move?” I tell them. “Just make sure the asshole reporters Pacific-Resolute put up to it drop the stories before they’re published.”

The attorney nods and scribbles something in his notebook. “I’ll have to investigate, but I can take care of that. If we can’t stop them indefinitely, there’s probably sufficient cause for delay.”

Bradley shakes his head. “Don’t do it, Truman.”

Truman looks from Bradley to me and then down at his notebook.

“Why the hell not?” I ask.

“It’s a bad move when it’s public. There are already whispers on Twitter from the reporter assigned to this. If you’d tried to gag her from the beginning, maybe it wouldn’t look so bad. But the allegations have lingered, the rumors are swirling, and you’ve only half-heartedly investigated the rest.”

I stand, stopping him mid-sentence.

“Excuse me? I didn’t half-heartedly do anything. There’s nothing concrete to investigate. I’m chasing fucking ghosts.”

“Absolutely, sir. Frustrating. Be that as it may, if you squelch these stories now, it’s going to look like you’re silencing legitimate accusations. Especially with no evidence to disprove them.”

I sigh. “How the hell am I supposed to prove a negative? Isn’t my father innocent until proven guilty?”

“Yes,” Truman answers.

At the same time, Bradley says, “No.”

I glare at him.

“I mean, Truman’s right about the legal system. But that’s not how the court of public opinion works,” Bradley says.

Shit.

I don’t like it, but he’s right.

I have to let this catastrophe play out publicly, or I’m so completely screwed I’d need to pull a direct confession out of Simone’s ass to ever set things right.

By then, it won’t matter.

Not if a court wrestles with the case for years, deciding whether or not the claims are scandalous.

Once Royal Cromwell gets pegged as a womanizing predator, the story will stick.

It will tarnish the whole company.

It may even mean he’s ripped out of his cozy little nursing home and thrown into a state mental hospital, where he’ll spend his dying days.

“Have you managed to speak to either woman?” Bradley asks.

“Wickes. I can’t get Oakes on the phone.”

“You probably won’t,” Truman says. “Any attorney worth their salt will advise them not to take any off the cuff calls.”

“What did Wickes have to say?” Bradley asks.

“Nothing useful. All she said was that my dad was a lonely man and he tried to fix it the wrong way,” I say.

“We need a PI,” Truman says. “Otherwise, we’re going to be limping along with our shields down.”

“If you think it will help, do it,” I say.

He nods. “I’ll have one ready to go by end of day.”

“In the meantime, what do I do?”

“Legally? Or are you asking what’s best for the company?” Truman asks.

“The second.” I guess.

“Until we’ve gotten to the bottom of these accusations, there isn’t much we can do,” Bradley tells me. “If it’s Royal’s legacy you’re worried about, you could start a content campaign focusing on all the good he did during his life. Though that could backfire once stories start circulating. Regardless, I’d advise you to increase brand awareness campaigns to spotlight Cromwell-Narada’s accomplishments. It’s damage control at this point. The company is likely to have a PR stain for a while no matter what we do, even when the allegations are disproven.”

When. He said when, not if.

Bradley doesn’t believe it’ll amount to anything, but I can’t be so sure Ava Wickes was lying either.

She never trashed him on the phone, though.

That doesn’t sound like a woman with an axe to grind, or someone who would’ve seen my father as a monster.

When the meeting ends, I follow them to the door and close it behind them.

Goddamn.

I don’t know what to think anymore.

I’m certainly not thinking as I storm across the room, grab Dad’s paintings from the wall, and hurl them on the floor.

“Did you do it or not? Don’t make me hate you.” I catch myself, flattening my wounded hand against my desk for balance.

If my father really was a cheating, predatory fuck, I’ll never forgive him.

But the only person in the room I can’t forgive right now stares back when I turn, catching my reflection in the window.

My father hurting women is only hypothetical.

I already did.

I refuse to let her face crystalize in my head as I throw myself back behind my computer, sign in, and pretend to be productive.