Chapter 46
Caroline
I couldn’t believe Rafael told me he loved me.
Sure, it slipped out right after I’d given him an extremely good blowjob. Men said lots of things they didn’t mean in the moments right after orgasm.
Women, too.
I didn’t have long to process it, though. As soon as we were alone in Harrison’s office, Brian—the head of Legal—said, “We have a massive problem, Harrison.”
The billionaire went behind his desk, but didn’t sit. “Tell me.”
Brian tapped on his tablet, then placed it on the desk. “You gave the thumbs-up on this trade last month.”
Harrison frowned at the screen for a few seconds. “Gold mines in Namibia. I vaguely remember this. What’s the problem?”
“Namibian police just raided one of the mines. Turns out they were using child labor. And not just one or two workers. The vast majority.”
The news hit me in the chest like a punch.
“Shit,” Harrison whispered, his eyes going wide. “Did we know?”
Brian’s face darkened. “Scroll down.”
Harrison’s finger swiped on the tablet, and his eyes scanned back and forth.
“Parker made the trade, but you gave the sign-off. And you’re CC’d on the email with the relevant notes.”
“I can read, Brian,” Harrison snapped. It was one of the few times I had ever seen him lose his cool. “Let’s bring Parker in.”
Rafael left the office. Harrison gave me a pained look, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Rafael returned a moment later with the analyst in question. Parker was a tall, heavyset woman in her twenties.
And she looked absolutely terrified.
“Hi, uh, Mr. Blackstone,” she said, glancing at me and Brian. “I’ve never been in your office before. Everything okay?”
“You can relax, Parker,” Harrison said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “Everything’s all right. We’re just wrapping our heads around one of the trades you made last month.”
“The gold mines?” she asked. “In Namibia?”
“That’s right.”
“I got a news alert about the police raid,” she said, wringing her hands nervously. “Am… am I in trouble?”
“Nobody is in trouble,” Harrison said, his tone calm and soothing. “And even if there’s a problem, we—the firm—will handle it together. What do you remember from the investment report you submitted?”
“It was at the end of the quarter, so I was scrambling to hit our numbers,” she explained.
“I was mostly focused on their financials. There was a sentence or two mentioning that the mining company was suspected of utilizing certain business practices, but they were just rumors. Nothing firm. I think. It’s been a while since I read the report. ”
“We’ve got the report right here,” Harrison said, “and it looks like they were more than rumors. There was an active investigation at the time.”
Parker nodded along. “I was afraid of that. Shit. I mean… sorry to curse. I’m really sorry, Mr. Blackstone. If you have to make an example out of me…”
Harrison was already shaking his head and walking toward her. “We don’t throw our employees under the bus.” He braced her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. “We’re just gathering information right now. And if shit hits the fan, the firm will take it. Not any individual analyst.”
Parker visibly relaxed. “That’s great to hear, sir. I’ve worked really hard since you hired me, and the last thing I want to do is put the company in any kind of trouble.”
“We know.” He gave her shoulders a final squeeze, then gestured at the door. “We have everything we need for now. You can get back to work while we take care of this.”
“Don’t speak to anyone about this,” Brian told her. “If anyone contacts you, especially a journalist, call my extension directly.”
Parker mumbled her agreement, then hurried out of the office. Rafael closed the door behind her, then stood guard like a sentry.
Brian immediately turned to Harrison and said, “Our path forward is clear, legally speaking. Parker is gone. We’ll issue a press release explaining that you’re the head of a multi-billion-dollar company, and can’t micromanage every trade.
You receive thousands of emails every day.
Investing in this mining company was a mistake made by a junior analyst, who has been terminated, and going forward—”
“No,” Harrison said. “I was serious when I told Parker we weren’t going to throw her under the bus.”
Brian looked flabbergasted. “She’s only been here two years! This was an oversight that she made, and—”
“I said no.” Harrison’s voice was firm, and almost angry. He and Brian stared at each other for a long moment. If this were a bar, and not an office, I would have sworn the two men were about to come to blows.
Finally, Brian backed off. “Fine. How would you like to handle this?”
I felt myself smiling. Scapegoating the analyst would have been easy. It made me proud that Harrison wouldn’t do it.
Like a general commanding a battlefield, Harrison rounded his desk and started giving orders.
“Call Mark. Freeze all trading of those shares. Then talk to IT and have them delete the original email Parker sent me. Wait, no. Edit it instead. Create a new analysis report, one that doesn’t mention the investigation in Namibia.
Then swap that out with the original one, so it looks like we didn’t have the information. ”
He turned to me. “Prepare a press release. Alice should have an outline for situations like this. Explain that we didn’t have any prior knowledge of the mining company’s hiring practices.
We simply didn’t know. But now that we do know, we’re cooperating with the authorities and doing everything we can to make it right. Rafael?”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to make some calls. Try to buy us some time before the press starts reporting on this. Then I want to visit the Big Four investors in our firm that are currently in the city. Let them know this is coming, but that we’re in the clear.”
“Handholding field trip,” Rafael confirmed, pulling out his phone. “I’ll get the car ready.”
“Follow up with Parker,” Harrison told Brian. “Make sure she understands the best way, legally speaking, to talk about the trade.”
“Yes, sir.”
Harrison gazed around the room. “Everyone has their marching orders. Call me if anything changes.”
We filed out of his office. The last thing I heard before the door closed was Harrison greeting someone from the New York Times on the phone.
My mind was racing, thinking about the best way to phrase the press release. Even if Alice had an outline to go off, this was my first big release, and I wanted to come at it with fresh eyes. I sat down at my desk and began typing.
I was halfway through my first draft when it hit me.
Harrison is asking me to lie.