18. Will
18
WILL
I sat across the table from Carl Anderson staring at him in complete disbelief. They just slapped me with the announcement that they wanted to fire Beth for her supposed involvement with Nevil Banks and the suspicion that she was stealing proprietary information from the company and selling it. I knew their accusations were baseless, but I couldn't prove anything to them.
They, in turn, couldn't prove anything to me either because nothing had been dispersed and no clients had been complaining. It was all just fearmongering, and it fell right on the tails of Allen divulging my secret to them.
Of course I'd told him to do whatever he had to do, but I never expected this response. It infuriated me, especially after the reaction Abby had over seeing Beth in our penthouse. Did no one in this world expect me to return to the dating pool again?
"You have no clue what you're talking about," I said in an overly harsh tone, but this was my company, and as owner, I wasn't going to stand for them bullying my employees. They had no proof of any wrongdoing other than me dating her, and even that was questionable. Her performance at work hadn't suffered. In fact, she'd excelled even while dating me.
"William, I'm sure you can see how there is a major conflict of interest." Carl sighed hard and scowled at me. Clearly he thought I was going to be a pushover when it came to this. The last thing we wanted to do was anger Beth and actually send her running for the hills by firing her. And it wasn't my personal interests I was looking out for.
If we really did fire her, sure she'd be upset with me and maybe partially blame me, but the real issue was even if she never shared proprietary information, she knew the business and we'd lose her. She'd go off to one firm or another and work for them, and the advances we'd made in our attempt to scoop up prospective clients would cease to exist. She'd do that for someone else.
"I don't see how. I told you straight out that she met with Banks as an incidental thing. He is headhunting her and she has turned him down. I offered to match the salary and benefits package she was offered and she declined. She wants to work for us?—"
"Or she wants to bang you on your desk," Carl interrupted, and I noticed a few board members hide smiles behind their hands. Allen scowled at them just like I was. He knew this was a load of crap and there was nothing he could even say. "Look, William, if you end up not working out with her, what's she gonna do?" He straightened in his seat and looked around at the other board members as if requesting backup. "She'll have no reason to be loyal."
"Then have her sign a noncompete clause, don't fire her. You have no clue how this business runs, Carl. Just let me run my company and stay out of my way." I was so angry it was hard controlling my temper. I wanted to reach across the table and shake some sense into the man. Beth wasn't causing any problems, and neither was my relationship with her.
"Then how do you explain this?" Sandra said, another one of the board members. She held up her phone and scowled at me. It was a picture on a tabloid of Nevil Banks and Beth standing in a restaurant together. I didn't even waste time reading the headline. Beth told me what happened.
"You're wrong, and you can't fire her. She'll have grounds to sue. Just back off and let this thing pan out." I shook my head and ran a hand through my hair when Allen, of all people, spoke up.
"Will, they may have a point…" He frowned as I looked up at him. "Banks has been buying up shares of Caldwell Investments. He owns 2 percent now…That number can't creep up at all. He'll end up with a spot on the board and?—"
"You don't have to tell me what it means, Allen, I'm well aware. I know how this works." I sighed hard and turned my gaze out the window in a huff. I was stuck between a rock and a very hard place. I loved Beth, so there was no way I was going to let them fire her on my watch because I knew she hadn't done anything wrong. But if Banks ended up buying enough stocks, he really would start to gain power. That was the last thing I needed.
"This meeting is over." Carl stood up and looked around at everyone, but he zeroed in on me. "This isn't over. We have to keep tabs on what's going on. You're right. We can't just fire her without just cause, but we can encourage her to quit on her own. It's what's best for the company after everything else we've gone through to get here. Do what's right, Will." Carl never used my nickname, and I hated hearing it in his voice.
They all filed out one by one, the last one being Allen. He gave me a sympathetic look and I realized he knew how I felt. None of this was because I was dating her, though the board expected me to use my leverage as her lover to try to force her to walk away. If the shareholders saw that she was meeting secretly with Nevil while he was buying up shares, they would gather the same assumption too. That she was doing some bad things.
I pulled out my phone, anxious to hear her voice and calm my nerves, but when I looked down at the screen, I saw a notification from Facebook. It was about a post Abby made during the meeting. I had my phone set to alert me every time she posted so I could keep tabs on her social media too. I never could be too careful with my only child, and I just wanted to protect her.
So imagine my surprise when I opened the app to see that she had posted hateful things about Beth. There was no image, but there was a lengthy post about how much she hated the idea that her father was dating someone so young. She went as far as to call Beth a "gold-digging inheritance chaser" who "preys on older vulnerable men."
I was livid, speechless even. Abby had gone too far, and even though I felt sympathy toward her for having to learn about me and Beth the way she had, this was uncalled for. She crossed a major line. And what made it worse was that it went viral. Sebastian Sullivan's son had reshared the post to his timeline, and of course, everyone who followed the movie star saw his son's post. Hundreds of thousands of people were now calling Beth a gold digger on social media, and it was only a matter of time before they started calling her that in the tabloids too.
I stood up and pocketed my phone. I had to go get Abby immediately and make her take that down before it did too much damage. Nosy gossip reporters would be looking into it instantly, and it would drag Beth's reputation through the sewers.
I stormed out without telling anyone I was leaving, and I made sure to bypass Beth's office by leaving out the back by Sarah's desk. I noticed the post open on her desktop computer and didn't even stop. I had to deal with this at the source. Even Sarah's dirty smirk didn't make me pause to shut her down. Abby had to take the post down or she was grounded for life.