12. ALEX
12
ALEX
T he office was quiet after everyone left, and I preferred it that way. The sun set slowly, painting the sky in streaks of orange and gold until it gave way to pink, purple, and then the inky blue of the night.
I rubbed my eyes. They were gritty after staring at the screen for so long. I’d spent the whole day drafting reports for my investors to show them that this business with the campaign wasn’t going to cause trouble. Sasha Martinez in particular wasn’t happy. She’d always been a tough sell, and getting her on board had been a pain in the ass.
Maybe I should just have let her go from the start instead of forcing her hand, but that was what business was all about. We could do with her investment, and our company helped her with her investments in luxury travel and hospitality. It was a classic case of one hand washing the other.
Even if this particular investor could be a little prickly.
I looked at her message again.
The email had been drafted professionally, with all the big terms that came with the territory, but there wasn’t any question about what she meant when she’d sent it to me.
Blackwood Inc. had been in the news. It had made us look bad. They were pointing fingers at us now, and Sasha wasn’t going to stay with the company if this cookie crumbled the wrong way.
I read the most important paragraph again.
I want to be clear that if the negative publicity persists and continues to make Blackwood Inc. appear in an unfavorable light, I will have no choice but to reevaluate my investment in the company.
I scrubbed my hands down my face, my stomach a twisted knot of stress.
I reached for my coffee cup; it was empty.
I got up and carried the empty cup out of my office. I passed my secretary’s desk, empty for hours now, and walked to the staff kitchen, where I programmed the machine to make a cup of something strong.
A drink would have been better but I was on the clock right now, and drinking and drafting reports was never a good combo.
Someone came into the kitchen. I looked over my shoulder; it was Ben.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re here late.”
“So are you,” I pointed out.
“These planes don’t sell themselves,” Ben said with a shrug. “Although… that’s not entirely true.” He grinned.
Ben was in charge of the private jets that Blackwood Inc. designed and manufactured. We had our fingers in two very lucrative pies.
He was right about the jets selling themselves. They were as luxurious—if not more—as the yachts, and Ben had cracked the market with a new direction that garnered more interest. We used to sell the jets and yachts together, sort of a luxury lucky packet deal if the buyers invested more, but Ben had been pulling back a little, changing direction.
Usually, that idea didn’t bother me at all—it was his part of the business and not my problem.
But tonight, it just pissed me off.
“Yeah, well, you were the one who decided to jump ship, so I guess whatever you do now reflects only on you.”
Ben grinned. “Jump ship? I see what you did there.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Seriously, bro,” Ben said. “Since when are you so sour about me pulling out of Monaco? It’s not weird for me not to have private jets at the yacht show, you know.”
I shook my head. “Sure. You can just go find your success somewhere else, let me deal with this bullshit alone.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “I know you’re envious of my sales technique, but you’re not usually this grumpy. What’s up?”
I glared at my brother, but he was right. Ben and I had a sibling rivalry going on. He’d been pissed that I’d snagged the role of CEO, and he only took care of one division, he didn’t oversee all of it. And I was pissed that he did better than I did sometimes, even though I had the whole company running smoothly.
Was it stupid?
Yes.
Did that change anything?
Absolutely not. We were brothers, and what would a family business be if we didn’t bicker about bullshit like this?
I groaned and picked up my cup of coffee after the machine finished.
“Do you want coffee?”
“Sure.” He found a clean cup and handed it to me. I programmed the machine, and we stood in silence for a while.
“So, this campaign is really grating your tits, huh?” Ben asked, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” I said gruffly.
Don’t mention Charlotte , I willed. I wasn’t in the mood to be nice about it. I would tell Ben to back the fuck up if he went there.
“Are they pissed?” Ben asked.
I frowned. “Who?”
“The investors.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Martinez, in particular, but she’s not the only one who reached out. They’re all worried about the negative publicity. I don’t know what they think they’re playing at, calling me out.”
“It’s not personal,” Ben said.
That was what Charlotte had said, too. They didn’t get it, though. To me, it was personal. I’d poured my heart and soul into the company. I’d given it my all, and it was all I had to fall back on, too. My brothers went out and dated sometimes; they had hobbies; they did shit that allowed them to live a little. I didn’t have any of that. The company was everything, and my blood, sweat, and tears had gone into this place.
I didn’t want some activist campaign to bring me down after years and years of hard work.
Especially not when it was run by someone like Charlotte.
God, it was impossible to stop thinking about her.
“Maybe you should approach this differently,” Ben suggested.
I frowned at him and handed him the cup of coffee. “How?”
“Well… the problem is sustainability, right?”
“The problem is they think we’re not environmentally conscious.”
“Yeah, yeah, same thing.”
I grunted, but Ben kept talking.
“What I mean is, if you’re not going to go for full transparency—”
“I can’t afford that.”
“—then partner with a business who will.”
I blinked at Ben. “What do you mean?”
“You know, find someone that they’re happy with and piggyback off their good reputation. Make them a deal they can’t refuse. Come on, man, you know what we have in buckets?”
“Money.”
“Right. Money talks. Make them an offer they can’t refuse and let their reputation carry us through so that when all this is done and dusted, Blackwood Inc. will be squeaky clean and coming out on top. It can’t hurt.”
I thought about it, turning the idea over in my mind. As much as I hated to admit it, Ben had a pretty damn good point.
“That might actually work.”
Ben shrugged. “Well, yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
“Asshole,” I said, but I grinned.
Ben laughed. “It’s my signature move. People wouldn’t know it’s me they’re doing business with if I wasn’t a difficult son of a bitch.”
“Your self-awareness is staggering,” I said dryly.
Ben chuckled and lifted his cup to me in salute and walked out of the kitchen.
Maybe he had a point. Maybe I could make all of this go away if I partnered with the right company. Blackwood Inc. had always stood on its own two feet, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t reach out to another company and find a deal that worked for us both. Not that I would use another company as a crutch, but to hide under their good reputation while I figured out the kinks wasn’t a bad idea at all.
It would get Charlotte off my back, that was for sure.
Not that I was sure I wanted her off my back…
I walked back to my office and sat down. Instead of working on the reports, I opened up the portfolio of companies who were technically our competitors and paged through the different press releases they’d done the past couple of months. I was looking for a company that was committed to sustainability, someone who was already transparent about what they did so that we could ride on their coattails.
A financial injection in return for a good rapport never hurt anyone, and with the right amount of money, we could make just about anything happen.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought about something like this before.
A part of me was pissed that Ben had come up with the idea and not me. I was the brains behind this operation. But lately, my mind hadn’t been on work. I’d been all tied up in knots about Charlotte and how she affected me.
It was just another reason this was a good idea. It would get her off my case, which meant she would leave me alone, and I could focus on work. Partnering with another company would buy me some time to work on our own sustainability models, and it was a win for everyone.
I found three different companies I could talk to and drafted emails to send out to them. I typed up an email to my dad and attached the drafts to hear his take on things. When he got back to me in the morning, no doubt on board with this plan, I could schedule meetings and get this ball rolling.
The sooner we got in bed with another company that would help us save face, the better.
Finally, when the emails were sent and there was nothing else left to do, I got up, switched off all the lights, and left the office.