Chapter 20 Lucian
LUCIAN
I knew I was walking into an execution the moment I stepped into that boardroom.
The table that had once felt like my throne now loomed in front of me like a guillotine, and I was the condemned man adjusting his own collar.
I knew my world was crumbling.
Three board members sat across from me like judges at a tribunal, and I could feel the noose tightening with every breath I took. This was an ambush.
Robert Vaughn led the charge without even attempting to make this meeting appear anything other than the attack it was. "Lucian, we need to examine these travel expenses from the past few months. Your travel arrangements have come into question."
He was cutting right to the chase and I hadn't prepared for this.
I adjusted my tie and leaned forward as I folded my hands together over the table.
"I've never had a problem with any of my travel arrangements before, Bob.
Why are they coming into question now?" If they weren't going to just come right out and tell me what I was being accused of directly, I was going to make them squirm too.
"There have been rumors of misappropriation of discretionary—"
"Bob," I snipped, cutting him off, "I am the CEO. I am the one who approves discretionary spending." Every muscle in my body was tight as I sat straighter and looked each of them in the eye, Daniel, James, and Robert.
The entire board wasn't present, which meant not all of them were coming against me.
Daniel especially surprised me.
He was closer to me than the rest, and he knew how hard I fought to build this company.
If I chose to mentor one of my staff members, it should’ve been my choice. The only reason they were raising concerns was because of my ex-wife causing a ruckus in the background.
They shifted through their papers while avoiding eye contact and not one of them answered my question.
But James leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "And the rationale for bringing executive assistants to client meetings?" When he raised his eyes to meet mine, I felt the jab of accusation.
I forced myself to think of Tessa's capabilities—her brilliant mind, her ability to read clients better than analysts with decades of experience, her uncanny talent for spotting opportunities others missed.
Then I thought of her smile in the morning when she first woke up and the way the pet name she gave me sounded when she purred it in my ear while I was buried in her, and it made me feel unhinged.
These men had no right to question my authority. Legally, they could bring into question my duties as CEO, challenge my ability to lead, but this meeting was nothing other than an attempt to drag my good name through the mud for no reason.
"Tessa Wynn brings unique analytical skills to our negotiations," I said, biting back the defensive edge that threatened to creep into my voice. "Her insights have directly contributed to successful closures, including the Morrison acquisition in Boston and the Henderson account."
The truth was, however, that she'd also become essential to my mental health.
Decompressing after a string of tense client meetings used to look like me poring over numbers while downing expensive bourbons.
Now it meant bantering with her, pulling out ideas that challenged my ideas and typically ended in us naked in bed. But wasn't that a healthy thing? And they were acting like I was a sinner without knowing all the details.
But they saw what they wanted to see—favoritism, compromised judgment, a CEO losing control.
They couldn't understand that Tessa had earned every opportunity through her sheer competence, that her unconventional background gave her perspectives their Ivy League analysts would never possess.
"No one is questioning her capabilities, Lucian," Daniel said sternly. "She simply hasn't been given the authority to know the things she knows." His eyes darkened just like the others’, but I sensed he was holding back.
I glowered at him as Robert tore into me for giving Tessa access to client accounts and private financial data.
Their attack came from a place of protecting privacy, which in the legal world was massive and had far-reaching implications. But Tessa wasn't here to steal data and sell it or even to expose clients' business transactions. She was learning the ropes.
"Then I'll have her sign nondisclosures for every client, just like we would any of the analysts." I felt defensive and agitated, found myself wanting to go to bat for her and tell my own board off. But Daniel reined me in.
"Look, Cross, it's not about all of that and you know it." He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "We're all in the crosshairs if a scandal breaks out. The board is doing their job to protect Cross Capital even if you won't. We only want to protect our investments and our shareholders."
It stung that the man who'd been with me the longest now prioritized what he thought was company values over the fact that I had built this company myself.
When I went public, it never occurred to me that I may face challenges to my authority here. But here I was staring down the barrel of a scandal in the making.
"Did Viktoria put you up to this?" I asked them, but the best they could offer were more questions.
The interrogation continued for another hour. They dissected my lunch receipts, questioned my client entertainment choices, scrutinized every decision I'd made since Tessa entered my orbit. They were chipping away at my patience and winding me up like a top.
When they finally dismissed me with cold smiles, I walked back to my office feeling the walls of my empire closing in.
Viktoria was pulling strings to make me look like a fool so that my board would control me, but she had no real authority and she knew it.
The best she could do was feed lies to them and hope they took those lies as gospel, and it was working.
I stood by the window of my office looking out over the city's twinkling lights as they came on one by one. It was late. I was exhausted and angry.
I wanted to see Tessa and unload all of this frustration to feel better, but she'd gone home hours ago. Besides, running right to her after all of that would only give them more fuel for their fire. And I wanted her to be shielded from as much of this as possible.
My body ached with unspent energy after the boatload of stress hormones that'd been surging through my veins all afternoon and well into the evening. I had no outlet for this, no punching bag to smack around, no one to yell at.
I curled and uncurled my hands in my pockets but the rage continued to build anyway.
Viktoria was systematically destroying my reputation and I needed it to stop.
She thought she was protecting our children from another scandal that might cause me to lose their precious millions, and she had no idea how right she was if the board continued this witch hunt.
Blake and Elena's trust funds were secured. I could never lose them or squander them.
But I could lose my company, and I could lose my pension and everything I had in savings in a legal battle to keep Cross Capital.
What she purported to fear was the very thing she might cause to happen. I just didn't understand why.
Was it jealousy that I had moved on and forgotten about her? Was it that I had someone who was finally my equal in a way she never could’ve been?
Viktoria was all about spending my money but had never once shown interest in the business or the acumen required to do what I did here.
I wondered if she thought she was better than Tessa simply because she had more money to buy designer clothes.
Rubbing my temples, I focused on calming myself down. If I let this consume me, I'd turn into a monster with one agenda—bury Viktoria before she buried me.
And that wouldn't be healthy for my children to see at all. Tessa would tell me to think of them, and I was trying to. I really was.
But all I could imagine was how destroyed Tessa would be when the board called her in and dragged her through the mud because I was a failure at relationships.
Viktoria couldn't care less about preserving our children’s futures. She just wanted to hurt me. And she was hurting the woman I loved now more than anything. And I couldn't let her keep doing it.
I had to stop her before she made things worse, because I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell Tessa what I really felt.
And I doubted that would go over well in hind sight. Tessa deserved better than that, and she deserved someone to fight for her better than I had for my previous relationships.
It was high time I became the man I knew I could be.