Chapter 61 Jonah
JONAH
Isank into my leather chair, running a hand through my hair as I skimmed the ridiculous article my assistant had notified me about.
The author was right about some of the lurid details. Lexi had been a breath of fresh air in my life. But the rest of the details about how she’d seduced me, and how we’d hooked up following that, were utterly ridiculous.
Normally, I’d tell my assistant to file a lawsuit, suing for defamation whenever anything about my personal life was printed. But this was an attack on Lexi and Evie, and I wasn’t going to answer it with business jargon.
I wanted to go out for blood.
Our relationship had been a risk, but one I had been willing to take. But now, seeing the start of public knowledge about our relationship affecting her, I simply couldn’t bear the thought that she would suffer more.
I reached for my phone to ask her how she was feeling, and saw that I’d missed a call from her.
When I called her back, she didn’t answer.
Hours passed without her response, each one more agonizing than the last. I couldn’t go down to check on Lexi right now, but I needed to get to the bottom of this.
This scandal could ruin Lexi’s career, and if she was being hounded by the paparazzi, it was definitely over for this journalist and the media company that had published this drivel.
I’d make sure their company tanked if that was the last thing I did.
My phone rang, jarring me out of my anger. It was Lexi.
Breathing out a huge sigh of relief, I answered. “Where are you?” I asked.
“I’m in one of the meeting rooms with Stacey and Brian,” she said, her voice sounding scared. “Jonah—”
“I’ll take care of it, Lexi. I’ll get to the bottom of this and find whoever spread this news.”
“Jonah. The journalist knew personal details about us. Like where we had our first date. At that restaurant where Cora met us. And about us living together. No one else knows about that except—”
“—except my Dad,” I answered, grimly.
If he had planted this purposefully, he was done for.
“I’ll take care of it, Lexi. Stay safe, and go home with Evie right away if you need to. I’ll handle it.”
“Jonah,” she began, her voice guarded. “Don’t do anything dangerous, please?”
I laughed. “Is that a command, my princess?”
“Yes, Jonah,” she said softly. “It is.”
“Then I’ll be careful,” I said, and after telling her I loved her, I hung up.
I knew what I had to do. I couldn’t bear the thought of Lexi being dragged through the mud, her reputation tarnished because, for some unfathomable reason, he and Cora didn’t approve of her.
And damn it all, Lexi had been right all along, and I had argued with her over this. I’d stood up for my Dad, and told Lexi flatly that she was wrong in her understanding of him.
I set my jaw and stood up. I couldn’t completely reverse the damage this article would cause Lexi, but I wasn’t going to take any more of Dad’s bullshit lying down. It was time to put him in his place and make amends for what I had put Lexi through.
As soon as I had gotten up from my desk, someone knocked on the door.
It was Tom from HR.
“Are you busy?” he asked, walking in.
I struggled internally for a moment but decided to give in.
“I’ve got time for you,” I grunted out, sitting back down at my desk. “Let’s get to it, then. I’m guessing this is about that article?”
Tom gave me a strange look but he nodded. “PR needs to put out a response to that. They’re working on it.” He hesitated. “I need to know if—”
“We are seeing each other,” I interrupted him. “And living together,” I said, deciding that I needed to be honest with him. “Is that going to be a problem?”
Tom looked taken aback and paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts.
“Well, actually, I was going to say, given the policy changes you implemented when you became interim CEO to end the internship-to-full-time conversions, it isn’t a problem anymore.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You mean?”
He nodded. “Lexi was never going to be offered a full-time position anyway. The policy doesn’t allow it.
But now that the article is out, it actually works in our favor.
She’s leaving at the end of her internship term this week regardless, so even if we start the investigation, it becomes moot once she’s no longer an employee.
We would have had to fire her if she’d already been a full-time employee. ”
My jaw tightened. I’d implemented that policy to protect the company’s resources, never imagining it would one day protect me or Lexi in the process. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“What else?” I asked gruffly, not liking this conversation one bit.
Tom continued. “We’ll have PR release a statement saying we’re reviewing the matter internally, and that should take the heat off the company until she leaves.”
I hated being a few floors above Lexi, knowing her future, and being helpless. I hated not being able to make life easier for her in any way.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t create a position for her now. Not after this article. And staying on as CEO if she worked here was impossible anyway.
Then it hit me.
I didn’t want to stay on as the CEO, I realized, my shoulders relaxing. I’d only been doing this to please my dad. It hadn’t made me even one percent happy.
I nodded at Tom, keeping my mouth shut, and he got up to leave when something else occurred to him.
“By the way, the manager for the same team came forward with some allegations of his own after this online article,” he said. “Someone called Rafael Suarez. It looks like he was being harassed by his subordinate, someone called Stacey Andrews.”
I raised my eyebrows. I’d asked Lexi once about Rafael, and she had told me that she hardly knew him. He hardly spent time with the team, preferring to rub shoulders with folks from upper management teams instead.
I picked up the phone and reached my assistant. “Bring Rafael Suarez and Stacey Andrews into my office, Kacie,” I said, while Tom looked on. “Individually first, and then I’ll have a meeting with both of them together. And Tom, I want you to join me for these meetings.”
He nodded, and took a seat.
I remembered Lexi’s words about how Stacey had been such a good contributor to their team. It was time we understood what went on at the heart of this problem before firing a good contributor.
My emotions were all over the place that day, but I could finally see a light, a way out.