Chapter 12
Diane read the email again — the one that had come in at seven that morning.
When the notification hit her phone, she'd been saying goodbye to Josh, her personal trainer, who came three times a week and showed up at her door before the sun had any intention of rising.
She'd skimmed it on her way upstairs to shower, but when she read "Presentation – Whitestone C.G.
Expansion," something shifted inside her.
This could only mean one thing, and unless she was losing her basic ability to comprehend, the firm was planning a major move she knew nothing about.
The Cobra had been sitting on her throne for fifteen years.
She hadn't started at the bottom and clawed her way up over time — no, Diane Carter had strode into that company with a calculated strategy that for months she hadn't been entirely sure would work, but she never let the board see anything but confidence.
When her work finally bore real fruit and Whitestone pulled itself back from the edge of bankruptcy, she rose victorious, claiming the position she held today.
Ever since, she'd been a kind of force of nature — feared by those below her, respected by those above, because not everyone was capable of doing what she'd accomplished in such a short time.
That was why she knew everything that happened, not just within her own walls but in the competition, inside and outside California.
So the existence of a "Presentation – Whitestone C.G.
Expansion" she had zero knowledge of set off every single alarm she had.
"Tatiana," she snapped into her car's speaker system, her voice clipped and dry, leaving Brentwood behind.
"Good morning, Diane. I'm looking into it, but what I know so far is that no one had any idea about this meeting.
It's been kept completely under wraps — not even the executive assistants knew about it," her assistant said, without waiting to be asked.
She already knew what her boss wanted. "I'm heading into the building now.
By the time you get here, I'll have more. "
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes. You'd better have everything."
She ended the call and let out a curse far too loud for the inside of a car.
She pressed a hand to her chest, worked a button of her blouse open as best she could, started to feel the air thinning around her.
She didn't like what she was feeling — and it wasn't some sixth sense or anything like that.
It was that she had spent her entire life fighting, forcing her way forward with nothing but sheer will because she'd never had another choice.
She'd understood very young that what you don't control leaves you no room to react.
She pushed through the automatic doors of the lobby, chin up, eyes forward, the handle of her briefcase tight in her fingers.
When the elevator opened on the third floor, the comfortable silence broke under the sound of her heels against the floor.
No one was in at this hour, as usual, but she couldn't stop her gaze from drifting to the corner desk — the one that belonged to a green-eyed girl who often preferred to come in early so she could slip straight to Diane's office before the rest of the staff arrived.
Not today. Her seat was empty, as messy as always, with that hideous rainbow-colored mug she kept all her pencils in.
She passed Tatiana's desk — her assistant already on the phone, rising to her feet the moment she saw her boss. Tatiana followed her in, closed the door behind them, and waited patiently for the shots to fire.
"Talk," Diane said as she sat and let out a breath thick with irritation.
"There's talk of an expansion," the assistant began. "Two new offices — probably Dallas to cover the South and Midwest, and New York to serve the East Coast."
Diane listened, drumming her fingers against the gleaming surface of her desk while her mind raced ahead.
"We already work with companies in all those markets. There's no need to open new offices. Unless…"
Tatiana nodded slowly.
"A French group wants to acquire at least a portion of the firm," she said, scrolling through her notes on the iPad with a slight frown. "Having a single office, apparently, isn't an option for them."
Diane tilted her gaze to the ceiling, searching for an answer to everything she was hearing, and above all connecting dots from here and there to find the real reason she'd known nothing.
Not a whisper. Not even Tatiana, who had ears everywhere and was always alert to any scrap of information, had caught wind of this.
"Do you need anything else?" The younger woman looked at her with the mild impatience she'd earned after four years at her side.
Diane pursed her lips, and after a beat, shook her head.
"Clear my schedule as much as you can. I don't know what's coming after this witch hunt, and I need to think."
"Already done," Tatiana said efficiently. "Your two meetings today have been moved to first thing tomorrow morning, and the Gales call is set for noon."
"Thank you, Tatiana."
Her assistant gave her a brief smile, turned, and left with her phone already at her ear, still hunting for information.
Tatiana Jordan was — almost — the only person in that entire building who had the privilege of not being treated like dirt by the Cobra.
Her early days hadn't been easy, but it hadn't taken her long to figure out that her boss wasn't quite the rabid bitch she projected whenever she appeared in her tailored suits and impossible heels, destroying everything in her path.
She'd seen that Diane Carter was a practical woman who demanded excellence in everything she did and expected her people to push for it too.
The assistant got it immediately: efficiency = respect.
So she applied that formula from day one.
Nearly five years later, they had a cordial professional relationship in which each of them did her job without getting in the other's way.
Two hours later, when Diane stepped into the sixth-floor conference room while one of the insufferable executive assistants — Mandy — held the door for her, she had to make a genuine physical effort not to stumble and hit the floor with an unfortunate broken neck.
She hissed a "good morning" while her eyes swept the faces in the room without stopping on any one of them for more than a second — except one, which made her stomach turn. A woman who had no business being there.
Clara wasn't there, and that immediately brought back the nerves she'd locked away back at her desk.
"I see we're all present, so we can get started." Ethan Brooks entered with his usual polished ease and that warm smile Diane found about as trustworthy as cyanide. "Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming on such short notice."
Melissa Grant, the firm's vice president, sat beside him, flanked by her personal assistant.
"I don't want to take up too much of your time, so let's get right to it.
" Ethan folded his hands on the table like he was about to announce the death of half the world's population.
"I'd like to introduce Henri Beaumont and Antoine de Villiers — president and chief operating officer, respectively, of the Delacroix Group. "
Heads turned, followed by polite nods and smiles from the two men, but Diane's only concern was figuring out what the hell Frances Hartwell was doing sitting at the same table as her — a woman she hadn't laid eyes on in nearly twenty years, a woman she'd assumed was dead, or at the very least might as well be.
"And I'm thrilled to announce that Whitestone Consulting Group is partnering with Delacroix for an expansion that will be moving quickly." Ethan began to applaud, and Diane clenched her jaw at the spectacle unfolding in front of her.
Everyone followed the president's lead, and she had no choice but to bring her palms together a couple of times.
"We'll be opening two new offices," Melissa Grant said, taking the floor.
"We'll share more details in due course.
The important thing is that our firm has made the decision to evolve with the times — we will not be left behind, and you all know how fast the competition moves.
" A pause that made Diane press her fists together under the table.
"And to make that possible, we'll be bringing on expert consultant Frances Hartwell. "
An attractive woman in her fifties, her hair pulled back in a simple but flawless chignon, rose from her seat to acknowledge the murmurs of welcome.
She looked pleased as she scanned the room, until her dark, pitch-black eyes landed on Diane for a few endless seconds.
There was no warmth there — only fury that had been sitting untouched for decades.
"I'm so excited to take on this new challenge.
" Diane fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Frances had never gotten over the fact that she was no longer a beauty queen, and that speech had gone stale years ago.
"I've been hearing about Whitestone for a long time, and I have to say — you are doing a genuinely impressive job.
" She let out a measured laugh that rippled around the table.
Pathetic. "So you can imagine my surprise when this offer came along.
I don't want anyone to think I'm here to change the way you work, but I'm sure you'd all agree that if the company you're in isn't growing, neither are you — and that means less money at the end of every month. "
Most of the people at the table nodded with solemn faces, and Diane found the whole scene utterly contemptible.
Because she knew that those same people who moved like puppets on strings didn't care about the work done in the trenches — the effort, the hours.
All they wanted was to sell themselves to the highest bidder and line their own pockets.