Chapter 9 Liam
Liam
“I know women throw themselves at you, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Bonnie’s expression was exaggeratedly patient, like she was waiting to take down whatever half-baked explanation I was about to come up with. She crossed her arms in front of her.
“Ah, yes, I need to talk to you about that, actually,” I said.
I did not want to talk to her about that.
“Wilhelm von Roth, wonderful to finally meet you.” Gerald appeared at my shoulder, hovering like a mosquito preparing to land. At least you could swat a mosquito.
He held out a hand. “Fabulous speech, Wilhelm, fabulous. As I said in my address, we’re thrilled to have you on board.”
Gone was the man who sneered at cheddar scones—redemption tour in full swing. I felt for him. People often confused me for my father—and even when they didn’t, they never expected me to be … well … young.
My father. Wilhelm von Roth Sr.
What had Andrea said? Designed in a lab for maximum evil.
She had a point.
As far as names went, Wilhelm von Roth Jr. somehow managed to sound entitled, spoiled, and evil, all at the same time.
No thanks.
“Glad to be here, Gerald,” I said. “And it’s Liam.”
Bonnie caught my eye. She must have told them I’d gone by Liam Roth for the last fifteen years—or had she left that out intentionally? We both knew it didn’t hurt that my family name went before me.
“I appreciate the trouble your team’s gone to with the catering, Gerald.” I gestured to the food. “It looks superb.”
Gerald reddened. “Yes. Actually, there was one thing I wanted to—”
“Liam, this is Victor, the CFO,” said Bonnie, gesturing to the short man with gray hair who materialized in front of me.
I braced myself for an onslaught of handshaking—my worst nightmare. I’d rather give a speech to a room of hundreds of people than make small talk. Three minutes of corporate butt kissing and I was nostalgic for enemy fire.
I refocused my mind on the objective. It would be done soon—I could tolerate this.
The sooner we could get into discussions about what I had planned for Novexia, the better.
*
“Claire’s sorted your schedule for the next five days.” Bonnie closed her MacBook.
The meet and greets were over, and we were back in my Mayfair apartment. A couple of hours, then we had the “Welcome To Our New Owner” party.
More unbearable arse kissing.
I didn’t think I’d be signing up for this—at least, not this much of it—when I’d decided to buy Novexia.
Pharmaceuticals was a long way from the closed trading rooms where I’d first learned just how much money moved through collectibles, and the careful years backing sensible tech.
And it was nothing like the straightforward logic of the RAF.
If I’d known how much bullshit and ego were involved in something of this scale, I might have thought twice. Though for reasons I preferred not to examine too closely, walking away had never really been an option.
I was lying on my back on the bed. It was nice to be home, although it wasn’t as if anyone—or anything—had missed me. I might as well have been in a hotel.
Bonnie sat on the mattress. She dropped her glasses to the end of her nose and looked at me over the top of the rims. “Now, Liam. Do you want to tell me what that was all about with the girl?”
I put my hands behind my head and fixed my eyes on the ceiling. “Well, yes—”
Definitely, no.
“It was odd. To put it mildly.” She took off her glasses and placed them on the bed.
I propped myself up against the pillows. “Sorry, Bonnie. It was completely my fault.”
“And?” She wasn’t happy. “How exactly does something like that happen when you’ve only been in the building for—what—an hour?”
“I think she may have got … confused.”
“I think that’s obvious, don’t you?”
Bonnie had known me since we went to primary school. She knew my tells, and she didn’t suffer fools. She was the perfect person for this role. But she never let me get away with anything.
“She was the one I got stuck in the lift with. I told you when I texted you.”
“Oh. So that was Andrea Jones. Well, that’s an extra complication we didn’t need. I assume you completed the incident report and filed your statement, like I told you to?”
“Of course.”
“And has she?”
“I assume so, Bonnie. I’m not her HR manager.”
“Very helpful. You know, I’ve got enough on my hands locking this down with the media.
Can you imagine what would happen if someone leaked this?
A paramedic or one of the repair technicians?
I can see the headlines now. Billionaire Playboy’s Lift Horror With Junior Staffer Rocks Novexia: Questions Raised About Safety.
Not exactly the sort of PR I was planning.
And if the girl isn’t thinking of suing yet, she probably will be when she smells the money. ”
“We both checked out fine with the medics. I assume HR is all over it already?”
“Of course.” She smiled tightly. “But she’ll need counseling. This doesn’t just disappear because it’s a public car park and not Novexia’s own building. We lease those spaces. We need to be cautious.”
“I realize that. I trust you have it all in hand.”
“I do. Just please, Liam—don’t make this any worse than it already is.”
“I’m not stupid.”
A pause. “So you haven’t spoken to her since the incident?”
“Not since yesterday, no. And then … at the meeting.”
The room was silent.
“Pretty, wasn’t she?” Bonnie’s tone was suspicious. I didn’t reply.
“And I suppose you introduced yourself yesterday? Since you were stuck in the lift together for half an hour?”
“Yes.”
“Liam …”
“Yes. I told her my name.”
“Of course. That was clear from how she shouted it across the floor. Three times.” Bonnie stared at me.
I looked over at my bedside table. Might be wise to turn on the TV. I reached for the remote and pointed it at the screen.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t suppose you happened to mention you’d just bought the company she worked for, did you?”
I clicked on Netflix and started scrolling Today’s Top Picks. The algorithm helpfully suggested Love Actually at the top of the queue. Even my TV was taking the piss.
“Can we talk about this tonight? I’m a bit jet-lagged.” I moved my cursor to Continue Watching for Liam and hovered over Rick and Morty. If I clicked the icon, Bonnie would lose her mind, but at least we’d be discussing animated pickle science instead of my corporate ineptitude.
“Liam, you weren’t in a bar.”
I decided it wasn’t safe to hit Resume.
“You were on the way to meet the entire company as the new owner. What the hell happened?”
Not an entirely unfair question. Bonnie turned her head to the screen behind her.
“Really? Cartoon nihilism? That’s your escape plan?”
I put down the remote. Maybe she’d have been less pissy if I’d been watching Bloomberg on loop like a real CEO.
“It just sort of—” I paused. “We got talking, and then the lift fell, and she was shaken up. There didn’t seem to be a right time.”
“Perfect, yes. Much better to wait until you were in a room of a couple of hundred people so she could make a total tit of herself. A masterclass in corporate diplomacy. They should put it in the Harvard Business Review.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. It did sound terrible when you put it like that. “I really didn’t mean for that to happen,” I said. “I was just enjoying talking to her, and—”
“You decided transparency was optional at that juncture?”
“Bonnie. I didn’t know she worked at Novexia, all right?”
She softened slightly.
“I’m sorry to snap. But you’re not in the RAF anymore. I’m concerned this could cause problems down the line—it was a very strange start to your leadership here.”
“It’ll be fine, Bonnie,” I said. “I fucked up. I get it. It was just nice to talk to someone who wasn’t standing on ceremony. She had no clue who I was and—”
“You liked it,” Bonnie finished for me.
I paused.
“Yes. I liked it.”
Of course I did. I didn’t get to be me very often anymore. But it was more than just that. Andrea was so … real. Funny. Nothing like the dead-eyed execs I usually worked with, or the hangers-on looking for access to a yacht.
Andrea didn’t care about my money or status. None of that had mattered to her because she didn’t know.
And because she didn’t know, telling her my full name, my job, didn’t even occur to me. I could just … talk to her. Like a normal person.
Fuck. She was beautiful. And today, even more so.
And the sex had been insane.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her.
“Right. Well. Have you decided how you’re going to navigate a recovery from this? What’s your plan?”
“I’ll have a chat with her. It was a simple misunderstanding.”
“Yes, of course. Like the Titanic was a simple navigation error.”
“I’m sure she’ll be okay with it.” Or she might have been, if I hadn’t fled the scene after we’d fucked.
But Bonnie was correct. I had to make it right. It had been a simple mistake, but Andrea had paid the price. That wasn’t fair.
“You know, Liam, I’m your strategic and legal adviser, not your love life consultant. Perhaps I should add relationship counselor to my LinkedIn?”
“I understand. I’ll fix it.” This probably wasn’t the right time to mention that we’d actually had sex. In hindsight, Bonnie wasn’t likely to think that was a strategically wise move.
“I hope so. Because it’s going to be hard enough to make the changes you want to at Novexia as it is. Redundancies are a minefield, especially in the UK. The last thing we need is you bringing in more risk because of—well, whatever that was all about.”