Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sebastian
“Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to this emergency meeting,” I say, addressing the four board members seated around the large boardroom table I trust the most. “I appreciate it.”
This is a crucial moment in my company’s history and I have to get it right. I need these men on my side if I’m to maintain control of the company. Though I need to be careful about what I say.
I glance over at my attorney, and he nods. He’s here to ensure that no ethical lines are crossed and no one is able to decimate information that I have attempted to cross those lines.
“As most of you know, the stock has been tanking. Shareholders are selling their stocks in panic all based on speculation that is unfounded.”
“Why did Sergio dump all of his shares?” Romanov Andrei, a man who’s been on the board since my father was head of the company, frowns.
I’m glad he’s gotten to the crux of the issue, and it infuriates me that my brother, who is the key to all of this nonsense, is overseas not giving a shit about the disaster he’s left in his emotional wake.
“The bigger question is who leaked that information to the media and what else do they know?” Marcus Jackson, the tech whiz kid, chimes in.
Marcus is new to the board, but as the brainchild behind the latest billionaire dollar Silicon Valley venture, he’s been invaluable in providing a soundboard for which investments make the most sense as we head into the future.
“What does Sergio know, Sebastian? What have you not told us?”
“Sergio, as most of you know…” My voice trails off as my phone rings.
I dart my eyes down to the screen and see Jack’s name.
I ignore the call since I don’t have time to talk to him right now.
I clear my throat. “As most of you know, Sergio has never been involved in the day-to-day running of the company. Whatever or whomever caused him to relinquish a large number of his shares is information we’re trying to gather.
Right now, we must focus on the Krylon merger. ”
“That’s not going to happen if Wall Street keeps labeling us as a volatile company,” Marcus snaps.
“Frankly, this doesn’t look good. We need your dad to step up and—” Romanov’s voice cuts off as I glare at him.
I’m fed up living in my father’s shadow.
He spent so much time traveling and fucking different women that I have no idea how he didn’t run the company into the ground.
I can still hear my mom yelling at him—telling him to stop the coke and the whores.
Or hear him yelling back, accusing her of seeing “men in suits” at all hours of the day and night.
The memories make me cold. I can even remember the first and last time I cried during one of their arguments.
My mom saw me. Her eyes bore into mine, and I thought she was going to come over to me, but instead, she slipped into her room and never talked about it.
A month later, I was sent to boarding school.
She never had to deal with me or my emotions again.
I’d learned to keep everything bottled inside after that.
“I am the chairman of the board,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “Which means I’m taking care of everything.”
“Are you, though?” Romanov lifts up his phone. “The stock value is down over a hundred dollars today.” He frowns and shakes his head. “Look, Sebastian, we’re your biggest supporters. The other members of the board don’t trust you. They want a vote of confidence. They want to vote you out.”
“I’m still the majority stockholder,” I say coldly.
“Along with your family,” Romanov sighs. “Sebastian, look. See if your dad has any ideas. See if he’ll come in. That may make the other board members hesitate to move forward with the oust and give you time to figure out what to do.”
“Okay,” I say, though I don’t really want to my father to save the day. “I’ll be back.” I grab my phone and notice Jack called me two more times. I don’t have time to deal with him right now. I call my father, but the phone rings out. “Fuck it.” I then call my mom. She answers on the second ring.
“Sebastian.” She sounds surprised to hear from me, though that doesn’t shock me. I never call my mom.
“I’ve been trying to get in contact with Dad. There’s something going on at the company and—”
“I know,” she says. “I’ve been following it in the papers. Is everything okay?”
“Not really. Sergio’s fucked up again, and I’m having to deal with the consequences. Do you know when Dad will be home? I really need to speak to him. The board members would like for him to come in, to help quell fears that the company isn’t tanking.”
“Your father is out of the country. He’s in…” She sighs. “I don’t really know where he is.”
“Fuck,” I say. “And you don’t know when he’ll be back?”
“I have no clue. You know your father and I don’t have that sort of relationship.”
“Why did you stay with him, then?”
“Sebastian, now’s not the time for that question,” she says. “Where are you right now?”
“I’m at the office. We’re having an emergency meeting.”
“At this time?”
“Yeah, Mom. It’s serious.”
She lets out a long sigh. “I can come in.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“It is. I can come in and address the board. I have some ideas.”
“Mom, what do you mean you have ideas? What could you possibly do?”
“Just because you think you know everything about me, Sebastian, doesn’t mean that everything you know is true.”
“What are you saying?” I frown at the tone of her voice.
“I’m saying that you’ve spent your entire life looking down on both your father and me and I’ve let you. But you don’t know the full story.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Your father was never the one who ran the company. He was too high on drugs and sleeping with whores most of the time to worry about running the business into the ground.”
“And that means?” My head pounds. I don’t want to have this conversation with my mother right now.
“It means I’m the one who ran the company. I made the decisions that helped us grow into the vast empire we are now.”
My mind splinters as I attempt to piece together what she’s saying and how that even makes sense.
“What? I thought...”
“I know what you thought. I never cheated on your father, Seb. Those men who used to come at all hours of the night—the ones your dad accused me of sleeping with—they were advisors. They were giving me business advice because I didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning, but someone had to save the company from downfall.
Your dad was running it into the ground. ”
“Oh… I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t. I didn’t want to tarnish your father’s reputation. Ruining my image in our community as the perfect wife with the perfect family was out of the question.”
“But you sent me away to boarding school,” I hiss, old emotions clawing at the surface. “You sent Sergio away.”
She pauses for a long beat. My heart must pound a hundred times within that moment.
“Do you remember that night when I saw you crying?” she asks softly. “When you were under the table, watching your dad and I? When I threw that glass and your dad slammed his fist through the wall?”
All too vividly, unfortunately.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I saw you...” Her voice cracks. “I love you and your brother. I didn’t want to damage you.
So, I sent you to boarding school. I didn’t want you to be around the shouting and accusations or anywhere near your father when he got upset.
He was becoming increasingly violent. There were times he hit me. ”
A flash of anger burns hot in my gut.
“I didn’t know that, Mom. Why didn’t you ever—” I pause, I don’t want her to think I was judging her. I have no business speaking on what went on in her relationship. “But it still affected me. It affected me and it affected Sergio.”
“I know,” she says softly. “I did it all wrong. If I could go back, I would do it differently. But when I married your father, it wasn’t for his money.
That was a plus. I married him because I wanted a family.
He said I could stay home when we had kids, and that’s all I wanted—to be the perfect mother. That was my life’s goal.”
I don’t say anything. She was far from the perfect mother. She has to know that.
“Sergio is broken, Mom, and he’s been broken for a long time.”
“I know. Why do you think I told him to go to Thailand?”
“You what?” My heart thuds. “You told him to go?”
“I suggested he travel. He came to me when his heart was broken, concerned and conflicted that women just wanted him for his money. I told him life is about more than that. He agreed traveling the world sounded enticing, but he didn’t want to leave you. I encouraged him to go.”
“You encouraged him to travel, Mom? His leaving has caused speculation that we’re going under—”
“I needed him to get out of that polyamorous relationship. He shouldn’t have been in that. It was messing with his head.”
“What are you talking about? What polyamorous relationship?”
“That Louisa is no good. I’ve always thought—”
“What? Louisa? The one who works for me?”
She sighs. “You’ve never wanted to talk to me, Sebastian. You’ve always kept me out, and I understand. But there are many things you don’t know. Many things you don’t understand. And maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe we all should have.”
“Mom, are you saying Sergio was in a polyamorous relationship with Louisa?”
“I don’t know the full details. But I do know they were sleeping together. And I do know she introduced him to Willow, the damsel in distress who broke his heart.”
“Willow? You know about Willow?” I feel cold inside.
“I mean, she’s the root of all of this, isn’t she?” My heart thuds as I listen to her bitter words.
“So Sergio spoke to you?”
“Yes. He’s been surprisingly forgiving. He’s let me into his life again, and I hope you can let me in as well.”
“I just have a lot to think about, Mom. I’m processing right now.”
“I understand. Would you like me to come to that meeting though? Talk some sense into them?”
“No,” I say. “I appreciate the offer—and I’d love to hear more about what you’ve actually done with the company—but right now, I’m going to solve this problem alone. I’ll speak to you later.”
“I love you, Sebastian.” The words are almost a whisper.
I can’t remember the last time she said that. And once again, I don’t want to say the words, I never do unless I mean them.
“I love you too, Mom,” I say, and hang up. As I hold the phone in my hand, I realize the words are true. No matter what has gone on between us—I do love her. I stare at the missed calls from Jack, about to call him back, but then I decide to call Louisa. The phone rings three times.
“Bonjour.”
“Where are you?” I demand before she says anything.
“Can’t you tell? I’m in France. Paris.”
“You’re in France right now?” I’m pissed. “How on earth would I know that?”
“Yes. I’m on a much-needed vacation. I hoped on a redeye last night”
“Louisa. I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to be honest with me.”
“Yes, darling, I’ll have phone sex with you. I’ve been waiting—”
“Louisa. Have you been sleeping with Sergio?”
There’s silence on the other end. Then the line clicks dead. Even though she didn’t answer my question, I already know the truth. How had I not known? I decide to call Jack before heading back into the boardroom.
“Hey,” he says. “What’s going on? I’ve been calling you.”
“I know. Sorry. I’ve been in an emergency board meeting. Everything is going to shit right now.”
“Fuck. They didn’t call the vote already, did they?”
“No, but they want to. They wanted me to call my dad.”
“Why?”
“They have more confidence in him than in me which is a joke.” I laugh bitterly. “Anyway, he’s not even around. He’s out of the country with some whore.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ve already found out a lot tonight, like the fact my mom was the one running the company.”
“That makes sense,” Jack says. “Your dad never really seemed to be with it long enough to have created the empire that exists now.”
“I know. But Jack, why were you calling? I have to get back.” I glance at my watch to see how long I’ve been gone from the meeting. I really don’t want them getting anymore antsy than they already are.
“I don’t think Willow knows Sergio,” he says. “I don’t think they had any sort of relationship.”
“Are you sure?” A hammer pounds against my head. Every piece of light is fading from the room.
“I’m almost positive.”
“Fuck, I wish that were true, but I just spoke to my mom. Sergio told her about his relationship. I think he was sleeping with Louisa and Willow and maybe that’s why Louisa hates Willow so much.” I sigh, utterly exhausted by all of it. “Maybe that’s why she’s been showing up all over the place.”
“Sebastian, listen to me,” Jack says, his voice flat.
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve always told you I don’t trust Louisa.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Something isn’t right. I’m telling you, Willow does not know Sergio.”
“Then what the hell is going on, Jack?”
“I don’t know. But we’re going to find out. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
I feel all the blood drain from my body at his words because everything I’ve done thus far has crossed so many lines. Because if Willow doesn’t know Sergio…then I’ve fucked up her life. And I’ve fucked up my own.
I run my fingers through my hair, feeling faint. I take a few deep breaths, because as sure as I knew that I loved my mother in that instant, I also know I truly love Willow. And if I’m wrong about everything…she will never love me back.
I can’t be wrong.
But in my heart, something tells me that I’m not right.