Chapter 6 Jonah
JONAH
The numbers never lied.
I leaned back in the sleek leather chair of my office, scanning the latest performance reports on my tablet.
The graphs were still disappointing.
Profits were down, and inefficiencies were growing.
I’d just sent out the layoff email a couple hours ago, eliminating entire teams, but these numbers showed that Dad’s company still couldn’t be turned around.
I’d planned to show him some encouraging results at the surprise party I’d organized. Now, all I felt was a sense of doom at the thought of his disappointment. I took in a deep breath, closing my eyes for a minute.
Frustration coiled tight in my chest.
I should have felt powerful, sitting in Dad’s old office, taking over the reins of his company. Instead, I felt restless, and it wasn’t completely due to the business.
I’d been restless ever since I’d met her.
Lexi. The woman from the bar. The one with the soft curves. I remembered the way her head had rested on my shoulder in bed, her auburn hair tumbling over my bare skin as her fingers traced lazy patterns on my chest.
I had experienced one-night stands before, but something about her had drawn me in. I’d felt a mysterious, magnetic pull that only intensified after her abrupt departure.
How could I find her again?
I didn’t have time for distractions, not today or ever. I knew better than to go chasing after her.
But the moment my phone rang, I had an undeniably stupid, hopeful moment that it was her calling me.
It wasn’t.
It was, however, my business partners Alex, Desmond, and Sean. They were the only people I’d ever answer my phone for while at work.
I accepted the video call, and their faces appeared on my screen, all three still covered in a fine layer of volcanic ash, calling me from what looked like a helipad.
These were the people with whom I’d founded Lead Capital Group, a venture capital firm focused on tech companies and health startups.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or have you institutionalized,” Alex said, his voice rough from exertion.
Desmond gave me a wave from behind Alex, and Sean popped in to flip me off.
I leaned back in my chair, grinning. I’d finally gotten them to go volcano boarding.
“Come on. You loved it. Tell me that wasn’t the most insane thing you’ve ever done,” I said.
A few months ago, a high-stakes hedge fund manager I’d met at a black-tie charity gala offered to take me volcano boarding.
We stood at the top of Cerro Negro in Nicaragua, staring down the near-vertical slope of the active volcano, strapped onto a reinforced metal board.
The heat from the smoldering rock was enough to warm my boots before I even started.
And that was before gravity took over, and we sped down the side.
For the first time in a long time, my mind had been empty, with no deals, no deadlines, and no failing companies to save.
“You had me racing down a live volcano at fifty miles an hour,” Alex said, rubbing a fresh scrape on his arm. “I could have died. I should have died.” He paused, then grinned. “And it was spectacular.”
“Knew you’d love it,” I said with a smirk. “The adrenaline high lasted for days.”
Sean exhaled, shaking his head. “My twelve-year-old son is mad at me for not taking him along,” he said, sounding torn between guilt and exhilaration. “But God, after that? He’s never doing this. Not until he’s thirty, at least.”
“In ten years, he’ll be out there with you, anyway,” I said.
Desmond poked his head into the video frame. “I’m with Sean on this one. You’d never want your kids doing this, Jonah. You’ll understand when you have a kid of your own one day.”
I laughed out loud at that. I never even dated seriously, so the chances of my having a kid were as good as me falling in love tomorrow. I didn’t even know what to do or say around infants.
“It’s a pity you couldn’t join us,” Alex added, frowning. “We would have gladly waited a few extra days if it meant you could be there with us.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t. I have something I need to handle for my dad.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “The man who never shows up for you?”
“Alex,” I warned.
He sighed. “The man only relies on you when he needs your expertise, Jonah. Not when it’s time for him to show up as family.”
“Well, I’m showing up for him as family should. I’ve got a party planned for his seventieth birthday, and it’s going to be incredible. Besides, you guys had to check out Cerro Negro. Desmond wouldn’t have been able to make it again for months since Ava is expecting their second child now.”
Desmond reached for the phone. “Yes, and she demanded I come back in one piece, or she’d have your head,” he added.
I chuckled. Ava was a riot.
“And Chloe,” Sean added, “asked me to inform you that if blisters on our feet were what you were aiming for, then we were welcome to join her in ballet.”
Scratch that. Both Ava and Chloe were riots. And Desmond and Sean were damn lucky bastards to have such women in their lives.
“Next time, I say we go for an activity that doesn’t involve losing toes,” Sean said.
Alex’s smirk widened. “Next time, we’re going racing.”
I hung up, wishing desperately I were with them instead of stuck in this sterile office. But not this week. This week was for Dad.
A knock on my door pulled me from my thoughts. Derek Wei, my thirty-five-year-old CFO, stepped inside, looking sharp in a crisp suit with a tablet in his hand. He was a smart guy, even if he did goof off more than I could tolerate.
“It’s been one month since you took over as interim CEO, Mr. Walkers,” he said, bounding over and holding a pretend mic to my mouth. “Tell me, what’s the one thing you’ve failed to do?”
I stared at him for a long beat, wishing he could remember that it had been twenty years since he’d left a frat house.
“Well, I regret that I’ve failed to fire my goofball CFO,” I said in a deadpan voice.
Derek laughed and thankfully dropped the pretend mic as he glanced around the room. “Every time I’m here, I feel amazed,” he said in a more serious tone as he walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked down at Manhattan. “Not bad for a job you didn’t want,” he observed.
I pressed my lips into a line. “I’m doing this as a favor to my dad,” I reminded him.
Taking over as interim CEO of the family company wasn’t what I had planned, not when I’d spent years building a venture capital firm with my friends.
A muscle in my jaw ticked.
The previous CEO had mismanaged the company, and now my father’s business was in dire need of a turnaround. So when Dad had asked, I had agreed, pushing aside my second thoughts. I’d hoped to spend more time with the man who was the only blood relative I had left.
My phone buzzed with a text.
Reaching for it, I saw it was from my father.
Dad: Son, let’s cancel our plans for Friday. Cora has planned a surprise birthday getaway for me, and we’re off to C?te d’Azur. Let’s find another time soon, okay?
I froze. I had spent days planning an extravagant birthday party for my father, including renting out a luxury lodge in Montana and even booking Garth Brooks because I knew how much Dad loved him. Now, he was canceling at the last minute.
And of course, it was because of Cora.
Cora had been Dad’s wife when he’d had an extra-marital affair that resulted in me. Forty years later, she still resented me for it, going out of her way to override my plans with Dad almost every time. Maybe resentment was an understatement.
Dad had no idea about the extravagant party I’d planned. But Cora did.
I took a deep, steadying breath while Derek asked, “Everything okay?”
I gritted out, “Yes,” while my mind raced through the next steps.
I’d have to tell my assistant to cancel the event. Two hundred invitations would need to be withdrawn. I would look bad, which was what Cora had been aiming for, but that didn’t matter.
Alex’s voice echoed in my memory: “The man only relies on you when he needs your expertise, Jonah. Not when it’s time for him to show up as family.”
Frustration settled over me as I walked to the glass wall of my office, joining Derek at the window. From the fortieth floor, Manhattan looked miniature.
I moved past Derek to the sleek, custom-built bar cart in the corner and reached for an empty whiskey glass.
I poured whiskey for both of us and handed Derek his glass.
“What’s new with you?” I asked after we’d had a few sips in silence. “Got any new goofball ideas that I can laugh at today?”
Derek grinned. “Come on. The anonymous employee feedback tablet wasn’t all that bad.”
I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise. “You mean getting suggestions to treat our five-thousand-employee company to free lunch every Friday wasn’t that bad?”
Derek bit back a grin, his eyes glinting with mischief. “I’m sure I can find one that’ll outdo that,” he said, reaching for the tablet he’d brought with him. He scrolled through the recent responses, his face lighting up with amusement as he searched for something even more outrageous.
Suddenly, Derek stiffened and stopped scrolling.
It was enough to catch my attention. Anything to distract me from the frustration of Dad canceling our plans.
“How bad is it?” I asked, draining my glass of whiskey and holding out my hand for the tablet.
His eyes widened, and he hesitated before grudgingly placing the tablet in my hand.
I looked at the words that stared back at me, almost comical in their venomous intent.
Subject: A Heartfelt Farewell from the Soon-to-Be-Unemployed
Dear Mr. Walkers,
Wow. Just wow. It’s truly impressive how you’ve managed to turn “company updates” into a game of corporate musical chairs, except, oops, looks like my whole internship program just got removed from the playlist. Bold strategy!
I must say, I deeply admire the commitment to transparency.
Finding out my job was doomed first via office gossip and then by your executive jargon in that email, just hours after my orientation really added a thrilling sense of mystery to my first day.
It’s almost like you wanted to create a toxic, trust-free work environment. If so, mission accomplished!
But hey, no hard feelings. I’m sure replacing skilled, dedicated employees with whatever cost-cutting nonsense you have planned will work out just fine.
I, for one, am thrilled to be leaving before the ship finishes sinking.
And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to mention this fantastic leadership strategy to anyone considering working here.
In fact, I think I’ll make it my personal mission.
Best of luck with the fallout. You’re going to need it.
Toodles,
A Soon-to-Be Ex-Employee
My blood boiled as I finished reading the message. But I restrained my temper, handing the tablet back to Derek and refilling my glass of whiskey. Forget leaving the glass half full. I’d need to drink the whole damn bottle to drown out the words this bastard had written.
“If only the responses weren’t anonymous...” I said before something occurred to me.
I walked back to my desk and pressed the intercom button to summon my administrative assistant, Kacie, while Derek stared, wide-eyed.
Kacie, a tall woman with sharp green eyes that missed nothing, arrived within a minute.
“How many interns do we have in the engineering department?” I asked.
She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “I’m not sure, but it’s easily at least five.”
I checked my watch, the word “intern” tugging at a memory I couldn’t quite place. Had I heard it somewhere recently?
I still had half an hour before my next meeting. Did I really want to waste that time putting some lowly intern in their place?
Turned out, I did.
“Bring me all the interns in five minutes. Have them wait outside until one of them owns up to the message. Tell HR I’ll need them to process a termination today.”
Derek’s eyes widened while Kacie nodded, not giving anything away even if she was taken aback by my request.
“Will do,” she said, disappearing through the door.
“That’s a bit...” Derek struggled for the right words.
“Ruthless?” I asked. “I don’t tolerate disrespect in my workplace. Besides, I’m giving this person a chance to say what they think of this company to my face. If they have the courage to do that, I won’t fire them.”
Derek raised an eyebrow, as though he doubted that.
“How’s Kacie going to round up the interns in just a few minutes?”
I scoffed. “When I need things done, they get done.”
I sat back in my chair, crossing my hands behind my head as I looked up at the high ceiling.
Then, I remembered the beautiful woman from last weekend. I couldn’t get her out of my mind—the way her smile had tugged at something inside me, the way she’d spoken, asking me to be hers for the night, the way she’d looked at me before leaving.
I wanted badly to go back to the same bar next Friday to see her again. Her thick red-gold hair had been swept up in an elegant updo, and her white dress had dipped just low enough to drive me crazy.
I remembered putting my lips on her skin, and at the memory, my body responded as though it remembered her too.
I would go back to that bar every weekend until I found her again. That much was certain.
An internship.
Shit.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I sat up in my chair as I remembered exactly where I’d heard that word recently.
My world tilted, and for half a second, I thought the air conditioning had cut out as heat rushed over me.
My breath caught, lodged somewhere between disbelief and dread, just as a knock on the door brought me out of my shock.
I saw Derek shift uncomfortably as Kacie walked in, someone trailing behind her.
“I was wrong, Mr. Walkers. There was just one intern across all the eliminated departments, a Ms. Haley,” Kacie announced, but I’d already stopped listening.
Because following Kacie into my office, with red-gold hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, was the very woman I’d just been fantasizing about.
Lexi. From the bar.