by Sienna Ciles
“Hi, Aunt Cara,” I said, hoping that she wasn't about to unleash a tirade of negativity onto me.
“Have you thought about what to do about this situation with Peter White, Ernest? Because it's all over the press now. The pressure is on. Investors are going to be getting scared, Ernest—and that's bad, that's really bad. Your future is in your hands at this very moment. You can either show those investors that you're an old-school, cutthroat businessman who can handle any kind of heat and put logic—and profits—before weak emotion and sentimentality, or you can demonstrate to them that you're a weak mama's boy who'd rather let his feelings get in the way of making the right decision . . . and then cry all the way into bankruptcy. What's it going to be, Ernest, what's it going to be?”
I sighed—a long, slow contemplative sigh—and then spoke.
“All right, Aunt Cara, now is when I really need your advice. What's the best way to go about getting Peter out of the company?”
CHAPTER 15
Lanie
I woke up early, as I had to, and started to get ready to go to Bill's place. He was taking me to a park where a group of “old Chinese people”—as he’d put it—did Tai Chi every morning at sunrise. Again, I wasn't quite sure how this was related to what I was supposed to be learning from him about being a great CEO and investor, but I had long since learned not to question his methods. The lessons weren't necessarily direct and obvious—but they were nonetheless valuable.
While I knew that I should be focusing on Bill and what he was trying to teach me this morning, I simply couldn't stop thinking about Jax—or rather, Ernest J. Cooper IV. I was still totally shocked about this revelation. I had been on a date with the guy who invented Quickchat. A guy who was head of one of the hottest and most talked about software development companies in the world! And he hadn't said a single word about this to me. I felt . . . I felt betrayed. I felt as if I had been lied to. I mean sure, he hadn't directly lied to me, and the topic of his work just hadn't come up—but how could he ever think it was okay to just neglect to mention such a huge thing to me?
And again, that question popped into my mind, if he had lied to me about this, what else was he lying to me about?
I found it hard to believe that a man like him could be single and unattached. He was a multi-millionaire, he was extraordinarily handsome, he was jacked and athletic, supremely intelligent. Any other guy in his shoes would likely be a huge womanizer, sleeping with models and actresses, probably a different one every night of the week.
Maybe that was all this was. Maybe he just wanted to get me into bed, and then once that was over and done with I would never hear from him again. Maybe I was just another conquest for him.
It was just so . . . I don't know. Sad? Things had been great on the date we'd been on. Really great. I had felt such an intense, genuine, and effortless connection with him. Had he really been faking it? Had he really been lying? Maybe I was being too harsh on him. Maybe he had a good reason for not revealing to me who he really was. Maybe he wanted to make sure I wasn't just some gold digger after his millions. Maybe he was tired of women going after him because he was rich and famous, and he was looking for someone who was into him just because of the person he was—Jax, simple, easy-going Jax, not multi-millionaire CEO Ernest J. Cooper IV.
I don't know. It was all so confusing and distressing. I tried to just stop thinking about it for a while.
I headed out to my car. It was still dark outside. I had to chuckle, because I think the last time I'd been out on the street at this hour, my friends and I had been stumbling home after way too many drinks at a club.
I drove over to Bill's place, stopping for a coffee on the way—I needed a good shot of caffeine to keep me alert at this hour. As usual, when I knocked on Bill's door, he was awake and full of energy and enthusiasm.
“Ah, my lovely young assistant!” he said eagerly, beaming out his warm grandfatherly smile at me as he opened the door. “Isn't it a glorious time of day!”
“It's uh, it's good, yeah,” I said, my own lack of enthusiasm painfully apparent. I managed to stifle a yawn at the end of this sentence. Bill noticed and chuckled.
“I don't think you're quite used to being up at this hour, are you?”
“I'm not, no,” I admitted.
“Well you did make it here on time, with ten minutes to spare. Well done. Anyway, come on, let's head out to the park. I'm ready to go.”
I nodded. “Your car or mine?” I asked.
He handed me the keys to his BMW as he said, “We'll take mine.”
It was only a ten-minute drive from his place to the park, which was good, because I felt that if it had been any longer I would have fallen asleep at the wheel. We parked right near the entrance and then walked in. The sky was now light, and the first rays of the sun were hitting the tops of the trees. There was a group of mostly elderly Chinese people standing in what looked like a formation, all practicing the same slow, deliberate movements, guided by an elderly man who stood in front of them.
“Are we, uh, are we going to join in?” I asked Bill.
He shook his head. “No. Just watch, just observe.”
I wanted to throw my hands up into the air and scream. Why did we have to be up at the crack of dawn to just go and watch people doing Tai Chi? I could just as easily have looked up some videos of it on my own time!
Still, I managed to restrain myself. There was a reason that Bill wanted me here in person . . . I just hadn't figured it out yet, and I'm sure that when I did, it would make perfect sense. I just wished that it made sense right now.
As we watched the Tai Chi practitioners doing their slow, repetitive routine, my mind once again drifted back to thoughts of Jax. I was still having trouble trying to wrap my head around the fact that he was Ernest J. Cooper IV. All this time I had been lied to. I wasn't sure what I was going to say to him the next time I saw him.
In fact, I wasn't even sure when that was going to be. Just thinking about the information he’d withheld from me made me not want to see him. At least, not until I could come to terms with the fact that he had done this.
I was starting to feel like I was falling asleep on my feet now. The kick from the coffee had long since worn off, and it wasn't as if I could just find another steaming hot cup of it in this park. Ugh, why were we here?
After around half an hour, the practitioners wrapped up their session, and started to disperse and leave the park.
“All right, Mr. Wallace,” I said to Bill, “what now?”
“Come with me,” he said, heading over to where the instructor was packing his bag.
The instructor was a short, slimly built Chinese man with a bald head and a long gray mustache. He almost looked like a character out of a Kung Fu movie. He saw Bill walking toward him and beamed out a wide smile.
“Bill!” he said. “You came!”
“Eric,” replied Bill with a warm smile, “I said I'd be here, and here I am.”
The men shook hands; they obviously knew each other from somewhere.
“So, what do you think?” asked Eric. “Would you like to join my Tai Chi class?”
“I think I would, actually,” said Bill. “By the way, Eric, this is my associate Lanie Carmichael. Lanie, this is Eric Chen, CEO of Golden Dragon Enterprises.”
Whoa, all right—now this all made sense. I knew that Golden Dragon Enterprises was one of the biggest importers of Chinese goods into the US. I had no idea, though, that the CEO was a Tai Chi instructor in his spare time.
I shook Eric's hand.
“Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Chen,” I said.
He and Bill talked about Tai Chi for a while, and that was pretty much all they talked about. However, at the very end of the conversation, Bill set up a time with him to talk about a software company he had invested in, which was looking into importing some tech goods from China. They agreed on a time and a place, and then parted ways.
“So, what did we learn this morning, Lanie?”
asked Bill.
“That perhaps it's good to sometimes take an interest in a client's life beyond mere business interactions?”
He nodded and smiled. “Precisely. Eric and I have been doing business for years now. And I've always taken an interest in his life outside the sphere of ‘mere business.’ Consequently, he has always given me very favorable rates and insider tips. Remember Lanie, in business you're not just working with machines and numbers—you're dealing with human beings, and if you treat them as such, and give them the respect and kindness that they as human beings deserve, it will come back to you. Everything you do comes back to you somehow . . . That's a truth I've come to realize in my eight decades of existence on this planet.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Wallace. I really do appreciate the lessons you've been teaching me. I really feel like I've been learning a lot.”
“I hope you have, young Lanie, I hope you have. Come on, let's go get some breakfast now.”
“That sounds good, Mr. Wallace. Let's go.”
* * * * *
I was taking a break and reading the finance section of the newspaper when my phone buzzed. I looked at it and saw that it was a message from Jax. Great . . . I had no idea what I was going to say to him, or whether I could even handle seeing him after what I had found out. Nonetheless I opened the message. I had to see, at least, what he wanted to say to me.
“Hi, Lanie,” the message said. “I hope you had a good night's rest and that you aren't feeling too tired this morning. If you're not working, would you like to go biking later? I have a spare bike you can borrow if you don't have your own. Let me know. Jax.”
I knew that I wasn't quite ready to see him, but thankfully I had a legitimate excuse for that—I was still working for the rest of the day.
“Sorry, Jax, I can't,” I wrote. “I'm working the entire day. See you some other time.”
And that was all I said. It was all I could say for now. I sent the message and put the phone back in my bag. It buzzed again a few seconds later, but I didn't check the next message.
Bill, however, came up to me and spoke to me.
“Break time is over, young lady,” he said. “And now I'm going to have to ask you for another favor.”
“Of course, Mr. Wallace. What do you need?”
“I have been asked to attend a meeting, but I don't want to go myself. I would like to send you as my representative though. Would you be able to handle that?”
This was a rather big, and very unexpected, request. But this was what I wanted to do—this would be something that would be directly relevant to me, and would provide me with valuable experience. As daunting as it was, I had to do it.
“Of course, Mr. Wallace,” I said. “As long as you give me some clear goals of what you'd like to achieve, I'll do my best to ensure that those goals are met.”
“That's what I like to hear,” he said with a smile. “Here's a report you can read through. My goals and the minimum I'll accept to broker a deal are quite clearly outlined in it. Familiarize yourself with these goals, and I think you'll be more than prepared to represent me effectively in this meeting.”
“All right, Mr. Wallace,” I said, taking the report from him. “And when is this meeting? And who is it with?”
“It's in two hours,” he said, “so I hope that you're a fast reader. And it's with a young man named Chad Burton, of Burton, Inc.”
Oh great . . . Chad Burton. Chad freakin' Burton.
CHAPTER 16
Jax
I awoke feeling groggy, my body stiff and aching. It was almost like having a hangover, except that I hadn't had much to drink the night before, aside, of course, from the bottle of wine I'd shared with Lanie.
No, the reason I was feeling this way was because I had hardly slept. I had been overcome with feelings of guilt and worry because of this whole thing with Pete. And all the while, my aunt's words echoed repeatedly through my mind.
She and I had talked at length about how to get Pete out of the company. I hadn't yet agreed to do it—but it was seriously looking as if getting him out was the only sensible course of action that I could now take. The press had gotten wind of what had happened, and, as my aunt had correctly predicted, they were all over it like rabid dogs.
I turned on my phone after struggling out of bed and stumbling over to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. I immediately went to a couple of news sites I regularly checked out, and sure enough there were articles about Pete's car wreck all over. And, of course, most of them were talking about Pete with no sympathy at all—only condemnation. Great, just great.
My aunt had said the easiest strategy would just be to buy him out. To offer him the current price plus fifty percent to buy out all his shares in the company. He would have more than enough money with all of that to never have to work again and still maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Any reasonable person would take that offer, and my aunt assumed that Pete would jump at it.
However, this wasn't just about money. It never had been. This was about so much more than that. Pete and I had built our software company from nothing. We had driven all the way across the country in a clapped-out, rusty van with nothing but our meager possessions and a few dollars in our pockets—and a huge dream. And we had made that dream work. We had, against all odds, made it. We were living the American Dream. We had, through our blood, sweat and tears, started from the very bottom, and worked our way to the very top.
And it had been as much because of Pete's work and innovative genius as it had been because of mine.
It wasn't about money. I knew that, even if my aunt didn't. Pete wouldn't consent to just being bought out like this. And what kind of a friend would I be if I did this?
I knew, however, that it was the decision a hard-hearted, ultra-practical CEO would make. In a sense, my aunt was right about Pete. Not wholly right, of course. I didn't agree with her assertion that he was a deadweight dragging the company down. No. He could, of course, be unreliable at times, and sometimes his uber-laid-back attitude was at odds with what we were trying to achieve here, but he had great ideas, and he was a genius when it came to coding. Yes, Quickchat, the app that had really boosted us from struggling tech company to almost household name overnight, had been my idea, but without the enhancements and tweaks Pete had suggested, the app wouldn't have been nearly as successful as it had.
Maybe getting rid of Pete was the right thing to do to restore investor confidence. Maybe it was the right thing to do to restore my company's public image. Maybe it was the right thing to do to ensure that we made billions of dollars in the future.
But would it be the right thing to do in terms of friendship? This guy was like a brother to me, and now, after finding out his father was terminally ill with cancer, and after he had been in a coma, he was going to wake up and find out that I wanted to kick him out of the company? Was that the right thing to do in terms of kindness? In terms of decency? In terms of compassion? In terms of humanity?
I shook my head and curled my hands into tight fists.
No. It wasn't the right thing to do in terms of any of those things. And while it might be good for the company, I knew that, ultimately, if that's how I did things, I would become the type of person I never, ever wanted to become, and I would not be able to live with myself. What good would billions of dollars do me if I lost my best friend? If I couldn't sleep every night due to my conscience eating away at me?
No. Pete was staying. He would have to make some committed changes, yes, but I wasn't going to kick him out. I couldn't. It just wasn't the right thing to do.
I decided that I needed a nice relaxing day just to get my mind off all of this for a while. I messaged Lanie to see if she was free, to see if she wanted to do some biking this afternoon. I got a reply quickly, and she said no, that she couldn't because she was working. I was disappointed, but messaged her saying that that was okay, and asking when she was free next to hang out. I waited for the reply to that, but it jus
t didn't come. I figured she was busy or something. I guess I would have to just go biking alone then.
With a sigh, I put my phone away and went to make myself some breakfast.
* * * * *
I got off the bike and wiped the sweat from my brow, breathing hard from the exertion of the ride. It had been a fantastic ride, tough but really exhilarating. I had a quick drink of Gatorade, and then got back on the bike and had a nice slow cycle back into the city to cool down. I headed, as I usually did after a good workout, to Plant Power to get myself a green smoothie. I locked my bike up outside and went in to get my order.
While I was sitting at a table inside, I checked my phone. It was now late in the afternoon and Lanie had still not replied. Couldn't she have just sent me a quick message? I had to wonder if something was up.
As I was holding my phone though, it rang. I almost jumped with fright. I saw that it was a number that I didn't recognize. I answered it, wondering who it was.
“Hi, this is Jax,” I said.
“Jax? I'm looking for Ernest Cooper, and was given this number,” announced a gruff male voice. It sounded like an elderly man.
“Oh yes, this is Ernest speaking. My friends call me Jax. And who am I speaking to?”
“This, Mr. Cooper, is Raymond Villiers.”
Ah—Raymond Villiers, renowned billionaire, and backer of many promising tech start-ups in Silicon Valley. I had meant to speak to him at the ball about possibly investing in my company, but then I'd had to run off to the hospital and see how Pete was doing after his accident.
“Hi, Mr. Villiers, it's great to hear from you. I meant to talk to you at Bill Wallace's event the other night, but I had to leave early because of an unexpected emergency.”
“Yes, I know—we all know now. It was because of your partner driving drunk and wrapping his damn car around a tree!” His tone sounded harsh and judgmental. I didn't like where this was going.