by Rose, Carol
The last was said in an even more urgent under-voice.
“—but you need to think about how you want to live your life. I know I was a part of getting you started in this direction,” he said, his face dark with self-blame. “But you need to think about what you’re doing. Do you really want to knife Michele in the back to get this company? Because that’s what you’re doing, honey. She deserves it, but you don’t deserve to be the one doing it. Trust me, it won’t make you happy. You’ve been upset and tense and sad!”
Regarding Alex with a baffled gaze, she stood mute, a flush of tangled emotion making her tremble. “Alex, I’m not—“
Behind Eden, a horn blared.
Glancing around, she saw Wendi Williams’s Mercedes blocking the garage way, her car window rolled down.
“That’s my spot!” Wendi called out, glaring at Alex. “Do you mind moving?”
Although phrased as a question, the other woman’s imperious tone left no room for disagreement. A group of people standing waiting for the elevator turned to look at Eden and Alex.
“Don’t do it, honey,” Alex urged, letting go of her arm. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“I’m not—“
Wendi’s horn blared again.
“You have to move!” she yelled out again from the Mercedes.
Alex yanked open the door of Bryan’s black SUV. With a quick glance back at Eden, he climbed in and started the engine.
As he backed up out of Wendi’s parking spot, his driver’s window rolled down and he looked Eden in the face. “You’re too good a person to sell-out for a job. No matter who it is, no one is worth you changing who you are. You deserve to be happy.”
Putting the s.u.v. in gear, he drove away.
Staring after the him, Eden hardly noticed Wendi pulling into the parking spot he’d vacated.
“You need to tell your friend,” Wendi said sarcastically, “to stay out of my parking spot.”
With a swish of her full cashmere coat, Wendi stalked toward the elevators. Not appearing to notice as the crowd of workers parted for her, she walked past them all and got into the elevator.
Eden stood next to her little Z4, a smile curling her mouth for the first time in days.
Turning toward the elevators, she took her place in the now-shortened line of Michele employees waiting for the elevator.
Her decision had been made. Now there was nothing to be done, but face the yelling and screaming.
Strange, she thought to herself, he makes it easier for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“They’re all in the board room,” Cheryl said, curiosity all over her face. “You told me to let you know when all the board members were present. Mr. Klineman just arrived. I put the folders you gave me at each board member’s place.”
“Thanks,” Eden said, drawing in a long breath. She’d deliberately stayed in her office, preferring to avoid conversation like a general who prepared for battle alone.
Taking a moment to quell the nerves in her stomach, she got up and left her office. She knew what she needed to do, but she wished very much to be on the other side of the task. To have it over and done with was all she wanted now.
The hall that led to the executive board room at Michele Cosmetics had never seemed so long. Pausing a fraction of a second outside the heavy double doors, she took another deep breath and stepped inside.
All conversation in the room ceased at the interruption and a dozen heads swiveled toward her.
With a small tense smile, Eden stepped into the board room, pulling the door shut behind her.
“May I please address the board?” she asked, a calm sense of purpose filling her despite the knots in her stomach.
Michele, sitting at the head of the conference table, frowned, saying, “We have an agenda to accomplish, Eden. Is this necessary?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Eden said, conscious of a heavy regret, “but it will only take a few minutes.”
Standing at the foot of the slab of mahogany that was the conference table, Eden suppressed the feeling of being a criminal facing her jury.
“Fine, but let’s not waste everyone’s time,” her boss said with a hint of almost maternal indifference.
Seated to Michele’s right, in a chair slightly behind the older woman, Wendi smirked at Eden.
Eden was very aware of Sarah Briggs and Sol Klineman sitting on her left, their faces turned toward her.
Stiffening her spine, she said bluntly, “There are some things I need to make you all aware of.”
Seeing several frowns in reaction to her words, Eden went on, “When I was hired by this company twelve years ago, I was not completely honest on my job application. I neglected to answer honestly that I have a relative who works in this industry. George Thompson, the principle stockholder in Beauty By Georgette, is my maternal uncle.”
She paused, refusing to avoid the startled looks coming her way. No matter the repercussions, she knew she had to do this.
It didn’t do any good to think about the Michele employees. She finally concluded she couldn’t sell her soul for herself and she couldn’t do it for everyone else.
“Damn,” said Dave Sanders, raising his eyebrows as he placed his expensive Mont blanc pen on the table in front of him.
“Well,” Wendi said, “that’s a violation of company policy! You were hired under false pretenses. It’s justification for dismissal.”
No one responded to this comment. At the other end of the table, Michele sat back in her chair, an expression of surprise and dismay on her face.
“In all the years that I’ve worked here,” Eden continued, determined to go on, “I have never betrayed one of this company’s formulas. Nor, to give him credit, would my uncle have asked me to do so.”
“Your uncle owns Beauty By Georgette? This company’s largest regional competitor?” Sarah Briggs asked.
“Are we sure no proprietary information has leaked to our competitor?” Wendi looked at the others around the table, but no one responded to her question either.
“Yes, George Thompson is my uncle,” Eden confirmed, meeting the Sarah’s gaze. “I won’t bore you with the reasons why I came to work for this company. I think it’s obvious why I lied about this. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been hired. But beyond acknowledging this biological tie that I know will be seen as a threat to the company, I have something else to say.”
She took another breath, keeping a grip on her composure, her hands clenched tightly on the edge of the table. “This company has been in significant financial and management trouble for nearly a year—“
“Financial trouble? I don’t know what you mean!” Michele said, bristling.
“That’s ridiculous!” Wendi chimed in, speaking at the same time.
“Please hear me out,” Eden said, conscious that Sol wasn’t saying a word. “Surely, you are aware that our revenues have been falling, even more than the economic indicators would warrant. You all know that. In addition, we have an aging product line and we desperately need to get some new products ready for the market. As a company, I believe we have great potential, but on paper, we face serious problems.”
“That’s why Michele wanted to develop that face cream for older customers,” Wendi commented, sending the older woman a fawning smile.
“That product is a failure,” Michele declared, still staring at Eden, her face puzzled.
This was the moment, Eden knew, the instant in time that she’d been dreading for months. Everything depended on how she presented herself right now.
There was no more hiding the truth.
“No,” Eden said, stiffening her back bone, “it actually isn’t a failure. The initial reports from Bergere weren’t good—“
“But, Eden,” Michele protested, “all the reports were bad.”
�
��No,” Eden said again, making herself look at each person seated around the table, her gaze stopping when it met Michele’s. “This is also where I’ve been less than honest—the fact of my relationship to my uncle has had no impact on this company, regardless of what you might believe—but I have been actively hiding the truth about this product. I’ve kept from you, all of you, the fact that this anti-aging cream may be very lucrative.”
A ripple of reaction went around the table.
“The product has promise?” Sol asked, speaking for the first time since she walked into the room. He looked at Eden with an unreadable expression.
“More than that,” Eden admitted, meeting his level gaze with deliberate effort. She felt like a worm. Saying aloud what she’d been doing over the last few months made her wonder if she’d been temporarily insane, but she hadn’t seen any other choice. “The anti-aging face cream actually has significant income potential. A summary of the final product research is in front of you.”
Several board members began shuffling through their papers. At his seat at the far end of the conference table, Dave Sanders found the copy of the report and began to scan it.
“Why have you kept this information to yourself?” Sol asked evenly, having extracted his copy from the folder.
“I don’t have a good reason,” Eden told him, keeping her voice just as level. “I did have a reason in the beginning, but upon consideration, it’s not good enough.”
“Of course not!” Wendi said, edging forward in her seat, her hand on the table. “What you’ve been doing is dereliction of duty and deliberately trying to hurt the company. You must have been planning on selling the formula!”
“I made this…difficult choice,” Eden said, catching and holding Wendi’s gaze, “due to my concern for this company and some recent…management decisions. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that in the best interest of the company this information was best kept from general dissemination.”
Silence greeted her statement, several of the board members exchanging glances. The inference was clear. She’d taken this extreme action out of a significant distrust of Michele’s management of the company.
Sarah Briggs’ gaze fell to the table top, but Sol kept his eyes on Eden.
Feeling like a rock was weighing down her chest, she couldn’t quite make herself look back at the woman at the head of the table. But she felt Michele’s gaze on her, despite the old woman making no response to her words.
“There’s something else you need to know,” Eden said, looking down at the glossy table top for a minute. “I was contacted several months back by Alex Holt of Holt, Inc. He expressed a significant interest in Michele Cosmetics.”
The room grew even more silent as the directors absorbed this statement. At the end of the table, Michele seemed to have difficulty assimilating this additional blow. She’d lost color and seemed suddenly shrunken in her chair.
“Yes, I believe you all know who Alex Holt is,” Eden said with a touch of grim humor. She’d gone back and forth about whether or not she even needed to reveal Alex’s actions regarding the company. His astounding withdrawal from the struggle for control of Michele Cosmetics had changed the playing field drastically. She still couldn’t quite understand everything he’d said this morning.
He’d pulled out of a million-dollar deal…for her? Because she meant something to him? Facing
this meeting, she hadn’t had time to sort it all through.
But after several hours of consideration, she’d known, even with him withdrawing his attempt to get control of the company, she had to come clean this morning with the entire story. No one needed to know anything about her personal life, but she felt compelled to put her business actions into context. If it hadn’t been for the threat Alex represented to the company, would she have made the same choices? Would she be even now taking this action?
Regardless of what happened between them from now on, her life was better for his coming into it. She’d needed to come to some realizations for some time.
Continuing, she said, “Mr. Holt has been actively planning an acquisition bid to get control of Michele Cosmetics. It was in response to his involvement in the situation that I kept back the data on the face cream.”
Every face was turned toward her, all of them displaying tremendous interest in her words.
Eden went on. “Alex Holt has been positioning himself to make a hostile takeover bid for this company. He knew about my having kept the truth about my uncle a secret. He made this clear to me and asked for my cooperation.“
“You bitch!” Wendi spat.
“When he approached me,” Eden continued without acknowledging the slur, “he stated that he believed I was not receiving fair treatment from this organization in that I should have continued to be in line for the chief executive officer position when Michele resigns.”
Wendi seemed to have turned to stone.
“It was at the point of this conversation that I realized how much trouble the company was in,” Eden said, some of the tension inside of her uncoiling now that the truth was unfolding. “I want to make it clear to you that I gave Alex Holt the impression—actively—that I was working with him to get control of this company. I gave him information on the company—most of it bogus—but I did give it to him. I also—and I’m not proud of this—spoke to the reporter who wrote that article in Wall Street Weekly.”
Eden felt Sol’s gaze stab her.
“I did that to convince Alex Holt I was working with him. I acknowledge my actions openly and I admit that my motivation was, in addition to protecting this company from the demolition that Alex had planned for it, also to gain for myself the executive directorship of this company once the takeover bid was fended off.”
A tiny sob escaped from Michele.
“I’m sorry,” Eden said, her voice softer as she looked at her mentor. “You’ve built this company and have kept it strong for many years, but you know you’ve lost interest. Your life is taking other directions and you’ve earned the right to retire, even if the thought scares you.”
Michele said in a broken voice, “You have no right!”
“No, maybe not,” Eden acknowledged. “But I’ve put in a lot of years here, too. And I have a great concern regarding your decisions lately, and how they effect the employees at this company.”
She’d say nothing about the managers who gave her statements endorsing her leadership of the company. It could only do harm now. Even Dave didn’t deserve to have his part in the plan revealed. She’d take no one down with her.
“You witch!” Wendi burst out suddenly, her assumed sweetness completely dissipated. “You sold this company out in order to keep me from running it? My God! I can’t believe you had the audacity to come here today!”
“I had hoped by playing along with Holt, Inc, to buy time for my own plans. I believed, and still believe, that I could pull the company out of its slump. I was planning on coming here today and telling you that I’m the best person to run this company and that you should remove Michele from the company leadership now—“
Michele seemed to sag back in her chair, her face both stunned and haggard.
“—and place me—not Wendi Williams—in control of the company. I’ve acquired damaging information about Ms. Williams that I was going to place before you as evidence that she is not the person who should be in charge of this company. I’d also planned on revealing then the promise of this new product.”
“You say you were planning to tell us you are the person to run this company?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” Eden said. “Several things have occurred in the last few days that have changed my original plans. For one thing, I was informed just this morning that Alex Holt is no longer interested in acquiring this company.”
A babble of voices spoke all at once, Michele’s faint expression of relief mixed in with Dave’s
surprise and Sarah’s questioning voice.
Eden lifted her hand. “His reasons for this change aren’t significant to any of you and are, I gather, personal, but for whatever reason, the company doesn’t face a challenge from him. I am sure, however, that with our weakening market position, other companies will be taking note.”
Sol said quietly, “So the threat from without is lessened?”
“For now,” Eden said, looking at him.
“What else has changed?” he asked.
Eden drew in another steadying breath, “I’ve changed my mind about seeking this job. If I have to lie, cheat and backstab to get this position, I’ve realized I don’t want the job.”
The board members looked at her without comprehension.
“Someone who cares for me,” Eden said with a sudden catch in her throat, “has asked me to look at myself and see if this is who I want to me. I have looked…and the answer is, no.”
From her spot next to Michele, Wendi’s face showed bafflement.
“I came here today to tell you all this,” Eden said, talking to the board members, “and, finally, to tender my resignation, effective immediately.”
“Resignation?” Sarah Briggs exclaimed, her expression surprised. From the far end of the table, Dave Sanders gaped at her.
Eden was conscious of the board members shocked faces, some expressions registering consternation, as well.
“My actions the past few months,” she said, “have been devious and exhausting. This is not who I want to be. I have a tremendous desire for this company to prosper, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my soul for it.”
She hesitated in the act of turning toward the door. “One last thing, in addition to Bergere’s final report on the new product, I’ve given you proof of Ms. Williams’ financial misconduct in her last job—“
Wendi’s gasp was audible.
“—in the folder in front of each one of you. I’m not particularly proud of how I discovered this information, but it is reliable. What you do with it is up to you.”