Page 7 of With Us

“You mean the one that’s been signed and is already underway?” I asked.

From the very first meeting with the pharmaceutical’s board of directors, I’d gotten the feeling Simmons was going to be a headache. His main focus was on amassing money for himself, not for the company he was destroying.

Simmons cleared his throat. “Yes, well, it’s come to my attention that those stock shares were worth a lot more than you paid for them.”

“You and I both know that’s not really true.” He opened his mouth, but I continued. “However, as the contract states, Amaric and I will do our best to make it true again.”

“There are some within the company that feel you mislead us and think speaking to anattorneywould be wise.”

“Within the company, or just in this room?” Luc muttered from his seat at my desk. Spinning the chair, he kicked his feet up and leaned back. “Because this is the first we’re hearing about it.”

“No, there are multiple—”

“Let me be clear, Mr. Simmons,” I interrupted. “I want to help Elio Pharma. Actually, let me rephrase. I want to help the scientists and developers at Elio Pharma. They’ve made some groundbreaking drugs that will do a lot of good. It’s the business side of the company that I couldn’t care less about.”

Shooting up from the chair, Simmons looked outraged. He also looked bloated, overindulged, and petulant. “That’s—”

The alarm on my watch began beeping. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have someplace to be.”

The blow to his ego at being dismissed was clear, throwing him further off his game as he pushed his bluff. “Fine, we’ll get in touch with the attorneys.”

“Good, we’ll call ours, too,” Luc said, not bothering to glance up from his phone. “I’m sure they won’t find anything out of place with Elio’s practices.”

Some color drained from Simmons’ face. “The contract stated everything is confidential.”

“It also said we require full cooperation. Ifsomewithin the company feel like breaking the contract, we’ll have to send everything over to our lawyers so they can sort it out. All that information passing across so many desks.” Luc shrugged.

“We all know Elio was one, maybe two, quarters away from going under,” I pointed out. “My job is to take a controlling percentage and make the changes to prevent that. If you’re going to fight me, I have no problem selling off my stocks and walking away.”

Simmons’ eyes widened. “But—”

Holding his gaze, I kept my voice firm and even. “I also have no problem with running the company into the ground before you have time to strap on a parachute. And, as Mr. Ricci pointed out, information leaks. Ethics. Bad decisions. What some people use a company credit card to pay for on a weekly basis…”

The rest of the color drained from his face as he headed for the door. “I’ll, uhh, speak to the board and get this cleared up. Sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Amato.”

“Speaking of,” I said, halting his escape. “If you need a meeting, call Ms. Ricci andpolitelymake an appointment. Do not barge into my office,” my voice lowered, the warning clear, “andneverdisrespect her.”

“Right.” Rushing from the room, he almost collided with Rosa. “Sorry, sorry. Uhh, and sorry about earlier. Goodbye.”

I closed the door and moved to sit opposite of Luc, more annoyed than angry.

“So what does he use the company credit card for every week?” he asked, handing me another report.

I shrugged. “The hell if I know.”

???

Setting my pen down, I pushed away from my desk and ran my palm down my face. Since dealing with Simmons’ bullshit the day before, it’d been one thing after another. When I heard someone push the door fully open, I didn’t bother looking. “Is the cubicle next to you available?”

“Yeah. And Margaret on the other side of me brings in cookies and big bags of candy,” Luc said, adding to the fictitious office in his imagination. “But Dave over in H.R. is a real hardass. I wouldn’t be able to use company time to do things like this.”

At the sound of something hitting my desk, I opened my eyes to see a file. A thin one. “This what I think it is?” I didn’t wait for his answer. Opening the folder, I quickly scanned the information. “There’s not much here.”

“That’s because there’s not much, period.”

Wanting to read through when I had more time, I began to close it when something caught my attention. “Grocery store.”

That explains the name tag comment.

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