Page 42 of Married to Number 22
Luna
I wantto claw the words back from the air, shove them deep down so they never have the chance to see the light of day.
So Aiden never hears them.
Just…move on. Moveout.
Put the past behind me and forget whatever crazy notion I had that I could fix everything.
Because it willruineverything else.
And Aiden is too good to have that happen to him, to deal with me, with my family, with all the business can destroy.
It was delusional to think I could save it, could do something better with it.
I’m just Luna. I don’t have any business experience. I don’t have connections with the board like my brother John has. I don’t have the support of the executive staff like my dad has. I don’t have both like Grams did.
I’m just a dumb girl who wants to fulfill the big dreams I used to sit in this bedroom and write about.
“I’m gonna need you to explain, Luns.”
“I barely understand it myself.”
He sighs, fingers flexing slightly, holding me in place with his touch, with his intense green eyes. “Then let’s start at the beginning and talk it out.”
“Grams read my diaries.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t comment except to say, “Go on.”
“I wrote in them a lot—silly stuff like what happened at school or my feelings for you”—my mouth hitches up, heart skipping a beat when I see those green eyes gentle, when he smiles back at me—“but as I got older, it was a way for me to decompress. I’d write about my experiences at college and the professors who drove me crazy or the classes I loved, and later, after I graduated and began to learn more about the business—the good, the bad, and worse, the ugly—I would write about what I wanted to do with Smythe,” I whisper. “What wecoulddo so much better.”
“Like what?” he asks quietly.
I suck in a breath, release it slowly. “Did you know that we’re one of the few companies in the United States that produces insulin?”
He shakes his head. “No, sweetheart.”
“We do, but we don’t do it right.”
“What do you mean, Luns?”
Another breath. Then…I just let the words flow. “Do you know that the original patent from Dr. Banting for the first formulary of insulin was sold for a dollar because he wanted everyone to have access the life-saving drug? And do you know that insulin today costs between two to four dollars per vial to produce but costs Americans an average of two hundred and fifty dollars?Anddo you know that same vial used to cost twenty-one dollars—twenty-one dollars!—in 1996?” I take a breath because my heart rate is speeding, frustration at the injustice—and my small part in it—bringing the words forward fast and furious. “Americans pay ten times more for insulin than other countries, and they die because they ration their insulin because they can’t afford it, risk their lives for a disease they didn’t ask for, a disease that is a lifelong burden to manage.”
My throat goes tight, and I slam my eyes closed, dangerously close to crying.
Again.
Because until I saw a video online, I had no idea what my family’s company was doing.
What I was part of.
And then I dove headfirst into researching, into discovering all that I could about the industry my family’s business was in…until I had a solid plan for moving forward in a way that’s still profitable, but doesn’t trample innocent people. Only, when I brought that plan to my brother, my father, the board…
Not one person cared—or they didn’t care more than what Smythe was already providing their bank accounts with their current structure.
A cut to profits, no matter how slight, was unacceptable.
I can’t pretend to be perfect and innocent in this—I benefited from Smythe’s power too. It paid for my skating, my schooling, my rent, my car, my clothes. Until I moved home and had my epiphany, anyway.
