Page 37 of Nothing to This
“Ready,” JD said.
Her remit had been to rename the company.Keeping her idea under wraps was difficult, the big reveal excited her.
Inverting the top blank card from the stack, she stepped aside to let the men absorb the new name.
“Duo Dynamics,” she said after a score of seconds and moved away from the easel to let the men see the screen beside it.Pressing a button on the remote, the graphics slides began to play.“I know I was told to come up with a few ideas.I played with some, but Duo is the name that I feel fits the best.It works with your strategy moving forward to maintain your current portfolio while shifting focus onto the consulting work.Two corporate avenues in fluid fields, Duo Dynamics.”
Retrieving the pitching packs from her laptop case, she handed one to each of the men.
“Where did you come up with the idea?”Greg asked, intent on looking from her to the top sheet.
“Honestly…”
Her hesitation attracted JD’s concern, but there was no time to answer the question because the office door opened again.This time, two gentlemen darkened the doorway, one of whom was her lawyer.
“Oh, I’m sorry, there was no one outside.Miss Hampton, was our meeting for three thirty?”
She glanced at her watch.“It was, Mr.Faulds—”
“Mr.Andrews?”Greg said, concerned and serious while scrutinizing those in the room.“What’s going on?”
JD stood up.“We’ll have to finish this later,” he said to Greg and Jim.“I have to take care of a family matter.”
The men stood.“Jamie,” Jim said.“If something is going on that impacts the company—”
“Let’s leave them to it,” Greg said, putting a hand on Jim’s back and exchanging a suspicious nod with JD.
Just how much did Greg know?
THIRTEEN
Still peering at JD, she missed Greg and Jim departing the room, leaving their lawyers and a third man just inside the door.
“The twins,” JD said.Not talking to the lawyers, he was looking at her.“That’s where you came up with the name.”She nodded once.There was a beat of nothing, then he grinned.“I love it.”She barely had time to feel relief before JD switched focus to the lawyers.“Okay, show us what you’ve got.This is the final draft, right?”
He gestured them over to the boardroom table at the opposite end of the room, behind the new couches she’d had the decorator bring in.Sometimes it seemed like JD did nothing himself.If something needed done or she raised an issue, he’d taken to giving her full authority to resolve it.Probably because he didn’t care enough about it to do it himself.
One thing he wasn’t so loose and easy about was the situation with the lawyers and the contracts.
“Yes,” Mr.Andrews said.“We’ll go over it all.Providing everyone is happy, we can sign today and make it official.Hence why we brought our notary friend.”
“Can’t wait,” JD said, coming up behind her to guide her into a chair like he was eager to get on with things.He pushed her in before taking his own place at the head of the table.“Show us what you’ve got.”
Since her first meeting with her lawyer on the Monday morning after JD moved in, JD had insisted on dealing with his lawyer himself.Leaving the negotiation to his team the first time around had been a mistake, according to him, one he vowed to never make again.
Mr.Andrews, JD’s lawyer, was the one to take them through and explain each clause of the contract.The document seemed smaller than the one she’d signed originally, but its significance was so much greater.
“This contract does everything you instructed us to do,” Andrews said, his particular focus on his client.“I don’t think I have to tell you it greatly reduces your protection.The shield that was built before the subjects were born has served you well for a long time.I can’t see why—”
“Those subjects are my children,” JD said.“The original contract should never have existed, though I appreciate that was a failing on our side.That contract should have been shredded as soon as my children started talking.Are we expected to deny them throughout their educational career?I will attend events, plays, parent-teacher meetings.How would we explain that if no one knows they’re mine?”
JD plucked the pen she’d been clutching from her hand.
Before he could sign, her hand landed on his, prompting him to look at her.“Please be sure about this, JD… It’s a big change for all of us and one we won’t be able to undo.”
“It should never have been done in the first place,” he said, freeing his hand from under hers to sign his name in the designated places.
When he was done, he put the pen in her hand.As she tried to lower it to the line she was supposed to sign, it shook.Until now, she and her children had been afforded relative obscurity.After this, nothing would be the same.Her children would never be anonymous again.
