Page 81 of Love.V2
After a few texts and a brief round of phone tag yesterday morning, she’d gone radio silent, just like when I was in Japan and she’d left. Only this time, I was keenly aware of every minute that passed without her.
I’d tried to call her a few hours ago on the way back from the hospital, but my phone had died. Thank God I knew her number by heart. Not that it was doing me any good.
I left a stumbling, slightly incoherent message telling her I hoped the Botto presentation had gone well. I almost asked her to call me back, but I could already see Ron, the head of the board, striding down Worther’s hallway. My free time was up. I was about to get sucked back into the nightmare I’d been living in since yesterday morning.
“Anyway, I’m sorry I have to go…I love you…Please just…” Please just what? Trust that I wasn’t choosing work over her again, even though I clearly was? “Just let me explain after all is said and done. It’s almost over, okay?”
I waited for a beat, as if she would respond, then remembered I was just talking to her message system and fumbled to hang up the phone. I chugged the dregs of the cold hospital coffee I’d been nursing forthe last hour, rubbing gritty eyes as I ducked out of my old office and headed back down the hall to Henry’s.
My gut clenched.
Henry.
My larger-than-life mentor, the billionaire media mogul, had looked so small in that hospital bed. Beth, his wife, had looked even smaller, like a shell. I’d blinked down at him, unconscious and hooked to a million and one machines, and let the words “blockage” and “cardiac arrest” and “heart attack” wash over me.
I kept walking down the hall, even though the memory of that private hospital room made me want to turn on my heel and call Tess again. Get on a plane and fly as fast as I could to Chicago. Grip her shoulders and shake her and tell her I never wanted this. I didn’t want to be that man, working my body to the breaking point just for…for what? Work?
Fuck.I wanted Tess. Hopefully, I could remedy that soon. As long as everything wrapped up in the next few minutes, I could be on a flight back to Chicago tonight.
“If we push the UK director into the global ops position, we can keep Tindell where he is in California.”
Ron was talking at me before I’d fully stepped into the room. Gina, another board member, Danny, and Ramón, Worther’s Chief People Officer, all sprawled around Henry’s office. We’d been camped out here on and off since I’d landed the day before. Had it been yesterday? Day and night lost meaning when we were frantically trying to put out fires before they started.
I blinked, trying to re-orient myself to the conversation we’d been having before I’d left earlier. To see Henry. Who might never stand in this room again.
“I thought we already decided Lochlan was the best choice for CEO.” At least, that had been the plan before I’d left for the hospital, and I was banking on itstayingthe plan.
“And we already told you, Lochlan announced his retirement for next year. We can’t announce a temporary CEO after all this instability. It’ll make us look even worse,” Ron blustered, lowering his bulk into a chair around Henry’s conference table.
“It’s not corporate instability, it’s a cardiac event,” I argued back, sick to death of Ron and pretty much everyone else except Danny. How had I ever thought I could spend hours and hours a day navigating these people and all the politics and the endless decisions and responsibilities they’d thrown in my lap over the last thirty-six hours?
Life had been a whirlwind from the second my plane touched down, fielding calls from clients who hadn’t heard from Henry, dropping into meetings I was only half tuned into, endless calls and video conferences with the board and the Worther network’s CEOs as we all scrambled.
“I call it instability when he didn’t have the decency to name who he wanted as the next CEO,” Gina muttered, scowling at Henry’s desk like the man himself would magically appear there so she could give him a piece of her mind.
“Well, technically he did.” Ron stared at me from across the table. I sighed. I was exhausted and sad and had spent the whole day barely comprehending all the meetings I’d been shoved into.Nothing to seehere. Just Henry’s right-hand man sitting in on this meeting instead of the CEO. Don’t think too hard about the fact you haven’t seen him around here in months…Everything’s fine.
Ron scowled when I rubbed again at my eyes. “Forgive me if you think this is tedious, Morris. Some of us are trying to clean up the shitstorm you caused.”
I scrubbed my hands down my face. Leave it to Henry, stubborn ass that he was, to refuse to do any succession planning while I was in Chicago. He’d been so sure I’d come back. “I told you all when I got here, I’m not Worther’s CEO.”
“Henry seemed to think you were. I don’t see what the issue is. Everyone expects it. Just take the fucking job and let’s move on,” Ron jabbed a stubby finger in my direction.
Bile rose in my throat, panic at being forced into the position I’d given my blood, sweat, and tears for. I didn’t want it now. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is, actually,” Ramón chimed in, steepling his hands in front of his face. “We have another day, maybe, before word of Henry’s condition gets public. We have to make an announcement before that happens, look like we are in control. If we announce Dylan as CEO, the way Henry planned, it shows consistency within the organization, and it’s an expected choice. Astablechoice. Our stocks will tank if it looks like we weren’t prepared for this.”
“No one is ever prepared for a massive heart attack, Ramón. I think they’d forgive us.”
“We’re a global corporation with no one at the helm,” Gina chimed in this time, tearing her eyes away from Henry’s desk. “Everyoneknows you’re supposed to be the next in line. What happens when we announce we haven’t just lost one leader, but two all at once?”
Every eye in the room focused on me. I could feel the weight of it crushing my chest. This is what happened when you became the fix-it guy. People expected you to fix stuff.
Seconds passed, then more. Danny sighed when I didn’t respond. “Surely the shareholders will understand if we take more than twenty-four hours to restructure our entire organization after an emergency medical event.”
Ron sputtered. “That’s just it!” His hand slammed onto the table, the sound ringing in my ears. “We are a multi-billion dollar enterprise. How is it going to look if the death of a single man topples the whole organization? No. We announce the news on our own terms, with a clear plan in place. Keep everyone calm. Let them know we have it handled.”
“We do have it handled,” Danny argued. “Normal operations don’t stop just because the CEO is incapacitated.”
