Page 138 of The Fiancée Farce
“Obviously.” Brooks sobered. “Gemma, your father, Tucker, Sterling, they talked about a meeting with Crenshaw Global Capital. With the managing director of CGC, Markham Matthews, to be precise. You know, a little hedge fund with a lovely reputation for slashing costs dramatically by reducing the number of journalists working for its newspapers byhalf? Ring any bells?”
Her stomach plummeted to the depths of Lake Union. “Let me guess, they’re looking to add Van Dalen Publishing to the ranks of newspaper companies they’ve purchased, stripped, and destroyed?”
Brooks nodded. “I’d have told you, but it hardly seemed necessary when you were mere days from walking down the aisle. I didn’t want to trouble you.” He lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not you I’m pissed at.” She wished he’d told her, sure, but he didn’t deserve her fury; Tucker did. Herfatherdid. Not Brooks, who’d done what he had thought was right. She couldn’t fault him for that. For trying. “Let me guess, the plan is to sell to CGC for a hefty sum to be split between Tucker, Victor, and Sterling?”
Brooks nodded.
It all made sense. Victor couldn’t care less about Tucker; he cared about his bottom line. The reason he and Sterling hadn’t put up more than the requisite fuss at being passed over in the line of succession was because they had a fail-safe, a plan for a payday that wouldn’t only fuck her over but would hand the keys to the family business over to a vulture capitalist.
“Markham likes to talk when he’s had a few too many Manhattans. There was discussion of downsizing the staff at theSeattle Daily Newsby over forty percent. That would put at least four hundred people out of work. There was talk of shuttering several of VDP’s papers entirely. They are ruthless, Gemma.Ruthless.”
Gemma clutched the collar of her coat in her fist, thumb resting on the hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse pounded.
Fuck.
“So what am I supposed to do about it?” Whatcouldshe do about it? “I’m not married. I didn’t satisfy the terms and conditions of Grandpa’s will in time. I fucked up. What do you want me to say, Brooks? What do you want me to do?”
Her hands were tied.
“What I want is for you totry,” Brooks pleaded. “Come to themeeting. Tell the board members what Tucker is planning. It will mean more coming from you than it will from me.”
“Me?” She scoffed. “The ousted heir? You’re kidding.”
“Gemma—”
“And what would they even do if they believed me?”
“Approval of a sale requires a two-thirds majority vote by shareholders. Even with the shares he’s due to inherit, Tucker will need another fifteenpercent of shareholders to vote in favor. Between your father and Sterling, that’s an additional ten percent. He needs another five. If you speak at the annual general meeting, the meeting attended by not only the board but the shareholders who elected them, maybe, justmaybeyou could stop the sale in its tracks. StopTuckerin his tracks.”
“It’s a long shot.” So maybe she could convince one shareholder not to sell. Hell, maybe she could convince almostallof the shareholders not to sell. All it would take was one additional shareholder jumping ship for everything she had worked toward, everything her grandfather had worked for, hergreat-grandfather had built, to fall apart. “And what does it have to do with Tansy?”
“Everything and nothing.” Brooks shrugged. “You want to be the type of person who deserves Tansy? You can start by taking a chance on this, doing the right thing not for pride or glory or money or bragging rights but because it’s right. Because maybe you can’t stop Tucker from inheriting the company, but just maybe you can stop him from selling it. Maybe you can prevent thousands of people from losing their jobs.”
“You’re the one on the board. You don’t need me there.”
Brooks shrugged. “No, I suppose I don’t. But I’d like you to be there. I think the truth, coming from you, would be much more powerful than if it came from me.”
It sounded like an exercise in futility, as honorable as it was foolish.
But how would she be able to sleep at night knowing she could’ve tried and that she hadn’t? Probably as well as she’d slept last night and the night before that and the one before that.
“I’m drunk,” she said, stating the obvious. “I can’t exactly walk into a board room smelling like Glenlivet and seeing double.”
“Sweetheart, if you think you’d be the first person to attend an annual shareholders’ meeting shit-faced, you’ve got another think coming.” Brooks laughed. “In a few hours, you’ll be sober. Don’t worry.”
Fair enough.
“Come on.” Brooks smiled. “What do you have to lose?”
Gemma pressed the heel of her hand into her breastbone, trying and failing to massage away the ache inside her chest.
Nothing. She had nothing to lose.
But maybe she had something to save.
Chapter Twenty-Four
