Page 59 of Rival Hearts

“And you’re going to show her?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

We walked toward my office.

“What will the investors say?”

“Obviously, I’ll run this by all of them, too, but at the end of the day, they’re investors, not partners. We get the final say about how we do things, and if we want to show our process to the activists who can either make or break our public image, isn’t that our choice?”

Dad was silent, thinking about it.

“You’re taking a very different approach to this than I would have,” he finally said when we stopped in front of my office door.“But I can’t say that I’m upset. It’s the way of the future. Like you said, change and adapt.”

“Right. So, you’re on board?”

Dad grinned. “Yeah, I’m on board.” He clapped me on the arm. “You never fail to surprise me, and that’s not a bad thing. Let me know when we’re meeting with… what’s her name?”

“Charlotte Reynolds.”

“Right. Miss Reynolds. Let me know.”

He walked away, and I turned into my office.

Gabe sat on the edge of my desk, and a shock traveled through me.

“What was that about?” he asked.

I scrambled mentally. “A yacht meeting.” That wasn’t a lie.

“With Charlie?”

Shit, he’d heard.

“Yeah,” I said. There was no point trying to hide it now. “She’s coming to have a look at the factory sometime this week.”

“I didn’t know you knew her.”

My stomach twisted, and a pang of guilt shot into my chest. I shouldn’t exactly have known her.

“She’s a part of the campaign, and she came to see me about the production line.”

“You never mentioned any of that.”

“It slipped my mind with everything going on.” That was an outright lie, and I felt like shit about it.

“Well, I guess now I don’t have to organize a party this Friday for you to meet her, huh?”

“I guess so. But I didn’t know it was her at first, you know. With you calling her Charlie and everything.” At least that part was true.

“Right,” Gabe said. “I forget I’m the only one who does that. But actually, that’s not a bad thing. I have to fucking cancel again. I’ve been called to some shitty conference in Texas.Texas.Everything is online, why the fuck can’t I just stay here?” He scowled. “I fuckinghateTexas.”

Gabe had told me before that he was from Texas. I’d always known he wasn’t a fan, but he was so bitter.

“Tough break, man.”

He groaned. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right? Business and all that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know all about that.”