Chapter 18
Kain
A week later, the phone rang again, and I looked up from my desk, annoyed. I saw that it was Mildred yet again. I had told her that I would be extremely busy this afternoon and that I didn't want any interruptions. She had called twice now in the last two minutes, so I figured it had to be important.
I picked up the phone and said, “Yes?” in a very annoyed tone of voice.
“There's something you need to see,” she simply said.
“Something I need to see? Can't it wait? I thought I told you that I was extremely busy on some very, very important things, and—”
“This is important Mr. Williams, trust me. May I come over to your office?”
I rolled my eyes, annoyed, well-aware that she couldn't see me but doing it anyway.
“Fine,” I muttered.
“I'll be there in a minute.”
There was a click as she put the phone down, and a few moments later, there was a knock on my door.
“All right, Mildred, come on in,” I said.
She walked into the office, and when I saw the look on her face, I could immediately tell that something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Oh, no,” I groaned. “What's happened?”
She was carrying a copy of the Financial Times. She opened it and set it down in front of me without saying anything. She pointed to a headline on the third page.
CEO Kain Williams Involved in Jobs for Sex Scandal.
My jaw dropped with shock and the color drained from my cheeks.
“I told you it was important,” she said. “Read it.”
I skimmed over the article, my pulse racing and shock rippling through my system. Someone had gone to the press about my relationship with Mandy and the fact that she worked here, except they had twisted the whole thing around and taken everything out of context—as well as having made up a bunch of blatant lies.
In the article, it said that I had hired her only because she had provided me with sexual favors, and in the article another two unnamed interns—obviously made up characters—had claimed that I had sexually assaulted them and settled out of court. This was a terrible, damning article that had the potential to destroy my reputation, even if it was based on a pack of lies.
Mildred looked me in the eye after I had finished reading the article. “Is there any truth in this article?” she asked coolly. “Any at all? If there is, you have to tell me, Kain.”
I shook my head, unable to believe I was having to even answer such a question. “There's a grain of truth but it's not what you think,” I offered.
“Explain.”
“I'm dating Mandy, yes, that part is true—but she was hired through Phil and my father, I had nothing to do with that. There certainly weren't any 'sexual favors' involved in getting the job.”
She nodded. “And the interns who claimed you sexually assaulted them?”
“Total lies. I've never sexually assaulted anyone, and Mandy is the first person I've worked with who I've also dated.”
“And how long have you been romantically involved with Miss Benson? You must tell me the truth here, Kain.”
“We've been officially dating for around a week now. But the truth is, I met her and had a, um, a one-night stand with her before I even knew she had been hired.”
“I see. And what time period are we talking about here in terms of when the one-night stand occurred in relation to when she was hired.”
I sighed. “A day or two would be my best guess.”
She nodded slowly. “That fact is not going work too well in our favor. Does anyone else know about this one-night stand, and specifically when it happened?”
“I think her best friend, Ellen. And my best friend, Jake. I can't say if either of those two have told anyone else about it but I can’t imagine why they would.”
“Let's hope they haven't.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We get our lawyers on the case. We threaten to sue unless a retraction of the article is published. And if you're telling the truth, that you never sexually assaulted anyone or offered jobs for sex—”
“I didn't, I promise you that.”
“Well, then, we should have a watertight case. The problem is, of course, what happens in the interim. Because right now, millions of people who are reading this as we speak are going to assume that it's the truth.”
“I'm very aware of that, Mildred,” I said with a groan. “This little piece of slander has the potential to utterly ruin my reputation—and to devastate the value of our stocks.”
“Do you have any idea who would do this, or why?” she asked.
Sudden, hot anger ripped through my veins. “Oh, yes,” I muttered. “I'm damn sure I know who's behind this.”
“Who?”
“Marsha Hendrikson. Oh, yes, I'm damn sure about that. Marsha Hendrikson is the one who's trying to ruin me.”
* * * * *
There was a knocking at my door—a frantic, almost desperate knocking. With a sinking heart, I knew exactly who it was. I hadn't yet told her about the article.
“Come in,” I said.
Mandy came rushing in, and her eyes were red with tears and her lip was quivering with emotion. “Did you... did you see... did you see what they said about us? In the Financial Times?” she managed to splutter.
I nodded slowly. “I saw it.”
“Then why didn't you tell me right away?” she demanded angrily. “Didn't you think that it was urgent?”
“Because I knew that it would hit you hard, and it would have ruined your day. And it's out there now; there's nothing we can do about it, I'm afraid. Not yet, at least. Not until the lawyers get onto it.”
“So, what are you trying to say? That we just have to sit back and let Marsha destroy our lives like this?!”
“Calm down, Mandy, just calm down,” I said, trying to be as soothing as possible.
“Calm down?” she snapped, furious now. “Are you insane? The entire city now thinks I'm some slut who sucked your dick to get this job! How the hell do you expect me to calm down when everyone thinks that?”
“Look, I'm not saying don't be angry, all right? I'm furious!”
“Furious? You don't look like you're furious! In fact, you don't look like you give a damn! Hell, maybe you do only want to use me for sex! Maybe the stuff they're saying about you in this article is true!”
“No!” I roared. “It's all lies, damn it! Now calm the hell down and get yourself together!”
“Get myself together? My life has been ruined because of this! Don't you understand that? My reputation has gone down the toilet! All because of you!”
“Stop,” I said firmly. “Stop. Just step back, take a deep breath and stop.”
She stumbled back toward the door, tears streaming down her cheeks now. My heart, meanwhile, felt as if it were being ripped in two.
“It's all over,” she sobbed. “It's all over.”
“Don't say that. Can't you see that this is what she wants? If you don't stay strong now, if we don't stay strong now, she wins. And we can't let her win. I won't let her win! We have to be strong for each other, to get through this.”
“That's so easy for you to say,” she sobbed, shaking her head as the tears ran down her face. “So damn easy. You're not the one the whole city now thinks is some slut who has sex to get a job!”
“We're going to get through this,” I said to her. “We just have to be strong, we just have to—”
“No,” she whispered. “We're done. It's over. Everything is over.”
And with that, she turned and ran out of the room.
* * * * *
An hour later,I still hadn't heard anything from Mandy, despite the calls I'd tried to make to her and the messages I had sent. She had left the office right after she had run out, and I had no idea where she had gone. Things had just gone from bad to worse today.
I was about to leave when there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I said wearily.
The door opened and my father stepped inside. Immediately, a blitz of white-hot anger shot through me.
“What are you doing here?” I snarled. “Have you come to gloat, to rub it in, to tell me 'I told you so'? Because if that's why you're here, Dad, you can just damn well turn around and walk back out.”
He held his hands palm up in a gesture of peace and surrender. “That's not why I'm here.”
“Well, why have you come?! You have seen the article, haven't you?”
“I have. And I know that Marsha is behind it.”
“Yeah, of course, you know. She's your freakin' best friend, isn't she? I mean, hell, you were doing everything in your power to get me to marry that airhead daughter of hers so that your shared fantasy of a merged company for your future grandkids' control could become a reality. It's not like my feelings or thoughts on the matter counted for anything.”
He nodded, and smiled sadly. “I came here to apologize.”
That caught me off guard. “Wait, what? You came here to apologize to me?”
He nodded. “That's right. When I saw the article today, when I saw those slanderous lies printed about you, it was as if a blindfold was lifted from my eyes. I finally realized just how evil Marsha really is, and felt like a terrible fool—and a terrible father—for trying to force you into a marriage that you neither wanted nor needed. I've been a selfish, foolish old man. And I hope that you can forgive me for that.”
I couldn't believe that I was hearing this. “I... I feel—”
“You don't need to say anything at this point, Kain. I messed up, and I messed up bad, and I can't expect you to forgive me just like that. But what I am going to offer you is this: my help. I'm going to get the very best lawyers I know on this case, and we're going to force the Financial Times to retract that article and make a formal public apology to you and Miss Benson, or sue them for everything they're worth. And as for Marsha, I've got a top private investigator on that. He's going to make sure we find the proof we need to demonstrate without any shadow of a doubt that it was her who was behind this whole thing. She thought she could ruin you and your company—but now she's woken the bear. And I'm gonna make sure that she doesn't get away with this.”
“Thank you, Dad. I really, really appreciate that.”
I said this with a calm, genuine sincerity, and really, it was the only thing I could say at this point. I was still taken aback with real surprise and shock at this very unexpected act of generosity from my father.
“Don't you worry, Kain,” he said. “I'm going to make sure you weather this storm. And that's what being a CEO is all about, really: weathering storms. Because a lot of dangerous weather is going to come your way. This is just a taste of how things are gonna be. But you're tough enough to handle this, aren't you?”
A new sense of iron-hard determination took hold of me. He was damn right that I was tough enough to weather this storm. And hell, I wasn't just going to weather it, I was going to emerge even stronger than before. I was going to triumph against this adversity.
“Yes, Dad,” I said. “I'm man enough to handle this. We're gonna hit Marsha with our best shot—and she's gonna drop like a sack of potatoes. Hendrikson, Inc. is going down.”
He smiled. “That's the spirit, my boy, that's the spirit!”
Suddenly, I felt a new sense of pride, a new sense of happiness and respect for this man, my father.
“Thank you, Dad,” I said, looking into his eyes with a gaze of genuine admiration. “I'm glad you're in my corner. In fact, there's nobody else I'd rather have in my corner.”
He nodded and smiled. “You're my son, Kain, and I'll always be in your corner. Oh, and there's something else.”
“What’s that?”
“The girl, Miss Benson. Do you really care about her? Deeply and loyally?”
“Yes,” I answered without a moment of hesitation. “Yes, I do.”
He nodded, smiling. “Then you have my blessing to be with her, and to marry her, if that is what your heart truly desires.”
“It is, Dad, it really is.”
“Then go get her, Champ,” he said enthusiastically. “Time waits for no man, so go get that girl. Make her yours, and make sure that you two have a beautiful future together! But first, before you do that, there's something that you and I have to do.”
“That's right,” I said, nodding grimly. “We have battle plans to lay out.”
“That we do, and we don't have any time to waste. We need to get started right away.”
“Yes, we do, Dad. So, let's get on that right now. Marsha Hendrikson is going down.”