Читать книгу Always My Baby - Martha Kennerson - Страница 13

Chapter 3

China sat at the conference table mulling over all the papers that lay in front of her, her face contorted. “I don’t understand any of this.” She picked up a spiral booklet with the word Approved stamped in red across its cover. “This is the procedure manual that was submitted.”

“It’s also the exact procedure we put in place,” Morgan confirmed, standing with his feet apart and arms folded across his chest.

Morgan Kingsley, the ruggedly handsome and athletically built second eldest of the Kingsley boys, was vice president of field operations for their company and was quickly running out of patience with the mess they found themselves in. “There is no way in hell these procedures could have been changed without our approval or my direct knowledge and supervision,” he explained, his mouth set in a hard line.

“Dammit.” Alexander slammed his fist against the conference room table. “I didn’t sign off on any changes, and I certainly didn’t authorize any money transfers. Why would I jeopardize everything to save a few bucks?” Alexander asked the flabbergasted room.

“We know,” everyone said in unison.

“Well, according to the whistle-blower’s statement and these financial records—” Brice Kingsley, Alexander and Morgan’s younger brother and the company’s CFO, held up a ledger and a spreadsheet “—we’ve saved more than just a few bucks.”

“If that’s the case, where the hell is all the money?” Alexander asked.

“Good question. My financial records are on point and all of our audits have been clean,” Brice informed them confidently.

“Everyone just calm down,” China murmured, keeping her eyes on the pages of the procedures manual.

Alexander frowned at China. “Calm down? This is our reputation at risk...my reputation. We’re talking about claims that could turn into charges if we can’t provide evidence that not only proves whoever this whistle-blower is lied, but that everything we’ve done is legal and above reproach.”

China rose and moved over to where Alexander stood. She looked up at him, placed her right hand over his heart and said, “You pay me to worry...remember, I got this.”

Alexander’s shoulders dropped. “What do you have in mind?”

“Yeah, what do you have in mind, China?” Morgan echoed.

China turned and faced all three brothers. “We’re going to let the whistle-blower tell us where, why and how.” The corner of her mouth rose slowly.

“Wait, you know who this person is?” Brice asked, frowning.

“We all do,” she said confidently.

“What?” the brothers cried out.

China moved back to the table and gestured with her hands at all the documents that lay spread out over the conference table. “All of this information was provided by someone we know or came in contact with. What we have to do is go through every inch of this material and figure out who it could be. We’ll make a list—”

“A list?” Brice asked.

China leaned across the table and selected one of the statements that had been provided. She flipped through the pages. “Here.” She tapped the page with her index finger. “It says the whistle-blower was present doing an operations meeting in January with you, Morgan.” She looked up from the document, her eyes lasering in on his confused look. “That you were discussing the various ways to save money in the area of waste disposal. Did any such meeting occur?”

“Yes, but nothing came up about changing the way we handle gas cylinders,” Morgan assured her.

“Do you remember who all was in the room?” she inquired, dropping the document on the table.

“Everyone,” Morgan said.

“What do you mean?” China asked.

“It was our first meeting of the year.” Morgan placed his hands in his pockets. “There were over three hundred people in attendance.”

“Any senior-level management executives?” China questioned.

“Not really?” He shrugged and shook his head.

“Think, man,” Alexander ordered; his voice rose.

“I am!” Morgan responded, with an equal amount of force in his voice. He pulled his hands free and started rubbing them together as he started pacing the room. “Mom was there, along with my three lead foremen, Danny, Roger and the new guy, Big Usher.”

“Big Usher?” China asked, frowning.

“Yeah, he’s the new junior assistant. We hired him six months ago,” Morgan explained, stopping his movement.

“Just about the time the whistle-blower started providing information to the government,” China concluded.

“Usher’s a good kid...he’s not the whistle-blower. Besides, there’s nothing to blow,” Morgan reiterated.

“Who else was there?” China reached for a bottle of water.

“I can’t think of everyone. I don’t have your photographic memory, China.”

China laughed. “That’s for what I read, but you don’t need one. We can just pull the minutes from the meeting.” China picked up her phone and pulled down the recorder app, tapped it on and said, “Have the January operations notes pulled.” She sat the phone down. “This is the process we’ll have to follow with all of this information.”

“Mom’s contact really was efficient in pulling all this together,” Brice said.

Alexander raised his left eyebrow. “Are you really surprised?”

“Not at all.” Brice shook his head.

“What do we do after we get this list together?” Morgan asked.

“We go fishing,” Alexander replied. “Once we have our list of targets, we divide and conquer. Figure out who’s trying to sabotage us.”

“And?” Brice questioned, frowning. His eyes cut to Morgan, who stood with a menacing look on his face.

“Then you let me do my job,” China said, glaring at all three brothers. The last thing she needed was for them to take matters into their own hands. “In the meantime, I’ll work up our initial response to the complaint, which is basically a clear and precise denial. We have forty-five days to submit it. Hopefully we’ll figure out what’s really going on, too, sooner than later.”

“What if we don’t know what happened in forty-five days?” Morgan asked.

“We have a hundred and twenty days from the initial response to file our final one that will either substantiate our denial, as long as we provide solid evidence to back up our claim, or we can request an administrative oversight ruling.”

“An administrative oversight ruling...what the hell is that?” Alexander’s eyebrows stood at attention.

“It’s the EPA’s way of giving some companies an out without having to admit guilt to anything. It’s like saying we simply made a mistake. But...” China raised her right index finger. “Companies still must pay fines and clean-up expenses if necessary, and their reputations usually take a pretty big hit and...”

“And what?” Alexander asked.

“Someone usually has to resign,” China said, staring into Alexander’s eyes. She could see past the bluster of his anger to his vulnerability, and all she wanted to do was help him find his place of calm. In that moment, China’s body was reminding her that what was happening between them was much more than she’d ever expected.

“But everyone stays out of jail, right?” Brice asked, his whole face lit up.

“Right.” China smirked.

“There was no damn administrative oversight. It didn’t happen and I certainly didn’t steal from my own damn company,” Alexander insisted. She could almost see the anger radiating from his body.

“Of course not, but something happened, Alexander. We just have to prove what that was and that we’re innocent of any wrongdoing,” China explained.

“If we can.” Alexander ran his right hand through his hair.

“When we do, they’ll close the case and issue a letter clearing us,” China promised.

“If not?” Morgan questioned, pulling out his cell phone to silence the ringing.

“Things get a lot more complicated. The courts get involved,” China explained.

“What do we do about the media explosion that’s coming? Life is going to get really crazy...very quickly,” Morgan warned.

“It’s not like we’re not used to the attention,” Brice reminded him, offering a nonchalant shrug.

“True, but Mom usually nips it in the bud before things get out of hand. She won’t be able to stop this runaway train,” Alexander said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, the EPA thinks they’ve got us by the balls, so they’ll turn up the heat big-time.” Morgan cracked the knuckles of both his hands. “We have to give KJ and Travis a heads-up.”

Keylan James Kingsley, or KJ, was Victoria’s youngest son and a professional basketball player in the NBA. Travis Kingsley, the youngest child of Elizabeth, was a successful cattle rancher who preferred a private existence and had little to do with their family’s business.

“Travis is really going to love this,” Brice said mockingly.

“We’ll deal with that next week. Right now, let’s start going through all this material that Victoria bought...I mean, brought for us to review.” China’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on anyone as she started distributing the different stacks of paper.

“There go my dinner plans,” Morgan said, taking a seat at the conference table.

“Dinner? We’ll be lucky to get through all of this before the sun rises Monday morning,” Brice countered, picking up a stack of papers.

China took the seat offered by Alexander. His hands grazed her arms and a warm shiver ran down her spine. “Th-thank you.”

“Anytime,” he said, in a tone that garnered his brothers’ attention. He met their stares. “What?”

“Nothing,” both brothers said in unison, passing a look between them.

China kept her eyes on the documents in front of her. The last thing she needed was for the other Kingsley men to figure out something was different between her and Alexander.

“Let’s get to work, gentlemen,” China ordered.

* * *

Alexander sat at his desk reading over the list of names he’d been given to follow up on. After a painful two-day review of documents accusing him and their company of malicious malfeasance, Alexander didn’t feel any more confident in their plan to find the culprit behind the unsubstantiated accusations. He was reaching for his coffee cup when he heard his office door being opened. Alexander looked up to see his cousin Kristen almost bounce into the room.

Kristen, Elizabeth’s eldest child, was vice president of general operations and in line to take over Alexander’s role as COO upon his promotion to CEO.

“Good morning, Alexander,” Kristen called out cheerfully as she entered his office, holding an electronic tablet in one hand and a large travel mug for her coffee in the other. The black-and-white Chanel suit that covered her petite body was much like something his mother would wear, and her mother would revolt against, and it made him smile.

Alexander turned and faced his computer. “Kristen, you really should cut down on the caffeine.”

She took a seat in front of his desk and rested her cup on its corner. “And you, my dear cousin, really should focus on the problem at hand. Sorry I’m late. I got here as fast as I could.”

“Late for what?” he asked, his brow puckered as he tapped the keys of his computer.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t get my message.”

The night before, Kristen had left Alexander a twenty-minute-long voice mail outlining her plans for a press conference and the message she felt they needed to convey. She’d even followed that up with a detailed email.

“I got it,” he assured her.

“Good, because we really need to get out in front of the EPA’s announcement.” Kristen took a sip from her cup.

“I guess...”

“You guess.” Kristen tilted her head slightly and her nose crinkled. “I know you’ve been working nonstop on this thing for the last forty-eight hours, but you’ve got to pull it together before you and China go in front of those cameras for the press conference.”

Alexander’s mind flashed back to the last time he and China had come together, literally. He thought back to the way she looked, how she smelled and the way she tasted. “Alexander... Alexander,” Kristen said, knocking on his desk with her hand.

“What...?”

“You okay?” she questioned. “I lost you there for a minute.”

“I’m good...just tired.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Especially with China by my side,” he murmured, turning his attention back to the computer screen.

“What was that?” Kristen’s eyebrows came together and she sat forward in her chair. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Alexander kept his eyes on the screen.

“With you and China. Something happen I should know about?”

Definitely not. “Like what?”

“Anything that could be picked up by the cameras. A disagreement on how the investigation is being handled, maybe,” she suggested.

Alexander turned his head and met his cousin’s gaze. “Not at all. We’re all on the same page in that regard.”

“Good, because even the slightest hint of a crack in our united front will be picked up on by those media vultures.”

“China and I will be fine...just like always,” he pledged.

“Great. Now let’s go over your statement,” she said, powering up her tablet.

Alexander pushed out a breath. Before he could reply, there was a knock on the door just before it slowly opened. His longtime assistant, Tammy, stood in the doorway. “Excuse me, Alexander. China asked me to tell you that she’ll meet you at the press conference. She had to step out for a while.”

Alexander frowned. “Step out.” He checked his watch. “Did she say where she was going?”

“She went out for an early lunch,” Tammy explained.

“That’s fine. Thanks, Tammy.”

“No problem. By the way, that stewardess chick keeps calling for you. I guess she didn’t get the memo that once it’s over it’s over and calling me won’t help.”

“They prefer ‘flight attendant,’ and I’ll take care of it.”

Kristen narrowed her eyes. “Okay...spill. What’s going on, Alexander?”

Alexander knew how hard it was to get anything past the Kingsley women, but he certainly was going to try. The last thing he needed was for his cousin to start digging into his personal business. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you have a press conference you need to coordinate or something?”

“Avoidance. That’s something this family’s good at. Just remember what I said about the press picking up on anything out of the ordinary.” Kristen rose, collected her things and left the office.

“Sleeping with China is definitely out of the ordinary,” he said, slouching back in his chair, wishing he had another chance to do even more out of the ordinary things with China.