“Yet,” he adds with dark humor.
We eat. The wine helps. Or maybe makes things worse. I’m not sure which.
“Why did you fire your staff?” The question comes out before I can stop it.
He tilts his head. “Mmm?”
“When I woke up after the fever, you told me you fired the team responsible for the helicopter?” I remind him.
“Ah.” He sets down his fork and takes a long drink of wine. For a moment I think he’s not going to answer. Then he does. “My security team. I fired my security team.”
“Why?”
“I blamed them for a document leak,” I reply. “It was more of an emotional firing. Because it wasn’t really their fault. You see, my protégé leaked the documents.”
I blink. “What?”
“Derek. He worked for me for five years. I mentored him, trusted him, treated him like a son.” His voice is flat but I can hear the pain underneath. “He’s the one who gave those internal reports to the press. About Brazil. About the environmental damage we caused.”
Oh.
Oh.
That’s not what I expected.
“Why?” I ask quietly.
“He’s not a white knight, if that’s what you’re thinking... an environmental crusader disguised as a white-collar executive. No. For Derek, it was all about money. A competitor paid him tosabotage me. It wasn’t about principles or doing the right thing. Just...greed.” He laughs bitterly. “The irony isn’t lost on me.”
I take another sip of wine. “That’s rough.”
“Is it?” He looks at me then, and his eyes are sharp. “He exposed information that needed exposing. Your grandmother’s village and others like it? All the people who got sick around the world? That’s on me. I signed off on those extraction methods. I knew we were cutting corners. I told myself it was necessary for the greater good.”
“The greater good,” I repeat.
He nods. “We talked about this before. Every green technology needs rare earth minerals, remember?” He drains his wine glass. “I wonder... does that make me the villain in this story? Or perhaps the necessary evil that makes everyone’s environmental dreams possible?”
He’s not entirely wrong.
I hate that he’s not entirely wrong.
“You could extract those minerals without poisoning groundwater,” I say finally. “It would cost more, cut into your profits, but it’s possible. You chose not to.”
“I did,” he admits. “Yes, you’re right about that. And people suffered for it.”
We sit in silence, listening to the wind howling against the windows.
I refill both our wine glasses. My head is already buzzing but I need something to do with my hands.
“Damaged systems can heal,” I hear myself say. “You have to stop the harm first.”
He’s watching me intently. “Even me?”
I’m taken aback. “What?”
“Can I be healed? After everything I’ve done?”
The vulnerability in his voice... the look on his face... the words... it all catches me off guard. This isn’t the same billionaire who opened the door three days ago.
