“Others got promoted ahead of me even though they came to me for help with their code.”
She was right. I was willfully fucking blind to what was happening right under my nose.
I can see it now, like someone’s ripped off my blindfold.
Structural sexism. That’s what the report calls it. Not just Craig being a bastard, though Christ knows he was, but theentire rotten system I built that let bastards thrive while brilliant women got crushed beneath them.
I failed her. As a CEO. As a leader. As a man who claimed to give a damn about his people.
How was I so blind?
Craig went green when I hauled him in here at the weekend. Properly sick-looking, because he knew if this landed on him, he’d be out. That’s the deal at his level. You take the massive salary, the corner office, the executive title, and when you fuck up this badly, you’re gone.
The bastard was just scrambling to save his own backside, protecting his six-figure salary. He knew exactly what he’d done, knew those emails would prove she was right, so he deleted them. Made her look like a liar rather than admit his own incompetence.
That’s who I believed. That’s who I chose over her.
The Forbes accreditation is dead. My reputation’s fucked. The industry press will feast on this. But that’s nothing compared to the rot I let spread through my company while I sat in my executive bubble. Problems I let fester because I treated my business like the building site I started on.
I need to fix those first.
HR’s already implementing everything we discussed: a complete restructure of management practices across all properties. They’re auditing every department for power abuse, setting up anonymous reporting systems that protect people instead of just covering the company’s arse. Proper bias training too, not the tick-box shite we’ve been doing for years where everyone watches a video and learns nothing.
It’s too little, too late for Georgie. She won’t come back now, and she shouldn’t. I want her to soar with IRIS, and she will, because she’s shown how strong she truly is. I want her to forget McLaren Hotels ever existed, except maybe when we’re on ourknees begging her to let us keep using her software. I hope she charges us double what she’d charge anyone else. We’ve earned it.
But it stops the next Craig from destroying the next Georgie while the next Patrick sits in his corner office, deliberately ignorant.
The press release about IRIS goes out tomorrow, making sure the entire tech industry knows it’s hers. Her name and her innovation. At least I can give her that.
My lawyers went apoplectic when I signed over the IP rights. “Even if it’s not core business, you’re giving away company assets.”
They can fuck off.
Liam, surprisingly, understood. I thought he’d tear me apart. Instead, he just said, “If she matters to you, then she matters more than the business.” Coming from a man whose favorite hobby is hostile takeovers, that’s practically poetry.
I saw what happened when he and Gemma split before they sorted themselves out—he was a shell. The man knows the cost of choosing wrong.
I want to choose what’s right for Georgie.
I was so bloody terrified of being another controlling older man that I became something worse: a coward who let her suffer rather than fight for her.
I meet Liam and Edward at Liam’s house in Richmond, a mansion that looks like a bomb’s gone off thanks to my two-year-old nephew.
Liam’s holding the wee terrorist when I arrive. Edward’s slumped on the sofa after a twelve-hour shift at the hospital. Both men look wrecked.
“Uncle Pat!” Liam Junior shrieks, launching himself at my legs with what appears to be jam-covered hands.
“Christ, he’s absolutely covered in it.” I laugh, picking him up anyway. My shirt’s fucked now, but the kid’s grin is worth it.
“Everything’s covered in jam,” Liam says wearily. “My suits. The rug Gemma loves. Somehow, the cat. I found jam on the fu—” He glances at his son. “—flippingtoilet.”
“Rough night?” I ask, bouncing my nephew, who’s now trying to stick his jammy fingers in my mouth.
“This tiny tyrant’s harder than takeovers. At least finance bros eventually sleep.” Liam collapses into his chair. “Get yourself and Edward drinks, will you? You know where everything is.”
I hand him back his son, pad into his kitchen and pour three glasses from my own distillery’s eighteen-year. Might as well drink the good stuff.
“What’s the current situation?” Edward asks when I hand him his glass, looking more alert now that there’s whisky involved.
