“I’m not sure they’ll know about book advertising sites, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Even if they’ve never marketed children’s books, they know about buyer behavior and what makes people look at different ads. Sometimes, that’s all you need to start a revolution.”
Katie grinned. “I don’t want to start a revolution. All I want is for someone to buy my books.”
“If your stories are as amazing as you are, they’ll fly off the digital shelves.”
The heat of a blush swept across her face. If Peter said things like that, she’d get the wrong idea about why they were here. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I still have a long way to go before I can sell anything.”
And even though Peter had offered to help, she was still worried. What if, in all her plans, she’d ignored the one obvious problem.
What if no one liked her books?
CHAPTER6
The following afternoon, Peter sat at his desk, studying the latest trial results. They were even better than the data he’d already included in his report.
After three years of pushing his staff to think beyond what they’d ever imagined a prosthetic limb could become, he was almost ready to start phase two of the project. He just hoped the funders he’d contacted were still interested in supporting the project.
His cell phone pinged and he opened the message from David O’Dowd, the Clinical Director of BioTech. When he read the brief email, his heart sank.
Throughout the entire project every scrap of information was classified as top secret. Until they were ready to commercially manufacture the prosthetic limbs, his company couldn’t afford to let anyone know what they were doing.
With his heart pounding, he called David. “How did it happen?”
“I don’t know, but we’re working on it. The only good thing is that the person who leaked the report doesn’t have the latest information.”
Peter opened the link David had included in his email. At least the story hadn’t made the front page ofThe New York Times.“What did our legal team say?”
“They want us to launch an investigation into how the data was released. Solomon is already onto it. They’re also fielding questions from other companies as well as the public.”
“Have you contacted the trial participants?”
“Janice is doing that as we speak. We’re reassuring them that their personal information hasn’t been compromised and reminding them not to speak to the media. You’ll probably get a few phone calls.”
Peter rubbed his forehead. Receiving a few phone calls was the least of his worries. Releasing any trial outcomes before the final data had been analyzed could jeopardize any future funding. “I’ll call Matt and Antonia. They’ll want to let their staff know what’s happened.”
“Already done. After the forensic team has finished in our offices, they’ll head across to Antonia and Matt’s staff and look at their computers. Everyone who has a work laptop is bringing it into the office tonight. It won’t take long to work out how the leak happened.”
He hoped not. Any breach in security was taken extremely seriously, especially when multimillion-dollar deals were involved. “Give me a few minutes to read the information you’ve sent through. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve finished.”
“Try not to worry. It could have been a lot worse.”
Peter looked at the half-finished report sitting on his desk. If anyone got their hands on that information, three years of intensive research would be down the drain. “If you need to call me, use my personal cell phone number.”
“Good idea. I’ll talk to you soon.”
After checking his voicemail, Peter turned off his work cell phone. The only other time he’d done that was when his dad had a heart attack. He’d wanted to focus on his family and not be tempted to answer any calls about the company’s latest projects.
This time, the only thing he wanted to do was find the person responsible for leaking the information. He only hoped that if they’d known how important the information was, they wouldn’t have done it.
* * *
“I thoughtyou’d finished work for the day.”
Peter looked up from his laptop at Zac. “We had an emergency.”
“Is everything okay?”
