A man three down from Ginny jumped in his seat. “Y-yes?”
“Where are we on ZenGen?”
Parker rattled off test results while Ginny opened the vault in her brain where she’d stored the verbiage needed to decipher his presentation. She was digesting the trial run results and formulating a follow-up question when Jillian savagely drew a line across the page where she took notes. The sound was like a zipper closing the topic.
“Tanya—you’re up.”
Tanya ran her hand down the long braid draped over her shoulder and then flipped it behind her. She spoke with more authority and composure than Parker had during his update.
For one and a half hours, Ginny listened as two projects were tabled for insufficient progress and the teams reassigned. Nothing new was put in the works.
“That will be all.” Jillian dismissed them with a flick of her wrist.
“Wait!” Ginny half stood. Everyone froze in place, like mannequins in a store window. Parker held a pen in front of him that he was about to tuck into his suit pocket. Greg had one arm up, like a sprinter, his leg lifted to walk forward. Everyone else looked just as ridiculous. “What’s happening with InfantPure?”
She’d set the project in motion nearly eleven years ago. When she’d left, it was one of the top priorities in a meeting like this. The overall excitement for a pill that could save lives had been palpable. When Jillian had taken over the company, she’d assured Ginny InfantPure would remain their main focus.
Looks were exchanged, but no one answered.
Ginny pivoted and pinned Jillian with a look. “You do remember InfantPure, don’t you?”
Jillian glanced at the motionless room. “Get out,” she said like a low rumble over the grassy plains that indicated a storm was on the move.
No one had to be forced out of the room. They ran like zebras before a lioness. Jack didn’t run; he paused to pat Ginny on the shoulder on his way out. Jillian didn’t spare him a glance. He was too valuable to fire, but it was obvious where his loyalties lay. Still, he wouldn’t do anything to harm the company, so Jillian was safe keeping him around.
“Jillian, you made me a promise.”
“InfantPure was a financial suck. It drained our resources.”
Ginny smacked her hands on the table and leaned forward. “It can stop babies from getting AIDS.” When a mother who was HIV positive gave birth, the baby didn’t automatically contract HIV. They got the disease when they were breastfed. In underdeveloped countries, mothers had no choice but to breastfeed because formula and bottles weren’t available. InfantPure was the solution to that problem. Baby formula in pill form could be distributed with ease, and the company could flood low-income countries with enough of the product to circumvent a black market from developing.
“Not only was the research expensive; you wanted to give it away forfree. This isn’t a charity.”
“I want to save innocent lives.”
“What about our employees? What about their children? They deserve to play soccer and eat Costco cookies and not have to sacrifice for a vision that’s unreachable.”
“First-world problems, Jillian.”
Jillian shook her finger in Ginny’s face. “Don’t you dare get on your high horse here—not in my boardroom.”
Ginny folded her arms. “See, that’s where you’ve got it wrong. This isn’t your boardroom. It’s mine.”
Jillian threw her pen across the room. It clattered against the glass, bouncing into the back of a chair. “You left. Brent only left this company to you so you’d have to come home one day. He couldn’t see what the rest of us could, though.”
“And what is that?” Ginny challenged.
“You’re a spoiled child who thinks you’re better than the rest of us.”
“I care about people.”
“You’re free to care about them because you don’thaveto worry about money.”
“Mrs. Lockwood?” Chloe, Jillian’s personal secretary, stood in the doorway, looking like a kitten who’d stumbled into a junkyard dog fight. “Mr. Yin is on line one for you.”
Jillian gathered up her things. “Excuse me, Virginia. Some of us have to work for a living.”
Ginny glared after her. Jillian didn’t know Ginny, hadn’t seen her use a small bucket to bathe or hold a child who was dying in her arms and weep. She’d given her shoes to a mother who had to walk five miles to get water every day.
