My father’s nostrils flared again. Taut silence stretched between us, but then his jaw clenched, and I knew I’d won.
Maybe he was as tired of fighting as I was. Or maybe, just maybe, he heard me… and he understood.
“We’ll discuss after the second launch event,” he said, switching back to English. “I assume you’ll want a new contract with new terms.”
“No contract. I’ll take you at your word.”
It was my peace offering. It was also a big gamble on my part, but trust ran both ways.
Surprise and a touch of respect flickered across my father’s face before he shut it down. “Fine,” he said gruffly. “If you pull off the second launch, the terms from our original contract stand.”
“Deal.”
We shook on it.
Unlike the first time we negotiated this deal, my focus wasn’t on planning a flawless event to spite my father because it was never really about him.
I didn’t have to prove my worth to him.
I had to prove it to myself.
CHAPTER 43
Maya
OUR CONFRONTATION WITH CHARLES WHITAKER WASthe domino that tipped the rest over. Once we cornered him into confessing, everything else fell into place.
He kept his end of the bargain and admitted to his wrongdoings during a highly televised press conference the following Monday. He also resigned as CEO and fled New York, disgraced. In the wake of his confession, Whitaker Farms’s stock nosedived so hard, they were still picking pieces of its carcass off the ground.
Unfortunately for him, their stock crash was the least of his troubles. The journalists who’d witnessed our showdown at the steakhouse had spent the weekend sniffing around for dirt. One of them hit the jackpot soon after the press conference and published an exposé about Whitaker Farms’s food fraud practices, which included unapproved additives, mislabeling of origins, and false claims about their products’ organic status.
Once that story took off, the other media piled on, and the truth about his other crimes unraveled like a cheap sweater. It only took a month for all this to come to light.
The Whitaker saga was the biggest scandal to hit the business world in years. It also meant that both Singh Foods and the Laurent Restaurant Group were cleared of any previous suspicions regarding food safety.
That made it easier to plan our second launch. It was a much more intimate, no-frills affair held at the Vault’s private event space. We’d scheduled it for the end of July, nearly two months after our original launch.
Everyone we’d invited to our first launch RSVP’d yes to this one as well. Sebastian and I also invited our families, who were seated at their own section near the kitchen.
This time, there were no fancy place settings or sweeping views. It was all about the food.
“I have to admit, this wasn’t how I’d imagined your story playing out,” Hollis Miller said upon arrival. He didn’t say hi or acknowledge the greeter trying to hand him a welcome drink. “Good job. Guess you deserve your reputation as a marketing genius after all.”
“Thank you.” I smiled. “But in the spirit of brutal honesty—since that’s your catchphrase—I’d like to assure you that Ido not carewhat you think of me personally. You’re a jerk, but you’re a jerk who gets a lot of views, which is the only reason you’re here.” I took the drink from the greeter and handed it to him. “Enjoy your dinner.”
Shock crossed his face before it dissolved into laughter. “I like you, Singh. Keep up the good work.” He took the drink and walked away.
What a dick.
At least he hadn’t taken offense at my jab. I’d couched it in a way that I knew he wouldn’t, but it had to be said.
Plus, as much as he irritated me, I appreciated that he hadn’t joined last month’s media pile-on. His video about our first launch had been surprisingly fair, though I guess it was easier to gloss over all the vomiting when you yourself hadn’t been a victim of it.
Once everyone was seated, Ezra gave me a thumbs-up from his spot near the kitchen.
The doors opened; dinner was served.
I held my breath the entire night—if it went off the rails, we wouldn’t get a third chance—but everything went flawlessly from start to finish. Sebastian had tweaked the menu so we didn’t servethe same courses as last time, and the reception was phenomenal. The guests enjoyed tonight’s menu even more than the first one (pre-laxatives).
