“Glad to be here, Gerald,” I said. “And it’s Liam.”
Bonnie caught my eye. She must have told them I’d gone by Liam Roth for the last fifteen years—or had she left that out intentionally? We both knew it didn’t hurt that my family name went before me.
“I appreciate the trouble your team’s gone to with the catering, Gerald.” I gestured to the food. “It looks superb.”
Gerald reddened. “Yes. Actually, there was one thing I wanted to—”
“Liam, this is Victor, the CFO,” said Bonnie, gesturing to the short man with gray hair who materialized in front of me.
I braced myself for an onslaught of handshaking—my worst nightmare. I’d rather give a speech to a room of hundreds of people than make small talk. Three minutes of corporate butt kissing and I was nostalgic for enemy fire.
I refocused my mind on the objective. It would be done soon—I could tolerate this.
The sooner we could get into discussions about what I had planned for Novexia, the better.
*
“Claire’s sorted your schedule for the next five days.” Bonnie closed her MacBook.
The meet and greets were over, and we were back in my Mayfair apartment. A couple of hours, then we had the “Welcome To Our New Owner” party.
More unbearable arse kissing.
I didn’t think I’d be signing up for this—at least, not this much of it—when I’d decided to buy Novexia. Pharmaceuticals was a long way from the closed trading rooms where I’d first learned just how much money moved through collectibles, and the careful years backing sensible tech. And it was nothing like the straightforward logic of the RAF.
If I’d known how much bullshit and ego were involved in something of this scale, I might have thought twice. Though for reasons I preferred not to examine too closely, walking away had never really been an option.
I was lying on my back on the bed. It was nice to be home, although it wasn’t as if anyone—or anything—had missed me. I might as well have been in a hotel.
Bonnie sat on the mattress. She dropped her glasses to the end of her nose and looked at me over the top of the rims. “Now, Liam. Do you want to tell me what that was all about with the girl?”
I put my hands behind my head and fixed my eyes on the ceiling. “Well, yes—”
Definitely,no.
“It was odd. To put it mildly.” She took off her glasses and placed them on the bed.
I propped myself up against the pillows. “Sorry, Bonnie. It was completely my fault.”
“And?” She wasn’t happy. “How exactly does something like that happen when you’ve only been in the building for—what—an hour?”
“I think she may have got… confused.”
“I think that’s obvious, don’t you?”
Bonnie had known me since we went to primary school. She knew mytells,and she didn’t suffer fools. She was theperfect person for this role. But she never let me get away with anything.
“She was the one I got stuck in the lift with. I told you when I texted you.”
“Oh. Sothatwas Andrea Jones. Well, that’s an extra complication we didn’t need. I assume you completed the incident report and filed your statement, like I told you to?”
“Of course.”
“And has she?”
“I assume so, Bonnie. I’m not her HR manager.”
“Very helpful. You know, I’ve got enough on my hands locking this down with the media. Can you imagine what would happen if someone leaked this? A paramedic or one of the repair technicians? I can see the headlines now.Billionaire Playboy’s Lift Horror With Junior Staffer Rocks Novexia: Questions Raised About Safety. Not exactly the sort of PR I was planning. And if the girl isn’t thinking of suing yet, she probably will be when she smells the money.”
