Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

I open up my laptop and go over the statistics from the past few years. It’s all clearer and clearer in my head the more I talk.

I finally look up at everyone again. “We don’t want to just be another robotics company out there. That was never our goal. Lennox Brothers is about pushing the envelope, being the best robotics company in the Silicon Valley, always on the cutting edge.”

I pause and look at each person, from face to face. “So I don’t think we have any other choice but to switch to a RISC based processor with our next launch.”

Talk immediately erupts around the table.

Kayla speaks up. “But we already have contracts in place with our current suppliers. We can’t just—”

“We have bids from our current suppliers,” I correct. “I checked and know for a fact that we haven’t committed to anyone for the new line yet.”

Kayla’s mouth drops open but then she closes it again, looking to Darren. She’s not the only one. About half the table is looking my brother’s way, like they expect him to put a stop to what I’m saying or put me in line.

I frown. All riiiiiight. Apparently more has slipped in the past few years than I realized. I am still the CEO.

But Dare has my back, just like always.

“I’ve been hearing murmurs about the RISC chips here and there,” Darren says.

“It’s more than murmurs,” I say. “RISC chips reduce consumption and can work up to ten times faster than the old style of processors. Half the community is already convinced RISC chips are the future of robotics, and if we can be on the frontier of integrating—”

“What about the other half?” Rob cuts in. “Doesn’t that mean that the other half thinks they’re a bad idea? I mean, when did status quo become the bad guy? We did a seven billion dollar quarter last year. We should go with what we know works.” He lets out a huffed laugh. “You don’t gamble when it comes to seven billion dollars.”

Who the fuck let this guy in here? This is a meeting about the product and he’s some asshole in a suit.

“Yes,” I say, conscious to stay absolutely calm on the outside. “But the reason we did that seven-billion-dollar quarter is because of our product and brand. Because people know they can trust that Lennox Brothers Robotics are always at the forefront of the state of the art. Our brand is everything. If we lose that confidence by putting out a product they can get anywhere else that’s slower than our competitors, then—"

“How about this?” Darren interrupts me.

I glare his way but he puts out a pacifying hand and I can see from his look that he’s pleading for me to hear him out.

Which is when I remember that yeah, while I’ve been checked out, it’s Dare who’s been steering this ship singlehandedly while I holed away down in in engineering and let the months and years pass me by.

I nod toward him and take my seat.

“My brother’s right,” Dare starts and I struggle not to smile at the reactions of the suits to his words. They all look like they’re sucking on lemons.

“Lennox is all about consumer trust,” Dare says, “and we can’t break that by giving them anything other than the most superior product.”

“But,” he raises a hand again when it seems like he’s going to get talk back, “we can only guarantee the most superior product if we can build it and get it working flawlessly. All the companies who’ve bid to have their processor used in our robotics board have sent along prototypes. So let’s do extensive testing and let the data speak for itself. Which processor gets the job done best in the fastest time? Let’s find that out, and then make our decisions.”

And this is why my brother is the face of Lennox Bros. Dare is so damn good with people. I assume that when I produce facts, that logical action will follow. I know the RISC processor will produce the best results without jumping through all the hoops of testing it against the others. But Darren sees what I can’t—that to appease the suits, we’ll need charts and defensible evidence to prove their money will be safe.

The rest of the meeting is logistics, organizing the order of testing the processors and which team leads will head up who, along with making a timeline. We won’t have long, three weeks or a month at most, but that will be pushing it if we want to keep to our current production schedule, six months out.

Two hours later, the meeting breaks up and Darren shakes everyone’s hand and chats as they all leave. I stay seated, phone in hand. Now that the meeting’s over, I’m back to staring at Miranda’s text.