Brother to the Boss (Managing the Bosses 8)

“As you know, Mr. Reid's life circumstances, and therefore his priorities, have changed drastically in the past few years. And even more so since his children were born. Before now—” There was the sound of a club cracking against a ball, “he was totally devoted to Reid Enterprises. Fully prepared to work himself to death, I think, to keep his business going.”

“And now he's not?”

“And now he has a wife and two babies to think about. And when he's spending all of his time at work he's not spending time with them, which I'm sure is distressing for his wife. Jamie wants him home.”

There was a moment of silence, and Mark wished that he could see what was happening, but installing cameras had been out of the question.

“I happen to know,” Nicholas went on, “that they've been fighting recently, and that the last fight was pretty nasty.”

How the fuck could he know that?”

“He fought with his brother, too. Everyone at the country club knows that. They don't know what exactly about, but they know that he stormed out and hasn't come back since. Mark and I have a great understanding. He knows how his brother is. He agrees with me.”

Mark took a breath and let it out slowly. Of course Nicholas was going to say shit like that. Of course he was.

“So what I'm merely suggesting is that Mr. Reid has to be torn between his business and his family. And eventually he's going to have to make a decision. If he chooses his business, he could lose his wife. If he chooses his family, then he's not going to be bringing in the kinds of results that you are all used to. Either way, someone loses out.” Another pause. “It's not that I think he's doing anything wrong. Anyone in his position would be struggling. It's that I don't think it's fair to him to have all of the pressure of the company on his shoulders when he also has a family to raise.”

Oh, right. That was exactly what Nicholas thought. Slimy bastard.

“So what you're saying,” a voice Mark vaguely recognized said, “is that Mr. Reid has too much on his shoulders.”

“Exactly.”

There was another clack of club against ball, and then Mark heard their footsteps. They were moving down toward the green.

“And what do you propose to do about that?” a woman asked.

“I'm proposing that we take a little bit of the weight off Mr. Reid. He needs to be free to spend more time with his family, without being worried that his business will suffer. If you unanimously vote to bring someone in to help with the running of the company, then he'll have to comply with your wishes, majority owner or not.”

“He already has Zander,” one of the board members said. “Who, as far as I can tell, is excellent at his job.”

There was a quiet laugh that Mark was sure had been Nicholas.

“Oh, believe me, I have nothing bad to say about Zander. I'm sure that he's excellent at what he does, and that his help is invaluable to Mr. Reid. But he's also a subordinate. Which means that he can't really say anything and expect Alex to listen. Because Alex has veto power. What he really needs is someone on equal footing with him. Someone who can take care of the company in the same way he does and give him some time to spend with his family.”

“And that someone would be...?”

Him, of course, Mark thought bitterly. As though he hadn't been trying to get his claws into Reid Enterprises all along. How stupid were they not to see that? Maybe it was time for Alex to get some new board members, because the current ones didn't seem to be all that great at their jobs.

“Well,” Nicholas said, “I can't tell you who it should be, because I'm not exactly impartial. I would say choose someone who also has a lot of stock in the company. Someone who will genuinely care about it.”

And Nicholas just so happened to hold the most company stock after Alex. Mark's jaw tightened until it almost hurt. He could see now why Alex had been so wary of Nicholas, and so sure that Mark would do something stupid because of him. The man seemed to practically mesmerize people. He had the board members practically eating out of his hand. There were a few more, Mark knew, probably the ones he hadn't been able to get to, but they weren't enough of a majority to actually save Alex's place in his business.

Of course, Alex could just fire them all and run the business completely on his own, but that wouldn't help at all with Alex's family situation, and as much as Mark hated to admit it Nicholas had actually been right about that. Alex was going to have to choose between family and work, and even though Mark was sure he already knew what Alex would choose he didn't think the board had any right to shoehorn themselves into that decision. When Alex chose family over work, then they could start talking about trying to find someone to help fill the gaps. Until then, they needed to leave it alone.

“That someone wouldn't happen to be you, would it?” one of the women asked. He thought it was the first woman who had spoken. She sounded less like she was asking something from a business perspective, and more like she was flirting with him.

“Not unless the board thought it was a good idea,” Nicholas answered. “I wouldn’t want to assume anything.”

He was assuming a lot of things. Including assuming that Alex wouldn’t catch him.

What they needed was a way to force him out. Make him sell all of his stock in the business and ensure that he wouldn’t ever buy any more. The problem was that Mark had no idea how to do that.

The conversation changed, then, and they didn’t talk about Reid Enterprises anymore. Mark pulled off the headphones he’d been wearing, setting them down on the table with the laptop, and called down to Christine to let her know that he was taking messages again. There hadn’t been any for him in the time that he’d been listening to Nicholas schmoozing the board.

He needed something that he could prove. At least to Nicholas. Some kind of leverage. He straightened up and pulled his laptop closer, typing a search into Google.

Chapter 14