The Sandstone Affair

I slam my hands against the steering wheel. What the hell just happened in there? Why was there no warning of this? It didn’t make any sense! Mark made no mention of this when I last saw him. Those goddamn wolves. Was this the plan all along? String me along with promises of independent governance and then send me out the door with some bullshit, so they could have Lynx to themselves?

No. It can’t end like this. Maybe it would’ve been better if we had gone bankrupt in 2008, I could have taken that. We would have fought the fair fight and lost. But this, this is something else.

I look at the red folder the guard gently placed in the passenger seat on top of my old mail and Daddy’s hospital bills. Shit. How am I going to pay for Glenvale now? There’s no way insurance is going to cover a private hospital like that. I feel the first hot tears begin to pour down my cheek. Daddy. I can’t lose him too. Not when I had missed so many of Mom’s last days because I was caring for my struggling company. No. I need to be strong for Dad.

I’m pretty sure Kenneth Allen is watching me from my own office window. I want to flip him off and drive out in a show of bravado, but I can’t seem to get my arms to move. I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles are white, imagining my hands around the throat of Kenneth.

The tears keep coming, one after another until I put my head on the steering wheel and collapse in a heap of breathy, heaving sobs.

Oh my god. What am I going to do?

Chapter 2

It’s hard to drive with tears, anger and confusion all taking turns steering your brain. Amazingly, I manage to get home in one piece. I go over and over everything that sleazeball attorney told me and can’t find anything I can use to make this go away. Some of it isn’t unexpected. I know Blake hates me, and favors supporting Ladies World because it’s bigger and older. I know Kenneth is a slimy henchman who will do anything to put Blake on top. I know at forty-nine percent, I am at their mercy.

I open a bottle of wine and pick at a salad for dinner. After cataloging the “knows”, I turn my attention to the things I don’t know and my anger begins to override the numbness of the shock. What are they looking for in my computer?

Why didn’t Mark tell me when he turned over my account? Why didn’t he call me? I thought Mark was supposed to be on my side! The questions build inside me until I’ve given a name to everything I don’t understand: Mark Stone.

With a fury, I grab my keys and get in the car. All I know is that Mark Stone better be working late, and he better have some damn good answers.

Sure enough, there’s only one light in the office on the 6th floor of the building holding Sandstone’s offices. It’s Mark’s. I blitz through the lobby past security, the memory of the former security guard causing my wrist to ache, and hit the elevator for the sixth floor. The nameplate informs me the Law Offices of Allen and Martinez are on floor five, but their windows were dark. I’m sure Kenneth and Blake are out having a cocktail, toasting to the end of my future. I practically jump through the elevator door when it opens and find myself in the front hallway of Sandstone.

I enter quietly and turn down the hall to his office. Opening the door to his outer office, I see a light coming through the crack of the door to his personal office. The secretary’s chair is empty, her desk neatly organized with manila folders of deals and financial sheets. The quiet methodical tapping of the keyboard drifts through the silent office, and I pause for a second.

I should go. I’m a wreck. I can’t let him see me like this. Mark is the one person in this whole company I want to respect me, and truthfully, I’ve always wanted him to be interested in me for a little more than work.

I pace in his outer office, listening to him working on his computer. A framed picture of Mark, Blake and their father hangs on the wall. They’re posing next to a large swordfish, on the deck of a white yacht, the leather seats visible in the background. The rich bastard was supposed to help me, but instead, he pushed me down, stabbed me in the back and left me bleeding all over his tidy account register.

I storm forward, pushing open the door.

His untied tie hangs around his neck, and his shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. His sandy-brown hair and muscular chest give me a moment’s pause.

“Julia.” He looks up slowly as he sees me enter his office. “Are you okay?”

“Do you think I’m okay, Mark?”

“No,” he says somberly. “I’m sure you’re not. I’m sure it’s been a rough day.”

“A rough day? Is that what you call it? A rough day? Your firm closed down my office! Your lawyer humiliated me in front of my whole staff! You’ve taken away everything I ever had and will ever have. Yes, Mark, I’ve had a f**king rough day!”

“To be fair, Julia,” Mark says with his signature sense of accuracy and control. “Ken Allen is not my lawyer. He’s Blake’s.”

“Lynx was your account. The magazine was in your hands. Protecting it was your responsibility.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” He rises from his chair and walks around the desk. I can see my words have stung him. He’s not making eye contact. “There’s a lot here that you don’t understand.”

“Of course I don’t understand, Mark. I don’t understand why I’ve just lost my life’s work.” In my anger, the jabs turn mean and petty. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? Because this isn’t your life’s work, is it? No, it’s your Daddy’s life work. It was passed down to you and Blake to carry on the Stone dynasty. You’ve had everything given to you your entire life. All you’ve ever had to do was make Daddy happy.”

“That’s enough, Julia! Sit down.”

I know I’ve gone too far, but I can’t stop now.

“No! You sit down. I’m tired of taking orders from Sandstone executives. This is your fault, Mark. Yours!”

Mark opens his arms to try to catch or guide me into a chair, but I propel myself at him, hitting him in the chest with my fists. I feel my hands hit the solid muscle of his body, and I strike at him again and again. He catches my arms and pulls me close to him, close enough to catch his strong masculine scent of smoky cinnamon and leather. With his red, angry face inches away from me, he spits as he spews his defense in my face.

“Dammit, why do you have to be so stubborn, Julia? You think this helps? You think refusing to listen to anybody else but yourself is going to get your position back? Let me tell you something. Your ‘boobs of steel’ act where you play the tough broad breaking the glass ceiling with her bare hands isn’t what made you a success in this business. You’ve just been getting by with it, and now it’s pushed you right out the door. ”