“Worth considering?” Cass’s stomach contracted sharply as she took in the seriousness of Alex’s expression. How could she be talking about selling so coolly? To Cass, it would be like selling her own child. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Shouldn’t we consider a lucrative income stream when it’s presented?” Alex argued. “We can’t categorically dismiss that kind of paycheck.”
They could when it was coming out of the bank account of the man who had destroyed Cass. Didn’t that matter?
“Wait just a darn minute, Ms. Moneybags.” Harper rounded on Alex, who shrank a bit under the redhead’s scowl. “Formula-47 is my baby, not yours. I spent two years of my life perfecting it on the premise that we’d hinge our entire future strategy around the products we can create from the technology. If we sell it, we’re giving up rights to it forever for a lump sum. That’s not smart.”
Alex tapped her pen faster against the legal pad. “Not if we retain rights and structure the deal—”
“No one is structuring deals,” Cass broke in. “I only mentioned it because you needed to know. Gage’s offer will vanish instantly if the leak shares the formula’s recipe. And since we still don’t know who it is, we have to focus on that first.”
Alex firmed her mouth and nodded. “That’s true.”
“What did our lawyer say?” Trinity asked, raising her eyebrows as Cass blinked at her. “Didn’t you just come back from Mike’s office?”
“God, I’m sorry.” Cass slid down in her chair an inch in mortification. Gage had wiped that entire meeting out of her head. “Mike doesn’t think we can involve the police yet. The article didn’t contain enough detail and wouldn’t stand up in court as proprietary information. He advised us to file for FDA approval immediately, in hopes that will stem future information from being released prematurely. Until we find the leak, we can’t be too careful.”
She had to regain control now. Gage wasn’t a factor. Period.
“I’m not ready.” Harper shook her head mulishly. Careful and thorough might as well be tattooed on her forehead alongside her credentials, a valuable trait in a scientist who created the products with Fyra’s label on them. “This is our first product that requires FDA approval. We can’t rush it.”
“So our lawyer gave us advice we don’t plan to take.” Pradas flat on the ground, Trinity leaned on the table. “What else do we have on the agenda that we need to get busy shooting down?”
“The leak is the only thing on the agenda,” Cass said firmly.
Alex zeroed in on her. “What’s your plan for fixing this problem, then?”
“I’m still working on it.”
“You’re working on it.” Alex’s sarcastic tone couldn’t have conveyed her disbelief any more clearly. “You mean you don’t have something laid out already?”
Cass froze her muscles, a trick she’d perfected over the years. She refused to let on that Alex’s words had pierced her through the chest.
Alex’s point wasn’t lost on her. Cass should have a plan. But didn’t, which was the last thing she’d admit to these women who were looking to her for leadership. “I’ve got some ideas. Things in the works.”
“Things?” Trinity repeated incredulously.
Trinity and Alex glanced at each other and foreboding slid down Cass’s spine. She was losing her edge. And everyone knew she didn’t have a blessed clue how to handle this problem.
“I said I’ll take care of it,” Cass snapped and then immediately murmured an apology.
She couldn’t believe how the meeting had deteriorated, how much it hurt to have Alex on the other side of these critical company issues. There were fractures in Fyra she hadn’t known existed. Fractures in the relationships with her friends and business partners that scared her. Was Alex disputing her ideas because she had lost confidence in Cass’s ability to run Fyra?
And what was with that look Alex and Trinity had exchanged? Did they know Cass had lied about how much Gage had affected her? And Trinity hadn’t defended Cass, not when Gage’s offer had come up and not when Alex had attacked Cass for her lack of a plan.
It all rubbed at the raw place inside that Gage had opened up.
Cass cleared her throat and forced her CEO mask back into place. Emotions had no place in a boardroom, yet she’d been letting them run rampant thus far. It was much harder than she would have expected to shut it down given all the practice she had.