Victoria Pade - Not Strictly Business! - Prodigal Son / The Boss and Miss Baxter / The Baby Deal

He heard someone knock on his office door, then push it open. He turned toward the sound.

“You’re working late,” Samantha said as she walked toward him. “I had a feeling you would still be here. You executive types—always going the extra mile. Doesn’t being so conscientious get—” She stopped in mid-stride and stared at him. “What’s wrong?”

So much for a poker face, he thought grimly. There was no point in keeping the truth from her. He would be calling an emergency board meeting first thing in the morning. Time was critical. The financial information would have to be disclosed, first to the board, and then to the investors and the financial world. His father had insisted on taking the company public, which meant playing by the rules of the SEC.

“I found a second set of books,” he said, nodding toward his desk. “My father kept them by hand. I’ve checked them against the computer financial statements and they don’t add up. He was concealing massive expenditures and losses.”

Samantha’s eyes widened. “Fraud?”

“That’s one word for it. I can think of fifty others. We’re going to have to do a complete audit and find out the true financial situation. I doubt it’s going to be good news. We’re talking about a possible SEC investigation, plenty of bad press and downturn in the stock price.” He returned his attention to the view. “At least the family owns a majority of the shares. We don’t have to worry about a total sell-off. There will be a hit in our price, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Not with a new management team in place and complete disclosure.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

“You and me, both. Not exactly what you want to hear about your new employer. Ready to cut and run?”

“What? Of course not.” She moved next to him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not happy, if that’s what you mean. Just once, I’d like to be surprised by good news.”

“Jack, you’re talking about your father. That he concealed material financial information. That’s a big deal.”

“Good thing he’s dead, then. Otherwise, he’d be going to jail.”

He sounded so calm, Samantha thought. As if all this were happening to someone else. From what she knew, Jack and his father had never been tight, but this had to be hard for him. No one wanted to find out a parent had committed a crime.

“He wasn’t a bad man,” she said, not knowing if there was any way to make this easier for Jack. “Maybe he just got in over his head.”

He looked at her. “You’re trying to justify what he did?”

“Of course not. But from everything I’ve heard, he wasn’t evil.”

“He doesn’t have to be evil to have broken the law. People do it all the time.” He shook his head. “I’m almost not surprised. He ran several departments himself. He couldn’t give up the control. Maybe this was just another way of holding on tight. The numbers weren’t what he wanted them to be, so he modified them. No wonder he wasn’t big on change—technology would have made it tough for him to hide the truth.”

“But he did,” she said.

“In spades. I wonder if David knows about this?”

“Are you going to ask him?”

“I’m going to ask everyone,” Jack said. “The only way to ward off a crisis is to have a plan in place to solve the problem and to find anyone who may have helped him.”

“You don’t think he acted alone?”

“Unlikely. But I know it was his idea.”

“You might want to talk to Helen,” Samantha said before she could stop herself. “She may know something.”

Jack glanced at her. “You think she was involved?”

“What? No! Helen wouldn’t do anything like this. But she might be able to tell you if George was acting stressed or if he suddenly seemed to change. She might have some suggestions.”

His mouth twisted. “I don’t need shopping advice.”

Samantha stiffened at the insult to her friend. “Is that what you think of her? That she’s a useless bimbo who only cares about clothes and jewelry?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know the woman.”

“And why is that? She’s been a part of this family for a while now. Why weren’t you interested in even trying to get to know her?”

“I’m familiar with the type.”

“Helen isn’t a type. She’s a person and she’s not the person you imagine her to be. How interesting. You think your father got himself and the company in this position because he held on too tight to outdated ideas. It seems to me that you’re a lot like that, too.”

Samantha took notes as one of her team members wrapped up his presentation. “Great job, Phil,” she said. “I really like how you’re using colors to coordinate your section. It will make navigating the site really fun.”

“Younger kids respond to colors. They’re easier for them than instructions,” he said with a grin. “I was thinking we could use the same format for the sections for older kids, but with the colors getting darker. Light blue flowing into dark blue into navy. So clicking on anything blue will automatically pop up math-related questions.”

“Good idea,” she told him, then looked at Arnie. “So, does that make your job harder or easier?”

Arnie rubbed his hand on his khakis. “Once we get it programmed, it’s not a problem.”

“Good.” She found it helpful always to include the IT guys in on the planning stages of any Internet project. Better to get their cooperation and input while the work was still easily modified.

“You could, ah, use drop-down menus, too,” Arnie said. “After they click on the color. So it’s not just one question. It could be a series. And then based on how they answer, they can go to another place on the site. Like if they get the answer right, they get a mini game. You know, for motivation.”

Samantha glanced at her team, who all seemed pleased with the idea.

“Good thinking,” she said. “You have a big thumbs-up on that one, Arnie. Thanks.”

He shrugged and blushed. His gaze never left her face.

Samantha recognized the signs of a crush and wasn’t exactly sure what to do about it. Not only wasn’t she looking for love right now, Arnie wasn’t her type. He was a nice enough guy, but nothing about him caused her to tingle.

Just then the conference-room door opened and Jack stepped inside. He didn’t say anything and quietly took a seat in the back.

Instantly her body went on alert, just in case her brain hadn’t noticed his arrival. She hated that even though she was still angry with him, she reacted physically. She found herself wanting to sit up straighter and push out her chest. Of course the complete lack of significant breast-type curves made that gesture futile, but still, the urge to flaunt was there.

Go figure, she thought. Arnie was available and pleasant and smart and probably completely uncomplicated. Nothing about him pushed any of her emotional buttons. Jack might be available and sexy, but he was also her worst-case scenario, man-wise, and totally unreasonable. He made her crazy with his assumptions about Helen.

Which they would deal with another time, she thought as she turned her attention back to the meeting in progress.

“The reward games should be related to the topic,” Sandy said. “At least on some level. Like a blaster game based on times tables for the math color or something scientific for the science section.”

“The difficulty of the games could increase with each grade level,” Phil added.

“We’re going to be spending a lot of time on content,” Samantha said. “But it will be worth it. We’ll need to take these ideas to research and get them going on questions and answers. We can do timed and non-timed quizzes. Maybe coordinate some of the questions with what’s being studied in the textbooks. Are they standardized by region? Let’s find that out. If we can emphasize what they’re already studying, we’ll reinforce the teachers’ lessons.”