"The Buddha said that change is never painful. It's only our resistance to change that hurts," Ethan told his mother on the drive to Blue Oasis headquarters.
"That's a big 'only.' Like saying that being hung from a gallows only hurts for a minute."
"Or three. It can take three."
"I feel better. Good talk."
Change was in the air, but Lauren foresaw no good outcomes to this morning's business meeting. Over time, as fault lines had riven the bedrock of the lifelong friendships between the Chases and Palmieris, meetings had too often become stages for personal drama. Tempers flared. What was the word Jan had used as she'd walked away from it all? Enmeshed, that was it. Enmeshed.
Lauren longed for those halcyon days of peace, love, and understanding.
Jon, Frank, and the Novaks waited in the executive conference room. Jon and Aleksandra looked awfully comfortable together, chatting at the head of the long table like old friends. That had probably required all of about five minutes of flattery on her part. Stefan rose to greet Lauren with a peck on the cheek and an uncertain smile. He and Ethan shook hands, formally, as if meeting for the first time. There was no trace in his expression of the youthful openness that had so first appealed to her. Perhaps the painful events on that mountain road had forever severed the bond they'd come to share.
Frank sat stiff and silent, ignoring everyone around him. It was Lauren's first time seeing him since his return to the States. Her heart sank at how he had shrunk in both body and in spirit. She'd fallen into lazily thinking of him as the office irritant, Jon's grinning cheerleader. Now she was forced to see the human being, a man from whom everything had been taken. Taken by the people with whom she'd cavorted and conspired.
She gripped the edge of the conference table, fighting a sickening urge to bolt from the room and hide. Taken all in all, change felt pretty damn painful.
The meeting got underway. Jon extended a welcome to their new partners, and to Stefan as the newest member of the board of directors. He hurried them through old business, clearly anxious to get to his coronation for another term as CEO, oblivious to what was about to happen.
"I nominate Jon to continue as Chief Executive Officer." Prompted by Jon, Frank spoke in a wavering whisper, eyes fixed on the table in front of him. Dutiful and loyal to the end. They all waited silently for someone to second. Anyone?
Lauren knew what she had to do.
She rose to her feet, locking eyes with Aleksandra. "First of all, I will not give you what you want. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. You--"
Stefan stood up to cut her off in mid-sentence. "I wish to nominate Lauren Chase to serve as our new CEO."
"What!" Aleksandra and Lauren cried in unison. It was the first time Lauren had heard Stefan's mother raise her voice. The woman was out of her seat and stalking around the table toward her son.
"Second," Ethan said. Jon lurched back in his chair as if his son had punched him in the mouth.
"What are you doing?" Aleksandra snapped at Stefan.
"Mother, sit down."
"This is outrageous!"
"No, Mother. If there is any outrage here, it is your attempt to extort these people to do your bidding."
"Not extortion," Alexandra corrected him. "Hard bargaining. This is business."
Ethan cleared his throat. "Can we vote now? Because I'm sure as hell not gonna throw my hat in the ring."
It took another five minutes to settle everyone down enough to poll the room. Jon was apoplectic with rage as the cold reality hit him: true to his nature, he'd never been willing to surrender his right to vote on any board actions, which meant that the company's patchwork bylaws permitted Lauren to vote for herself.
She would have. The way that Jon and Aleksandra carried on, there was no doubt that if he remained in charge Stefan and Ethan would suffer every day for their disloyalty, all on her behalf.
But she didn't have to. When Frank cast his vote for her, she could see the fight go out of her husband. He shrank in his chair like an old balloon.
And Lauren Chase became only the second CEO in Blue Oasis history.
†††
"On to new business. I see a late addition to the agenda, here. Jon proposes that we entertain a Novak Global Traders bid to purchase an additional ten percent stake in Blue Oasis, over and beyond their current twenty percent." She looked up from her laptop at her husband, who'd surrendered the head of the table and moved down to sit with Aleksandra. "Really, Jon? Did you think this brainstorm through, at all?"
Jon shrugged his hunched shoulders and glowered silently back at her.
"So, do we want to discuss this?" she asked.
"Fuck no," Frank muttered under his breath. He very nearly smiled. Stefan gave a short, curt shake of his head.
"Sorry that you had to come all this way only to leave empty-handed, Mrs. Novak," Lauren said wryly.
"Congratulations,
Mrs.
Chase," Alexandra said in a voice that would freeze hundred-proof bourbon. "And please don't concern yourself on my account. I'm already meeting tomorrow with your competitors at Nutrigenix to negotiate a deal with them to distribute Libidramine."
"Good for you. I'm friendly with Paige Rogers over there. I know I said that I'd never help you, but I'll make an exception. I'll drop Paige an email with my research notes on your operation. Let her in on the details of your little scam. Would you like that?"
Aleksandra Novak turned several shades paler than Lauren would have thought possible.
"It is a scam, isn't it, Alex? Tell you what--we're still partners, let's put our differences aside and do some business. I'm willing to purchase and distribute Lib on a non-exclusive basis. Make it fifty million bottles to start. Name your price."
Stefan raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure that would wipe out our stockpiled inventory."
"We could move that in the first month," Lauren told him. "After all, we're offering the true panacea for all humanity's ills. Youth, health, sexual satisfaction in a bottle. Once word of mouth catches fire, there are no limits.
