A frown creased his brow. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. But we have to talk about the management structure of the company. It’s not just up to us. You have to be realistic here. You have to think of the big picture—what’s best for the company.”
“I can do that.” She blinked at him. “My father built this company, and I intend to run it the way he would have wanted.”
Travis’s lips compressed, and he sighed again. “That’s great. But he didn’t build this company alone. He and I did it together, and you have to recognize that.”
“I do.” Anxiety gnawed at her stomach. She was intelligent, educated and knowledgeable about the coffee business. She’d grown up talking about the coffee business and had worked hard since college to learn more. But deep down inside, a tiny niggling doubt squirmed around inside her. “So what do we have to do? Let’s start planning. We should put together a proposal and take it to the board and the shareholders. Right?”
He stared at her. A muscle ticked in his jaw, his mouth a straight line of grimness. “I suppose that would be a start. We’ll need to include others—Simon, Alex, Hank, Daniel.”
Hell. The more people involved in the decision, the less control she felt she had, although, she apparently had no control over this. Travis would make the decision. She felt helpless, like she was slamming herself up against the brick wall of his assured confidence and implacable will.
If it came down to a vote—and it appeared likely it would—she needed her mother on her side. She had no doubt Travis would get the other shareholders onside with his taking over, but her mother....
Who was she kidding? She dropped her eyes and swiveled in the chair, clutching the armrests. She and her mother were barely on speaking terms; whereas, her mother and Travis were...well, she honestly didn’t know the current status of their relationship, but at the very least they were...friends. She sucked her top lip in between her teeth as she considered this problem. And what to do about it.
She swiveled back to face Travis. “Well, let’s get started then. I’ll ask Paulette to set up a meeting for all of us, and we can talk about how to move forward.”
“All right.” His agreement made her blink. “In the meantime, though, there are some issues that I need to deal with. We do have to continue with business as usual, so as not to alarm our stakeholders and partners.”
“Of course. What can I do?”
His face tightened even more, if that was possible. “Perhaps you could work on the newsletter—the message to staff about your father’s passing and how we’re working on a succession plan. Reassure everyone. I’m sure you can handle that.”
She blew out a burst of air from between pursed lips. “Yeah, I think I can handle that.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll do it, but I’m telling you, Travis, you can’t shut me out. I intend to do whatever I have to make sure my father’s company survives. Not just survives—thrives. I have ideas, too, for growing this business. The first thing I plan to work on is whatever project he had going on in Matagalpa.” Samara frowned. “What was he doing in Matagalpa, anyway? We haven’t done any business there for years.”
“I don’t know exactly what Parker was doing there. Now that he’s gone, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
Travis frowned. “I said— I don’t even know exactly what he was doing there.”
“Well, we’ll have to find out. Dad would have wanted someone to finish it.”
Travis gave her a look from narrowed eyes beneath lowered brows, and she frowned. “What? Just because I work in a regional office doesn’t mean I don’t know anything. I know a lot about the supply end of the business from school and from when we were in Matagalpa and Brazil.”
“I don’t think we should be concerned about whatever Parker was doing there.”
Samara tipped her head. “How can we not be?” She still didn’t get why Travis was brushing it off.
“Don’t worry about it, Samara. It’ll be my problem to deal with.”
Her body tightened, her fingers gripping the armrests of her chair. His patronizing attitude sparked a flash of anger and resentment in her. “It’s not just your problem. I own half this company, remember? It’s my problem too, and I’m going to find out more about it.”
“No.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean no?”
“I told you before, Samara, that project is done. We’re not going to move forward with it.”
“You don’t even know what it was all about.”
“All the more reason not to move forward.”
Her body tightened, and heat simmered inside her. “That doesn’t even make sense. What if he was working on something really important? I’m going to review all the work my father did on it, and then we’ll make a decision about whether to move forward. It’s not just your decision.”
She threw his words back at him, and he flinched only slightly, a tiny flicker of his eyes and the tick of his jaw muscle letting her know how frustrated and angry he was. A shimmer of delight slid through her, and the corners of her mouth twitched.
“Fine,” he bit out, standing. “You go right ahead.”
He walked out of the office.
An hour later, Samara pushed her bangs back and sighed. She’d gone through every folder and file in her father’s computer and found very little about the trip to Matagalpa and what her father had been doing there.
She finally gave up and went to ask Paulette.
“You said my father had files on Matagalpa,” she said. “Do you know where they are?”
Paulette nodded. “Yes. They should be in the file drawer behind his desk.”
Stupid. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She returned to the office and slid open the deep, wide drawer. Rows of files hung neatly from suspension rods. Again she suspected this was Paulette’s work. She ran her fingertips over them until—yes, thank you, Paulette, for alphabetical filing—she found the Matagalpa file. Eagerly she pulled it out, swiveled her chair to the desk and opened it.
Once again she was disappointed. The file had few papers, only some correspondence between her father and a man named Javier Alvarez in Matagalpa discussing his upcoming visit and their telephone calls, but no details.
She sat there, drumming her fingers on the desk. Then she reached for the phone and called the number for Javier Alvarez. After long moments of ringing, she hung up. Damn.
She drew in a long, slow breath. She was going to have to ask Travis.
She was sitting there, stomach tight, teeth clenched, when Travis appeared in the door. He stopped and looked at her, and she sat up straighter. Why was he looking at her like that? Was her hair all wacky? She put a hand up to smooth it.
“What?” she asked.
One brow lifted. “We’ve set up a meeting with everyone for tomorrow afternoon. One o’clock in the boardroom.”
She blinked. “Oh. Okay. Great.”
“It’s just a planning meeting,” he told her. “No final decisions will be made. There’ll likely need to be a vote.”
She licked her lips and sank back into her chair when Travis’s eyes dropped to her mouth. Her lungs tightened, and it was hard to breathe. She tried to focus on business.
“I’ve been going through some files,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Looking for information on the project in Matagalpa. But I can’t find much.”
He stood there, looking back at her, face impassive.
“Do you have any ideas where else there might be information?”
He blew out a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Check his emails,” he finally said.
“I did already.”
He gave her a look from beneath lowered brows.
“What?” she asked. “I did nothing wrong. But I didn’t see any emails about it.”