“Kerry,” Cecilia watched her husband and daughter stand when Stuart called their names, “maybe this is the only way he has of saying thank you, without having to say it.”
Andrew and Dar walked quietly across the platform, their steps slightly hollow on the wooden boards. Dar was a half step behind her father and she stood, her hands braced behind her back in a very military, but very unconscious pose as the gleaming, golden medal was lifted up and settled over Andrew’s close cropped head.
“Good job.” Roger Stuart held a hand out, his eyes meeting Andy’s.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“You’re welcome, Senator,” Andrew replied in a quiet voice. Then he stepped back and glanced to his right, where Dar was waiting.
Stuart was very lucky, Dar considered, that the drugs still in her system put a slightly hazy barrier between herself and her instinct to kick him in the groin. Right there on national TV.
“Ms. Roberts?” Stuart opened the second case and removed the medal. Dar forced herself forward, aware of the camera eyes leering at her greedily, and stood absolutely still as his hands came close to her, lifting above either side of her face to settle the ribbon over her neck.
For a bare instant, their eyes met.
“Good job,” the senator stated flatly. Then his gaze wavered. “Thank you, Dar.”
She was too shocked to even raise an eyebrow.
“And thank you for being such a good friend to my daughter, as well,” the senator finished, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, there on television, and in front of a thousand watchers, as his words echoed softly over the grass.
Into the tense silence, Dar said, “You’re welcome.”
The crowd applauded and stood and cheered. Roger Stuart nodded briskly, lifting a hand and waving it as he turned and walked off the platform.
Andrew retreated in the other direction, holding Dar by the elbow as they headed towards the steps leading down, to a crowd already clustering and press calling questions. “Son of a biscuit,” he uttered under his breath.
Dar merely exhaled.
Chapter
Forty-seven
THE BOARDROOM WAS quiet as Alastair froze the image on the screen of Dar gracefully ducking her head to receive her medal. He turned in his chair and folded his hands, gazing amiably down the table at the six men seated around it. “Well now, gentlemen. I believe the next item on the agenda was a request from Mr. Ankow regarding dismissing our Ms. Roberts there.”
Ankow gave him a disgusted look. “Don’t think that bullshit changes anything, McLean.”
“Doesn’t it?” Alastair asked mildly, gazing down the table and judg-ing the temper of its occupants. Instead of the hot anger of the previous days, there was now more bemusement looking back at him. “Well, I don’t know, David. I might find it a little hard to explain to the press, much less the stockholders, why I’d do something as stupid as let go someone who is as obviously valuable as Ms. Roberts. You want to give it a try?”
“That doesn’t change what she is. Or what’s going on between her and that Stuart woman.” Ankow stood and pointed.
“David, siddown,” Evans muttered.
“What?”
“Siddown,” the financial magnate said more forcefully. “Much as I hate to admit this,” he looked at Alastair, “and I do hate it, I want you to know that, Alastair. I think the fact that you let this go on is reprehensi-ble.”
The CEO shrugged one shoulder.
“But to do something now would be stock market suicide,” Evans continued. “And I think we all know that.”
Alastair nodded gravely. “Very true. The press office tells me they’ve gotten a ton of requests for interviews with Dar and everyone wants details. Now, I can happily go on the record about her achieve-ments here at the company.” He paused. “And they’ve been very extensive.”
Ankow slapped the table in disgust.
“Well, honestly, David. They have,” Alastair protested. “I’m not making it all up, y’know. It’s in her files. Read them for yourself.”
“We have. It’s the reason we’re all sitting here, instead of out with Eye of the Storm 435
the stockholders demanding a vote on ousting you,” Evans told the CEO
with startling honesty. “You think I want to look like an asshole when I have to explain why I want a top ranked employee with a commendation list the length of my arm tossed out? Just because she’s gay?”
“Just?” Ankow taunted. “I can see the backpedaling now, Evans.
You’re a gutless coward.”
“No, just a realistic one.” The financier turned on him. “I don’t need the boycotts and the bad press. Maybe someone like you, who already has a White Knight skeleton in his closet doesn’t care about that, but I do.”
Ankow’s eyes narrowed. “Bastard.”
“And having it made public you were working for Stuart’s father…well, there’s no way we can make that look good, David,”
Alastair mentioned. “I can see public sympathy being with Kerry, after all, she’s just stood up to the man, then we find out he was undermining her at work, as well as having had her thrown in the hospital. It’s just bad press.”
“Yeah? How’s the press going to respond to knowing ILS found that information out about Stuart’s father?” Ankow countered, but his confidence was slipping and it showed.
Another shrug. “Well, really, it was our duty to disclose the information if it came to our knowledge,” Alastair remarked. “If you want to look at it that way. We provided a public service.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Y’know,” Yves Gallreus, heretofore completely silent, now spoke up, “it occurs to me we come out of this quite golden, Alastair. Now that the hearing has been pushed back, our reputation for fairness, for good works, for innovation. It is very striking.”
“Yes, it is,” Alastair agreed gravely, with a tiny twinkle in his eye.
“You really believe that?” Ankow stood up again.
“But of course.” Yves shrugged. “It is always you are thinking about sex here in America. Quite extraordinary, you know? But look, we have provided a good service in the ATM crisis, our new network is much praised, and our employee is accepting medals for bravery on the television. I am not surprised if our stock does not double before the end of the week. So please, why are we sitting here?”
They all looked at him. The Frenchman lifted both hands, assuming a mild expression.
“So you don’t care that this dyke is running your company?”
Ankow’s face was red. “Or that she’s sleeping with her assistant?”
“Not at all,” Yves replied. “Just so long as she provides me with stock splits, why should I give a care to her sexual exploits? Is she perhaps to make a movie of them, to sell at the next stockholder meeting? It would certainly make it more exciting, no?” He glanced down the table.
“Alastair, I am so sorry I missed the last meeting. It seems I would have been much amused by it.”
“So am I, Yves.” Alastair appreciated the Continental viewpoint very much. “Well, gentlemen, I think we’re finished here, unless someone else 436 Melissa Good has further points to raise. Do we want to take a vote on the last motion?”
Silence answered him. “Very well then.” Alastair folded his hands with a satisfied look. “David, you’ve demanded we put the question to the general stockholders at the next meeting whether to retain Dar’s services.”
“That’s right.”
“I’d be glad to have it printed on the schedule, but you’re going to have to get up and explain to the stockholders why, I’m afraid,” Alastair said cheerfully. “Since Dar will be presenting first.”