Connor

If we have to have an emergency board meeting, why the fuck does it have to be at nine in the morning?

I wouldn’t have even known about it yet if my assistant Sandy, who’s up at dawn to help take care of her grandkids, hadn’t called and woken me an hour ago to be sure I’d seen the email the chairman sent at ten o’clock last night.

Of course, I hadn’t seen it. I’d already been at the bar for an hour by then. I met some friends, or at least people I know, and we ended up going to a club. It was around 3 a.m. when I crawled into bed. Alone.

Now, my worse-for-wear senses are assaulted by the brightly colored pictures of our biggest-selling educational toys that line the top floor hallway of Big Brain Toys’ Manhattan headquarters. The candy-colored floor and walls don’t help either. I toss back a painkiller and take a slug of coffee. Sandy had thrust both into my hands as I walked in the door. She takes almost as good care of me as she does of those two little girls.

At the end of the hall, dark-suited bodies move around behind the frosted glass wall of the meeting room. Dread sits heavy in my stomach. All I want to do is turn around, go home to sleep off this headache, and let them deal with whatever the hell the problem is.

But since this is my company, I kind of have to be here. And there’d better be a fucking good reason.

I close my eyes, push my still shower-damp hair off my forehead, take a deep breath, and pull open the door.

“Ah,” Jorge says. His eyes flick to the clock on the wall. “You’re here.”

It’s only five after nine, for fuck’s sake.

He stands at the head of the table, the official chairman of the board position, surveying the four other directors who emit a murmur of “Morning” as they fill their plates from the executive breakfast spread.

Jorge thrusts his hands into his pockets, draws himself up to his full height, which is about six inches shorter than mine, and rocks back on his heels. “Glad you could make it.”

I wheel out the large white leather chair at the opposite end of the long table, drop into it, and plant my coffee down. “Morning, folks.”

The others, their plates loaded with gourmet croissants, mini quiches, and tropical fruit salad, shuffle to their seats without making eye contact with me.

Jorge finally sits and clicks his pen a few times.

Another swig of coffee brings some welcome warmth to my throat, chest, and stomach in the final second before Jorge launches into whatever irritating corporate problem we have to deal with today. Making toys that help kids learn was supposed to be a fun business. But apparently no business is fun.

“Thank you all for coming,” he says.

The others chew and nod.

“It’s important we address the sales issue. This month’s figures are following the same pattern as the previous quarter.”

He taps his laptop and a graph appears on the large wall-mounted screen, showing a red line zigzagging downward.

Is this all the meeting’s about? Jorge thinks this is an emergency? He’s making a mountain out of a very small molehill made by a tiny baby mole. And I could have slept in till noon.

I gesture at the graph with my cup. “It might not look great, but it’s only a recent thing. A blip.” I shrug. “We’re still very profitable. Just not quite as hugely profitable as before.”

Everyone but Jorge is still looking at their free breakfast.

“And it’s the summer.” I’d roll my eyes if I wasn’t fairly sure it would hurt. “Sales are always slower in the summer. Things will pick up toward Christmas.”

Done. I loosen my already loose tie. Can I go now?

Jorge points his clicky pen at the screen. “It’s not a blip. It’s a trend. A very worrying trend.”

He couldn’t sound more patronizing if he tried. But he probably is trying.

I rub my aching brow and close my eyes. “You’re worrying about nothing, Jorge. I’ll tell the marketing department to up their game. That’ll fix it.”

“Our marketing department might be good,” he sneers, “but there isn’t a team in the world that could market us out of this problem.”

He punches his space bar.

The breakfast-chewing noises stop, and the tension in the room is suddenly as tight as an over-inflated balloon.

I open my eyes to see the graph has been replaced by a photo montage.

Of me.

Pictures of me leaving bars and clubs all over New York City in the wee hours flash before me. Some bleary-eyed, one with my shirt fully open, another with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a bent cigarette in the other. Photo after photo flicks by showing me in various states of dishevelment, many with my arm around women dressed in short, tight, strappy dresses. Never the same woman twice.

They’re followed by screenshots of headlines from gossip columns and entertainment news sites.

Toy Boss On The Town With Another Mystery Blonde.

Game For Anything: Big Brain Billionaire Is Less Than A Class Act.

Saved By The Belle: Who’s The Lady Pouring Connor Dashwood Into A Cab?

And now we’re onto videos.

I give the person filming me the finger as I lean on one of the guys from the bar and we push through a crowd to get to our taxi.

On a different night—or early morning, depending on how you look at it—I stagger up to a guy until he’s filming nothing but a close-up of my sweat-stained shirt, and yell at him. “Shut your fucking mouth. Shut the fuck up. Fuck off.”

Then we cut to a rear view of me taking a pee in a dark alley behind a pub.

What the hell is going on? Why is my social life the subject of a slideshow?

The irritation rising inside me is peppered with burning embarrassment. Suddenly, I’m wide awake, my vision clear.

What I do in my own time has nothing to do with the board of directors or consumers.

“What is this?” I gaze at the stony faces around the table.

My heart rate picks up in anticipation of a confrontation I could really do without and am one hundred percent not in the mood for.

“It’s you, Connor,” Jorge says, as if he’s addressing a two-year-old. And not a very bright one.

“Yes, it’s me.” I spread my arms in frustration. “But why? Why are we looking at pictures and videos of me? Unflattering pictures and videos of me?”

“It’s a bit of a problem,” Jorge continues. “Isn’t it, Connor?”

“No. It’s not a problem. All these things are completely out of context.”

I point at the screen that’s frozen on my peeing silhouette.

“That pub had a plumbing emergency. There was a giant line for the restrooms, and I was absolutely desperate. I found the most private spot I could, but still some asshole whipped out their phone. The guy I gave the finger to was completely blocking our way out of the bar and refused to move. And the one I yelled at had made a vile comment I won’t even repeat about the two women I was leaving the club with.”

Ingrid, our chief financial officer, drops her fork into her fruit salad and looks at me as if I make her sad. “It’s not very becoming, is it?”

“Becoming? Jesus.” I look up at the ceiling. “Can we get on with whatever this meeting’s about? I didn’t get up early to have my private life scrutinized.”

“This is what the meeting’s about,” Jorge says, as he leans forward and rests his chin on his clasped hands.

“What?”

Every pair of eyes around the table looks at me.

“This emergency board meeting is about me?” I poke myself in the chest. “I’m the emergency?”

Every head nods.

Oh, they have no right to do this.

Bubbles of fury rise and burst inside me.

If it weren’t for me and my company, these people wouldn’t be sitting here now, with great jobs, industry-leading salaries, and the finest benefits package anyone could wish for. And eating a free breakfast.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Too agitated to stay in my seat, I shove my chair back from the table and stand up. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this shit from you.”

I wince as my head throbs again from getting up too quickly.

“We thought not,” Jorge says as he taps at his laptop. “So, we’ve lined up a couple of people we think you will listen to.”

The image of my peeing form, thankfully, disappears from the screen.

It’s replaced by a video call with my older brother, Max, and our cousin, Walker. Walker’s more like a brother than a cousin, and more like a best friend than a brother.

My hands land on top of my head as if trying to contain my exploding brain. How dare they?

“What the ever-loving fuck, Jorge? It’s pretty low to bring my family into this. These guys have nothing to do with this company.”

“But we have very much to do with you,” Max says.

Walker nods.

They’re smiling—but concerned smiles, not happy ones.

“The figures don’t lie, Connor.” Jorge leans back in his chair, even more confident now that his two secret weapons are on the screen. “The drops in sales coincide with those… What shall we call them?” He waves his hand around. “Antics.”

“Like I said,” Ingrid chips in, “it’s not very becoming.”

“Yup.” Jorge clicks his pen again. “Your wholesome, squeaky-clean toy company called. And it wants its image back.”

His self-satisfied smirk says he’s been working on that line for a while.

I’m desperate to tell him what a pathetic, superior asshat he is. But Max and Walker are watching, so I clench my jaw. “This isn’t my fault. You can’t blame me.”

Jorge stands up. “We’ve had enough, Connor.”

I blow out a big puff of air. “Oh, I can promise you, no one in this room has had enough of this more than me.”

He faces me along the length of the table, like we’re two toy tycoons about to fight a duel with Nerf guns.

“We’re prepared to vote you off, you know.” His smirk could not be more arrogant.

What the hell? Is this a boardroom coup? Did this bunch of disloyal bastards plan this?

I can’t decide if I should be hurt and enraged or if I should just walk out, leave them to it, and not give a shit.

The latter is pretty tempting. Being a CEO these last few years hasn’t exactly been the most fun I’ve ever had. But, hellfire, it’s my fucking business, and they don’t get to kick me out of it.

“You’d vote me off? Off the board of my own company?” I jab my finger into my chest so hard it hurts. “That I started? From scratch?”

Ingrid nods.

Everyone else fiddles with the remainders of their breakfasts…that I paid for.

Let’s see what these shitheads are made of. “Okay, let’s do this now. Let’s vote right now. Hands up, who votes me off? I’ll go first.” I raise my own hand.

Ingrid starts to raise hers but is cut off by Max, Walker, and Jorge all talking at the same time, so she pretends she’s scratching her head.

Max and Walker say something about not being hasty, but they’re drowned out by Jorge. “Calm down. There’s no rush to do this right now, Connor. This is just a warning. We’re prepared to give you a chance to turn things around.”

He holds up his hands like he’s trying to get me to back off. “Let’s meet again in three months, mid-October. We think that’s a reasonable amount of time for you to clean up your act and change the direction of the graph.” He makes it sound like he’s doing me a favor. “But if things haven’t improved by then, we’ll have to vote while there’s just enough time to salvage the company’s reputation ahead of Christmas.”

I don’t have much of a poker face at the best of times, and right now it must be as red as the cheeks on our talking jack-in-a-box that teaches toddlers to count.

Walker’s calm voice cuts through the noise in my head.

“Hey, Con.” He strokes the beard we all keep begging him to shave off. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute, and let’s talk.”

I drop my head.

It’s a dirty move of Jorge to use these guys. He knows what they mean to me.

I slump back in the chair and take a glug of coffee. The warmth isn’t as soothing this time.

“So, here’s the thing,” Max says, drawing out the words. “We want to help.”

I half-heartedly throw my hand in the air and shake my head.

“You can’t be in charge of everything, Max.” Once the oldest brother, always the oldest brother. “You can’t be in charge of me.”

“It’s not about being in charge, Con.” Walker chimes in, taking the role of good cop.

“It’s about helping you hold on to everything you’ve built and worked for. Let us help you do that.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “Don’t lash out at us. We’re here for you.”

Earlier this year, he’d have been way less patient. He’s gone soft around the edges since he met Polly.

“Not just us,” Max continues, “but Mom and Dad are there for you too. They love Big Brain. They always tell people about it before they mention Walker’s pubs or my businesses.”

And there it is—the rope tightening around my chest. If Max and Walker are Jorge’s trump card, my parents are Max’s. They are more proud of the toys Big Brain produces than of anything else I’ve done in my life. They’re definitely not delighted by any of the stuff that was in Jorge’s photo montage.

“Look,” Max says. “Walker’s PR guy is a miracle worker. And he’s going to lend him to you.”

Walker and his best friend, Emily, own the Toasted Tomato brew pub chain. They’ve recently picked up a bunch of celebrity endorsements. Presumably due to this guy.

“I don’t need PR.” I fall back in my chair. “Hey, Walk, how about you let me go stay on the island for these three months? I’ll just disappear, and it’ll all blow over.”

Walker owns an island in the middle of a huge lake upstate. There’s a main house and a bunch of guest cottages for the family. It’s beautiful. Being up there alone and away from this shit for a few months is the best idea I’ve had in a long time. That would actually be fucking fantastic.

“Nope.” Jorge drums his fingers on the table. “You’ve trashed the Big Brain Toys image publicly. You need to rehabilitate it publicly.”

“For fuck’s sake, Jorge. Just let me get out of your hair. Out of everyone’s hair. Maybe even out of my own hair.”

“It’s okay,” Walker says. “We’ve given Sterling, my PR guy, all the details. So, we’ll hand you over to him now. Max and I will talk to you later.”

Walker holds up his hand in a stationary wave and gives me a we’re-doing-the-best-we-can smile. Max nods.

The screen switches to a new face. A face that looks like it’s regularly exfoliated and slathered in expensive moisturizer. A face that sits above a pink-and-white checked dress shirt, dark green tie, and bright blue suit jacket. And a face that’s topped by hair that’s long and slicked back on top, shaved at the sides.

Sweet Jesus.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Sterling says with a smile that’s as PR-y as it gets. “Oh, and lady.” He shoots a finger gun and a wink at the spot where Ingrid must be on his screen.

Christ on a fucking bike. I’m stuck with this guy? For three months?

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Connor.” That smarmy smirk will get annoying fast. “And I have a plan.” Yup. Already annoying. “Let me share my screen with you.”

He wiggles his bright blue shoulders as he fiddles with his mouse. His face slides into a small box in the corner while the rest of the screen is taken over by a slide that reads Operation Connor Dashwood.

They’ve really thought this through, haven’t they?

“I’m an ‘Operation’?”

“Maybe more of a mission,” says tiny Sterling. “A mission I choose to accept.”

Oh, my good fucking God. If I wasn’t being emotionally blackmailed into this by Walker and Max, I’d be halfway home by now.

“Okay,” Sterling says. “What is the only thing that can plausibly change a straight man’s behavior overnight?”

If he thinks being chipper and asking questions is going to elicit any kind of a response, he’s seriously misread this room. Everyone stares back at him.

Guess it’s down to me to break the stony silence. “How about you enlighten us, Sterling.”

And quickly. So we can all escape this hideous torture as soon as possible.

“It’s the love of a good woman, of course,” Sterling says with a flourish, as if he’s a game show host announcing the grand prize winner.

What the fuck is he talking about?

A plan to have me volunteering at a soup kitchen, I could understand. Or maybe cuddling rescue puppies. Possibly even building an orphanage in a developing nation. But “the love of a good woman” was definitely not on my list of possibilities. Nor anywhere near it.

“I’m sorry, Sterling. But what is it you want to do?”

The screen changes to a collage of photos of celebrity couples.

Sterling’s cursor, which has now taken the form of a magic wand, points at the happy couple in the top left.

“Hollywood actor. Work dried up because of his gambling and strip-club reputation. He fell in love with this delightful young movie extra, pulled himself together, and now has more lead roles than you can shake an Oscar at.”

The magic wand roves around the screen.

“Lead singer of a chart-topping band. Kicked out for too much partying and too little focus. Met his soulmate when she served him in a diner. Now he’s won a Grammy, and his solo career is bigger than the band’s will ever be.

“Morning show host. Fired for lashing out at a kid on social media. But he discovered his new dog walker was the woman of his dreams, and now he…”

“Okay, yeah, we get it.” I hold my hand up to the screen. “But I hate to break it to you, Sterling. Not only do I not have an all-American, girl next door girlfriend, I don’t want one.”

“Well, now.” His grin is so big the screen might need more pixels. “That’s where I come in. And work my magic.”

He swirls his cursor wand and the image changes to several photographs of a woman. She’s early to mid-twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair, and the pictures show different settings—walking on a college campus clutching a folder and books, sitting cross-legged on a lawn playing checkers with a kid, and carrying a tray of cocktails across a dimly lit bar while wearing a short skirt that would definitely tempt me to give her a hefty tip.

“Recognize this little beauty?” he asks.

She has fair skin and rosy cheeks and is kind of cute, and I’ve never seen her before in my life.

The micro amount of patience I had when this all started is about to run dry. Since I can’t be bothered to waste any more words on it, I shake my head.

It seems to make Sterling even happier. “Perhaps this will jog your memory.”

The screen switches to video of a crowd gathered around some vegetable plots. Oh, it’s Max’s launch event thing from a couple of weeks ago. Where he proposed to Polly.

And there’s me, my parents, Max and Polly, Polly’s mom, and my younger brother, Elliot, standing in a circle, right as my dad’s about to make a toast to the happy couple.

The camera wobbles and zooms in on me as I lunge at a woman carrying a tray of plastic glasses filled with terrible, oh so terrible, wine.

I know what happens next.

I was there.

Also, I’ve seen this footage before.

I drop my head into my hands as everyone else around the table gasps and winces.

I look back up to see the video stopped and zoomed in on the poor woman’s horrified face peering over my shoulder as I lie on top of her in a bed of smashed tomato plants.

“That,” Sterling says, “is Rose Bellamore. The perfect candidate.”