“Perez saw to it personally.”
I snort. “So that no one with half a brain could question it, obviously.”
“Yep. As soon as he finished it, Shane blessed it. And here we are.”
“You have a degree in finance and an MBA. You know this is”—I shake my head—“I hate to say catastrophic, but—”
“That’s why, despite all the shit you pulled, I called you. You don’t know how bitter it was to realize I couldn’t save Reservoir myself.”
Sloan, like me, doesn’t handle inefficiency or incompetence well. But this is different. “Baby—”
“I told you not to call me that. I’m not your baby.”
We’ll see about that… “You lack the experience to save this company on your own. Evan and I started Stratus just out of college on a shoestring budget, with nothing but cockiness and a prayer. We made some tough decisions and hard sacrifices to grow Stratus into the business it is. But you’ve never worked with a company gasping for survival. You can’t be sure what cuts will help and which will just twist the knife deeper and leave it to bleed out.”
“I figured that out.”
She doesn’t say she was afraid of making the wrong decisions, but I see it on her face. I soften. Damn it, she’s the competition. She’s vowed to hate me. She’s definitely trying to. I should want to bury Reservoir alive—and her with it.
I don’t.
“I’ll help you, like I promised. But nothing will truly improve until Bruce Rawson kicks Shane out of the CEO’s chair.”
“He’s not prepared to do that.”
Is the old man losing his mind along with his health? “Then I don’t know what to say. If we manage to salvage the situation today, what’s to keep Shane from coming behind us and undoing everything?”
Sloan presses her lips together and glances out the window. My guess? That question already occurred to her, and she doesn’t have an answer.
“Just fix it. I’ll worry about the rest later.”
“Baby—”
“I said don’t call me that.”
I would worry I’ve genuinely offended her, except her eyes sheen with tears she quickly blinks back. “You don’t like terms of endearment?”
“I love them, just not from men who stab me in the back.”
“This arrangement is only going to work if we deal in the truth. I didn’t come after you; I came after Reservoir. I came after the competition. Separate the two, baby. Second, if you can’t stop Shane from seizing control of the funds and spending them in whatever irresponsible way he wants, there won’t be a next time, not judging from what I see. And third, maybe you should stop giving all your mental energy to someone who doesn’t value you, either personally or professionally, and start giving it to someone who does.”
“Mr. Rawson values me.” She sounds defensive, like she knows she’s lying to me.
Does she realize she’s lying to herself, too?
“Bullshit. He values your silence about the fact he’s your father. Anyone who treats you like their dirty little secret doesn’t deserve you.”
“You’re trying to shake my loyalty. It won’t work.”
Damn, she’s stubborn. “No, baby. I’m trying to save you from heartache.”
Sloan gapes at me. “You can say that after the way you lied to me?”
“About professional shit, yeah, I did. I admit it. But everything I said to you personally? The concern I felt when I thought you were in danger? The fact I flew from Hawaii to help you when you asked me to? The way I kissed and touched you? That was all real. That was all me.”
She stares me down, lips set in a stubborn line. “Save your charm for someone who doesn’t know better. My feelings about Bruce Rawson are none of your business and out of bounds for a professional conversation. Right now, he’s aware that Shane made some unwise decisions with company funds, and he has authorized me to hold the purse strings until you can analyze the damage and make recommendations to fix the situation. That’s all you need to know.”
“You know the minute Shane realizes that he has to come through you for his party funds he’s going to attack you, right?”