His eyes widened briefly. “Yes, I do.”
“I’ve worked for you for two years. I know you have forty because your father left you thirty when he died. Before that, you and your brother each had ten.”
He nodded. “And now Bumbling Billy and his future bride want to stage a coup. They’re hoping to take over, but that can only happen if the codicil steals away the stock my father left me. If we don’t have a baby before my thirty-fifth birthday, Billy gets my thirty. Thenhe’llhave forty and Poppy has ten. He will become CEO, and they’ll have the majority vote.”
Katie munched on her bacon. “Now that’s what I don’t get. How do you have the majority? How does that work if you only have forty?”
“As soon as you get ten from my mother, you and I will have fifty percent of the company’s shares. So, even if everyone else turns against me, the most they can pull together is fifty.”
“That still isn’t a majority, luv.”
“The CEO gets the final decision in a tie.” He jerked a thumb at his chest. “And that’s me.”
Katie made a face. “There’s something I still don’t understand though. In the past two years, you have always come out on top. Things always go your way in the boardroom.”
“That’s because both Reggie and my mother know I make sound decisions. They’ve been on my side at every vote. Of course, Poppy is always trying to make waves. My mother says that little troublemaker has been trying to subtly convince her that Billy would be a better choice to run the company than me, and I hear she’s working on Reggie as well.”
One of Katie’s hands went to her flat stomach and she briefly wondered if she could be pregnant already. “So, if we don’t have a baby, if something goes wrong, you’ll lose the company?”
“That’s why we’re in Vegas.”
“Let’s say your plan works. We have a baby before you turn thirty-five and they don’t get your father’s shares. Is there any other way your brother and Poppy could take the company from you?”
His jaw tightened. “Reggie has been talking about retiring. When my father gave him the shares, he had it put in a contract that Reggie couldn’t hand them down to his own children. He has to sell them back to us when he retires. The thing is, my father didn’t stipulate to whom he had to sell the shares. Chances are, he’ll sell them to me, but he could give in to the pressure Poppy is putting on him. He believes the company needs to be balanced without one person holding all the cards. Poppy is trying to convince him that giving me the shares will make me unstoppable.” He grinned. “Which it would.”
“How many shares does Mr. Jacob have?”
“Reggie has twenty. So, if Billy and Poppy get his twenty, they will have forty.”
“You’ll still be in charge though, right?”
“True enough. But once you and I divorce, your shares will return to my mother. She’ll have twenty then, and she just might decide to stand with them if we don’t provide an heir and they do.”
That made sense. Chase was obviously the best choice for CEO, but Billy was also the woman’s son. He might know what buttons to push to get his mother on his side, especially if Chase didn’t give her a grandchild.
Chase summed it up for her then. “In a nutshell, I’m on top with forty percent of the shares right now, and Reggie comes in at second place with twenty percent shares. Once my mother gives you the ten percent, the four of you will tie in third place. You, my mother, my brother, and Poppy will all have ten, and that’s how I want to keep it.”
“Your brother and Poppy have twenty though. Together, I mean.”
“Yes. But I’m just talking about individually they have ten.”
“Got it.”
She felt a heavy weight descend on her. Chase’s future, the company’s future, and the future of all the employees rested on her shoulders. If she couldn’t get pregnant, they were done. His incompetent brother and gold-digging sister-in-law would destroy the Grayson empire within a year. That meant a lot of lost jobs and now that he’d shared his plan, she felt responsible for his employees.
♥♥♥
Later that day, after doing a little gambling in the casino and seeing a Vegas show, they went to their large penthouse suite. Chase built a fire in the stone hearth before sitting next to Katie on the floor. She looked nervous, so he made it his personal mission to put her at ease. To begin with, he handed her a glass of red wine and told her dumb jokes to get her laughing. They leaned back against the bottom of the brown sofa and watched the flames dance. It was almost too warm for a fire, but she seemed to appreciate the romantic gesture. He felt like they could and should make the best of their situation.
“Tell me about your family,” he said in an effort to get to know her. “What are your parents like?”
She smiled. “I had a wonderful childhood. No complaints. My parents were loving and supportive. I have a lot of sisters and brothers, and I had to share everything.” She laughed, but it sounded forced like she was trying too hard to appear happy. “Maybe that’s why I don’t like sharing now.”
He got the feeling she was holding something back, but he decided not to press. It wasn’t any of his business. “Will I meet your family?”
“Are you raving mad?” She became a statue for a moment with the wine glass halfway to her mouth. “I’m not telling them about this, about us. They’ll think I’ve lost my mind, and they’ll hate you for corrupting me. Believe me, you do not want to tangle with my parents.”
“What about the child? Their grandchild? Are you going to hide him or her from them?”