Slipperless Series (Book #4)(11)

And so, with that in mind, I began…

“First of all,” I said, as I drew my eyes upward and began to scan the assembled throng of faces. “As I have expressed to each of you one-on-one, all of us at Hawkins Biotech are extremely grateful to you for taking time away from your own businesses to be here. As you all know, we’ve been working very hard the past several months to ready the research behind the Link Protocol for government approval.”

I paused for a moment, flipping over one of the pieces of paper before I continued.

“In any event, I’m very pleased to announce that most of the work is complete and what remains is on schedule and looking every bit as promising as we had hoped. Now I know that you’ve all gathered here this evening expecting to hear from our Director of Lab Research as to the current state of the project. Unfortunately, we’ve had… a minor delay. As a result, I’ve been left with no alternative but to temporarily delay the presentation.”

Just as I finished my thought, there was an audible cacophony of frustrated throat clearing and shuffling in seats from the assembled group. Feeling as though I might lose their attention, I continued without wasting any time.

“Although it’s regrettable, I have assurances that sorting out the details is coming together nicely. That said, it’s with my regret that I offer all of you a collective apology--because although we are close, we aren’t completely finished. Presenting you incomplete results and expecting you to invest because of it is a combination that I, as the leader of this company, am not comfortable with.”

A palpable silence fell across the room as I concluded.

It was about as I expected, but somehow or some way, I had to find a solution that would keep them all here until Fiona could return, without inviting a series of probing questions from any of them. That was an extremely risky proposition, and probably overly optimistic on my part, to assume that a room full of billionaires wouldn’t ask questions of me.

In spite of their collective wealth, most of the attendees built their fortunes from scratch as I had. And if there’s one thing which holds true about people who start with nothing, it’s that most of them never lose sight of the value of a dollar.

Reaching out, I wrapped my fingers around the sides of the podium and looked out into the crowd to share what I hoped would be an acceptable olive branch.

“As I mentioned, I don’t expect much of a delay, but to compensate you for it, I’d like to offer you something as a token of my company’s appreciation. Of course, we are already paying for you to stay here and enjoy the resort during the time of presentation. But, for your trouble, I’d like to offer to pay for each one of you to come back to the resort at any time in the future for a one-month stay on me. Of course, this includes anything that you like to do while you’re at the resort, not to mention your accommodations and all meals. I hope that this small gesture communicates to you how much I regret the delay and how much I hope you can find some flexibility in your schedule to allow you to stay for a couple more days.”

As I finished my statement, I looked out into the sea of unimpressed faces… and swallowed.



FIONA

I’d kept in regular contact with the in-home nurse caring for my grandmother while I was away in St. Barth’s.

After I returned home to deal with the clinical trial data, I continued to do so. I did it because instead of going back to the apartment and having to explain to her why I was there and what was happening, I made the decision that it would be easier to just stay at a hotel near the office and fix the problem with the lab results.

I wasn’t happy about doing it, and lying to my grandmother in the process, but I didn’t really see any alternative. Everything was on the line, and I’d left Gabe in an absolute mess with the investors. I felt terrible about doing it, but we both realized that unless I could get back to the lab and get to work, there would be no fundraising and the Link Protocol would die a horrific death.

At least, that’s what I had hoped the outcome would be, for the first day or so after my return. However, it wasn’t long until I began to receive increasingly urgent messages from him, threatening me with all manner of things, including dismissal, if I couldn’t figure out a way to fix the problem in time.

I did my best to ease his concerns and keep him up to-date with periodic reports. And in spite of what initially looked to be an almost impossible scenario to overcome, after a bit of work on the problem, I suspected there might be a solution. The challenge I had was that I needed the one thing I couldn’t spare——time. To make matters worse, on only my second day back from the islands, I received a phone call from the in-home nurse.