The Blackmail Bride

Red Alert

"Thank you for meeting me on such short notice."

All I receive are blank stares from the rest of the board members, save for my brother who is giving me a reassuring smile to continue. We are in DEFCON 1. Code Red. Whatever you want to call it, I am in crisis management mode now. This is the first time that I have ever called a meeting and the first time I am speaking in front of the rest of the board members without my dad here.

"I called you here today about the Millie Townsend interview that was published this morning," I inform them. "We need to take steps now or this will spiral."

Roger Davis, the oldest man on the board (and quite possibly the state of California), grunts. "There's no need to get all riled up over a bitter trollop that lost her job because she was incompetent."

Trollop? I don't know if I have ever used that word spoken before, just read in a Jane Austen novel. Maybe it was a testament of just how old Mr. Davis is.

Calling Millie Townsend a trollop or incompetent is like calling Mother Theresa greedy. Not only is it not true, but it's also a blatant lie. Apparently yesterday the director of our technological development department had fired Millie in retaliation for a sexual harassment report she'd made to the Human Resources office last week. Marcus just fired her without going through the proper paperwork or anything and told security she was not allowed back on the campus. So I did not find out about this until this morning when I read it in the New York Times, which pissed me off beyond belief.

"Millie is one of the best computer engineers in the industry," I correct him. "And even if she wasn't, she still did not deserve to be fired."

Mr. Davis shoots me a look of disapproval but says nothing more. If anyone was incompetent, is was Mr. Davis. He knows nothing about technology so having him on the board seemed unnecessary. But he was the only one that gave my dad the money he needed back in the eighties so my dad kept him on out of some sense of loyalty. As long as he was kept from making any major decisions, he was largely harmless.

Richard Atkin, my dad's original partner, and oldest friend, chimes in. "Maybe it was wrong, but it's already done so I say we just wait out the storm. This will blow over in a couple of days."

I shake my head vehemently. "Maybe a decade ago, but now? Not with the Me Too movement and the Twitter mob."

"Isn't that your job?" Kane Wilson questions. "Spin the story in our favor. Or are you not up to it?"

Mr. Wilson was the only one that had voted against me being head of Public Relations, citing my 'inexperience and youthful naivete". He may have been right. As much I would like to think otherwise, I would not have a job like this if my dad wasn't who he was. But that was the same for my brother, who had become the CFO of Lockwood Technologies, a Fortune 500 company, at 28 after the previous CFO resigned to start his own app. Mr. Wilson hadn't voted against my brother despite his inexperience. No, Mr. Wilson doesn't have a problem with my experience, but with my unwillingness to shut up and roll over.

James, my brother, widens his eyes in shock at the insult. Usually, I have a problem with anyone having a problem with me. I love to be loved. But with someone as despicable as Mr. Wilson, I actually take any insult from him more as a compliment. Heat spreads up to my neck and sprawls across my scalp, but it's not embarrassment. It's anger, which my the wheels in my head spin.

"I can spin a lot of things, Mr. Wilson, but I'm not Jesus," I shoot back.

"Maybe we should have hired Jesus, then," he quips, not getting any chuckles from anyone else like he is probably expecting. "If you can't do your job, the-