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His head of marketing flushed and there was a small pause as the three older men glanced furtively at one another. ‘Not permission, no, but it would have been helpful to know where you were,’ Mason said after a moment.
Conrad frowned. ‘We thought you were dead.’
Trip stared at him steadily, a ghost of a smile playing around his hard mouth. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’
Mason shook his head. ‘That’s not fair, Trip—’
‘No, what’s not fair is you guys giving me a hard time for something that was out of my control. But it’s in the past now and I’m here, so no harm, no foul.’
He was done explaining himself.
‘No harm.’ Mason was staring at him as if he’d grown an extra head. ‘You were a prisoner of a drug cartel!’
‘And I got away. Without a scratch.’ That was true...ish but any detail would only serve to undermine his argument.
‘And we’re pleased to hear that.’ Ron frowned. ‘Unfortunately the business wasn’t so lucky. The share prices plummeted—’
‘I heard,’ he cut across the older man. ‘And now they’ve gone back up. Gone higher, in fact.’
Mason was shaking his head. ‘That’s not how your father did business. It’s not how we do business.’
‘There is no we,’ he said coldly. ‘This is my business. I’m the CEO.’
‘But that can only stay true if you are the best person for the job,’ Mason said, his eyes finding Trip’s. ‘The position of CEO is not allocated simply on the basis of surname or bloodline.’
‘Is that right?’ Trip said softly.
There was a long, pulsing silence. Finally, Mason cleared his throat. ‘Look, Trip. Your father wanted you to take over the business, but he also gave us the option to intervene at our discretion.’
Yes, because he had never truly considered his youngest son as anything other than a spare, Trip thought, letting his gaze move across the distant skyline. He was too impulsive, too headstrong ever to see eye to eye with his father, but after Charlie’s death Henry had had no alternative but to leave him the company.
Suddenly and fiercely, Trip wanted all three of them out of his office.
‘You can’t fire me.’
Mason gave him a small, stiff smile. ‘You’re not being fired, Trip. But we answer to the shareholders. As do you.’
Pushing back from his desk, Trip stood. ‘Exactly, and in case you’ve forgotten I’m not just the CEO, I’m the majority shareholder.’
‘Yes, you are.’ The older man nodded. ‘But as was explained to you when you took over, some of those shares are held in a trust of which we are the trustees. We have the power to use those shares to remove any CEO temporarily or permanently whose actions are damaging to the interests of the shareholders. And what happened in Ecuador...what could have happened...has raised issues. Shareholders like stability.’
Trip held his gaze. ‘I do things my way. If they don’t like it—’
‘They don’t, Trip. That’s the point. They want to see that you are serious about running the business and, I’m afraid, currently your behaviour is not speaking to that.’
‘My behaviour—?’
He felt a rush of fury. What about his father’s behaviour? Had anyone held him to account for having a long-term mistress? As his eyes flicked across the other men’s faces, he felt a slithering panic weave through his chest. Had his father confided in them? Did they know who Kerry was? But he couldn’t bring himself to ask. To ask the question would give the relationship a validity it didn’t deserve.
‘They—we—need a CEO who is stable and mature and focused.’
‘I am all of those things—What?’ The three men were shaking their heads. He gritted his teeth.
Mason sighed. ‘You have the makings of a great business leader but you are impulsive, reckless even. Look at how you just went off to Ecuador on a whim—’
Not a whim, he thought, his chest clamping tight so that it was suddenly hard to breathe. It had been an imperative. He had felt as if he were suffocating in New York, smothered by the weight of his father’s hypocrisy.
‘And your private life is chaotic. Your friends make headlines for all the wrong reasons. Maybe if you had a steady girlfriend to anchor you...but according to the Internet you spend your free time running around the city bedding every woman you meet.’
