Paris

Ch 12 - Greasy

"I think it's pretty clear that he shouldn't even be allowed to still be in that chair. He's not fit to..."

I honestly wasn't listening, and not because I was bored, but because this argument had been going around in circles for the past two hours. I could see the look on Nate's face across from me, and it probably reflected mine.

We weren't getting anywhere.

With this leak situation, Ingrid was handling my image, but she'd left me to handle the business side of things. We'd already had three meetings that hadn't gone anywhere, simply because I hadn't actually said my piece on anything. I'd let everyone else say their pieces and give their opinions, and it turned out that the board was actually split into two.

Half of them believed that I still deserved to prove myself, while the other half believed that my time was up.

"We've already gone through this, but now I'm really interested in what Cuba has to say. He's being uncharacteristically quiet about all of this," Mrs Granger finally spoke. She's one of the people who had also been silently watching.

All heads turned to me as silence settled on the room. I looked to Nate and he nodded, so I turned to Heather and nodded. She smiled as she stood up and went around handing out the papers to every board member present.

"What is this?" Mr Dumont asked.

"It's a non-disclosure agreement," I informed.

"Why do you want us to sign a NDA?" Mr Holsten asked in confusion.

I stood up and strode over to the projector. "If you want me to explain myself, then I need you to sign the NDA. My explaining myself involves revealing sensitive information about my personal life and I need to know that what I say will stay here. The NDA serves to do just that."

They looked sceptical, but they all signed anyway. I took a deep breath and switched the projector on. A picture of London laughing popped up on the screen with an intricate design in the background, and I couldn't have been happier with what Heather had managed to come up with.

Especially since my request was so strange.

As usual, she didn't ask questions and simply did what she was asked to. I'd taken the photo back when we were in South Africa, and I'd taken it in secret. I'd had Heather put together a slideshow with the many pictures of her that I'd taken, secret and otherwise, as well as pictures we'd taken together.

"What is this Cuba?" Mrs Granger asked as the slideshow continued.

"This beautiful woman that you see is London Dori Simmons. Now, that name is familiar to you in that she's the woman that my grandfather has instructed me to marry in order to access my inheritance, information that you've all been exposed to through his leaked will. I've got a team running an investigation into who leaked his will, but I obviously cannot reverse your knowledge of it, so I will settle for explaining the events that led to these provisions," I started off.

I could see that I officially had their full attention, despite the scepticism. "As you're all aware, my grandfather left the company to me before he moved to Paris, but my relationship with him was not great when he left. I wanted nothing to do with him, despite him being sick. I avoided him for years, and his health continued to deteriorate. On the day you gave me my ultimatum, my best friend pointed out to me that I needed to reach out to my grandfather before it was too late, and so I did. A woman by the name of London Simmons answered the phone before connecting me to him. I told him that I would be going to Paris to see him, except I was hospitalized that very night and stayed there for three days. My grandfather died while I was still in hospital, and I missed his funeral. I found out that London had been taking care of him for a month before he died. I went to Paris and she and I missed out on formally being introduced to each other. Instead I learnt more about the great things she did and how much she meant to my grandfather. She took care of a dying man even when she didn't need to. I was depressed about losing my grandfather and missing his funeral, so I went out into the streets to clear my mind when I spotted a woman in a restaurant and her friend was just leaving her alone. I-"