Her CEO - Flora Ferrari Page 0,26

I didn’t expect to find was fraud, prejudice and criminal corruption of the highest order,” I hear myself saying. I think it’s a line from a movie I saw but it sounds good, like it fits, so I roll with it.

The whole room erupts with each board member shouting protests, forgetting where they are and bellowing for the instant removal of Eric from the board, calling for a unanimous vote of no confidence for him as CEO of the company.

I feel myself getting overwhelmed again, wanting to run away, but one look at Eric makes me stand my ground.

The grin on his face reminds me that he’s the boss still and we have some pretty damning evidence to back up what I’m saying.

He lets them all shout and ballyhoo for a few minutes, eventually signaling me to just play the recording I made.

I take my phone out and set it on the wide, gleaming walnut table in front of me, noticing my hands are shaking again, but determined to see this through.

Eric calls for quiet, and I’m allowed to say a little more before I play the recording.

“What you’re about to hear is a taped conversation between the head of Human Resources, Timothy Sloane, and the receptionist who was dismissed yesterday after it was revealed she broke company procedure and her employment agreement by behaving in a prejudiced manner towards myself.”

There’s a few looks of ‘so what’ but Eric urges me to go on, and I remember what he said about him bringing up the rear.

“Did you tell her? Did she fall for it?”

“Yeah, I told her. Said Chambers has a rotating roster of fat nobodies that he uses than throws away. I don’t think she bought it though.”

“Well, she’d better have bought it. I want that fucker, Eric Chambers to go down, and hard. I want our little plan for your unfair dismissal case to be the start of a long campaign to ruin him.”

“Will it work though? I mean, twenty-five million for being fired?”

“It’s the settlement we’re after. Chambers won’t want the publicity, he’ll pay twice that just to have all this go away, but it won’t just go away… because even when he pays, we’ll be there, demanding more. This is it, honey! The one scheme that not only sets me free from Chambers, but sets us up for life!”

Eric motions for me to pause playing, then he stands up.

“Not just an admission of intent to defraud Chambers Inc. A plot to personally blackmail me as well.”

Someone from the end of the table moves suddenly, bolting for the door, which is suddenly filled with security and a line of police behind them.

“It took some doing, gentlemen,” Eric continues. “But we managed to convince the authorities to act on this straight away, and in time for our meeting, before anyone else involved could alert those implicated.”

There’s a groan or two, but most of the board members are leaning forward, shaking their heads in disbelief.

Eric eyeballs each one of them, the guilty already showing their true colors with their faces.

“It’s not the only rottenness in this place,” he snarls. “And starting today, with Alyson by my side, we’re going to root out all of it, starting right from the top and working our way down to the mailroom.”

The board starts to murmur again, and Eric’s hand goes up.

“There’s plenty more in that short conversation, implicating some in this room, and many in this building. All I can say is this much, I’m disappointed on the one hand, but grateful to Alyson on the other for bringing all this to the surface.”

He takes my hand, and I stand up, but nobody seems very excited except for Eric.

“For that reason, I’m announcing the appointment of Alyson Bennet as our first, and joint Chairperson of Chambers Inc. as well as joint majority shareholder no votes required, the deciding voters are about to be arrested for a string of white collar crimes.”

“This is outrageous!” Cowper cries out, turning purple and shaking his fists.

The security team wants to move in, the police eager to make their arrests, but something tells me Eric’s only just started to upset the apple cart.

“You can’t just announce a new majority shareholder… not unless…” The chairman gasps, all the color draining from his face.

I feel my own face grow puzzled. I have no idea what Eric’s talking about now. I thought we had the receptionist and Human Resources guy down for fraud, trying to scam the company for unfair