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“I want you to get the article,” Ollie demanded. “There’s no way they run that article without you seeing it first. Tell her—”
“I know what to tell her. You go get Hollister.” He wanted Bijoux’s head counsel in here, stat.
Nic unmuted the phone, this time hitting the button so hard that the entire device skidded a foot across his desk. Son of a bitch. He was going to get that article and then he was going to tear it—and the reporter who wrote it—apart with his bare hands. “I need to tell you, Darlene, that if you run that article as is, without giving me a chance to vet it first and debunk your obvious misinformation, you will be facing a lawsuit the likes of which the Los Angeles Times has never seen.”
“Our information is good.”
“Your information is wrong, that much I guarantee you.”
“It comes from an insider at Bijoux. One who has proof that the company has systematically bought conflict diamonds and passed them off as conflict-free diamonds for at least seven of the last ten years.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re claiming that one of my people came to you and gave you information implicating us in not only buying conflict diamonds but then in conspiring to defraud consumers by claiming the gems are conflict-free.”
“Essentially, yes, that is what the source has provided us proof of.”
“And again, this came from one of our people?”
“That is correct.”
“And you think you’re going to run this article in three days.”
“We are going to run this article in three days,”
Over his dead body they were. “Yeah, well, Darlene, that just isn’t going to happen.”
“With all due respect, Nic—”
“With all due respect, Darlene, you’ve been taken for a ride.”
“The Los Angeles Times does not get taken for a ride, Mr. Durand. We triple-check our sources—”
“Well, you didn’t in this case. This is the first time either Marc or myself has heard of these allegations, and in a situation like this, no one else is in a position to know more about our diamonds, and where they come from, than we do. I know where every single shipment comes from. Marc personally inspects every mine on a regular basis. The certification numbers on the stones come straight to us, and only our in-house diamond experts ever get near those numbers. All of our diamonds are conflict-free. All of them. Now, you are welcome to come in and tour our facilities and see all of the safeguards we have in place to ensure that what you’re accusing us of doesn’t happen. In the meantime, I’ll be happy to courier over all of our PR materials so you can see where our diamonds really do come from.”
“Our reporter tried to come for a tour on two separate occasions while she was researching this article. Both times she was turned away by your PR office.”
He ground his teeth together, wondering what the hell Ollie had been thinking. Probably that he didn’t have time to babysit a reporter on a puff piece, what with the sudden uptick in business and philanthropy—and the publicity both generated. But if she had told him what the story was about, there was no way Ollie would have turned her away. And no way this information wouldn’t have been brought to Nic’s attention a hell of a lot sooner than three days before the article was supposed to run.
Which, he figured, was exactly why the reporter hadn’t told anyone the nature of the story she was writing. And now they were all paying for it…
“Your reporter’s inability to explain her article idea to my PR department is not my fault.”
“Of course not. But your PR department’s secrecy and inability to deal with the community when necessary is not our fault, either.”
He ground his teeth, counted to ten to keep from spewing onto her all the vitriol that was racing through his brain. When he could finally speak again without fear of telling the managing editor of the Los Angeles Times to go to hell and take her newspaper with her, he said, “I’ll courier over that information to you right away. In the meantime, you can email or fax a copy of that article to my office.”
“We are under no obligation to do so, Mr. Durand.” Her voice was firm, with absolutely no uncertainty whatsoever. Which seemed impossible to him considering the claims she was making—and the proof he had to refute them.
Who was her source? he wondered again. He went through a list of all the employees who had left recently and couldn’t think of one who would do this—or who could do this. All of them had left on good terms, and not one of them had access to the kind of information that would convince the Times to run such a negative story. Largely because that information didn’t exist, but still. If it did, no way any of them would have been able to access it.
“You may not be under any obligation, Darlene, but you’re going to do it anyway. Because if you don’t, my attorneys will be filing for injunctions today against your paper, you and the reporter who wrote this drivel. And if you run this article as is, without getting to the truth of the matter, I will sue you. By the time we’re done, Bijoux will own the Los Angeles Times and all of your assets. Now, you have until eleven o’clock to provide me with a copy of that article. Or the Los Angeles civil court system will be hearing from us.”
He hung up the phone without giving her the chance to say another word. He’d heard more than enough.
For long seconds, Nic could do nothing but stand there, staring into space and imagining the worst-case scenario if this thing went to print. Bijoux would lose everything it had gained under Marc and Nic’s leadership. They’d be crucified in the press—and in the international human rights community. They’d be sued by God only knew how many consumer groups and diamond retailers. And they’d be investigated by numerous federal and international law agencies. Not to mention the fact that if any of that happened, it would break his brother’s heart.
Which was why Nic was going to make sure that it didn’t. He and Marc had worked too hard to build up this company after they’d taken it over ten years before. They’d faced their father’s disapproval, their board’s disapproval. Hell, even the industry had frowned on Marc and Nic’s determination to use only responsibly sourced diamonds.
In the interim years, the industry had grown much more supportive of what he and his brother were doing—largely because of the growing interest from human rights groups in places like Sierra Leone and Liberia. New laws had been passed making trading in conflict diamonds illegal, but just because it was illegal didn’t mean that less reputable companies didn’t still buy up conflict diamonds. It only meant they did it in secret instead of on the open market as they used to.
