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Of course, she wanted something. Olivia wasn’t someone who played nice without some benefit to herself. “What are you looking for?”
“You can’t make promises about the patch right now, but I know you’re working on some new initiatives. I want to know that I’ll get exclusive distribution rights for those in Great Britain.”
“You’re asking me for speculative distribution rights? On technology I haven’t even created yet?”
“Yes. I know that Dynamica will still be working with Paragon in the future—or at least, with Lauren Taylor. That’s all the guarantee I need to know it will be great.”
Her Highness’s magic had struck again. All Olivia wanted was the imprimatur of Lauren’s brilliance—that was enough. “Done. Now tell me what you know.”
“I can’t give you a name. But I will tell you that my source was someone internal—someone at Paragon.”
I felt my blood pressure spiking. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”
“Someone on the board. That’s all I can tell you for now.”
I gripped the phone so hard, it should’ve shattered. “That’s a good enough place for me to start. Thank you, Olivia. Who else knows?”
She sighed. “The rep from Belgium called me, and Doug from Australia. They aren’t happy with the news.”
Just fucking perfect. In addition to the personal crisis we were experiencing, a global one was about to hit.
I gathered myself together. “I’ll have my legal team draw up an exclusivity agreement for forthcoming intellectual property rights in the UK.”
“I appreciate that.”
I’m sure she did. People wanted any association with Lauren that they could brush up against. I hung up and paced the room, seething. Someone on her board had betrayed Lauren. Probably in an attempt to thwart the sale and hang on to the company, but still, it was an unauthorized attempt.
I was going to have to call a board meeting, and I might have to employ some questionable tactics. The list of people’s asses I needed to kick was growing. Good thing I had plenty of pent-up rage—it’d probably come in handy.
“Gabe.” Lauren shot out of the bedroom, looking agitated. “Who was that?”
“Do you remember what I told you about my UK distributor? That someone had leaked news of the sale?”
Lauren nodded, seeming distracted. “Yes, of course. What about it?”
“She just called me. It was…someone from your board.”
She cursed and dropped into a nearby chair, her hands curling into fists. “This is literally the last thing I need right now.”
I went over and rubbed her shoulders. “I can handle this, if you want. It’s Dynamica’s problem too.”
She nodded shakily. “Okay…okay. I appreciate that. I can’t take on a single other thing right now.” Her gaze flicked to mine briefly. “Just keep me posted, okay?”
“Of course.” The fact that she wasn’t fighting me set off an alarm in my head. “What’s going on?”
She put her face in her hands. “Li Na just texted me. She said she wants to do the exchange today. I need you to call your brothers.”
“Okay,” I said automatically—even though I felt like the floor was spinning beneath me and that nothing at all was okay, and never would be again.
In a haze of dread, I texted my brothers and drove well over the legal speed limit on the ride home. We were moving fast, but everything felt slow, as if I were having a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Our brief break from reality was ending too soon. Lauren had been silent since we’d packed up, her lips pressed together in a grim line. I put my hand on her thigh, already apprehensive about the possibility of being separated from her. “Why is she doing this? Why is she changing the timeframe?”
Lauren fidgeted next to me. “I don’t know—maybe she doesn’t want me to have enough time to prepare, or to get backup prepared.”
“What’d the text say?”
“She just gave me the address in Oakland again, and she reiterated that I have to come by myself.” She stole a glance at me. “Do you understand that I need to follow her instructions?”
Anxiety rolled through me. “I understand that we need to get Hannah out of there, and that you need to be safe.”
