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Montgomery set the pen down, tenting his fingers as he thought about the unopened box buried in his suitcase—another clue that he’d become someone else these last months. He didn’t have the first idea what was in the parcel.
“You’re right,” he admitted, looking up at Bernard. The man wasn’t just his CFO, he was the other half of his business brain, a half he didn’t know he’d been missing. He’d consider him a brother, only his brain was more computer chip than human. “My mind’s only been half on my work.”
He expected Bernard’s expression to soften in understanding. Instead, it turned to steel.
“Half. Half? I sweat and bleed for this company while you seem to do the same for a woman you told me several times you should have never married!”
Montgomery shifted in his chair. Bernard wasn’t wrong, but the picture of him sweating for Hartley made him feel trapped in a condemned building with no way out. The attic surroundings backing up the vision weren’t helping him stay calm, either. “It’s complicated, but—”
“Ja, es ist kompliziert.Complicatedis what you always tell me. So I ask you this: What matters more—walking away from a woman who threatened to ruin you, or exceeding your father’s expectations by taking his company global, something he could never achieve?”
“Ihavewalked—” Montgomery started, but he realized he was about to lie. He never lied. “I am walking away. There are just a few things I need to complete first.”
“Call your lawyer. Today. Now! File for divorce and get back to the Montgomery we need,” Bernard urged.
Montgomery’s back straightened. Bernard was right, but dammit, nobody told him what to do. “I will. But it will still take time for papers to be filed and served,” he said, thinking of the woman on her way back to Cavendish as they spoke. Back to this exact property, up to this room where her clothes hung in the closet near his—
“You have to be in Beijing in two weeks, or we lose China,” Bernard said, leaning back in his chair with a long sigh. “You’re going to lose us China, and China was the juggernaut market for the new phones. China is the largest device market next to India. And if we don’t get China, we don’t get India. That’s seven billion dollars of research and development flushed away.”
The words were a shot of ice syringed into Montgomery’s veins. More than figuring out how a woman could enslave him, Montgomery hated losing money. “China’s been set up for months. How could we lose it?” he argued, pulling the box out of his suitcase and slamming it on the desk.
“The stealth chip technology is stalled. The MIIT is sitting on it.”
“But it passed the ministry’s review,” he protested.
“No. This is what I mean! I sent you the phones with the chips and the report. The Ministry of Industry said the chip can’t be certified without field testing, which you haven’t approved, and so we haven’t done,” Bernard said, anger finally surfacing in his tone. “Jesus Christus, Montgomery, catch up!”
“All right, all right.” He gripped the corners of the desk. He could feel his old self crawling up inside him, methodically gathering all the things Bernard had just told him and clicking them into place. Bernard’s words floated back to him.“What matters more—walking away from a woman who threatened to ruin you, or exceeding your father’s expectations by taking his company global, something he could never achieve?”
At one time, nothing had mattered more than being everything his father was not. It was ironic that the only thing his father had been right about was Hartley. He’d said she was trouble the night he introduced her to him.
Although he was pretty sure his father had come to that opinion after he couldn’t seduce her.
Get your fucking head in the game,he yelled at himself.
“You sent me their detailed report?” he demanded. “And the only thing holding up a field test is my approval?” He released the desk to open another tab on his computer. He logged into the Meyer Communication intranet, paged to his secure portal, and read through memo after memo.
He heard Bernard sigh, then he leaned forward, his hand poised with pen over pad.
Montgomery asked a few questions here and there. He mentally measured the distance between putting the testing together and having a completed report in his hand.
“Tell me the feuerdrache is back,” Bernard said after answering his last question. The man sounded hopeful.
“The fire dragonisback, with a vengeance,” Montgomery promised. “How many phones did you send me?”
“Three complete, two disassembled with schematics,” Bernard replied with renewed energy. “If we get the report to them by the end of this week, you can fly to Beijing for the hearing.”
“Escalated to a hearing, huh?” he asked.
“They’re very particular about new tech,” Bernard replied diplomatically.
He chuckled. “Right. I’ll work from here, then fly to Beijing.” Montgomery created a new field test document.
“Where is ‘here’? And please be more specific than an attic.”
Montgomery laughed. “I’m in Seattle. Beijing is only—”
“Nine hours away. Good. Shall I set up the testing on my end?”
