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Victoria didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t give up the entire patent. “There has to be some way we can come to an agreement on this.”
“What way, Victoria? If you see one, then please enlighten me.”
Victoria scrambled for words, but for once, the words weren’t there. She had never been faced with a situation like this. What the hell was she supposed to do? Ask Alexa to give up her career? Give up her own career for Alexa? Neither option was tenable, and they both knew it.
“I… I don’t—”
“Exactly. I don’t really see that there’s anything more to discuss. There’s only one way for this to end. For one of us to win, one of us has to lose.”
Victoria desperately wanted to refute Alexa’s hopeless outlook, but she couldn’t. She saw no way out of this trap. It was hopeless. “Then I guess there’s nothing more to say.”
“No, I guess there isn’t.” Victoria stood, feeling like her feet were made out of lead. “I’ll see myself out. I’ll see you in court, Alexa.”
“See you in court, Victoria.”
Alexa sounded about as close to tears as Victoria felt.
Victoria shared one last anguished glance with the woman she loved before quietly leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
10
Alexa
Alexa should have listened to her gut. Her instincts had been screaming that this meeting was a bad idea, but she had allowed herself to be convinced that those instincts were faulty, compromised.
She should never have allowed herself to be persuaded to meet with Victoria.
Alexa had been prepared for the possibility of the meeting making things worse. She had been mentally braced for screaming and swearing and oaths of vengeance. What she’d gotten had been so much worse in so many ways.
It had been easier when she could just be furious with Victoria, thinking her unreasonable and greedy. Now that she knew Victoria had just as much riding on this as she did… Well, she didn’t know what to do with that.
She would keep fighting for her company, of course. To do so wasn’t an option. But she would hate herself every moment she did it, knowing that all her work might be ruining the woman she loved.
“Alexa? What happened? Victoria and her team just left! What did you say to her?”
Alexa took a deep breath and forced herself to look into Jared’s eyes. “Negotiation is not going to be possible.”
“Alexa, you know what is riding this! If we lose—”
“I know that!” Alexa snapped. “I tried, okay? She’s not budging.”
“She has to budge! I admit I don’t know her personally like you do, but I know her reputation. Victoria St. Clair isn’t unreasonable. There has to be some arrangement we can come to.”
“Just wishing it doesn’t make it so, Jared. Please believe me on this. I tried, I really did. When I tell you there is no way we can come to an agreement, I really mean it.”
Jared surveyed the conviction in her eyes for a few moments before finally nodding in defeat. “Then we fight this in court.”
“What do you think our chances are?”
“At this point, it’s about fifty-fifty. There are likely to be shifts of advantage in the future, but I have no way of knowing which way those will go.”
“So we may go down, or we may make up what we lost tenfold. Great.” Alexa knew that uncertainty was part of running a business, but the stakes had never been quite so high before.
“The good news is that I’ve managed to get the case priority changed. We can’t afford to wait years for this to be resolved. We’ve been put under the urgent category. This should be resolved in a few weeks, at most.”
“Great.” Alexa was struggling to work up much enthusiasm about anything right now. One thing was for sure; it was going to be a rough few weeks.
Alexa dabbed makeup under her eyes, trying to hide the dark circles shadowing them. She hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past six weeks. She had made sure to get an early night last night—she needed to be rested for today—but that didn’t erase the evidence of her recent bad sleeping habits.
