The Man to Be Reckoned With by Tara Pammi Read Free Book Online Page B

him.”
    â€œThat’s not the story I’ve been hearing.”
    â€œI have no intention of humiliating myself or Drew just so that you can sit there and play us off against each other.”
    He leaned back into his seat as they leveled off, and the gray fabric stretched over his chest. “You managed it quite well all by yourself. I reviewed all of last quarter’s reports, and he did nothing but run the company into the ground. With his head buried in love clouds and you averse to any risk, Travelogue would have died within a year.”
    Drew and she had known each other for a while, their relationship always in a strange intersection between friends and colleagues. But things had slowly spiraled to worse in the last few months. “I never expected him to sell me out to you.”
    â€œSelling out to me was the wisest thing he did. There hasn’t been a lot of financial growth in the last quarter. And anyone who had good ideas, Drew fired them. Like the marketing strategist.”
    The sparkling water she had ordered came and she took a fortifying sip. “All the marketing strategy suggested was that we increase the cost of membership for customers who have
been
with us since the beginning, and take a bigger cut of the profits from the flash sales for vacations packages.
    â€œThese are middle-class families who come to us because we provide the best value for their buck, not international jet-setters who don’t have to think twice about buying and sinking companies like a little boy buys and breaks his toys.”
    Nathan countered without blinking at her juvenile attack. “That marketing strategy is spot-on. Different tiers of membership is the way to go. An executive membership that charges more and provides a different kind of experience. There’s a whole set of clientele that Travelogue’s missing out on. If you don’t grow, if you don’t expand your horizons, you’ll be pushed out of the market.”
    â€œThat’s a huge risk that might alienate us to our current clientele.”
    â€œIt is. And it’s one I’m willing to take.”
    Neatly put in place, Riya bristled. It was all her hard work and his risk. And the consequences would be hers to bear. “Does it ever get old?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat high you’re getting from the casual display of your power and your arrogance?”
    He laughed, and the deep sound went straight to her heart, as if it were a specially designed missile targeted for her. It seemed every little gesture of his went straight to her heart or some other part of her.
    Parts she shouldn’t even be thinking about.
    How did he get past all of her defenses so easily? Why did he affect her so much?
    She had no answers, only increasing alarm that she would never figure out how to resist whatever it was that he did so easily.
    â€œWhat will you do once I sign over the estate to you? Kick Robert and Jackie out?”
    â€œMaybe. Or maybe we can all live under one roof like a happy family. Would that pacify your guilt?”
    The idea of it was so absurd that Riya stared at him, taken aback.
    â€œHorrifying prospect, isn’t it? Me and you, me and your mother, me and Robert—it’s a disaster every which way.”
    â€œThis is all so funny and trivial to you...you don’t care...” She had to pause to breathe. “You have all these resources, you own a damn plane and yet you couldn’t have visited Robert once in all these years?
    The cabin resounded with her outburst.
    â€œIt’s not a one-for-one anymore, Riya.”
    He slid some papers toward her, and the words
Disciplinary Action
printed neatly on top stole the remaining breaths from Riya’s lungs.
    She fingered the papers, her heart sinking. “What is this?”
    â€œHis mismanagement of the company in the last few months meant Drew was the dispensable one between the two of you, for now. But it