Power Play: A Novel (9 page)

And on Sunday morning he played golf with the two Japanese men for the second time. And when he left them on Sunday afternoon, they confirmed to him that the deal had been made. It had been a very successful weekend, and he told Liz when he got home. She was pleased and proud of him. She always was.

John came home for dinner that night and brought Alyssa with him, and both his parents liked her very much as they got to know her better. And even Lindsay the Terrible pronounced her “cool.” She
and Alyssa had a long talk about rap music, and Lindsay was impressed by how much she knew. And on the way back to Stanford with John, Alyssa laughed about it and told him his sister was a sweet kid. They sat in his car talking and kissing for a long time when they got back to the campus, before Alyssa went back to her dorm and he to his apartment. Their relationship was going well. And she liked his family a lot. It made her miss having parents who liked each other and got along, which was something she’d never had. The Westons seemed like the perfect couple, and it made her sad for what she didn’t have and never would. She thought John was blessed to have parents who were so loving to each other.

Alyssa called her mother to tell her about it on Monday at the office, and Fiona was having an insane day. She had a run-in with Harding Williams when she called him to report on the investigation, and he referred to it as her witch hunt again. She lost her temper with him, and was then furious at herself for doing so. She was so tired of his arrogance and pompous attitude with her. She had almost called him an old fool, but had restrained herself. And she was aggravated with herself for letting him get to her. In the end, with one thing and another, it was a stressful day. A typical one for a CEO. Not every day was fun. But she enjoyed hearing from her daughter, even in the midst of it, and took the time to listen to her about her date with John the day before. And it confirmed her good opinion of Marshall Weston if he had such a solid family and nice kids. He was obviously a good guy, which was nice to know, and she was looking forward to meeting his son.

* * *

Marshall’s day hadn’t been nearly as stressful as Fiona’s. He was pleased with the Japanese deal he had sealed over the weekend. It was an important one for UPI, and he knew the board and stockholders would be pleased. It had been difficult to consummate for months, and was a major coup for him. He had just finished dictating a report about it to the chairman of the board when Simon Stern, their chief in-house counsel, called and asked him if he could come up to Marshall’s office to see him. Marshall told him that he could, and had just finished for the day when Simon walked in, and chatted with him for a few minutes before discreetly closing Marshall’s office door. Marshall couldn’t imagine why he’d come, or why he appeared so secretive about it.

As soon as he had closed the door, Simon gazed at Marshall across his desk with grave concern.

“We have a problem,” he said, looking Marshall in the eye. He seemed nervous about what he was about to say, as Marshall waited to hear. What he heard next had been the furthest thing from his mind and took him by surprise.

“We got a call from an attorney today,” Simon explained cautiously, not wanting to anger the CEO. He had no idea what his reaction would be, and he didn’t like being the bearer of bad news. “And apparently, a former employee, a woman named Megan Wheeler, is going to sue you for sexual harassment and wrongful termination. She claims she had an affair with you two years ago, and she says you got her the job and then she believes you had her fired when she ended the affair.” Simon Stern sat looking at him, and waited for Marshall’s reaction. Marshall looked like someone
had just exploded an atom bomb in his lap. He stared at the attorney in total disbelief.

“Are you serious? Is she insane?” He looked horrified by what the attorney had said, and completely shocked.

“She may be,” Simon said, looking hopeful, still praying it would all go away, but suits like that rarely did. Even if you didn’t believe the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” theory, in his experience women who brought sexual harassment suits were very determined about it, and didn’t just disappear. They were usually scorned women who wanted to get even for something, either a badly handled affair or advances that had not been returned. Either way, they were zealous about it most of the time and always wanted vengeance and big money. “Do you know who she is?”

“I vaguely remember the name,” Marshall admitted. “I think we hired her to do some client events, but I certainly never had an affair with her. I don’t even remember what she looks like. I think she is some kind of party or event planner. We may have put her on staff for a while after the events, and then I lost track of her.”

“She says you had an affair with her for eight months, and met her at a hotel repeatedly. And when she wanted to break it off, you got her fired. And yes, she’s a corporate event planner. I don’t know why we would have put her on staff instead of keeping her as an independent contractor. She said you suggested the job to her. She got a damn nice salary for it too. I checked with HR, and she was on the payroll for seven months, and then we let her go. Her story matches up with her employment dates, as far as the timing goes.”

“I can promise you, I never slept with her,” Marshall said with a look of desperation. He could see his whole career flashing before his eyes, and about to end in disgrace.

“She says she has documentation to prove your involvement with her, e-mails and letters from you, I think, where she claims you made sexual references and offers to her.” He couldn’t imagine that Marshall would have been that stupid, even if he had slept with her, but he had to report to him what her attorney claimed. “It gets more complicated than that. Apparently, she’s a breast cancer survivor, which she says you knew, and the laws about firing cancer survivors are even tougher than sexual harassment. If that’s true, she has us over a barrel, and this won’t look good in the press.” Their house counsel was obviously worried, and Marshall looked sick.

“The woman is lying. I’ve never written letters to anyone, making sexual offers. Why would I do something like that?”

“It didn’t sound right to me either. We’ll see what she’s got. She may have written them herself. If so, hopefully we can prove it and scare her off. But for now, they’re being aggressive in the initial attack. Her lawyer sounds like a nasty piece of work. He’s probably a contingency lawyer, and figures that we’ll settle. And if there’s any truth to this, we will, with the board’s approval, of course. They’re not going to want something like this surfacing in the press. Her attorney says they’re serving us next week. I think we need to talk to Connie about this as soon as possible.” Connie Feinberg was the chairman of UPI’s board. She was a reasonable woman and Marshall liked her, but he had no idea how she would react, and neither did Simon Stern. They had never faced a suit like this at a CEO level before. It was new to them, and to Marshall, whose reputation had been squeaky clean till then. Simon knew he was married, a family man, and devoted to his wife and kids. This was going to be hard on them.

“What does she want?” Marshall asked in a choked voice. This
was not what he wanted happening in a thus-far-flawless career. He had visions of being fired, and his career and reputation destroyed. He was on the verge of tears, particularly when he thought of the impact on Liz and his kids.

“She wants a million dollars. Her attorney says they’re suing us for five, but he was pretty clear that she’ll settle for one. Something tells me she’s not going to let it go. And he insists it’s a valid claim,” Simon said unhappily.

“I can tell you that it’s not. I never slept with this woman. There was no affair. I remember who she was now. She looked like a cheap floozy, but she did several good events for us. I had no idea we even hired her. And I never saw her after the events.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, Marshall,” the attorney reassured him. “I’m sorry this has come up. Unfortunately, it’s part of the modern world, and there are some very dishonest people out there. We’re all targets for it, particularly in your position.” Marshall nodded, feeling sick. And as well as Connie, he would have to warn Liz, in case it appeared in the press. And eventually he’d have to tell Ashley too. And his children. It was a nightmare waiting to happen, and all he wanted to do was wake up.

“I’ll give Connie a call. What do we do now?” Marshall asked in a tense voice.

“If there is any truth to it, negotiate like crazy. And if not, just wait and see what she does. Her lawyer said he’d send over copies of the correspondence she claims to have from you, and apparently there are some photographs too. It’s probably all bogus. You’re not the first CEO this has happened to, and you won’t be the last. We’re not going to negotiate with her if it’s not true, unless the board thinks we should. We need some guidelines from them.” Marshall nodded, and
a moment later the attorney left his office and promised to keep him informed.

Marshall sat for a long moment at his desk, with tears in his eyes, and then he called Connie Feinberg at home. She had run a large, respected family-owned corporation for many years. She was a smart woman and an excellent chairman of the board. She was surprised to hear from Marshall, and even more so when he told her what was happening. She sounded upset, but not shocked. She had known of situations like this before. Her own brother had been sued for sexual harassment, so this wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to her. And he had won. His accuser had been discredited and withdrawn the suit.

“I can promise you it’s not true,” Marshall said in an anguished tone.

“I appreciate your calling me, Marshall,” she said kindly. “And I’m very sorry to hear about this. At least she’s not claiming you raped her, and bringing criminal charges against you. I’ve heard of that happening too. With luck, she’ll go away without making too much fuss. And even if there’s no truth to it, it may be smarter for us to negotiate with her and settle for some reasonable amount, just to make her go away. If we do, it’s giving in to extortion, but sometimes it’s smarter to just pay up to protect your reputation, and ours, rather than getting into a swearing contest with some greedy nutcase who may try to take it all the way in court. I’ll arrange a conference call with the board, and let you know how they feel about it. My recommendation would be to pay her off and shut her up before this goes any further.”

“But wouldn’t that imply that it’s true?” Marshall asked. “I don’t want to admit guilt for something I didn’t do. I have my family to think of too. And UPI, of course. It breaks my heart to cause a
problem like this, and it makes me sick to think of costing the company blood money this woman doesn’t deserve.”

“Sometimes that’s the way our legal system works,” Connie Feinberg said practically. They both knew that settling lawsuits, whether legitimate or not, was commonplace. She was a sensible woman and not easily shocked. “You’ve been a wonderful asset to this company for fifteen years, ten of them as CEO, and we have an obligation to protect you from people like this. We don’t want your reputation hurt any more than ours. And I’m sure this is very distressing to you, your family, and your wife.”

“I haven’t told her yet. I just found out ten minutes ago. I called you first,” Marshall said, and Connie thanked him for calling her so quickly.

“Let’s just see where this goes, but I think Simon should be prepared to negotiate whatever deal he can, if you’ll agree to that.”

“I’ll do whatever is best for UPI,” he said in a somber tone, and she thanked him again for letting her know, and promised to call him after her conference call with the board.

He felt dazed as he drove home to Marin County, and wondered what he should tell Liz. Mercifully, Lindsay was out, having dinner at her boyfriend’s house, and Liz took one look at him when he walked in and knew something terrible had occurred. He was fighting back tears, and broke down in sobs at the kitchen table when he explained the situation to her.

“I don’t understand how something like this can happen. I never even spoke to the woman, and now she’s claiming we had an affair and I had her fired. She even said I got her hired by UPI. I barely remember who she is. And the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt
UPI, and you, and our kids.” He was completely unglued by the accusation, and Liz held him in her arms while he cried. It took him half an hour to regain his composure, and Liz assured him that she didn’t believe a word of the woman’s claim.

“We’ll see it through, Marsh, whatever it takes. You know you didn’t do it.” She had total faith in him, and he could see it, which was comforting for him. They were sitting at the kitchen table holding hands when Connie Feinberg called him, after talking to the other members of the board.

“I just want to assure you, Marshall, that the board will back you one hundred percent. You’re too important to us to let you down on something like this. We’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll speak to Simon myself tomorrow. And we’re all in agreement, we want to negotiate with this woman as soon as possible, and buy out of this mess as quickly and as quietly as we can. We don’t want to get aggressive with her, and have her go to the press.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” Marshall said in a voice filled with gratitude and emotion.

He and Liz talked about it quietly until Lindsay came home, and then they went upstairs to bed. They didn’t say anything to her, and agreed that it was too soon to say anything to the children, and there was no point upsetting them if the matter could be handled internally without the public ever finding out.

It was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and he was terrified that his career was about to go down the tubes and everything he had built for UPI, and personally, would be destroyed. He was horrified by his accuser’s claims and badly shaken. He hardly slept that night and was awake before dawn. He lay there for a long
time, not wanting to disturb Liz, and then got out of bed and stood and watched the sun come up.

“You’re up?” Liz asked when she saw him and he nodded.