Carpe Diem Ch. 04

"Marie told me that you were so interested in one of my texts that you grabbed her phone out of her hand to look at it."

"Never happened." he said, crossing his arms.

"If I told you where you were when you did that, would that jog your memory?" Amanda asked.

Chip was in Marie's bed when it happened. He glared at Amanda, detesting her impertinence.

"I would never physically assault anyone, much less a woman," Chip said, sanctimoniously.

Amanda was growing increasingly nervous that Josh had been right. In the end, this was a he said/she said situation. With no physical evidence, Chip could just deny everything.

For the first time, a look of worry was evident in her eyes. She looked over at Josh. He was tapping something into his phone.

At least pay attention to what's going on for godsake, she thought to herself.

"Isn't it true that you made a video of my texts and photos on Marie's phone and used it to smear Josh?"

She was desperate now, flailing.

"That's absurd," Chip scoffed. "I would never invade someone's privacy like that or try to besmirch the reputation of a colleague. And, frankly, I resent the implication that I would."

Chip pulled out his phone and placed it on the table.

"If you don't believe me, check my phone. See if there's a video of your texts. Go on. Check it."

He was calling Amanda's bluff. She had no idea if the videos were on his phone or not. She felt trapped.

Chip turned to the Board Chairman.

"I must say, I'm losing my patience with this whole thing. These kinds of baseless accusations have no place in our company."

"You said you always treat your women colleagues with respect," Amanda said, her voice rising. "Didn't you tell me, just last Friday, that when you saw that picture of me in the bathing suit, it made you want to quote 'cum all over my tits' unquote? Didn't you say that? On Friday? When we were having lunch?"

A hubbub erupted in the room. The board members looked shocked.

"I don't believe this!" Chip said.

"OK, that's enough," the Board Chair said to Amanda.

"How did you know about the picture if you hadn't seen the texts? How did you know?"

Chip turned to the Board Chair.

"Obviously, she's out of control," Chip said. "She and her boyfriend got themselves into trouble and now they're trying to blame it on someone else. This whole charade is ridiculous. I think they both should be disciplined .., and possibly fired."

The Board Chair put up his hand.

"Quiet down, everybody. Mr. Hamilton and Ms. Butterfield, are you finished with your presentation? If so, the board will meet in executive session to vote on next steps."

Amanda looked at Josh. He looked back at her. There was a strangely confident gleam in his eyes.

"Could I say something?" Josh asked.

Amanda looked at him quizzically. Those were the exact words she said to him right before she saved the Armani deal.

She gestured for him to go ahead.

Josh stood and addressed the room.

"When Amanda and I traveled to Zürich, we each booked separate rooms. But because she made her reservation at the last minute, and the hotel was fully booked, she had to book one room for the first night and a different room for nights two and three."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Chip asked, impatiently.

The Chairman raised his hand to Chip to silence him.

"When the time came for Amanda to move to her new room, she was told by the hotel manager that the room was no longer available because the previous guest had decided to extend their stay. That's what led to Amanda staying in my suite."

"Is there a point to all this?" Chip asked.

Josh pressed a key on his laptop. A video conference window filled the big screen. A few seconds later, a man's face appeared.

"Guten tag, Hans," Josh said.

"Good evening, Mr. Hamilton. Or, should I say, good afternoon."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Hans Breuer, the manager of the B2 Hotel in Zürich. Hans, can you please repeat what you explained to me in your email?"

Hans, a distinguished man of around 50, nodded and gave a slight bow.

"It would be my pleasure. When the previous guest elected to extend their stay, making the room Ms. Butterfield reserved unavailable, I made some inquiries. While it's not unprecedented to have guests extend their stay, it is unusual. The guest, a retired gentleman from Stuttgart who was visiting Zürich on holiday, said he received a telephone call informing him that, due to an administrative blunder, the room he was staying in was pre-paid for two additional days. He was told that he could continue to stay in the room at no cost. And, as a gesture of the hotel's good will, any expenses would be covered as well. Naturally, the gentleman accepted the offer. Who wouldn't?"

"This is a waste of time!" Chip interrupted.

"Be quiet, Chip," Frank said, forcefully.

Hans, the hotel manager, continued.

"The thing is, there was no administrative blunder necessitating such a gesture. Our systems are maintained with the utmost precision. So, I examined the records more closely. As it turns out, the two additional days were paid for by an external third party."

Josh asked Hans a clarifying question.

"So, a third party had taken steps to ensure that Amanda, Ms. Butterfield, would not have a room to stay in for the remainder of her trip?"

"Apparently so."

"And do you know who paid for the room?" Josh asked.

"That's what caught my eye," the manager said. "It was quite unusual. The payment was made all the way from San Francisco and charged to the credit card of one Chip P. Taylor."

After a moment of stunned silence, the conference room erupted. The board members began looking at each other and murmuring. Chip sprang to his feet.

"This is outrageous!" Chip shouted. "I don't have to sit here and listen to this bullshit."

Amanda looked at Josh, the hint of a smile curling the edges of her lips. He looked back at her, a contented look on his face.

"In light of this development," Frank said, in an effort to get the room back under control, "I move that we direct the attorneys to investigate this new line of evidence to ascertain its validity."

Chip's mouth was agape, an incredulous expression on his face.

"You're not going to take this seriously, are you?" he brayed. "This is total bullshit!"

Frank stood and gave Chip a withering look.

"I'll sue!" Chip yelled, "Do you hear me? I'll sue all of you!"

"Chip!" Frank said, sternly. "Sit down and shut up!"

Josh and Amanda just continued to look at each other, smiling, oblivious to the cacophony all around them.

EPILOGUE

Exactly six weeks later, to the day, Josh and Amanda lay together, their bodies intertwined, in a thatch-covered treehouse in a remote corner of Costa Rica. The warm tropical air, wafting through their open-air room, caressed their naked bodies as they made sensuous love to the sounds of the ocean.

The surreal happenings of the board meeting, and all that followed, felt a world away.

The revelation that Chip had tried to engineer a scandal to discredit Josh caused a huge uproar within the company. The lawyers turned their investigation on him and determined he was in fact responsible for submitting the anonymous whistleblower's report, based on the stolen private communications of fellow employees, for the purpose of his own professional advancement.

Marie turned out to be a star witness. Apparently, Chip had told Marie that he had recently separated from his wife, which turned out to be patently untrue. Not one to be played for a fool, Marie spilled the beans on a whole host of Chip's misbehaviors, from cheating on his expense reports to using illicit drugs in the office.

Two members of the leadership team also came forward saying they'd personally overheard Chip refer to Amanda as "the classy bitch with the killer body" among other sexist comments.

Chip's prospects for the CEO-ship evaporated like dew on a hot summer's day.

In the weeks that followed, the narrative regarding the Zürich trip completely flipped. It was now viewed by the Board as a crowning achievement by two superstar employees. Both the Europe launch and the Armani partnership turned out to be huge strategic wins.

Josh had gone from "suspected harasser" to "strategic mastermind", a charismatic boy wonder, and therefore the perfect successor to Frank as CEO. When Josh moved up, Marty took over as VP of Product. Amanda, seen as a leader in her own right, got full credit for landing the Armani account, and for driving a successful rollout in Europe. This made her the natural choice as the new Director of Product.

Frank worked with HR to set up a reporting structure where Josh wouldn't be signing off on Amanda's performance reviews. Given their new status as resident superstars, there was little pushback.

Over time, the Zürich trip started to take on a mythology within the company. It wasn't a shameful episode where two employees had an affair and got caught. It was where the Josh Hamilton and the Amanda Butterfield, tech's new golden couple, fell in love and set their company on its current trajectory as a leader in the new, more sustainable, circular economy.

As for Amanda and Josh, they took it all pretty much in stride. Despite all the craziness going on around them -- the launch, the Armani partnership, the promotions -- they found time to take that vacation to Costa Rica they'd been dreaming about.

And now here they were, spending their days surfing and snorkeling, exploring the rain forest, and most of all, making love in their tree-top hideaway. They would spend hours there, drifting in and out of sleep, synchronizing their motions to the rhythm of the waves. Each time a wave would crash, like the sound of thunder from a distant storm, he would push himself deep inside her, eliciting a moan of pure pleasure. A primal and transcendent pleasure. The kind that comes when two souls truly touch.

# # #