Chapter 22: Jonathan - Forced Marriage to the CEO

Jonathan

Eleven trustees sit around the table in OncoNova’s secondary boardroom. It made the most sense to meet here. The OncoNova board had just finished voting on Elizabeth’s succession, and half the people in this room sit on both boards. No one saw the point in making everyone drive across the city for a second meeting when we were already under the same roof. My father occupies the head of the table although he has never set foot in this building before today. Harlan is at his right and I take the seat directly across from them.

My father doesn’t waste time on preamble. “We’re here to decide the leadership of Atwell Pharmaceuticals,” he says, addressing the table rather than me. “My son proposes to steady the flagship through the transition, then hand permanent leadership to an outside search. Someone with no family connection to this company.” He looks at every face before continuing. “I’d like the trust to vote on whether that proposal is acceptable, or whether Jonathan assumes the chair permanently, as originally intended when he was groomed for this role from the age of twelve.” A murmur moves through the room. This is the first time either of us has said it out loud, in front of witnesses.

“I’ll ask you plainly,” he continues, turning to me now, “so there’s no confusion later about what was offered and what was refused. Take the chair, permanently, or this trust will consider whether the flagship should exercise its right to fold OncoNova into Atwell holdings and strip it of independent leadership.”

“When Elizabeth takes over, that move would render her ineffective.” I say. “We’ve operated as an independent science committee free from outside interference, and that structure was necessary to win at AdComm. Fold it back under the flagship and you’ll lose Elizabeth, the science, and you will have wasted four hundred million dollars. And you’d be punishing six million patients to win an argument about a chair.”

“Yes,” my father agrees, unmoved. “I would, but this chair has always had an Atwell at the helm. That’s our tradition, and it should stay that way. If not Jonathan, then another Atwell.”

I look around the table instead of at him. Eleven faces, most of them have known me and my cousins for years. Some look uncomfortable. None look surprised. “Traditions matter,” I say, keeping my voice level. “But plenty of companies have found exemplary leaders when the family line no longer provided a viable candidate, this isn’t unprecedented. My proposal stands,” I say. “I will keep the flagship steady and ensure OncoNova transitions smoothly to Elizabeth. This board approved her fourteen months ago and she has been the scientific force behind the success at AdComm. The external search for the next Atwell CEO would begin immediately.”

The room goes quiet as each member weighs the variables. The silence is thick, no one clears a throat or shifts in their chair, the only sounds are the soft tick of the wall clock and the low hum of the air system. I can hear my own pulse in my ears, as eleven pairs of eyes stay fixed somewhere between the table and the window glass. The air feels charged, as if the entire room is holding its breath, waiting for the first person to break it.

Whitfield, a senior trustee who signed my christening papers thirty-nine years ago, finally breaks the stillness. “Malcolm,” he says, using my father’s given name for the first time I’ve ever heard anyone do in a business setting, “I will not punish six million patients to settle an argument about who sits in a chair. This trust would spend the next decade explaining to every institutional partner we have why we dismantled a functioning gene therapy company out of spite. I can’t vote for this motion.”

Nobody speaks for a long moment, weighing this new comment. My father’s expression doesn’t change, but the table exhales around him. The pressure drops out of the room like a slowly deflating balloon.

“Then we call it,” Harlan says quietly, reading the motion into the record on whether the trust accepts my proposal for the flagship transition or requires my permanent return to the chair. He asks for a show of hands. I don’t look at the table. I look straight at my father, and I watch his face while eleven people determine the fate of my future.

* * *

Roxbury is twelve minutes from State Street this time of day, and I have Thomas take me there instead of my penthouse. There is a bottle of champagne sitting on the seat beside me that I bought at the shop across from OncoNova, entirely on impulse. Jessica is at her desk when I walk into Anchor Point, reading glasses on, a stack of files in front of her. She looks up, sees my face, sees the bottle in my hand, and she’s out of her chair and across the room before I’ve said a single word.

“It’s finished,” is all I get out before she’s in my arms, then neither of us says anything else for a while.

“Tell me,” she says finally, pulling back just far enough to look at me.

“In the car,” I say. “I want to be moving when I tell you. I’ve had enough of standing still in corporate rooms today.” When we enter the car and sit down, she doesn’t wait for Thomas to raise privacy glass before her mouth slams into mine. The champagne bottle sits wedged between us, half-forgotten, as the car pulls smoothly onto the bridge.

“The trust voted,” I tell her between kisses, my hand sliding into her hair. “Nine to two, I don’t take the flagship permanently. External search starts next Monday.”

“And your father?”

“Voted against it, publicly, but it didn’t matter.” I pull her closer, her laugh warm and disbelieving against my mouth. “It’s over, Jessica. All of it.”

She pours two glasses with unsteady hands, spills a little on my knee, doesn’t care, and we drink to nothing at all somewhere over the Charles River, her mouth tasting of champagne and relief and unadulterated joy.

By the time we reach the garage neither of us remains fully dressed on top. The elevator ride up feels longer than it’s ever felt. I have her back pinned against the mirrored wall, with my palms sliding under her blouse, and both of us laughing between kisses at how little control either of us has left.

The elevator door opens directly into the entryway, and the rest of our clothes hit the floor before the panel even slides shut. I lift her against the wall right there: fast, hungry, a little clumsy, neither of us graceful about it, both of us not caring in the slightest.

Her legs lock tight around my hips as I drive into her in one deep, hard thrust, the sound of the contact sharp in the quiet entryway. She gasps against my mouth, her nails digging into my shoulders, and I bury my face in the curve of her neck, breathing in the warm scent of her skin. Every stroke is pure release, the frantic rhythm of our bodies heavy and deep. She peaks first with a broken cry, clenching around me so tightly I follow her over the edge a second later, spilling into her slick heat with a low groan.

Afterward, breathless and half-collapsed against each other on the parquet, she laughs into my chest. “We are getting entirely too old to do that against a wall.”

“Speak for yourself.”

She pulls my hand toward the master bath instead, running the water hot, and we walk into the shower together: slower this time, unhurried, washing the day off each other. My palms move slowly across her shoulders under the stream as I stand behind her tracing her back down to the curve of her hips and between her thighs washing her thoroughly.

I close the tap and tell her, “Elizabeth is officially CEO as of nine o’clock this morning.”

“And Harborlight?”

“She’s coming by tomorrow.” I press a kiss to her temple; condensation rolls down the tile. “We’ll finalize the structure together. But that is a conversation for tomorrow, tonight I only want this.”

She turns in my arms, the last of the water drops sliding down between our chests, and kisses me again: slow and certain. “Tonight,” she agrees, “Just this.”

As we towel off, she backs me toward the bedroom. We are still damp from the shower, skin slick and warm. The scent of soap and her skin clings to both of us. She pushes me down onto the bed and climbs over me, knees bracketing my hips. Water still beads on her collarbone and I follow one droplet with my mouth as it slides between her breasts, tasting the faint salt beneath the clean water. My hands settle on her waist, then slide up to the soft undersides of her breasts. She shivers when my thumbs brush her nipples. Her hands slide over the still-wet planes of my shoulders and chest, fingertips tracing the ridges of muscle, nails lightly scoring down my ribs until my breath catches. She presses open-mouthed kisses along my throat. She leans down and kisses me, slow and deliberate, then sits back and takes me in her hand. She guides me to her entrance and sinks down in one long, steady motion. A shared breath leaves both of us. She’s slick and tight around me. For a moment she just stays there, eyes locked on mine, letting us both feel it. Then she begins to move.

Deep, rolling movement of her hips are the only quiet sounds that fill the room. The soft creak of the mattress, the wet slide of skin, her quiet gasps, the low sound that rises in my chest every time she takes me deeper. My hands grip her hips, then slide up her back, pulling her closer until her breasts brush my chest. She braces her palms on either side of my head and rides me with focused, unhurried rhythm, never looking away.

I lift my head and take one nipple into my mouth. She makes a broken sound and tightens around me. Her pace stays steady, deliberate, as if she has all the time in the world and intends to use it. When her body starts to tremble, I slide one hand between us and press my thumb to her clit. She chases the feeling, riding harder and more erratic, increasing the friction with every slide. She grabs my head and slams my mouth to her nipple where I suck and nibble with more intensity. My hand comes up to her other breast, teasing that nipple with small tugs and pinches. She comes with a loud shattered cry of my name, clenching hard around me in long waves. The feel of her pulls me over with her. I drive up into her as I empty, her name on my lips, her thighs locked around my hips.

Afterward she collapses forward onto my chest. The air cools against our damp skin, as her heartbeat slows against mine. Outside the window the city keeps moving, but in this room there is only the soft sound of our breathing and the weight of a future that is finally, blessedly ours.