Christmas Secret Baby (Holiday Romances #4) - Annie J. Rose Page 0,2

spending a certain amount of money on a regular basis, you won’t notice if it’s missing, even if you didn’t do the activity that usually coordinates with that money. You’re not going to notice the money is missing if you don’t buy the cup of coffee or rent the movie, even though you didn’t have that coffee or watch that movie. Instead, the money does good. What the hell is this?”

I threw my hands up in the air and let them drop back down to the table, looking around to my investors.

“Mr. Meyer asserts that particular feature along with the main design elements and concepts of the vast majority of the Treasure Chest app were his idea. They are his intellectual property, and you not only took credit for them, but are making money off of them without properly compensating him,” Ms. VanBuren said.

And that was where the proverbial shit hit the fan.

Meyer had been a part of the development team for the Treasure Chest app, but he played a minor role in it. The idea was already fully formed by the time I brought it to the team for development and design. He might have helped with the occasional detail, color, or wording, just like the other members of the team. But he by no means came up with the idea or contributed more than half of the elements of it.

It was beyond asinine he was saying that and expecting people to believe him. I spent the next ten minutes detailing every stage of the project development and what Meyer actually contributed. When I finished, the lawyers looked at each other, then back at me.

“That is a very different story than the one our client told us,” Mr. Masterston said.

“I’m sure it is,” I said. “It wouldn’t exactly be a compelling case if he said ‘hey, I’m completely bullshitting you with this, but I want to stick it to my former boss for firing me.’”

“Jax,” Jenkins warned. “Stay calm.”

“Calm? You want me to stay calm? Are you hearing this?” I asked, pointing to the lawyers.

“We are,” he said. “And we understand your frustration and how upset you are. We want to assure you that we don’t believe you stole the idea or that anything listed in this lawsuit is the truth.”

“Thank you,” I said. “At least I have that. So, the two of you can go back to your client and tell him he’s full of it.”

“It isn’t that simple, Mr. Cooper,” Ms. VanBuren said. “This lawsuit is already underway and will be brought to court if that becomes necessary.”

“What do you mean if that becomes necessary?” I asked. “He’s lying. That’s the end of it.”

“Not quite. He has details and notes that illustrate he came up with this idea before the development team was put into place. We’re confident we would prevail if brought to court. But I imagine you understand something like that would be brought into the public eye,” she said.

“Jax,” Anthony said, “we think you should settle.”

“What?” I snapped.

“If you settle outside of court, you can avoid a trial and the bad publicity. You can just put it behind you,” he said.

I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to do that,” I said firmly.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because it’s not right,” I said. “You said it yourself; I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not going to settle and pay some useless wannabe corporate spy for something he had nothing to do with.”

“We know you didn’t do anything wrong,” Valerie said. “Again, that’s not being questioned.”

“It certainly feels like it is,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense to pay him off when I know I he’s lying.”

“It’s really your best option,” Anthony said. “It stays out of court and you can control the narrative in the media. Settling will give you the power. You can tell the story how you want to and create legally binding agreements to prevent him from publicizing the case.”

I shook my head. “No. I won’t be settling. Tell your client I’ll see him in court.”

Chapter 2

Nadia

It was right at six in the evening when I left work. I took that as a personal victory. That meant I was walking out into the parking deck when there were still a few twists of pale color in the sky, and I could imagine some sunlight was still visible. This was a stark contrast to what it usually looked like when I managed to pry myself away from my desk and leave