Chapter 15: The videos have reached the board of directors
Miss Stephanie kept watching her phone, her expectations dropping more and more.
One hour passed, then two, and then an extra thirty minutes on top of that.
It was almost obvious that Logan was no longer going to reply to her message.
Almost immediately, Miss Stephanie started to feel quite guilty and cringed. She had already sent about four more back-to-back messages but restrained herself from sending any more, as that would make her look very obsessed.
"Wow, I think I have screwed up," Miss Stephanie muttered to herself as she looked at the exact message that had actually given her issues.
{Stephanie – Also I really enjoyed your visit and I think I’m already missing you lol. Could you come by tomorrow or if you’re free I can come instead?}
She read it again and again, each time getting more cringed out than the last. Without wasting any time, she immediately edited the message.
{Stephanie – Yeah I really enjoyed your visit. Do well to visit me again sometime.}
Stephanie still took some time to look at the message once again before making up her mind and just deleting it outright.
She laid her head back on her pillow, breathing heavily.
She had been waiting for Logan’s reply for some time and didn’t know if that was the reason she hadn’t slept yet. But even if it was, she was definitely never going to accept it.
As Stephanie laid down on her bed, she kept thinking back through the day’s events, her restlessness continuing as she tried to figure out if there was anything she had done that might have caused Logan not to want to come over anymore.
Just as she was deep in thought, she got a call on her line.
It was her personal assistant.
Almost immediately, Miss Stephanie’s face changed colour as she knew her assistant would never call her in the night unless it was an important issue—especially since they had already spoken earlier during the day.
"What’s going on?" Stephanie spoke from the other end, her voice masking the immense rollercoaster of emotions she was going through.
"Well, there is an issue at hand right now. The video of you has just reached the board of directors and it’s already a big case. They personally asked me to tell you to come for an emergency meeting tomorrow, stating the fact that the video is rising too fast and cannot be left unattended so it doesn’t spoil the name of the company."
Miss Stephanie was shocked by the news. She still hadn’t checked the videos after he personally told her to.
She didn’t think much of it at first. After all, this was not the first time a video about her had gone live, and each time the backlash had favored her. But this time around, it seemed that the viewers were not actually supporting her.
Miss Stephanie immediately went straight to her TikTok, and as expected, it was a mess.
She had about 20k tags, and all were linked to one specific video.
On opening and watching the first twenty seconds, she already knew this was big trouble.
Everything was framed so well that it seemed like it was actually her and Logan who were at fault.
That video had already gotten more than 50 million views and was still rising.
Miss Stephanie couldn’t believe it.
"Yes, I just checked the video. How on earth could this be possible? This was definitely Andrew’s work. How could he even do this?" Miss Stephanie spoke, and for the first time her mask finally fell as genuine emotions could be heard in her voice.
"That boy is truly getting out of hand. I need to..." Miss Stephanie spoke only to be cut short by her personal assistant on the other line.
"You don’t need to do anything. We cannot escalate things further, please. The issue is not even about that video. I mean, that video is indeed one of the reasons for the meeting, but that is not even remotely close to the main reason," the personal assistant spoke calmly, taking a pause as if the main reason he was about to utter was even more alarming.
"Wait, there is more?" Stephanie spoke, her head currently spinning as she got out of bed and sat down on her reading table, immediately turning on the reading bulb.
"Yes. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I need to tell you about this one. Just scroll to their page’s very recent video."
Miss Stephanie didn’t say anything more. She just did exactly as she was told, and after watching the video a new dread finally reached her face.
"This..." she paused, trying to hold back her emotions.
"This is a frame-up. I have not in any way looted money from the company," she said calmly.
But that was hard to say, because the video she had just watched was a 15-minute short stating facts to prove exactly why she was getting a lot of traction.
"You see, this is exactly what I am saying. But we cannot in any way just tell that to the board and expect them to simply believe you," the personal assistant said with a pause, as though trying to pick his words carefully before continuing.
"You see, if you have actually looted at any point in time, you can just tell me—no matter how little, even if it’s a dollar—so we can know how we could counter this. The threats are high, and despite being a CEO you know you can still be kicked out of that office, right? So we need to be strategic here," the personal assistant said.
Meanwhile, Paul and Andrew were just outside Miss Stephanie’s door, ready to record anything she had to say.
It was finally time for them to shine. Paul couldn’t even wait for tomorrow to come.
He had directly and anonymously sent the video to the board of the company and all the directors. Coupled with the other video that was already viral, it was like proving that yes, this woman was actually terrible.
And rumors already had it that the boardroom was already considering going to court.