Beautifully Knight (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #5)

Transparency and Tomorrows

- LIA -

I'd rehearsed this moment a million times. Written and re-written my statement. Memorized it. Read it to my husband. Read it to my father. Edited it. Read it again. Memorized it again. Rehearsed it again. And again. And again. Until Jack told me if I repeated it one more time, I'd lose my voice. And Jordan insisted that I'd made it as close to perfect as humanly possible and I needed to go to sleep because he couldn't sleep without me. The look in his perfect chocolate eyes told me he meant it and I relented.

Despite its necessity for my job, public speaking was not a skill that came to me easily. Unlike my father's signature method of effortlessly delivering impromptu persuasive speeches to single-handedly sway reluctant jurors, I didn't have his ability to devise the perfect questions to catch a witness in a lie or come up with a clever memorable phrase on the fly in the courtroom. My strength was in my analytical skills — strategizing and making a strict plan that I stuck to. I examined and read every piece of evidence I had and then meticulously formed a plan of attack that was almost always immune to my opponents' objections. When I had a plan, I was golden. Unstoppable. Indomitable. Fearless. And I had a wall full of accolades — some of which were for my oral arguments to prove it.

It'd been my plan to carry that same structure and discipline from the courtroom to a family-sanctioned press conference with a select few members of the local media to share our statement, answer a couple of questions, and call it a day. Instead, I was faced with an unexpected sea of flashing cameras, microphones, and unruly, yelling reporters, where there was no time for plans.

I'd been thrust into the uncomfortable position of being lambasted with unexpected pointed queries that came at me one after another endlessly and voraciously as if I was the witness in the middle of an interrogation. I could feel my blood pressure rise and my temples pulse with every passing second.

I cleared my throat and stood a little taller as I fruitlessly continued with my speech while my brain tried to figure out how I was going to survive this, "On behalf of the Knight and Knight-Holloway families, we feel very blessed and fortunate that our family members are doing well, healing and—"

"Sorry, if I can just interrupt you there one more time, Natalia, I can call you Natalia, right?" A man from the front of the pack of reporters interjected.

"Well—" I began, but couldn't get a word out as he continued.

"When you say your family members are doing better, who exactly do you mean by that? Mr. Holloway indicated that his son would be sharing a quote "miraculous story about beating a mortal health scare" unquote and yet all of the seats behind you where I presume your family was meant to sit are empty, some guy came out here before you to say that Mr. Holloway was mistaken and we weren't hearing from the family today and then you appeared, and we haven't seen anybody else in the past ten minutes. Does that mean we're not hearing from Anthony today? What's going on here? Is he sick? There's been reports—"

I sucked in a breath, "As I stated earlier, at this time, the Knight and Knight-Holloway families are still requesting privacy so I can't get into specifics—"

"Mrs. Andrews Knight, I apologize for my colleague's lack of formality," The woman standing next to the man apologized, despite the fact that she was also interrupting me. "I'd just like to say that I am a huge fan of all of your work throughout greater Boston. Your firm has done a lot of good, and I'm honored to be here speaking to you today, but piggybacking off that last question, I don't think it's so much a privacy question as it is a question of whether Anthony is capable of speaking? I've heard from a reliable source that he's been having heart problems and that is why Grace was Antonio's donor, as he shared earlier, instead of Anthony. Can you confirm whether that is true? And if it is true, what kind of effect can shareholders anticipate that is going to have on the future of HTC and its stock prices on the market? There were already questions about whether Anthony would be able to maintain the high profit margins that his father has consistently obtained considering that his management style is reportedly quite different — some say this is evidenced by the fact that his company operates under a social impact business model while his father's company is more traditional. Anthony's supporters have cited that he's been quite successful in his own right in a category that many didn't believe could be both humanitarian and profitable. They claim the fact that he gives most of his company's profits away doesn't mean that'll carry over to HTC and that alone has kept investors hopeful, but now if he's unable to speak to us today, I think it's reasonable to assume that brings to question how he's more qualified to run HTC than his father if they've both undergone medical treatment? Antonio says he's fine—and forgive me for this as I don't want to it to be misconstrued, but he looks more than fine to me. Why isn't he running the company?"