He’d had to make some amendments to his Anonymity Plus privacy program that he’d coded for Colleen because GameShack did need publicity for its CEO. Major news outlets and official GameShack press releases were now exempt from the maws of Tristan’s malicious worm.
After her speech and the revelation of GameShack’s meteoric recovery, the reporters agreed that Tristan King had made a brilliant move by installing a business prodigy as CEO and locking down Colleen Frost as the rising star of GameShack.
Those articles, Tristan subtly elevated by turning the A-Plus worm back on itself. Those pieces floated to the tops of news feeds and social media and seemed to be everywhere.
But Tristan hadn’t locked her down yet. They’d been living together on his yacht in Monaco and traveling the world together for a year. They were together socially, but that wasn’t the same as what the reporters were insinuating.
Tristan and Colleen had talked about marriage in general terms whilst snuggling. They’d discussed the places they would visit over the next five decades of their lives together as they dined in the most exclusive restaurants in the world. They’d even toyed with eloping as they’d walked along the Strip in Las Vegas, but Colleen had demurred, saying that she wanted her friends and community and found family around them when they tied the proverbial knot.
But you know, maybe pretty soon.
As soon as GameShack had properly turned around, in the very first quarter that they turned a net profit, she’d start planning a celebration of some sort, an unspecified event that involved a church and a party afterward.
On the charts she was presenting to the stockholders and press, the red income lines broke through the green profitability boundary and turned happy black.
GameShack had had two profitable quarters.
A few weeks before, when Tristan and Jian had taken Colleen shopping for her summer CEO wardrobe in Monaco, Tristan had caught Colleen gazing at white dresses.
Fluffy ones.
And she’d been staring at the wedding pictures of Princess Grace and Maxence’s grandfather when they had lunch with Max and Dree in the palace. Her gaze seemed less wistful and more analytical, like she was taking notes about the bouquet, Grace’s wedding dress, and the decorations.
She was ready. Tristan was stomping down the terror of the empty house. But it was time.
And so, whilst it was unusual, when a majority owner of a company wanted to speak at the annual stockholder event, there was really nothing that could stop them.
After Colleen had finished her speech as CEO, Tristan King stood behind the podium before most of their friends and found family in the conference room they’d rented.
None of the Killer Whales from Sherwood Forest were there because they’d all sold their stock before the two-thousand-dollar dividend was announced, and they certainly hadn’t reinvested afterward.
The members of GameShack’s board of directors and Colleen were still sitting on the stage as is customary at a stockholders’ meeting.
Tristan didn’t have note cards, and he couldn’t figure out what to do with his hands. He finally grabbed onto the sides of the podium and held on for dear life. “GameShack stockholders, members of the board, CEO Ms. Colleen Frost, and friends.”
That should cover everybody.
“GameShack has been the subject of some unorthodox financial dealings in the past year.”
Laughter.
A month after their plan had been enacted, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that investigates and prosecutes insider trading and fraud, had come knocking.
The SEC asked questions about exactly what had happened to GameShack’s stock during that fateful week. When they’d been unable to find any direct evidence that tied Tristan or Colleen to the computer hacks, because they were much better hackers than that, and when the entire collusion case fell apart because it seemed to be nothing more than one random investor asking other random investors to buy shares of a freefalling penny stock on the unsupported promise that he would buy it at a different price later, and after Tristan made a series of large campaign contributions to members of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services because that is how wealthy people get away with things that small investors don’t, the SEC closed the case with a shrug and walked away.
The SEC prosecutes an average of fifty cases of insider trading per year. Tristan knew about more cases than that from his closest friends, let alone everyone else in the world. It was exactly like the principal of a large, affluent Catholic high school giving one unpopular kid detention for smoking weed because his parents didn’t tithe enough to the diocese and declaring that the rumored drug problem had been taken care of, and to never mind the skunky blue haze in the bathrooms, and in the atrium, and in the backs of classrooms.
Tristan continued, “But the most important thing is that GameShack is now on solid financial footing and will remain so with our brilliant CEO,” Tristan gestured at Colleen sitting on the stage behind him, “Ms. Colleen Frost, at the helm.”
Colleen smiled at him. He’d told her that he would extol her virtues if she wasn’t going to.
Applause.
He told the audience, “As you might know, Ms. Frost is being wooed by other corporations. She’s done such a stellar job with GameShack that Tesla, Apple, and Charles Schwab have come calling for our wunderkind, offering very lucrative propositions for her to leave us.”
Behind him, chairs squeaked, probably from the board members becoming nervous.
Panicked muttering.
Tristan announced, “As such, GameShack and I have put together a proposal of our own as a retention offer.”
Confused muttering.
Tristan pulled the cordless microphone off the podium and walked back to where Colleen was sitting and smiling at him, mild confusion tilting her sweet face, and he bent down on one knee.
The audience drew a collective breath.
Colleen’s jaw dropped, and she blinked.
And then she grinned at him, surprise lighting up her dark eyes as she touched her chest, and then she reached down and held both his hands in hers as a tear slipped out of one of her eyes. “Yes.”
Oh, thank God.
If Colleen’s eyes had widened in horror, he also had in his breast pocket a contract for a year’s extension of her CEO position with a doubling of her salary and tripling of her stock options, which he’d give to her later anyway. She’d earned that.
Tristan gazed into the dark, fathomless loveliness of her eyes. “Colleen Faith Frost, QueenMod, my princess, we were adversaries on the Sherwood Forest forum for years, as you and the other moderators tried to keep us Killer Whales in line.
“When we met a year ago, I knew you were special, and I knew I had fallen into the deep end the moment I laid eyes on you. Your strength and your goodness are my shining light, and I am so grateful for every moment you spend with me.
“Your brilliance, your perseverance, and your ethics have kept this Twisty Trader on the straight and narrow for a year, and now that’s the only path I want to walk with you. Colleen, would you do me the absolute honor of marrying me and being my wife for the rest of our lives?”
Cheering.
He hardly could hear her say yes again, but she was nodding happily with her pixie-short hair swishing around her ears. He pulled out the ring, an enormous diamond he’d bought when they’d gone to Amsterdam a month before set in delicate platinum filigree, and slid it on her finger.