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She munches slowly on a perfectly triangular sandwich. When she’s finished the whole thing, she takes out a bottle of cold water and drinks delicately.
I can literally feel my eye twitch in frustration, but I don’t break. I already know that with my mother, the more impatient I am with her, the longer it'll take to get her to the point.
“Okay, Jordan.” She dabs at her mouth. “I need you to take over the company.”
I groan inwardly.
“Mother it's getting old. You ask me this every two seconds.”
“God help me with these Farrington men. Did you listen to a word I said at all?”
“Yeah, you’ve been asking me to join the company for ages.”
She shakes her head. “And if you joined what would your position be right now?”
“Mother—” I don’t have time for this.
“Just humor me Jordan.”
I shrug. “Top exec. Ideally, Chief Operating Officer, that’s the usual trajectory.”
“No darling. You see, you weren't listening. I said take over, not join.” She lets that sink in.
”I meant as the CEO. Now. Not after Brendan retires—which isn't going to be for another ten or fifteen years. Become the CEO of Apex Energy. Right now.”
I level her with a look. “Actually, I heard you the first time Mother. I just thought you’d had a slip of the tongue.”
“No. That’s exactly what I meant.”
“And I notice you said ‘need’ not ‘want.’ Why?”
“If I begin to tell you all the reasons we’ll never leave here. Trust me, I could give you a hundred reasons. But let me start with the one that matters to me the most. I want a divorce, and Brendan is too powerful, too cruel, and too controlling.”
I know.
“The only way I can even contemplate getting into a battle with him is to level the playing field a little, taking the one thing that makes him most powerful.”
The company, Apex Energy.
I say nothing, wondering how she means to accomplish this.
“Which brings me to the reason that should matter the most to you. The timing is ripe for takeover, he’s vulnerable Jordan, I’m sure you know this.”
I know exactly what Mother means.
The recent, huge upset in the political scene has put Brendan Farrington on the wrong side of things with lawmakers and politicians. He has made too many enemies along the line, blatantly siding with the ruling party for the past sixteen years.
Now left without significant allies, his competitors have a massive edge on him, something that isn't lost on the board of directors and stakeholders. The next ten years are unlikely to be rosy, and it doesn’t look like the political climate is about to change anytime soon.
“If you move to topple him right now, you’ll win, hands down.”
I look at my mother, who has perfected the pretty, unassuming, trophy wife persona, in awe. “I suppose living with Brendan Farrington has to rub off some cunning on you at some point.”
She only smiles. “Just think about it. We have people in place to set the wheels into motion should you decide to take the step.”
I laugh in disbelief. “We, is it?” What I wouldn’t do to see the look on Father’s face when he realizes that it's his clueless wife that is leading the mutiny against him. “And what happens to all this?” I gesture to indicate my company.
“Jordan,” she says patiently as if I were a slow child, “if you can handle the size and complexity of Apex, a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old company with six thousand employees and twenty-seven branches all over the United States alone, surely you can juggle an extra, what, two hundred employees, in a four-year-old company. And you have great partners in Ethan and Mike too. I don’t for one minute believe Acercraft will stop you if you truly mean to take over Apex.”
