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She was right to be angry with me. She was right to mistrust me afterwards. I should have told her the truth all along. Just like my father should have told me everything to start with, here.
“I don’t want to be like you,” I tell my father, my pulse speeding up as I realize the words are true. As I realize how long I’ve spent—how much time I wasted in high school trying to be a miniature copy of him, when of course, I’d never be able to. I can only be myself. And I don’t want to be the type of person who lies to those closest to him. Not Daisy, not my children if I ever have any.
“That much is clear,” my father is saying, still scowling at me.
I straighten, and a smile rises to my face. “You’re right,” I tell my father. His eyes widen. “There is no problem with what you did. You were just treating the situation the same way you treat any situation. You were handling it like yourself. And I need to do the same.”
He narrows his eyes at me, clearly suspicious. “I’m glad you understand where it is I’m coming from, Bronson,” he says finally. He reaches out to rest a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not hard on you because I want to be, I hope you know. I’m hard on you because you need to understand what I can teach you. You need to understand that the way I’ve run this business, the way I’ll continue to run it, is the best way. It’s the only way forward for Burke Bank.”
“I agree,” I say again, because I do. It’s the only way this company can run. The way he’s always run it.
But me? I need to stop following in his footsteps. I need to do what’s right for me, company policies be damned.
“Can we go back and watch your mother receive her award now?” My father squints at the end of the hall. “It’s important to her.”
“Of course.” I turn to follow him down the hall, but I reach into my pocket at the same time, withdrawing my phone. We take our places back at our tables, and an announcer drones on about the charitable donations my mother made to various foundations—mostly ones run by her friends, which donate a small portion of their profits to charities, yet spend far more on throwing lavish galas like this one, expensive parties where the rich and famous can go to feel good about themselves, because the whole event is “charitable.”
While the announcers call my mother up to the stage, however, I’m distracted. Busy typing out a message, in a new window in my email account. I write out everything. My father’s planned divesting from the company, the upcoming transfer of the branch to new management. I just lay it all out there, the way I’d want my employer to if I were the employee.
If I were Daisy. If I were having a difficult time trusting my boss, and I wanted him to just lay the truth all out there on the line, so I could make an educated decision for myself about what the best option for me to do next would be.
By the time I finish writing the message, the gala is winding down. Sammy flashes me a wink, and turns her phone toward me just far enough that I can see she has a new message from Lyra. Come over and let’s talk, it says. I flash her a grin back, glad for her that her problems are starting to turn around.
I just hope that what I’m doing now will help improve my situation with Daisy. At the very least, maybe it will help her—and the rest of the employees serving under me—to trust me again. That’s all I really want. I want to be open and honest. I want to be the kind of boss whose employees trust him.
I turn back to the draft in my inbox, and I select the mailing list for the entire branch. Every single employee, from my higher-ups all the way down to Cheryl at the front desk. And then I click Send.
13
Daisy
I stride through the doors of the office to a shitstorm, from the sounds of it. People aren’t even bothering to hide their distress—they’re chatting away at a volume loud enough to stop me in my tracks in the doorway. Oh god. What have I missed? My stomach flips, and immediately, all I can think about is whatever happened in this office the last time, before Bronson took over.
Are we all being let go again? Or did people quit?
I’d feel happy about that, normally. Except I remember how worried Bronson looked when I told him I needed him to fire me. The expression he wore when he told me he’d lose his entire inheritance if a single more person walked out of this office.
As much as I know what I told him is true—I still need to leave, no matter what happens—I don’t want his entire life to be ruined over it. And I’m sure things will be even worse for him with his father if something else has gone wrong in the office.
But I don’t have long to be worried about what’s going on. Terry from accounting appears at my elbow. “Have you seen this yet?” he asks, and practically forces his tablet into my hands. On it, there’s a branch-wide email open on the screen, from Bronson, sent last night, addressed to every single person in our branch.
I take the tablet, my eyes widening with every line that I read.
I want to be fully transparent with all of you, Bronson begins the email, and it only gets more surprising from there. My father is planning to, for the first time in Burke Bank’s long history, make the company public. At the same time, however, and in a move that will impact all of you here with me in Santa Monica far more, he plans to divest himself of half his shares in the company. The other half, he’s selling to an old business partner of his, a man I’ve known my entire life, Mr. Norrel Vertura. But the main branch my father wants Mr. Vertura to take control of after he gives him half the company, is ours.
This is the basis for my father’s moving all of you into this branch. It’s why my father asked me to make employee retention my number one priority here—so that we will look appealing for Mr. Ventura when he’s deciding which branches to take on. I want to be fully open with all of you about this, because I want you all to be able to make your own decisions about where you plan to remain. If you do plan to stick with Burke Bank, which of course I hope you will, I want you to be able to make that decision with your eyes wide open, and with all of the facts in your possession.
As a good friend of mine recently taught me, it’s important to be open and honest with people, if you expect them to be open and honest with you. And I hope all of you will be honest with me when it comes to your feelings about this new plan, as you decide what’s the best path for you individually.
I stare at his signature on the email when I finish reading, unable to convince myself for a long moment that it was really him talking. But it’s his name there. And I read back up to skim the last paragraph. As a good friend of mine…
Well, at least he listens to what I say. I smile, in spite of myself.
“This is nuts, right?” Terry is saying. “I can’t believe nobody’s told us this is all going on. And the shares are going crazy right now—half the people are buying more, half are divesting entirely.”
But I’m already staring past him, at the hall that leads to Bronson’s office. “Definitely crazy,” I agree. “Listen, Terry, I’ll catch up with you in a few.” Unable to wai
t any longer, I stride up the hall, out of the buzzing common area where everyone is talking about the email, what it means, what they want to do about it now.
But there’s something I need to do. Because Bronson’s words are weighing heavy on my mind. It’s important to be open and honest with people, if you expect them to be open and honest with you.
Bronson’s done that now. He’s opened up to me about everything—about his father, about the debt collectors and the beating he took, about why he left Georgia without telling me what was really happening. At the very least, I owe him the same in return. I owe it to him to be open and real about what’s going on with me.
When I reach Bronson’s office, I find a line of people waiting outside. “Join the club,” Cheryl from the front desk calls over her shoulder at me, then nods toward his closed door.
As if on cue, the door swings inward, and Bronson holds it open to let a girl whose name I can’t remember from accounts out. “Thank you again,” Bronson is saying to her, and she’s smiling, despite the fact that her mascara is smudged around her eyes like she started out the day much more upset than she looks now.
“No,” she says, her smile widening. “Thank you. I feel so much better now.”
Bronson smiles and bids her farewell. At the same time, his gaze drifts past her and locks onto mine. “Ms. Rider.”
“Mr. Burke,” I reply.
He holds the door open wider. “Care to come in?”
“Hey, some of us have been waiting,” Cheryl butts in, one hip cocked, her lips pursed with annoyance.
“I know, and I apologize,” he says. “But I need to speak to Ms. Rider about something urgently. I’m sure you all understand.” He turns to take in the rest of the four people in line, and their heads all bob in unison.
“Of course” echoes up the line, and they stand aside to let me pass. Still, I can’t help feeling a tingle at the back of my neck, like everyone standing here is watching me, wondering why I’m getting special treatment. It doesn’t matter. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be gone, and I’ll never have to see these people again. I don’t care if they start rumors about me. If they figure out that there’s something more going on between Bronson and me.
