Norris Jones, he’d been around for years, came on board with Mason and stayed under him while growing. The guy would love Mason’s position, but Ethan didn’t see it ever happening with Norris being older than Mason.
Family would never be pushed out either.
Those three men, along with the Vice President of Finance under Darin, were present, along with an in-house attorney and some other key personnel.
“I know. There is comfort in that, even when you think the next generation might not respect you.”
His father clapped a heavy hand on his back. “You always have, and you always will. We don’t operate the same way, and I never expected you to, but you get it done just the same.”
“Thanks.”
Ethan wasn’t sure heneededto hear it, but it hit something inside him all the same.
That quiet, unspoken pressure, the one that lived just beneath his ribs never really went away. The need to prove he could run things as hard, as smart, and as strong as his father had.
It wasn’t just the family name or the competition with his brothers. It was the weight of every paycheck and every person whose life depended on Bond money.
One day, it would all be his to oversee.
Every success. Every headache.
Every ounce of pride and burden that came with it.
“Blair was just telling us you’re having no luck replacing her,” Mason said when Ethan walked in with his father.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “A little bit of my soul is being chipped away daily as we loom in to Blair’s departure. Anyone want to give me their assistant?”
“No,” everyone at the table said at once.
“I didn’t think so. It all works out the way it should. Now, we need to get down to business, then we’ll open the floor.”
“You did great,” his father said two hours later. “Not that I expected otherwise.”
“It’s becoming second nature to present projects. Mason and Norris have their work cut out for them right now, but it has to be done.”
Operations had the biggest daily headache, overseeing more staff and businesses. They might be broken up into divisions and Norris overseeing those divisions with many under him, but the guy was tough to deal with like Blair said.
Damn if he didn’t get the job done though, and when Norris’s time came to leave, it was going to be another enormous set of shoes to fill.
3
PLAYING ALONG
The last thing Nora wanted to do was stop in and see her father at his job. Not when she could risk seeing Ethan again.
But she’d made her bed—nope, she messed one up with Ethan—and she had to own the fact that there was this tiny possibility she’d run into him again.
Her mind hadn’t processed that scenario fully three weeks ago though.
She’d told herself that in a city the size of Boston, the different crowds they ran in, and the life he lived compared to hers, it’d never happen.
Even stopping in to see her father, it wasn’t as if her father was going to parade her around the building as a child to show off.
He’d never praised her much in her life. Sure the hell didn’t show her off.
Which was the only reason she agreed to stop in after her interview.
She was only a block away, and she’d be passing the building Bond Enterprises owned and had their office out of on the top few floors anyway.
