“Don’t.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
“Whatever it is, I can’t hear it right now.”
Nellie pressed her palm over Paloma’s mouth, and then the other over her own. Not laughing, definitely not laughing. Because there was nothing funny about the fluttering in her stomach, which was nothing like hurt and nothing like anger and was in fact the thing she most wished wasn’t happening to her.
Not that she could have stopped it if she’d tried.
24
CHAPTER 24 – SAWYER
Fundamentally predictable by nature, Josie Barfield ordered the duck.
Sawyer had eaten at Phoenix Ridge Country Club eleven times over the course of her career, and Josie had ordered the duck every single time, which told her several things about her: that she was a woman with zero interest in surprise, that she trusted the menu’s most expensive option, and that her appetite for novelty was approximately calibrated to the amount of personal risk she was willing to absorb in any given week. In this way, Josie Barfield was entirely consistent.
Today Sawyer needed her to be inconsistent.
“You want to take on the renewable energy sector,” Josie said, something caught between disbelief and caution in her voice. She’d cut a precise wedge from the duck breast before she spoke. She appeared to have measured what she deemed the perfect bite. “Not partner with it. Not hedge into it. You want to rebuild the infrastructure strategy around it.”
“That’s correct.”
“That’s not a pivot, Sawyer. That’s a demolition.”
“It’s a redirect.” She reached for her wine glass. The sommelier had brought something obscene—she’d let Josie handle that since she always wanted to—and the pale gold of it caught the light slanting in through the dining room’s tall windows. Outside, the eighteenth hole gleamed in early afternoon sun, empty and achingly manicured. “And I think it’s a necessary one.”
“Necessary.” Josie sat back slightly. She was sixty-one with thin silver hair. She had made her first hundred million in commercial real estate, had sat on the Alburn Systems board for six years, and held more sway over every other board member’s vote than any of them would comfortably admit. Getting Josie meant getting the room. Sawyer had known this since the day she’d invited her onto the board, and Sawyer had never wanted it to be true more acutely than right now. “Gina used that word too. Necessary. In a rather different context.”
“Gina called a vote of no confidence because I withdrew a development site she had a vested interest in pursuing.” She set the glass down. “I’d call that a necessary clarification of priorities.”
Josie studied her potato fondant with a deep frown. “That’s a serious allegation.”
“It’s an observation. One I can document.” She smiled thinly. “But that’s not why we’re here.”
A waiter materialized, refilled their wine, and vanished silently. Josie resumed eating his duck without hurrying.
“Give me the pitch, then,” she mumbled around a mouthful. “I’ll hear you out, at least.”
Sawyer appreciated that about Josie. She always wanted to see every angle before she took any step. Part of why she was extraordinarily successful and useful.
“Alburn Systems currently operates nine data centers. We’re on track to build four more in the next five years. Each of those data centers, running at full capacity, will consume more electricity than a small city.” She paused for effect. “Not comparable to a small city. More than one.”
“Yes, yes, I’m aware of the energy consumption figures.”
“Then you’re aware that when we talk about renewable co-location—solar on-site, wind partnerships for grid supply—we’re not talking about a charitable gesture. We’re talking about becoming energy-independent at scale. No exposure to grid volatility. No exposure to energy price inflation, which has been running at eight percent year-on-year. No liability under the incoming federal emissions frameworks, which Patricia’s committee should, frankly, already be losing sleep over.” She let that point land with a slow sip of wine. “The capital expenditure is higher upfront. The IRA tax credits over a six-year window bring the net cost to within twelve percent of conventional builds. Year eight we’re ahead.”
Josie chewed. She was not a woman who rushed her thinking any more than she rushed her food.
“It’s not the financials I’m skeptical of,” Josie said. “I’ve read your summary. We all read it. The math is defensible.”
“Then what?—?”
“It’s the reputational exposure.” Josie set down her fork with a small, deliberate clink. “If Alburn Systems announces a full strategic pivot toward renewable energy, the market doesn’t read ‘forward-thinking leadership.’The market reads ‘something went wrong.’ There are investors who will ask whether someone at the top lost their nerve.”
Prepared for this argument, Sawyer regarded her steadily. “Or… the market reads that the CEO of the most successful cloud infrastructure company in the country has decided, at the height of that success, to lead the sector somewhere it hasn’tbeen yet.” She stabbed at her shrimp salad but didn’t take a bite. “There’s a version of this story where we’re not playing defense, Josie. There’s a version where Alburn Systems is the company that looked at the next thirty years and made a decision while everyone else was still staring at the next three. There’s a version where we get to the table first.”
The smallest crease appeared above Josie’s brows. This was good. The crease meant she was considering something rather than simply deflecting.
