I let him have the preamble, grunting at the appropriate intervals while he rambles about the three-hundred-page contract Adelaide Windemere sent him.
"The gist of it is," Hartley finally says, what feels like an hour later, "Miss Windemere's counsel has introduced one additional condition."
I frown, suddenly focused on the conversation. "What condition?"
"Personal relocation of the new majority owner." The word falls into the receiver like a dropped stone. "She wants you physically present at the Long Beach facility. On-site. For five years."
I go still. That, I didn't see coming.
"She is citing workforce protection concerns and a desire to ensure operational continuity. Their exact words, not mine."
"She can't be serious," I say, hearing myself getting angrier by the second. "This is an egregious overreach."
"Let me assure you that I've pushed back and told her counsel that her latest condition was unacceptable, but I'm afraid she's standing on principle. She wants it or she walks from the deal. Rumor has it that a few kraken investors from China have made her a competing offer."
Something shifts in my chest, cold and sharp, and my hand tightens around the pen until I hear my own knuckles crack.
"She has a board seat," I say. "She has naming rights in perpetuity. She has the assurance that I'm not going to drive the Windemere workforce into the ocean the week after signing. Now she wants my physical body on the West Coast for five years as a term of sale or she'll sell to some foreign kraken investor?"
"In essence." A pause. "Yes."
I breathe out through my nose.
The thing about Adelaide Windemere is that she has nothing left to stall with and she knows it. Every demand has been met or gracefully declined. The signing is two weeks from today. She is a woman standing at the edge of a pool she has been circling for years, and she has just invented a reason not to jump.
She is not wrong, exactly, that an absentee owner could hurt the old Windemere Maritime workforce. I've already agreed not to lay off employees for six months, but I already have corporateoffices in Boston and I hadn't planned on keeping that particular part of her operation on the payroll. If I'm relocating to Long Beach, then I would definitely want the new administrative office close to my vest. The first few years after an acquisition are always delicate and I love to monitor everything closely.
I understand the tactic. I might even, on another morning in another life, respect it.
"Fine. I'll agree to those terms," I say with a bite. "With one clause. I retain the right to four months of absence per calendar year at my discretion. I have a multinational company to run, not just a terminal concession in Long Beach. Four months out of twelve. Non-negotiable."
Hartley is quiet for a moment, making a sound that means he is writing. "I'll convey the response."
"Do it today. I want this finalized as soon as possible."
I hang up.
The study is very quiet.
I stand and walk to the window. The ocean lies out beyond the estate grounds, silver-grey under an overcast sky, and I stare at it without registering what I am looking at.
I growl at nothing and go outside.
The grounds of Stronghold in late May carry a particular smell, salt and new grass and the faint sweetness of something blooming somewhere out past the kitchen garden. The paths here are old stone, worn smooth, and my feet know them well enough to carry me without any conscious direction.
I find myself in the rose garden.
My mother's rose garden. Eloise Thornwood, who tended it herself every spring, early morning before breakfast, kneeling in the soil. I was twelve when I started coming here when things were heavy and the walls of Stronghold felt like they were leaning in.
And now I'm back.
There is an old cast iron bench at the center of the garden. I sit on it and take in the view.
The roses are just starting, deep red and dusty pink, and they fill the air with their perfume. I sit there and stare at them as time passes. I'm not sure how long, and to be honest, I don't care. It had been too long since I came here last.
I hear footsteps on the stone path behind me and I know instantly who they belong to.
She has a particular way of walking. Unhurried, but purposeful. I am completely aware of how unhinged me knowing the sound of her footsteps is.
