Page 7 of Soft Serve

She sets the document down and looks at me with the direct attention that has been unsettling me since approximately ten thirty this morning.

"Why this shop?" she asks.

The honest answer is complicated. I chose Soft Serve because my team identified it as a high-visibility independent with strong local loyalty and a photogenic aesthetic that would play well against the Whitaker brand. That is the strategic answer, and it is entirely true.

It is also not, I'm realizing, the complete answer.

"Because it's real," I say.

She blinks, just slightly.

"The Whitaker brand has spent the last eighteen months acquiring," I continue, "and the acquisition story reads exactly like what it is. Corporate reach. Market expansion. My PR team believes that attaching the brand to something with genuine roots, something that can't be manufactured, changes that narrative."

"So I'm a redemption arc," she says flatly.

"The shop is a counterpoint," I say. "You're the reason it works."

I watch something move through her expression, irritation, and something less comfortable underneath it. I file that away, too.

"You said your image needs repairing," she says slowly. "Your team believes this fixes it."

"Yes."

"What broke it?"

The question is direct, no preamble, no softening.

I consider her for a moment.

There was a deal, eighteen months ago. A family-owned dairy in Vermont that my board pushed hard to acquire, and I signed off on in a quarter where I was distracted by other things. Things I wasn't paying adequate attention to. The acquisition was legal, structured correctly, documented thoroughly, and it gutted a three-generation business in under a year. The press found the family. The story ran for two weeks.

I don't tell her any of that.

Not tonight.

"A decision I made without understanding the full weight of what I was taking," I say. "And the people it affected made sure the world knew about it."

Her eyes don't leave mine.

"And now you're in my shop," she says.

"Now I'm in your shop," I agree.

She's quiet for a moment, and I have the distinct sense that she's doing something with that information, storing it somewhere precise.

"I haven't agreed to anything," she says.

"I know."

"I've agreed to read a document."

"I appreciate even that."

She picks it up again, taps it once against the counter with a crisp, decisive sound, and sets it down in front of her like a verdict not yet reached.

"I need a week," she says.

"The timeline is tight," I start.