Page 120 of Break Points and Face Offs

Father scoffs. “It’s a conveyor belt. You’ll be nothing more than a grunt, getting coffee for upstarts who don’t even have an Ivy League education.”

I force myself to hold his intense gaze. “Here, you will be more than an intern. This is a boutique company with close client relationships. People trust us with their money because we’re the best.”

Is he giving me the sales pitch? Why is he so desperate for me to buy it?

“If you’re the best, then you should have chosen the best person for the job.”

He frowns. “I did.”

“No, I was second in my class. Will O’Reilly⁠—”

Father pushes back from the desk and interrupts me. “Will who?” he scoffs.

“He’s a Princeton man, top of his class. Why is that not good enough?”

“He isn’t of our world, Priestley. Best to leave America’s finances to those who know what they’re doing.”

I can’t help but guffaw. Father’s face goes bright red.

“Because you’ve done such a great job so far. Billions of dollars of medical debt, over thirty trillion national debt, retirement fund depletion, massive wealth inequality—shall I go on?”

Father squints at me the way he does when he plays chess. He’s planning out his next move. It’s calculated. He may have blown up just seconds ago, but he’s an expert at taking control back from the situation.

“Wealth inequality? Are you a communist now?”

Of course he focused on that. Not the national debt or the medical debt, or the general financial instability of the entire country. Men like my father in their glass towers are insulated from reality on the street below. They take a cab right outside their office, or they drive their Mercedes and BMWs from underground parking lots straight to their condos in gentrified parts of town. They send their children to boarding schools where they’re sheltered from reality, too. I feel a little sick at how close I was to becoming the man before me. How utterly ignorant I was until I met Will.

I ignore his stupid comment about communism and tell him the truth. “I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do at a big company like Morgan Stanley, but it’s a start. One day I’d like to start my own asset management company, ideally with Will.”

I’d hire people only Will approved of. I trust his instincts far more than I trust mine on this matter. When it comes to helping people financially, experience is everything and Will knows what it’s like to be on the losing side of the finance war.

“You want to be my competition?”

“By the time I was in any sort of position to be your competition, you’d be long retired.”

“And you could have taken over this company. Now what’s going to happen? I won’t have it leaving the family, Priestley. Over my dead body.”

My gut clenches again when I think about Jamie.

“So who do you want to take over? Jamie isn’t even studying finance.”

“Of course Jamie couldn’t take over. He doesn’t have the gumption to run a company.”

I clench my teeth before remembering that I don’t have to hold in how I really feel anymore.

“Jamie would make an excellent CEO.”

Father snorts. “The boy can barely get his words out, and when he does, you can barely hear him.”

“He only gets tongue-tied around you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffs. “I’m his father.”

I study him for a moment. Is he really as ignorant about his effect on people as I was? Does he really think treating us like this, pointing out our flaws, telling us how disappointed he is in us when we fail, is making us better? That it’s just his way of looking out for us?

“Jamie’s doing well at Princeton. He’s well-liked by his fraternity brothers and he’s acing all his classes.”

“That’s the bare minimum, Priestley. He needs to be asserting himself, stepping into leadership roles. He’ll never be the president of Alpha Sigma Psi if he goes on like this. Guiding your brother now is important practice for when you have your own children. Remember, the Rosenthal name is going to continue with you.”