Page 295 of Manhattan Bossholes

“Further to that,” my mother continued, “he continues to experience personal stresses with his younger brother, Jimmy.”

Now she’d crossed a line. Fuck her for talking about Jimmy like he wasn’t her son.

“Not to mention the sourcing and supply chain issues the new line has been experiencing,” she said, consulting the papers she had brought with her before giving very specific information about minor issues we’d had with switching over to new, more sustainable suppliers. “We all know sustainable practices don’t come cheap, and perhaps Trent has bitten off more than he can chew.”

How did she know about the supply chain issues? They were small enough that they hadn’t even made a blip on the CFO’s report. Only a handful of people even knew they’d been a problem at all. I shook my head, completely blind-sided as she continued to rhyme off the reasons I should be forced to step down. How the hell had she gotten all of this information? Had she been spying on me?

“As you can see,” she concluded, addressing the board. “All the issues compounded are distracting him from the company and from getting the job done. None of this is a personal reflection on you, of course, Trent. Anyone would struggle.”

I looked around at the board, their faces like stone. I had no idea what they were thinking, but the whole conversation made me sick to my stomach. Who the fuck did my mother think she was?

I cleared my throat, taking command of the floor. If she thought she could steal my company away from me with this fake sympathy she was spewing like she was doing me a favor, she had another thing coming.

“As many of you already know,” I said, rising to my feet, “I took command of Saunders Furniture five years ago at a time when we were in a headlong crisis. Sales had cratered, customer satisfaction was at an all-time low, and internal morale was so poor that our turnover rate was three times our usual target. I don’t believe there has ever been a time in our company’s history when it was more stressful to be CEO. Given our performance in the years since then, under my leadership, I believe it’s clear that stress doesn’t keep me from doing my job, and doing it well. Even in the face of the more recent stressors, we’ve continued to thrive with our established lines while growing in new and exciting directions.” I stared both my parents down, just in case my father had any ridiculous ideas of his own. “So, clearly, I’m up for the job in a way you weren’t.”

My mother’s face soured at my words.

“Maybe you’ve already forgotten,” I said, tasting bile on my tongue. “But when you had personal problems, you almost imploded this company. I’m better than that. Saunders Furniture will not fail with me in charge.”

“It was your father that almost imploded the company!” my mother snapped.

My father chuckled like he was embarrassed for her. “Leave me out of this, Lara.”

“Shut up, Conrad!”

“Here we go,” one of the board members muttered. I sighed. My mother’s temper had turned her into a loose cannon ever since the divorce. I couldn’t really blame her for having a short fuse after all my father put her through, but by losing her temper here, in this moment, she also lost any credibility she had when it came to swaying the board.

“Shall we put your motion to a vote, Mother?” I said, a wave of calm washing over me. There was no reality where the board would vote to plunge Saunders back into that chaos. “All in favor of removing me as CEO?”

I looked around at the familiar faces of the board members. No one moved a muscle.

“All in favor of me remaining in my current position?”

Hands shot up around the table. The vote was unanimous. “Excellent. Now that that matter has been put to bed, shall we call an end to the meeting?”

The board nodded, climbing to their feet, gathering their things. My mother stayed in her seat, vibrating with rage. The second the last board member cleared the table, I cornered her.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I demanded. “What did you really think you’d get out of a stunt like that?”

“You took this company away from me,” she snapped, still bitter after all this time. “You and your grandmother.”

“Leave Dee out of this,” I spat out.

“Do you know what I had to put up with all those years just so I could hold on to my work?” she said.

It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Of course I knew—it was all she ever talked about. Work was the only thing she had ever given a damn about. Maybe there was a time when she’d cared about my father too, but I’d certainly never witnessed it. Her disgust over the affairs had made her withdraw from him more and more over the years, all while she threw herself even harder into her work. To hell with anything else, including her own sons. To hell, even, with the fact that by the end, she was actively bad for the company, hurting productivity as she feuded with my father and forced the whole staff to be stuck in the middle.

Even now, all that mattered to her was reclaiming the power and authority she used to have, and she didn’t care who she had to hurt along the way. I knew Natasha wanted me to resolve things with my parents, but there was no way we were ever going to be one big happy family.

“You think I wanted this?” I hissed. “I had much better things to do with my life than clean up after you and Dad.”

“You had no business getting involved.”

“I’m the only reason there’s anything left of the business,” I said. “Or do you not remember how you and Dad tried to run it into the ground?”

“Saunders was all I had left after everything. But now it’s gone too.”

“Last I checked you have two sons. But, of course, neither one of us counts compared to your work.”