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That could have gone better.
“Well done, sir,” mutters Nicholas. I ignore him.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, frozen. Hearing her voice again has brought back a hundred memories that I’ve carefully buried for years. The smell of her perfume mixing with sweat on her neck. The little creases around her eyes when she smiles. Her ever so slightly crooked tooth.
If I were to be honest with myself, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving Candice. But I can’t think like that. I need to win her over, and I need it to be clinical and businesslike because she clearly hasn’t forgiven me, and I don’t think she ever will. Maybe I deserve her ire.
But if she’d let me explain all those years ago, I would have told her about how my mother laughed when Dad told me I’d have to work for the job, how Dad told me he didn’t expect I’d get it at all because I’m not good enough. If she’d let me explain now, I’d tell her that I still have the same amount of affection for her as I did back then. And Fletcher Tech falling apart at the seams seems to be proving it.
At last, sensation returns to my fingers and I rise to my feet, slowly, like a troll emerging from a hundred-year slumber. I lock eyes with the young accountant who broke the news about the finances, and, voice shaking with barely contained anger, I say, “A hint for the rest of your career. When someone is trying to broker a big deal, don’t say something which is going to wreck it if you can be overheard. Okay?”
“Okay,” he squeaks. His eyes are wide and terrified, and he nods hard like I’m about to fire him on the spot. I’m not, but it would be satisfying.
I cast my gaze over the rest of the room, drawing myself up as tall as I can. “Who’s next to tell me what we can’t do?”
The atmosphere in the room grows thick and heavy as everyone tries to avoid my eye.
“Good,” I say, trying to let go of some of the emotion choking me, and failing. “Now, who’s going to get me a solution? No more excuses, no more bullshit. I want someone to offer me a plan that’s going towork.”
I wait for everyone to turn back into their teams and for the babble of desperate conversation to consume the room again before I slump down into my chair. I don’t even know how to express the emotions churning inside me. There’s a tightness in my chest and a hollow sickness in my stomach.
Nicholas pulls up a seat beside me. “They’re right, you know. We don’t have the funds for a buyout and frankly, there’s no way she’s going to let her company be absorbed without getting what she’s worth. She’s feisty.”
“Tell me about it,” I sigh.
“This is that same girl from the internship, no?”
I bury my face in his hands. Of course he remembers this. Sometimes, working with people who know you so well can be a curse. “Yes, okay, she is. And maybe I was too hasty because of that. But there’s got to besomethingwe can do, right?”
With a deep frown, Nicholas shakes his head. “Unless you can convince her to give her company over to us of her own free will, or you can buy her out, our hands are tied. Your father had some very interesting ideas about how to make a company run, and we’re battling with a lot of strange quirks in our constitution. It’s a shame. She would be a great asset to have.”
“I’m not giving up yet,” I say, raising my head enough to look out at my people working in the room. I’m a ringleader in a circus filled with juggling clowns, except they’re all clowns who were hired by my father, and his shoes are too big for me. Or maybe I’m the one juggling.
I’m definitely the one wearing clown shoes.
Nicholas gives me another look, which cuts right through any of the bullshit I might have been about to give him about how I feel about Candice. “Aiden, listen. It’s noble of you to keep pushing, but personal emotion always gets in the way.”
“Yeah, if I learned nothing else from Dad, that was it,” I say bitterly.
“You know as well as I do that he loved you. Do you really think he would have let you inherit his life’s work if he didn’t believe you could do it?”
I grunt in response, not quite sure what to say to that. I don’t want to think about Dad right now, and much as I don’t want to admit it, Nicholas is right. I have to put the past behind me. We won’t get anywhere if we can’t go forward. Maybe it’s time to let Candice go once and for all.
One of Nicholas’s tiny baby lawyers tiptoes up to us. Every year, he hires a small handful of up-and-coming talent, and every year they seem to get younger.
“Excuse me, sir,” he says, his hands shaking the papers he’s holding. “I think I—wemay have a solution.”
“Oh?” I sit up.
He stares down at his feet, shuffling his weight back and forth. “Um… yeah. It’s not— I mean, it would work. Itwillwork. It’s just a little… unconventional.”
“Well? Stop wasting my time and tell me, for God’s sake.”
“Marriage,” he says weakly.
“Excuse me?”
He breathes shakily. “There’s a clause that states that, in simple words, if you’re married then you have the right to merge any companies held by both partners and still retain ownership. Mettie Marketplace could still become part of Fletcher Tech, but Ms. Metcalf would have even more autonomy than we first proposed to her.”
