I walked him to the door, my movements stiff. At the threshold, he turned back. “Call me anytime. Day or night. We’re all here for you. The CarideoTech family.”
I closed the door behind him and, for a moment, I just stood there, my hand still on the knob.
The CarideoTech family. What a joke. Arthur had barely known Marco. Had probably never understood what the company was really about. And now he wanted to swoop in and take over, using my grief as justification.
I carried the casserole from the coffee table into the kitchen, the cheap aluminum pan cold against my palms. I poured the tea down the sink. Then I opened the freezer to add his casserole to the fortress of pity already stacked inside—but at the last second, I stopped. I shut the door and tossed it straight into the trash, pan and all.
In Marco’s office, I sat in his chair, the leather cool against my back. I could still smell him here—faint, but present.
On his desk, his wallet sat in the small wooden tray where I’d placed it after returning from Aspen. I picked it up and opened it. Inside, tucked behind his driver’s license, was the note.
You and me against the world.
I closed my eyes, the wallet pressed against my chest.
Arthur thought I was broken. He thought he was dealing with a grieving widow who would roll over and let him take the company Marco and I had built from nothing.
Arthur was wrong about me.
I didn’t know how I was going to fight him. I didn’t know if I even could. I was suffering with grief, barely functioning, held together by my brother’s kindness and sheer stubborn will.
But I had sixty days.
Sixty days to figure out how to save CarideoTech.
Sixty days to prove that I was more than just Marco Carideo’s widow.
I opened my eyes and looked at the desk—at the stacks of papers, the half-finished projects, the vision Marco had started but never got to complete.
You and me against the world,the note said.
Except now it was just me.
And I was going to have to be enough.
Chapter
Six
A week had passedsince Arthur Vance had sat in my living room and told me I couldn’t handle running the company I’d built. For seven days, that conversation had replayed in my mind, stoking a slow-burning rage that finally brought me back here.
The elevator doors slid open with a cheerful ding that felt wildly inappropriate. I stepped into the sleek lobby of CarideoTech’s headquarters, my heels much too loud on the floor in the sudden hush that fell over the reception area. Three pairs of eyes swiveled toward me, followed by awkward smiles.
“Mrs. Carideo! We didn’t know you were coming in today.” Sandra, our receptionist for the past five years, rushed around her desk. Her hand moved between a handshake and a hug before dropping uselessly to her side.
“Sandra,” I said, forcing a smile that felt like cracking glass. “I thought it was time.”
Sandra nodded too enthusiastically. “Of course, of course. Let me just...” Her fingers flew across her keyboard as she checkedthe executive calendar on her screen. “Mr. Vance is in a meeting, but I can send a message to his assistant that you’re here.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, already moving toward the hallway. “I know my way around.”
The words came out sharper than I intended, and Sandra’s smile faltered. I could have apologized, could have been gentler. But gentleness felt beyond my capabilities lately.
I made my way down the corridor, keenly aware of the stares following me. Every face I passed wore the same expression of pity and discomfort, as if my grief might be contagious. I kept my gaze forward, my spine straight.Don’t let them see you break.
Our offices occupied the top two floors of a renovated warehouse in the heart of Silicon Valley. Marco had insisted on the open floor plan, with glass-walled conference rooms and communal work areas designed to foster collaboration. The space had always hummed with energy—engineers hunched over prototypes, marketing teams brainstorming campaigns, Marco moving through it all like electricity, lighting up every conversation he joined.
Now, the energy was different. Subdued.
