“It’s exactly the same,” he argued gently, moving away from me to lean back against the table. “When I met your mother, Westwood and Sons wasn’t what it is now. We were solid, respected, and certainly a player to be contended with, but weweren’t untouchable. There were risks everywhere. Deals people warned me against. Moves that didn’t make sense on paper.”
I frowned. I’d heard pieces of this story before, but never like this. A faraway look entered his eyes. “Every time I took one of those risks, someone told me I was reckless. Emotional. Letting my personal life cloud my judgment.”
“And were you?” I asked point blank.
Dad laughed as he refocused on me. “Absolutely.”
I blinked at him, more than a little surprised by the admission—and his general demeanor. I’d seen Dad like this before but almost never when he was talking to me. It wasn’t bad, though. In fact, it was a pretty refreshing change of pace after all the arguments we’d had about Charlotte’s future.
“But I was also right,” he said. “Because when another person is on the line, someone you love and whose future is tied to yours, you stop thinking in quarters and projections alone. You think in terms of decades. In legacy.”
He straightened up again, his gaze locking on mine as he pushed away from the table. “That’s how I knew you were ready to be CEO, Alex. It wasn’t about when you closed your first eight-figure deal or how you were outmaneuvering competitors twice your age. It was when you learned which risks are worth taking. That was when I knew I could retire.”
The day Dad had told me he was retiring, a knot had formed in my chest and it had never even begun to loosen. Until this very moment. All the while, I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to lay down the law about getting married like Harlan had done with Sterling before completely handing me the reins.
When Dad hadn’t tied any of those strings to my position, I’d thought it was some kind of test. A trick. Right up until this very moment, I’d thought I was only keeping his seat warm until he decided to take it back.
But now?
“You understand that moves like this aren’t always about money. Sometimes, they’re about stability. About protecting what matters and making sure the person standing next to you doesn’t lose their place in the world.”
Jane’s face flickered through my mind, her stubbornness, exhaustion, and the way she held herself together through sheer force of will. “Yeah, I think I do understand.”
“Don’t think, Alex.Know, because I know that you do. You have for a while now, but I also didn’t do this blindly. Sure, Thayer can be salvaged. It’ll be brutal work, but it’s possible. And if it weren’t, I still would’ve voted yes.”
I huffed out a quiet laugh. “That’s why you didn’t even blink.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Neither did you.” He clapped his hands once, briskly, signaling that to his mind the conversation was clearly over. “Go take your wife out to dinner, Alex.”
I frowned. “Dinner? It’s not even noon.”
“Yes, but make it something nice. Put in the extra effort,” he said. “Once this is over and she’s CEO of Thayer, things are going to get busy. We’re going to have to restructure. The media will get up to their usual nonsense. People will question whether she deserves the seat.”
“She does,” I said firmly. “You know that.”
“Of course,” Dad replied. “Weknow that, but the world will still make noise about it, so enjoy this downtime with her while you can. Pick her up for dinner before lunch and make a day of it. Make memories. Make her feel special simply because she is. You’ll thank yourself for it when the real work starts.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s advice I might just take.”
He offered me another of those wide,trust-mesmiles, then squeezed my shoulder again. “You did well, Alex. I’m proud of you.”
After he left, I stayed in the empty boardroom for another minute, letting the weight of everything settle before I turned to leave, my mind already whirring with ideas about where to take Jane to make the most of his advice.
I didn’t know yet what exactly was special enough to celebrate a deal like this, but I did know one thing for sure. The world would bend before it took anything else from her. I would personally make sure of it.
CHAPTER 47
JANE
Aweek later, I paced the carpet outside the Thayer boardroom like it might give me answers if I wore it down enough. Colin mirrored me on the other side of the hall, his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulders rigid.
We kept circling each other, stopping just short of colliding, then turning again. If anyone walked by, they’d probably think we were unhinged, but I didn’t care.
“If the counter-sale doesn’t go through, we’re out,” Colin said for the third time in ten minutes. “That’s it for us. We’ll both have to find new jobs.”
“I know,” I said, my voice calmer than I felt. “We’ll land on our feet, though. If that’s what it comes down to, I’m sure we’ll find something else.”
Part of Mallory’s husband’s offer had been a complete restructure of our existing executives. They’d called it a clean slate, bringing in an all-new team for the entire management level of the company.
