Chương 10
Instead, I stepped into my office and closed the door.
Fine.
The phone rang.
"Hi."
His voice was quieter than usual.
"Hi."
A pause.
"I need to ask you something."
My shoulders tightened.
"If this is about Bellwether, I can't discuss our memo privately."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Because your sister used to work on it."
Silence.
I regretted the sentence the second it left my mouth.
Adrian exhaled.
"So you found that."
"It was in the file."
"I know."
"You knew Diane sent it?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her to?"
"No."
I sat at my desk.
"Then what are you asking?"
Another pause.
"Has anyone from Sterling pressured you to change your conclusion?"
The question landed heavily.
"Why would you ask me that?"
"Has anyone?"
"Diane challenged it."
"That's not what I mean."
"No."
"Martin?"
"No."
"Anyone from legal?"
"No."
I heard him breathe out.
"Good."
"Adrian."
"Yes?"
"Why are you asking?"
He took several seconds.
"Because Eleanor wasn't the only person who raised concerns before we invested."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"Who else?"
"Me."
I stared through the glass wall at Mara.
She could not hear the call, but she watched my face change.
"Then why did you approve the investment?"
Adrian said nothing.
The silence became an answer before he spoke.
"Because I let Martin convince me the problems were temporary."
"That's not enough."
"I know."
"You had internal analysis saying otherwise."
"I know."
"Your sister warned you."
"Yes."
"And you invested anyway."
"Yes."
The calmness in his answers made me angry.
"Why?"
His voice changed slightly.
"Because Bellwether's founder had another buyer."
"That's a business reason."
"It was also personal."
I waited.
He continued.
"Martin had built the deal."
"And?"
"And Eleanor had spent six months arguing against it."
I understood before I wanted to.
"You chose Martin."
"I chose the deal."
"That's not the same thing."
"No."
The word came quietly.
I looked down at the desk.
"Is that why she left Sterling?"
"Partly."
"And the rest?"
He hesitated.
"My father was ill."
I said nothing.
"He was still chairman then."
A faint sound came through the line, maybe traffic.
"Eleanor wanted us to slow down acquisitions while he was in treatment."
"You didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I thought slowing down would make the market think he was dying."
The sentence was brutally practical.
It also sounded like something a son might regret forever.
"Was he?"
Another silence.
"Yes."
I looked at the dark window.
"I'm sorry."
"He died four months later."
His voice remained controlled.
"Eleanor thought I was using the company to avoid being with him."
"Was she right?"
"I spent the last week of his life negotiating a financing package in Chicago."
That was not an answer.
It was worse.
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the desk.
"Adrian."
"Yes."
"I can't be the person you confess things to."
He went quiet.
"I know."
"No, I mean professionally."
"I understood."
"And personally, I don't even know what this is."
"I know that too."
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
He continued.
"That's why Eleanor told me to leave you alone."
"Because you confess corporate trauma to women who cry on your suits?"
A small laugh escaped him.
"Something like that."
The sound unsettled me more than the confession.
I looked through the glass.
Mara had turned away deliberately.
"Tomorrow needs to stay clean."
"It will."
"No private warnings."
"Agreed."
"No protecting me by controlling the room."
A longer pause.
"That may be more difficult."
"Then try."
He breathed out.
"All right."
I almost ended the call.
Then he said, "Eve."
"What?"
"If your conclusion is that we should walk away from Bellwether, say it."
"I already did."
"I mean tomorrow."
I closed my eyes.
"And if Martin pushes back?"
"He will."
"And if your board hates it?"
"They might."
"And if it costs us the contract?"
This time Adrian did not answer immediately.
When he did, his voice sounded less like a billionaire's and more like the man who had stood frozen at an airport until a stranger forced him to remember how to use his arms.
"Then it costs you the contract."
That answer should have reassured me.
Instead, it made my chest tighten.
The contract mattered to eleven people whose paychecks came from decisions I made.
Adrian could afford purity more easily than I could.
"I don't think you understand what that means for us," I said.
"I understand enough."
"No, you understand it as a number."
His silence sharpened.
"Our contract isn't a number."
"I didn't say it was."
"You didn't have to."
I stood and walked to the window because sitting felt impossible.
Below, brake lights crawled through the intersection.
"Mercer & Vale has eleven employees."
"I know."
"Do you know Luis's daughter's tuition went up this year?"
"No."
"Do you know Mara hasn't taken a real vacation since my father died?"
"No."
"Do you know our health insurance renewal nearly wiped out half our operating cushion?"
"No."
"Then don't tell me what losing this contract means."
His voice lowered.
"You're right."
The immediate agreement irritated me almost as much as an argument would have.
I pressed my forehead lightly to the glass.
"I hate when people say that."
"That you're right?"
"When they say it fast enough to escape the point."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Then the point is that telling the truth may cost people who had no part in creating the problem."
"Yes."
"And you resent that I can tell you to accept that cost without carrying much of it myself."
I closed my eyes.
"Yes."
"That seems fair."
"It isn't fair."
"No."
His voice had gone flat in a way I was beginning to recognize as restraint.
"None of it is."
I looked back toward Mara.
She was pretending not to monitor me through the glass.
"I still won't change the conclusion."
"I know."
"You sound very certain."
"You told me that Monday."
May you like
"I told you what?"
"That you'd risk the account before changing the research."
