Chương 8
“I’m trying not to give you conclusions before you see the situation.”
“You invited me here because you want my judgment.”
“I invited you because I want your judgment before the board forces mine.”
That changed the temperature of the conversation.
“What does the board want?”
“A faster restructuring.”
“Meaning layoffs.”
“Among other things.”
“How many?”
“Three hundred and eighty positions in the current proposal.”
Eve exhaled slowly.
“That is not almost half.”
“No.”
“It is still three hundred and eighty people.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
His gaze sharpened.
Eve almost apologized.
She did not.
Adrian stood and walked toward the window.
For several seconds, he faced the harbor with his hands in his pockets.
“When Claire was sick, I spent more time at Westbridge than I had any business spending there.”
The sentence came quietly.
“She didn’t want people treating her differently, so most employees never knew how bad it was until she stopped coming in.”
Eve said nothing.
“She used to complain about the vending machine on the second floor.”
He looked almost annoyed by the memory.
“It ate dollar bills.”
“That seems like an oddly specific grievance.”
“She filed three maintenance requests.”
“Did they fix it?”
“No.”
“That would have enraged me too.”
He looked back at her.
The corner of his mouth moved.
“She would have liked you.”
The intimacy of the statement made Eve uncomfortable.
She looked down at her bag.
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
“Then that’s a strange thing to say.”
“You’re right.”
Adrian turned away again.
It was the first time she had heard him admit error without resistance.
That made the room feel more dangerous somehow.
Eve folded her hands in her lap.
“What happened after she died?”
“Her father stopped coming to the plant regularly.”
“And the company declined?”
“It had been declining before.”
“Claire knew?”
“Yes.”
“Did she want to sell?”
Adrian did not answer immediately.
Eve watched his reflection in the glass.
“No.”
There it was again.
A refusal followed by honesty.
“Did she ask you to save it?”
“She asked me not to interfere.”
Eve frowned.
“Then why did you buy it?”
“Because two years later her father asked me to.”
“That answer sounded rehearsed.”
“It probably is.”
She leaned forward.
“What’s the unrehearsed one?”
Adrian’s shoulders stiffened.
For a moment, she thought he would end the meeting.
Instead he returned to the chair.
“The unrehearsed answer is that I couldn’t watch something she spent fifteen years building disappear.”
Eve looked at him.
“And now you might be the one who changes it beyond recognition.”
“Yes.”
His voice barely moved.
That, more than anything else, explained the hug.
Not fully.
But enough.
She remembered how his arms had tightened after the first awkward seconds, as though her grief had given his permission to surface.
Eve glanced down at her own hands.
“My breakup suddenly feels embarrassingly small.”
“Don’t do that.”
She looked up.
“Do what?”
“Measure pain like there’s a minimum qualifying amount.”
The words came too quickly to be polished.
Adrian seemed to hear himself afterward and looked away.
Eve swallowed.
“That sounds like something you learned the unpleasant way.”
“Yes.”
Neither spoke for a while.
A phone vibrated on Adrian’s desk.
He ignored it.
Eve shifted back into the safer territory of work.
“If I went to Westbridge, what would people be told?”
“That your firm is conducting a communications assessment.”
“But my firm hasn’t agreed.”
“I would ask Marianne formally.”
“So this conversation is preliminary.”
“Yes.”
“And Lena?”
“Would know everything.”
“Good.”
Adrian looked mildly surprised.
“What?”
“You thought I’d want to work around her.”
“I didn’t know what you’d want.”
“If you ask me to secretly inspect the communications director while pretending to be her ally, I’m leaving.”
“That’s clear.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Eve studied him.
“Why hasn’t Lena already gone?”
“She has.”
“And?”
“Employees behaved differently around her.”
“Because she works for you.”
“Yes.”
“So will I.”
“Not in the same way.”
“You’re overestimating the magical properties of an outside consultant.”
“Probably.”
She almost smiled.
“What exactly am I looking for?”
Adrian hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
Eve felt it before she understood it.
“There’s something else.”
“There usually is.”
He reached for a folder on the low table beside his chair.
Instead of handing it to her, he rested it on his knee.
“Three weeks ago, an anonymous email was sent to several Westbridge supervisors.”
“What did it say?”
“That the restructuring plan had already been approved.”
“Has it?”
“No.”
“Could someone reasonably believe it had?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the email included numbers from a confidential board draft.”
Eve sat straighter.
“The three hundred and eighty?”
“Three hundred and sixty in that version.”
“So whoever sent it had access.”
“To something they shouldn’t have.”
“Did the email go public?”
“Not initially.”
“Initially?”
“A screenshot appeared on a local Facebook group two days later.”
Eve rubbed her forehead.
“Of course it did.”
“By the end of the week, a regional reporter had it.”
“Did you deny it?”
“Lena issued a statement saying no final decisions had been made.”
“That probably sounded evasive.”
“It was accurate.”
“Those are not synonyms.”
“I’m beginning to notice.”
Eve held out her hand.
“The folder.”
Adrian gave it to her.
Inside was a printed copy of the anonymous email, the company response, and several pages of internal notes.
Eve read the first paragraph.
The language was blunt.
Management has already decided which lines will close and who will be eliminated.
The board presentation is theater.
Do not believe the listening sessions.
She kept reading.
The email named two production lines and referenced a labor-cost target of fourteen percent.
“Was fourteen percent in the draft?”
“Yes.”
“Who had it?”
“Seven board members, four senior executives, legal counsel, and a small restructuring team.”
“That is not a small circle.”
“No.”
“Any evidence of who leaked it?”
“IT traced the email through an encrypted service.”
“So no.”
“Not yet.”
May you like
Eve turned another page.
There was a list of employee reactions.
