Chương 11
Arthur did not reply.
Emily turned.
“You think I should settle.”
“I think you should know what settlement buys you and what continued litigation costs.”
“What does it buy me?”
“Control sooner. Reduced legal expense. Less uncertainty. Possibly recovery of funds.”
“And what does it cost?”
“Potentially public findings you want.”
“No.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
“No what?”
“That isn’t the cost.”
“What is?”
Emily looked at him.
“I sign another document Richard wrote about what happened to me.”
Arthur leaned back.
That silenced him.
Emily sat again.
“I spent years signing things because he said the alternative would damage the company. Medical authorizations. Board proxies. Statements. Apologies to employees he insulted. I signed a letter once telling a vendor I had misunderstood a meeting I was actually in.”
Arthur said nothing.
“I’m not signing his version of this.”
“The statement can be negotiated.”
“You’re doing lawyer language.”
“I am a lawyer.”
“Stop.”
Arthur rubbed his chin.
“Fine.”
The room was quiet.
Then he asked, “What would you sign?”
Emily had not expected that.
She looked at the ceiling.
“A factual agreement about ownership and money.”
“Confidential?”
“Financial amounts, maybe. Not the evidence.”
“No joint public statement?”
“No.”
“No non-disparagement?”
“Not if it prevents truthful statements about court records.”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“Would you release civil damages claims unrelated to restoring the company if the financial terms were substantial?”
Emily hesitated.
That was harder.
She wanted Richard to pay.
Not metaphorically.
Actually pay.
She wanted a number attached to what he had done because numbers were something he respected.
Then she imagined another two years of depositions, medical experts, photographs, strangers asking why she stayed.
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“Why good?”
“Because that is an answer we can work with.”
Richard rejected her counterproposal.
The civil trial continued.
Chloe ended her relationship with him.
Emily learned from Arthur, who learned from Chloe’s attorney. She did not ask for details.
Three days later Richard called Emily from an unknown number.
She answered because she was expecting a call from a hospital administrator.
His voice reached her before she could disconnect.
“Em.”
Her entire body changed.
Not dramatically.
Her spine stiffened.
Her mouth went dry.
The office around her seemed too bright.
She said nothing.
“Don’t hang up.”
She nearly did.
Then he said, “Chloe gave them everything.”
Emily looked at her office door.
It was open.
Employees moved in the hall.
She stood and closed it.
“That was her choice.”
“You turned her.”
“No.”
“You turn everyone.”
Emily almost laughed.
There it was.
The old accusation.
Her power was always most dangerous when other people exercised their own.
“Richard, you’re not permitted to contact me directly about the litigation.”
“I’m talking about us.”
“There is no us.”
He breathed into the phone.
She could picture him closing his eyes when annoyed.
“You think these people care about you?”
Emily looked at the scar across her hand.
“I’m hanging up.”
“Your father knew.”
She stopped.
Richard went quiet.
He knew he had her.
“What?”
“Your father knew you couldn’t run that company.”
“That’s why he left me voting control?”
“He regretted it.”
“You told me he did.”
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
Emily sat.
Richard’s voice softened.
That was always more dangerous than anger.
“He asked me to protect the company from you.”
She closed her eyes.
Part of her remained absurdly vulnerable to this.
Her father had been difficult.
He loved her, but he also criticized her relentlessly. On her first day as division president, he had told three executives in front of her that she was “smart enough to be dangerous and impatient enough to prove it.”
Years later, he apologized.
Then six months before his death, during an argument about an acquisition, he told her she sometimes mistook certainty for competence.
She had not forgotten.
Richard knew that.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Ask your mother.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“What did he say?”
“He was afraid you’d wreck everything after he was gone. He asked me to keep you steady.”
Emily’s throat tightened.
Richard continued.
“I made mistakes. I know that.”
She almost laughed.
“I was scared too.”
That sentence was new.
He had never said it before.
“I thought the company was slipping. You were sick. You wouldn’t listen. Your father had spent years warning me that when you felt cornered, you’d burn the building down just to prove you owned the ashes.”
Emily stared at the wall.
The phrase sounded like her father.
That was the worst part.
Not exactly something he had said.
Something he might have.
Richard sensed hesitation.
“You think I woke up one day wanting this?”
Emily whispered, “You hit me.”
Silence.
Then he exhaled.
“You hit me too.”
Her pulse jumped.
“When?”
“You threw things. You shoved me.”
“Once. When you blocked the door.”
“You see? This is what you do. Everything you do has context. Everything I do becomes evidence.”
Emily stood abruptly.
“No.”
“Em—”
“No. You don’t get to do this by phone anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Make me argue about whether I deserved the thing that happened.”
“I never said deserved.”
“You never had to.”
She hung up.
Her hands shook.
For ten minutes she sat at the conference table doing nothing.
Then she called Arthur.
He answered.
“Richard called me.”
His voice sharpened.
“When?”
“Now.”
“From what number?”
She gave it.
“What did he say?”
Emily looked at the window.
“He said my father asked him to protect the company from me.”
Arthur was silent.
“Is that relevant?”
“Potentially.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Did he discuss settlement, testimony, evidence, or ask you to change your position?”
“He discussed us.”
“What exactly?”
Emily repeated what she could remember.
Arthur did not interrupt.
At the end he said, “Write it down now.”
“I just told you.”
“Write it down while it is fresh.”
“I hate writing these things down.”
May you like
“I know.”
“His list is in evidence, Arthur. His little list of what happened. And now you want mine.”
