It went better than I expected, actually.
This is a higher stakes version of the game you two played in high school, isn't it? You've developed such an obvious pattern. I wonder if your husband sees this. Oh, he wouldn't, would he? You chose yet another man who wasn't there to witness your history firsthand and so it's easier to escape detection.
Leave Ben out of this.
Ben is going to be a large amount of collateral damage. More than Jacob ever was. Are you ready for that, Bridget?
Just sign and date the letter so that you acknowledge Lochlan's resignation, please.
I'm not signing anything.
Then he will have to sue you.
You two don't want to play that game with me, dollface.
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again Caleb is still there. Fuck. Fuck reality. Fuck business. Fuck the past. I can't take this.
Yes, we do. Sign mine too. I don't want the company.
Too late. It's already yours.
I'll liquidate it and put it into a trust if you can't honor the release clause. I'm well within the time frame.
You'll put all of your boys out of work.
They are leaving as well. I have all the letters here to be signed.
Got him. Finally rocked. He just stared at me and I watched disbelief float across his blue eyes, and it morphed into some sort of quiet terror.
All of you.
Yes. Oh, and we'll be taking John with us, so you can call Mike back.
Quick recovery. He is smooth. He walks to the window in an attempt to not give away anything else via body language or the fact that I can read his face so easily these days even I am surprised. Back in control.
Your terms are up. Of course.
They've been up for months.
I was under the impression only Loch would be leaving.
Sometimes it's better that way.
And Ben?
Ben has already finished. This project was a bad idea and he won't be taking on any more for you.
You know what happens when he is idle.
Maybe we should move to the table so you can sign easily.
Just put them down, Bridget. I will go over them all today and you can pick them up later.
No, actually I have plans so I need to be out of here in thirty minutes.
And their packages? You can prepare those? Or should I call the bank?
I can look after them.
This is a betrayal.
Then you should have made the contracts longer. I appreciate what you did and I imagine it was hard to see me suffer but I know you did for my own good. I am happier here.
So let me get this straight. All of you are going to give up this massive amount of earning potential and security and recognition.
The recognition does not come from your efforts, Cale. It comes from their talent.
What about the money, Bridget?
I shook my head. He is so single-minded sometimes it makes me sick.
They have jobs to go to. We'll have money.
It's not enough, Bridget.
It will have to be enough. It was before.
And you always talked about starving. It kills me. That's why I helped.
It shouldn't. You won't be the one going hungry. And you didn't help. You bought me. Cole sold me out from under him.
I won't let you struggle, or the children. I promised him that much.
They will be fine. And you MAKE me struggle. You get off on it.
Bridget, I think that you're upset and-
You know what, Caleb? I think you're right. I'll leave everything here and you can sign and send it over later. Everything is in order.
Don't do this.
It's too late. It's done.
You're going to starve.
It's clearly the better choice because you're killing me anyway. At least this way I can do it on my own terms with my own methods.
Your maturity level really is stuck at twelve years old, isn't it, Princess?
I wonder why, Caleb? Do you really want me to explain that for everyone here today?
He turned back from the window and remembered the entire board of directors was sitting at the table watching as everything went up in flames. The company can't survive as a shell. I want to care because he looks so sad, but I don't understand a thing about business at such a tender age. The only thing I know is that I want to protect my boys and it is a reflex to do so, a Lord of the Flies instinct that they instilled in me from the very beginning.
Caleb was not used, he volunteered himself as the facilitator. The boys carried this on their backs. They don't have to do that anymore.
And as Lochlan said to me many years ago as we lay in the back of the pickup truck on a warm night at the end of the summer watching shooting stars,
The real world is scary but it's exciting too, peanut. You can't grow in a circus. It's a bubble. There's no air. Remember in the book? The part about needing to have rules to obey? That we're not savages? This is that part of life now. And we're going to be okay.
