Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I spotted Darcy, who looked like she was struggling to digest everything she’d just heard. I tried to tell myself I was most worried about losing The Squawker. That’s where my focus should’ve been. I didn’t want my dad to win. This was finally my shot to prove I didn’t need him–that I could run a business differently than he did and still succeed. If I lost this, I didn’t know what would be next.
But all I could think about was what would happen if he fired Farhad and Elizabeth–or even Darcy. She wouldn’t stand for her friends being let go. She’d expect me to step in, and if I didn’t, I’d be lumped in as an enemy right along with my father. Rightfully so, too. But directly opposing my father would also give him grounds to remove me, which I knew he wanted.
One way or another, I was going to have to choose between the company and Darcy. I knew that much. My father was too sadistic to see things end any other way.
I was on a fucking tightrope, and one wrong move could cost me everything.
Marcus and Tristan sat in my office after hours. The staff had mostly trickled out except a few grim faces lit by the blue light of their monitors. The main lights in the office shut off after six and only a few spare fluorescent panels lit the office floor.
“Are you two going to go?” I asked. We’d been talking strategy for the past few hours but hadn’t quite landed on the topic of the conference yet.
“I’ve heard your dad’s speech plenty of times,” Marcus said. “But I also love Cali.” He shrugged. “I’ll probably go. Hell, your old man would likely come after me with his cane if I didn’t, right?”
“He would,” Tristan agreed. “I’ll be there.”
I threaded my fingers, leaning on my desk. I felt tired. So fucking tired. I just wanted to go home and know Darcy would be there in my bed, but she wouldn’t. We both still needed to figure out what we were and what we wanted to do about it. “I want to put together a complete report on our earnings and projected earnings for the next quarter. I’m sure my dad is going to try to claim we’re running this into the ground. We need to have something ready for when he does. I want to be ready to make a case for where we’re taking the company. That means a full list of our plans moving forward and how we expect them to benefit the bottom line. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Marcus said. “I can manage all that for you.”
“Good. What about expansion efforts, Tristan? Anything positive we can tell him is in the works?”
“I’m working with all the biggest online book publishers. I think we can manage to release the magazine in a sort of e-book format every time we have a new issue. I’m not sure if we’ll get publishers behind us or not, but it could potentially be huge–by far our biggest income stream.”
I nodded thoughtfully. I hadn’t even thought of that. Tristan was damn good at his job, and I was glad to have him at my side. The same was true for Marcus. Both of them were part of the reason I thought my dad’s philosophical playbook for running businesses was bullshit. Real power wasn’t shoving people’s faces into the dirt. It was finding good people and surrounding yourself with them. It was leaning into people’s strengths and letting them supplement your own abilities. It was listening to good ideas and encouraging creativity.
It was… My thoughts drifted back to when Darcy had pitched her weekly piece and I’d blown it off. Fuck. I was so worried about not treating her special that I’d gone in the opposite direction. Maybe the pitch wasn’t perfect for my vision of the company, but I’d seen the potential and pretended I didn’t. Then again, it might be too late now. If I suddenly approved a weekly piece from Darcy, my father would have all the justification he could ever want to swoop in and remove me from my position. He’d accuse me of favoring her because we were fucking and nobody would be able to stop him.
“You alright?” Marcus asked. “You look like you want to punch someone. May I suggest Tristan? I think he could take a punch better than me.”
“It’s nothing,” I said. But I kept thinking about how it was all going to come down to a choice. Would I choose Darcy and give my father all the ammunition he’d need to remove me from the company, or would I choose the company and let him sacrifice Darcy to test my resolve?
I wished I fucking knew.
30
DARCY
I’d never been to California. I found myself surprised by how much of the landscape resembled a desert. In my mind, the state was an oasis of perfect weather and people pumped full of plastic wearing expensive clothes. Ever since we landed, I got the impression it was more like a few very small islands of perfection surrounded by not-so-perfect. I guessed that wasn’t so far off from how my life felt at the moment.