Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96752 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“So I can make sure you get home okay,” he replies. “And don’t tell me I’m being sexist. I make my brother call me, too, if he doesn’t have someone with him. Now tell me why you’re having to work two jobs. I thought you took a sabbatical.”
I did, too. “I thought I could leave it in Paul’s hands for a few weeks. I was wrong. We’ve had some major problems on a couple of important jobs. One was an ordering issue. The foreman didn’t order enough concrete mix and it was a specialty order, so it’s putting us back and I had to handle the client. Paul says he forgot to double-check. The other was plumbing placed in the wrong wall. So we get to eat that cost.”
“And you can’t fire him?” Reid asks.
“I would love to but he’s on the board. Firing me or Paul requires board approval the way hiring us did. I assure you my mother would be haranguing me about taking food from his poor babies’ mouths,” I reply. “She’s worried about everyone eating. I tried to explain to her that he won’t be able to feed them if he takes over and runs the place into the ground. Sometimes I think she would rather let Paul have the position so a man is in charge.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “You know you could get a job anywhere, right? You’re not tied to one company. You’re skilled, and you’re about to be something of a celebrity. You have literal connections to royalty. You’re not stuck. You are in a unique position to follow whatever dream you like.”
Dreams. I have a weird connection to that word. “I don’t know that I ever had one. I knew what I was supposed to do from the time I was a kid. Like as soon as I was capable of holding a hammer, my dad had one in my hand. I guess that’s why it hurt so much to find out he actually intended to give the company to my husband.”
“He what?” Reid asks, obviously in disbelief.
I haven’t even shared this with my friends. “It’s something my mom told me. Dad never really thought I would run the company. He thought I would get married and my husband would manage the company. I’m not sure how he intended to find a man who could magically walk into the job. Mom assures me he had a few candidates lined up.”
Reid huffs. “I can tell you how he expected it would work. He expected you to teach him. My father…well, I saw it a lot. He was propped up by the incredibly intelligent women he hired. Assistants. They did most of the work for him, and he took all the credit. He would promise them the world and never deliver. There was this woman who came up with an idea that brought company expenses down by ten percent. Would you like to know what he did to her?”
“Probably not. Your dad seems like an asshole.” The more I hear about the Dorsey patriarch the more sympathy I have for Reid. Who does actually work well with others. All the people on my crew adore him and think he and Jeremiah are the best. Probably because they often come to set with cronuts.
“He was an asshole of the highest order. He laid her off and announced he’d saved another half a percent and told the shareholders it had all been his idea.” He sighs and his arms clutch me closer. “I’m glad he never wanted either of us to take over the company.”
Yes, but he still reaps the rewards of owning all that stock. He doesn’t depend on working to live the way I do. We are from two different worlds. “Did you ever think about it?”
“Think about sitting in some office plotting how to get more cash out of people who can’t afford it?” he muses. “No. I knew I wasn’t going to follow in dear old dad’s footsteps. The truth of the matter is he was done with us when we turned eighteen. He blew through as much money as he could. I think he somehow knew he wasn’t going to make it to eighty and wanted to spend it all if he could. So he left us with the penthouse and the stock, and we had to figure things out from there. The first time I walked into a board meeting they laughed at me.”
I cuddle closer, the warmth of our bodies lulling me. If there is one thing I can empathize with, it’s feeling shitty at a board meeting. I had to start going to them way too young. “That wasn’t fair of them. Did you vote the CEO out? I’ve been told it’s an easy thing to do.”