Page 17 of Beside the Rolling Waves
“Iknow you thought I was going to lead this, but the situation has changed, and my friend, Ford Hansen, is going to be taking over.”
There were murmurs around the room as Rodney stood at the head of the table. Ford wasn’t at the meeting, and he wasn’t videoing in either, but he had agreed to buy Rodney’s share and take over Rodney’s position.
Ford was one of the few men Rodney knew who could afford to do it. There was a huge payoff involved. It was what Rodney had been banking on to make him a billionaire in the next two years. Managed right, it would do just that for Ford.
Ford had not been doing him a favor by buying him out. Rodney had been doing him a favor by asking him.
But the fact remained that Rodney was now out from underneath seventy percent of the responsibilities that he had taken upon himself. The other thirty percent were easily manageable. It wasn’t how he had seen his life playing out, but if he was going to take on the responsibility for twin babies, for who knew how long, he hadn’t had a choice. Unless he was going to hire someone to take care of the babies for him.
Plenty of people hired out childcare, and if he were talking about forty hours a week, he might have considered it. But he was going to need a full-time nanny, because one didn’t get to the level that he was in with his business by working just forty hours a week.
He finished out the meeting, answering the questions that were inevitable when they were talking about a shift that size. It was almost unheard of, but he and Ford could make it work. They always did. They worked well together, and Ford had been invaluable to him. Again, he hadn’t saved him when Rodney had made some really terrible decisions, and in hindsight, Rodney was exceptionally glad that Ford had stepped back and allowed things to unfold the way they needed to. The lessons he learned had been invaluable. He couldn’t have learned them any other way.
Not that he didn’t wish that it wouldn’t have happened. Because…his relationship with Becky would have been a lot better. But that was his own fault too. Another bad decision that didn’t have to be. He could have told her everything, he could have kept her in the loop, and he could have saved that relationship.
But he’d been stubborn and stupid, and he hadn’t listened to his mentors when they had told him to just be honest and tell her what happened.
He had been too proud to.
Well, he wasn’t too proud to sell off when he knew that that’s what he needed to do. And he wasn’t too proud to apologize to Becky, even though she stood him up on Wednesday.
He was annoyed, but he realized that was just a small part of how she felt five years ago when he had stopped responding to her at all. He’d sent her letters back, and he changed his number. She hadn’t been able to get a hold of him at all, since he’d lost his apartment. Even if she tried to look him up, she couldn’t. Hetold everyone to not tell her anything. Whether she had gone and asked, he didn’t even know. People didn’t talk to him about it because he told them he was done. He wasn’t going to talk to her again until he was a billionaire.
Well, he hadn’t stuck to that, but that was because of Rita. If it hadn’t been for Rita, he would still be on the road he was on and not realize how Becky had…been hurt? Changed? Maybe both.
He walked out of the boardroom and was stopped by Jordan, a longtime friend.
“What’s going on? I couldn’t ask in the meeting, but I was a little flabbergasted when this all went down. Are you okay?”
He looked both ways in the hall, and then he jerked his head. “Let’s go to my office.”
They walked past the rows of cubicles until they got to his glass-enclosed corner office.
There was a private bathroom inside and a beautiful view of the Chicago River.
He’d wished that the view had been of the lake, but…he hadn’t gotten around to finding office space that gave him the view he wanted. The lake reminded him of Blueberry Beach, of Strawberry Sands and Raspberry Ridge and his friendship with Becky.
Maybe he hadn’t wanted that, really. What he really wanted was to ditch his office and go home.
“Dude? What’s up?” Jordan spoke as soon as the door clicked closed.
Rodney smiled reassuringly. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Just…life changes sometimes, right?”
“It changes?” He lifted his brows in surprise, and then he narrowed his eyes. “Did Stella finally get a hold of you?”
“Stella?” Rodney asked.
“She’s had a baby, and she’s claiming it’s yours. She told me she was going to get a child’s ransom out of you, but…she needed to go to her lawyer or something.”
Rodney felt his stomach dropping out. Stella had a baby?
He ran a hand through his hair, turned toward the window, and tried to think back. He couldn’t have a baby with Stella, right? But four and a half years ago when he had been at his lowest point, unable to renew his lease because he couldn’t make the payments, he’d been kicked out of his apartment, and Stella had offered to let him stay with her.
It had been a really bad decision on his part. One he thought he had overcome, because it had only been for a few months, because he’d gotten the cheapest apartment he could find in a rundown section of town, one no one had any business living in, and had moved out. Which had been easy. He’d had just three suits and a handful of T-shirts and jeans.
But still, Stella had only had a one-bedroom apartment, and…they could have a child together. But it wouldn’t be a baby.
“Rodney? Hello?” Jordan waved a hand in front of Rodney’s face. “Did you hear me?” He snorted. “I’m pretty sure you’re not okay. I feel like I need to call an ambulance.”
