Page 38 of My CEO Neighbor
“Without question.”
"Good enough for me.Have her call my office as soon as she can.We'll work it out."
Ted ended the call feeling better than he had since Monica's door had closed in his face.He couldn't fix what he'd broken between them, couldn't take back the way he'd retreated into corporate mode when rescue arrived.But he could solve this problem, could give Monica the space she needed to rebuild what someone else was trying to take away.
Ted was reaching for his phone to text Monica the contact information when he heard her voice through the wall again.
"I know it's not the end of the world," Monica was saying."I know I could find another job, go back to marketing, get a steady paycheck.But Mal, this studio is everything I've built.It's proof that I made the right choice, that walking away from corporate life wasn't just some privileged quarter-life crisis."
If Monica thought losing her studio would invalidate every choice she'd made, it would prove that her mother and college friends were right about the impracticality of choosing meaning over money.
"No, I can't ask my parents for help," Monica continued."They already think I'm wasting my life on 'California nonsense.'If I call them asking for fifty thousand dollars to save my yoga business, it'll just confirm everything they've said about my lack of practical sense."
Another pause.
"I don't know what I'll do if I lose this.Without the studio, without my students, I'm just another failure who couldn't make her dreams pay the bills."
Ted closed his eyes, Monica's words hitting harder than any investor rejection ever could.She was facing the same fear that had driven him to work eighteen-hour days for three years, the terror of being exposed as fundamentally inadequate, of having to admit that everything you'd sacrificed for wasn't worth the cost.
And unlike Ted, Monica didn't have business connections or investors willing to write seven-figure checks.She'd built her studio through sheer determination and the kind of authentic passion that couldn't be faked or leveraged or optimized for maximum return.
Monica was everything Ted had forgotten how to be—genuine, purpose-driven, willing to choose meaning over security.And now the universe was punishing her for it.
Ted looked at his phone, Bill Armitage's contact information ready to send.But texting Monica felt cowardly, impersonal.If he was going to help her, if he was going to risk her anger and accusations of corporate manipulation, he should at least have the balls to face her directly.
Before he could lose his nerve, Ted walked to Monica's door and knocked.
The conversation inside stopped abruptly.Ted heard movement, footsteps, the sound of Monica checking the peephole.
"Mal, I'll call you back," Monica said, but she didn’t open the door.“Yes?”She sounded wrung out, defeated in a way that made him want to break something.
"I want to talk to you."
"About what?"
"About the studio.About your lease situation."
Another pause, longer this time."Were you listening to my phone call?"
"Not intentionally.But yes.Let me help you."
"I don't need your help."
"Bullshit.You need fifty thousand dollars in thirty days, and I have connections that could solve your problem."
"What's the catch?"
The question hit harder than it should have."There's no catch."
"There's always a catch with men like you."
Men like you.Ted couldn't argue with Monica's assessment.In her experience, men like him were exactly the kind who offered help with strings attached, who turned generosity into leverage.
"Let me explain."
"No.I'm not going to let you solve my problems so you can feel better about what happened in the elevator.I'm not going to be your guilt-management project."
Ted felt frustration rise, hot and immediate."This isn't about guilt."
