Page 39 of The Betrayer
My father’s statement was a parry to my own, a challenge for a challenge. I met his gaze, and he smirked before leaning back into the couch and stretching like he owned the place, which he did.
“Whatever you say, Paul, whatever you think, we need each other. The company has grown because of the two of us and the way we work together. You might hate our differences, but we complement each other in a way that’s gotten us to where we are today.”
“Is that your big revelation of the day?” I asked. I could hear the hint of sarcasm in my tone.
I had to admit, though, that maybe my father was right. When I thought about it, I was good with the day-to-day and running of a company while my father was the people person. I’d been thinking along similar lines all weekend, but lamenting that fact in light of the circumstances, I hadn’t been able to put it all together.
As much as it annoyed the hell out of me, and so did my father, I wouldn’t have a company to run if my father didn’t bring in the investors. But my father wouldn’t have a company to get investors for if I didn’t run things the way I did. If either of us left, the company would likely tank quickly.
Did we truly complement each other so well?
“So, we up for this challenge, you and me?”
I resisted rolling my eyes like a teenager as my father gave me yet another bump on the shoulder. We weren’t in some peewee baseball club, and he wasn’t my coach giving me a pep talk before the game. I wasn’t sure where this fatherly gesture and comradery had come from all of a sudden.
“Yes, we’re up for the challenge.” I sighed and realized I really did sound like an annoyed teenager, and my father chuckled.
At least the chasm between us didn’t seem so enormous anymore.
Chapter 16
Will
––––––––
IGLANCED AT MY WATCHand then squinted at the bright morning sky. Paul should have been lifting off for China just about now.
The past days had been a whirlwind, and I felt I was still caught up in its spin. From the time of our argument at the gala to today, it seemed like it had been one big hurricane of anger and regret. I hadn’t had such a roller coaster of emotions during my divorce.
Today, the sun was brighter, the sky bluer, and it seemed things between Paul and me might be on the mend. Which meant I felt far better.
Not that absolutely everything had been resolved. Paul’s accusation that I couldn’t face the hard things still rankled deeply—building and making a success of a business required doing the hard thing over and over.
Building a business was the hardest thing I had ever done. Paul was only in diapers, and there was no way he could know how much blood, sweat, and tears had gone into the years it took to build something stable and create a successful foundation. He didn’t know how long the hours had been, how many sleepless nights I’d had. My son didn’t remember what it was like to barely be scraping by before the business was profitable, to worry about how we would pay our bills. He didn’t remember the way I dragged myself from meeting to meeting, fighting my way through more losses than successes at first, turned away at nearly every door.
Somehow, I had fought through it all—the doubt, the frustration, the exhaustion, the endless nights when I wondered whether it was all worth it or if I had made an enormous mistake. I had sunk everything into the business, including our retirement savings and my life savings, though neither had been too big to begin with. Then had come the debt simply to pay for groceries or diapers or a visit to the doctor.
