Page 2 of No Such Thing as Serendipity

During my walk to the opposite side of the building, where Terrence’s suite overlooked New York Harbor, I ran through my list of demands. No. I couldn’t call them that. Too aggressive . I needed to remember to refer to them as my asks, not demands.

Language was important, but when had everything become so watered down?

With other members of the Fortitude team scurrying through the halls, I refrained from rolling my eyes at the thought.

Regardless of what you called it, a pre-owned car was still a used car, unhoused people were still homeless, and an ask was still a demand.

Over the years, I’d toned down my blunt delivery after Terrence had received several complaints.

Funny, but they’d never reprimanded my male counterparts for the same confident delivery.

I smiled to myself. Although, none of my male counterparts were about to be offered the position of president and CEO of Fortitude, so it had been worth it. As the CEO, I wouldn’t have to play the game any longer.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Saunders. Mr. McClinton is expecting you.” Terrence’s assistant, Dora, greeted me when I entered his suite. I made a mental note to add securing a position for Dora to my list of asks.

“Thanks, Dora. Can I go on in?”

She held up her finger. “Let me check.” She picked up the phone, and after answering yes several times, she said, “They’re ready for you.”

They? I’d thought the first meeting would be just me and Terrence. Had a board member joined him?

“Is there something wrong?” Dora asked.

I needed to up my game. Showing my reactions on my face would lessen my position during negotiations, which meant a hard time securing my asks .

I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

I gave Dora an easy smile as I breezed past her desk toward Terrence’s office. Despite everything, I was nervous. Luckily, my biggest tell was a hidden one. My torso sweated uncontrollably, which was why I wore an undershirt to soak up the evidence.

I took a deep breath before pushing open the door to Terrence’s office.

He was standing behind his desk, peering out his sixty-eighth-story window.

I scanned the familiar office and saw Martin Gillespie, one of the lead attorneys for Fortitude.

He sat in one of the high-backed leather chairs positioned in front of Terrence’s desk.

Interesting. Apparently, Terrence wanted to jump into the negotiations. Good. Maybe we could finalize the deal by month’s end, which meant I could be seated by mid-June.

I gave Martin a cool nod. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

Martin fumbled with his folder and didn’t look up. “Terrence invited me.”

As Terrence turned from the window, sunlight caught his profile, highlighting the deep wrinkles around his eyes.

The once youthful man who often passed for twenty years younger was showing his age.

It came on suddenly, or maybe I’d been too busy to notice it until recently.

Stress could do that to someone. For the past month, he’d appeared more haggard than usual, which made me glad he was retiring from the high stress game of private equity.

“Blake, thank you for coming.” He pointed to the chair opposite Martin. He’d always dressed impeccably, but his suit appeared baggy on him. “Please, have a seat.”

Okay. He was going to play it formal, probably because of Martin. I could do that. “Thank you, Terrence. I appreciate you inviting me.”

I unbuttoned my blazer and sat on the edge of the large chair, which would swallow me if I sat back. The position made it difficult to cross my legs, so I put my right ankle over my left and turned slightly in the chair.

Terrence sat behind his desk and opened the folder sitting in front of him. He stared down at the papers for several beats before he spoke.

His melancholic gaze surprised me. Of course, why wouldn’t he be sad?

He was soon to retire from the company he loved.

One he’d built from the ground up. Letting go must be hard as he faced his own mortality.

I’d been so wrapped up in my own ambitions, I’d not considered the impact on him.

No wonder he’d aged a dozen years in the past two.

“Ah, Blake,” Terrence said when he looked up. Martin squirmed in the seat next to me, but I kept my gaze on Terrence. “You’ve been my most loyal and steadfast employee.”

“Thank you, sir.” My response was stilted, but this whole scenario was odd. I’d expected a celebratory vibe, not like I’d just set foot into a morgue.

He deserved to relax and enjoy his remaining years. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling all right?”

He raised his hand and shook his head. “Don’t you worry. I’m as healthy as a horse.”

One that’s being put out to pasture. Instead, I said, “I’m glad to hear that.” I considered pushing the agenda, but something told me I needed to follow his lead.

He met my gaze and held it. “I started this company forty years ago with all the cash Sylvia and I’d saved for a house. She almost left me. Then...”

I’d heard him tell this story so many times I could finish it for him, but I patiently listened as he told it again. As he neared the end, my ears perked up.

What had he just said? “Pardon?” I interjected.

“You heard me. My kids hate me because of Fortitude.”

I stared at him. He’d never said this before. Downplaying an old man’s ravings seemed like the best option. “Oh, come on, I doubt that.”

“It’s true. All these years, building this...” He waved his arms around the room. “This empire. Sylvia was the only one there with them. I missed everything. Every milestone in their lives. I didn’t even make it to Jenna’s college graduation.”

I remembered. We were in the middle of one of the biggest acquisitions in the firm’s history. “Surely, Jenna understood.”

He shook his head, looking even older than he had when I’d entered his office. “Hardly. They moved on with their lives without me.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Why was he telling me all this?

Should I offer sympathy? No. That wasn’t my style, so I went for the practical.

“But look at what you’ve accomplished.” I repeated his gesture from moments before and waved my hand around his office, ending by pointing toward the spectacular view out his window.

“You built one of the most respected private equity firms in the country—in the world. Other CEOs admire and fear you. You’ve reached the top. ”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. In all the years I’d sat across from him, I never noticed how immense his desk was. Now the distance between us seemed insurmountable. I bristled at my thought. Insurmountable. What an odd word choice. I leaned forward, trying to bridge some of the distance.

“And yet, my family doesn’t respect, admire, or love me. Fear me, maybe, since I hold the purse strings. Which only makes them resent me more.” He met my gaze, and his eyes glistened.

What the hell? This was getting weird. While he’d been like a father to me, he wasn’t the type of father who shared his feelings.

He was the stoic kind that taught me the way of the deal.

How to survive in this cutthroat world. Still, he was an improvement over my cliché father who ran off with his pregnant secretary when I was five years old.

He never looked back after he started his new family, leaving his old one behind.

Focus. Terrence was looking at me expectantly. I needed to utter something brilliant, but what? “They’ll come around, um...once you...um…” Shit. I didn’t want to be the first to broach his inevitable retirement. That was why I was here, so he’d finally speak the words to me.

His eyes lit up. “Leave here.”

The muscles in my shoulders relaxed. “Yes. Once you turn it over...” I paused. Should I be bold? It was my style, so I pushed on. “Once you leave it in capable hands.”

The strain on his face relaxed. “I’m so glad you understand.”

Why wouldn’t I? I’d waited for this moment since he’d turned seventy, two years ago.

He nodded toward Martin, who I’d almost forgotten was in the room. “Martin has put everything in writing. I think you’ll find it more than fair.” Terrence ran his fingers over the manila file folder in front of him.

Wow ! I guess I wouldn’t get the opportunity to give him my list of asks, or was this just his way of testing me—playing hardball? “You’ve always been fair.” I thought it was the best approach. There would be room for negotiation later.

He put his hand against his chest. It was a gesture I’d never seen him do before. I struggled to decide if it was heartwarming or disconcerting. “I’m so glad you feel that way. I was afraid how you might react.”

Afraid? Was he trying to lowball me?

He slid the folder across the desk toward me. With the desk being so large, I had to stand and pull it forward. I left it sitting on the corner of his desk, waiting for him to give me a clue how I should proceed.

He stared at me for several beats before he said, “Go ahead. Open it.”

I flipped open the file and stared at the Post-it note, written in his handwriting.

The number shocked me. Eight figures. High eight figures.

It exceeded my wildest expectations. I squinted.

Wait. Was it my sign-on bonus or my annual salary?

Surely, Fortitude couldn’t afford to pay me this much annually, but damn, it was a generous bonus!

I couldn’t recall a time when anyone received one so high, not even Terrence.

I gaped at him, searching for words. Although I should thank him, I needed to know what for.

“I hope you think it’s a fair severance.”

What? Severance? I couldn’t have heard him right. “Pardon me?”

He pointed toward the file. “Underneath, you’ll find the agreement Martin drew up.”

I shook my head, trying to make sense of his words. In the movies, the room spun when something earth-shattering happened, but this was real life. Still, I felt light-headed, and nothing made sense.

“Blake.” Terrence’s expression showed concern. “Are you okay?”

I wanted to scream, no! I wanted to ask him what the fuck was happening, but the blood pounding in my ears made it hard for me to focus. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Terrence looked at Martin. “I thought you said she knew.”

Martin gave Terrence a sheepish expression. “I figured she did.”

“Knew what?” I raised my voice.

“That Terrence has agreed to sell the company to MetaForce.”

MetaForce. They were our biggest rival, and their CEO detested me since I’d turned down his advances years ago.

Terrence was talking, but I’d missed what he was saying.

When I tuned in, I heard, “... you wouldn’t want to, anyway.”

“Want to what?”

Terrence narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t want to work for Gregory, even if he’d wanted you.”

So Terrence had thrown me under the bus, and Gregory didn’t want me. “You did this all behind my back?” I clenched my fists. My shock turned to anger.

Terrence bit his lip. “I understand you’re upset, but you had to see this coming.”

No! I fucking didn’t. “How could I? I thought I was your heir apparent. I mean since your kids wanted nothing to do with the business.”

His expression tightened at the mention of his children. “They’re the reason I’m doing it this way. Sylvia convinced me I’d never be able to let go as long as Fortitude existed.”

Martin cleared his throat. “Um, would you like to go over the details of the severance contract now, or would you prefer your lawyer review it?”

I stared at him in disbelief before I turned to Terrence. “How could you do this to me? You were like a father to me.”

His eyes filled with sadness. “But I must think of my own children.”

And there it was. I was nobody. Though I’d spent the last fifteen years working long hours beside him, I was nothing to him.

All the fight left me. I pulled the folder toward me. “Give me a pen.”

Terrence looked from me to Martin.

“Don’t look at him. Just give me a fucking pen.”

Terrence flinched but then pushed his pen toward me. “Don’t you want to read it?”

“What difference would it make? You’ve fucked me enough, so does it matter what I’m signing?”

Terrence sat up straighter. “I assure you I’m not, uh, screwing you. The agreement is very generous.”

“Whatever.” I flipped to the last page and scrawled my name on the signature line. My eyes were full of rage as I glared at Martin. “I doubt you’ll need to see my ID to notarize this.”

Martin shook his head. It was a small victory, but it was all I had left.

“If that’s all, gentlemen,” I said with all the scorn I could muster. “I’ll pick up a few things from my office, and you can have the rest of my belongings sent to me.”

I stood, hoping my legs would hold me long enough to walk from the room.

“But—” Terrence began.

I spun toward him and pointed. “No! There is no but. There’s nothing more for you to say to me.”

As I marched from the room, I heard him say, “One day you’ll thank me for this. Maybe you won’t turn out like I did.”

I didn’t justify his comment with a response.