Chapter 6 - What I Would Not Sign
On Monday morning, I went to work.
Not because I felt strong.
Because there were six hundred employees who deserved something more useful than my hiding beneath a blanket while other people decided what happened next.
I wore navy trousers, a cream blouse, and my grandmother’s diamonds on a chain beneath my collar.
The wedding band could wait.
My assistant, Nina, looked up when I stepped out of the elevator.
“I can clear your calendar.”
“Keep operations. Cancel congratulations.”
Her eyes shone.
“Already done.”
By nine, Elena had arranged an independent review of both the failed venture and Adrian’s loan holdings.
By ten, our communications director had prepared a factual statement confirming that the wedding and transaction had been canceled.
No insults. No speculation.
We did not owe strangers an invitation into every corner of my humiliation.
At eleven, Richard Prescott sent a proposal.
He would agree to terminate the venture without further dispute if we released claims related to the financial disclosures and made a joint public statement blaming an administrative delay.
Elena read it twice.
Then she slid it toward me.
“What do you think?”
A week earlier, I would have asked what Dad wanted.
Now I picked up a pen and circled the release.
“They want us to surrender questions we haven’t finished asking.”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
Dad nodded from the other side of the table.
The word no was beginning to feel less like a weapon and more like a locked gate with my hand on the key.
That afternoon, Adrian arrived with his own counsel.
He stayed on the opposite side of the conference table.
I appreciated that more than flowers.
His investment group had purchased a discounted portfolio from a regional lender. Prescott Coastal represented one portion. His firm had not created the underlying debts, and it could not simply seize the company because he felt wronged.
Elena asked difficult questions.
Adrian answered them.
When he did not know, he said so.
At the end, he placed a separate proposal on the table.
A potential financing arrangement for Keene Maritime’s independent harbor bid.
Dad reached for it.
I held up a hand.
“Not today.”
Adrian nodded.
Dad looked surprised.
I looked at both of them.
“We don’t replace one relationship-shaped business arrangement with another. The board reviews this through the usual process. I’m not negotiating it privately.”
A small smile touched Elena’s mouth.
“Agreed.”
Afterward, Adrian and I stood beside the elevators.
“Are you angry?” I asked.
“About independent review?”
“About me keeping my distance.”
“No.”
“You don’t have to be endlessly gracious.”
“I’m not.” He leaned against the wall. “I’m angry that you believed them. I understand why you did. Both can be true.”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know how to fix that.”
“Don’t rush to trust me because he lied.”
The elevator opened.
Nobody stepped inside.
“What should I do?”
“Get to know me again.”
So I did.
Slowly.
Coffee on Thursday.
A walk the following Sunday.
Conversations that had nothing to do with Collin.
Adrian told me about his sister’s children, his terrible first apartment, the boat his father had spent fifteen years repairing without ever quite finishing.
I told him I hated being introduced as Andrew Keene’s daughter before anyone mentioned my actual job.
He asked about the contract I had won the year before.
He remembered the details.
On our fourth coffee, my phone lit up with a message from Brynn.
We need to talk. Collin has been lying to both of us.
I showed Adrian.
His expression stayed neutral.
“What do you want to do?”
I looked out at the ordinary afternoon beyond the window.
People carried grocery bags. A little boy dragged a backpack with one broken wheel.
Life was continuing without asking whether I felt ready.
“I want to hear her,” I said. “With Elena there.”
May you like
Adrian nodded.
For once, a man in my life did not confuse supporting my decision with making it for me.
