Chapter 41 THAT’S NOT WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO LAND WHEN I FELL #3
“It wasn’t only the wine scam, Daphne. My father almost ran the company into the ground, and it’s a sheer miracle that the right people were already on staff to steer me to do any better than he did.
He’s a shitty businessman and a shitty CEO who’s never once looked himself in the mirror and asked why was I the one chosen to live an easy life with more money than god? ”
I shift on the bed. “I used to think about that all of the time. I finally decided it was because the universe knew that once I had full access to my trust fund, I’d invest in the world’s animals and forests and oceans.
Like, that was how I’d balance it. By using what I didn’t earn for the good of the entire world. ”
His green-dotted hazel eyes study me, and for the first time in my life, I don’t feel judged by someone from back home about it.
Not that everyone was an asshole.
It’s more that I was incredibly single-minded about it at the expense of everything else.
Annoying is what it was most often called.
But Oliver—warmth floods my chest as I realize it’s respect coming out of his expression.
Appreciation.
Validation glows inside of me. Someone gets it. Someone I’d expected to judge me, but instead, he gets it.
“The only time Margot and I ever had a fight, it was about trickle-down economics.” He waves a hand, like he’s saying, yes, yes, it’s boring, I’m boring, we’ve covered that.
“She’d never stopped to consider that maybe it didn’t work the way our parents said it did.
That we were supposed to trickle it down—not other rich people, but us—and we didn’t, but we told ourselves we did. ”
I unfortunately understand what he’s talking about because economics and business and tax breaks for the rich funding better paychecks for the poor was a regular topic of conversation at my dinner table growing up.
“Did you trickle it down when you were in charge?” I ask him.
“Of fucking course I did.” He smiles, but this isn’t a nice smile.
This is—oh my god.
It’s a petty smile.
I like his petty side.
“I cut my mother’s salary first to do it,” he tells me.
I stare at him for the briefest of moments before I crack up. “No.”
“She didn’t do any real work for the company. She didn’t need a salary. I cut my own too.”
“You might be my favorite CEO ever.”
He sighs and shakes his head.
“You think your dad will give her back the, erm, job?” I ask.
He stares at me a beat too long, as if there’s something I’m clearly missing. But then he shakes his head. “If he notices.”
“Wouldn’t she notice?”
“No. She never knew she was getting a salary in the first place. She has zero understanding of how any of the family finances work and very little money of her own. My father screwed her too, and she doesn’t even know it.”
I open my mouth, then shut it again.
That would’ve been me if I’d married into a family in our zip code instead of getting disinherited and deciding to give my family the middle finger by thriving on next to nothing, so I shouldn’t judge.
Not because I don’t understand money.
More because I would’ve been too distracted spending it on good causes to notice if it was mine, his, or ours.
I care less about the specifics and more about the end goal.
“Did you correct that too?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“The optics of anyone in the family selling M2G shares the past few years were awful, so instead, I sold several vacation homes and artwork and the rarest dinnerware we possessed to get her set up with money of her own since she insisted on paying for appeal after appeal after appeal the minute he surrendered to prison.”
“My mother would’ve died,” I whisper.
“Mine claimed she was going to. She was counting the seconds until my father got out of prison so he’d fund her shopping sprees again and her friends would quit judging her for wearing fashion that’s four years out of date.
He’ll have to sell stock to do it because that’s about all he has left.
” He grins. “Especially since I took all of Grandpa’s cash with me when I left. ”
“Your family will still have enough shares to keep majority control in the family?”
I don’t know much, but I know that always mattered to my father.
Keep fifty-one percent in the family. Always keep a majority share in the family.
We were born with it, and it was our obligation to die with it.
Or so he wanted us to believe.
I’m sometimes still blown away that in this day and age, he also wants to use Margot’s marriageability to further the goals of the company, but he does.
Easier to keep it than get it back, he always said. So marry people who already have it.
I knew that was part of Margot’s relationship with Oliver, but she seemed to like him too, and she was hurt when he broke up with her.
“I don’t care who has a controlling share in the company,” he tells me. “I’m dead serious about giving everything of mine away. Seeing it go to good use. Making a difference in the world instead of holding on to it.”
I’m not smiling anymore.
My job is definitely toast. I can’t imagine there’s another executive in the world who’d continue to put goodwill over profits.
And this Oliver?
The guy who’s doing everything I ever wanted to do, in his own way, but for the same reason?
He’s making my heart pound in ways that it hasn’t pounded for anyone in years, and it’s both terrifying and thrilling.
He and I—we see eye to eye on things I never expected. He’s doing what I wanted to do.
What I screwed up for myself but he was smart enough to pull off.
Because he was boring for so long.
But he’s not boring anymore.
Not even close.
I rub my temples. My neck is aching again, and now my whole chest is too.
Can’t fix that, but I can work on something else.
There have to be millions in Oliver’s suitcases, and there’s no chance he’s giving away this much cash before he’s supposedly due back from his vacation. That’s a lot to give away in under two weeks.
“Did you actually have a plan for giving this all away?” I gesture to the bags.
“Do you even know what plans are?” he teases back.
I ignore the barb because he’s not far off base with the question, plus, there’s no heat in his voice. Only playfulness. “You could use this to pay cash for your groceries for the rest of your life and still die with your mattress stuffed full.”
He shoves off the edge of the tub, closes the small distance between the bathroom and the bed and sits beside me on the edge.
“I had exactly enough time to plan an escape route. Not enough time to plan day-to-day logistics. I just—I assumed I’d find the way to give it all away in the moment.
Once I had moments. And now—we haven’t even gone through twenty thousand, have we? ”
I run a hand through his hair.
It’s natural and easy to want to comfort him in his feeling of failure, and I don’t even think about it. I just scratch his scalp through his thick hair.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Ollie. I’m on the job now. I’ll have you down a million by this time tomorrow.”
He turns his head so he’s staring at me.
Eyes dark.
Unreadable.
Breath shallow.
My hand stills in his hair as I realize I shouldn’t be touching him.
Not at all.
Not for any reason.
“You will, won’t you?” he says softly.
Reverently.
I don’t snatch my hand back. I don’t want to.
His hair is thick with more silver strands than there should be, and I want to keep touching it.
I want to keep touching him while he’s so blatantly admiring me for wanting to do the same kind of good in the world that he wants to do.
“I’m very determined when I set my mind to something.”
“I never thought to like that about you until right now.”
“You shouldn’t like anything about me.”
“Am I your polar bear?”
“What?”
“Your cause. Your mission. Right now. You being here. Am I your polar bear? Am I your melting ice caps?”
I shake my head.
One of his brows arches up again. I want to trace it with my finger.
And lick it.
Hoooo boy, I’m in trouble.
“I can’t figure out your tell,” he says, “but this time, I know you’re lying.”
I can’t make my voice work normally. It’s uneven and throaty and I should absolutely not be talking. “You’re not my melting polar ice caps. You—you’ve needed a friend. This week.”
“You’ve changed.”
“So have you.”
He holds my gaze, and it feels like a lifetime hanging between us.
He has changed. He’s bossy and grumpy and short-tempered, but he’s also kind and thoughtful and patient and funny.
Sometimes all at once, which shouldn’t be possible, but it is.
I bite my lip. I need to pull my hand out of his hair, but instead, I seem to be pulling his head closer to mine. “You’re not boring,” I whisper when I should tell him to back up, even though, again, I’m the one steering this dumpster fire of a ship.
His lips quirk up once more, and I’m done.
Gone.
Completely smitten with zero chance of a rescue.
“You’re not a complete disaster,” he murmurs back.
He’s wrong, but I’m still smiling as our lips touch.
This is a complete disaster.
And if there’s one thing I do in the face of disaster, it’s lean in even more.