Chapter 21
“Oh, thank goodness you’re back!” Meredith looked up from her desk to see her father finally walk into the office early Monday evening.
“I had to—”
“Dad, are you okay?” She stood and rounded her desk, filled with concern. He looked like he’d aged a few years, with the light gone from his eyes. “Where have you been for five days?”
“Atlanta. I told you in my texts.”
“All weekend?”
He just sighed and set a soft-sided briefcase on his desk, dragging his free hand through his hair. “Yeah.”
She glanced at Connor, who was observing the exchange. They had planned to drop the Vance bomb over the weekend, and her frustration had grown with Dad’s absence and curt replies.
She did not want to go through their findings by phone, but he didn’t look like he’d relish the conversation right now.
His shirt was wrinkled from the long drive, his jaw was shadowed from whiskers that hadn’t seen a razor in days, and his eyes—usually the warmest thing about him—were flat with exhaustion.
And the fact was, back at the Summer House? Kate hadn’t looked much better.
Telling him what they’d discovered about Pippin Development’s arrogant liaison? That wasn’t going to improve his mood. But she had no choice.
“Listen, we have to talk to you about—”
“The emergency meeting?” he interjected. “I just got the call a few minutes ago.”
She drew back, frowning. Emergency? “Do you mean the quarterly meeting on Wednesday with Greg Hollister?”
He huffed out a breath. “His office called and said we’re meeting first thing tomorrow instead.”
“Oh.”
Connor stood, his shoulders square. “They never told Meredith that.”
Dad’s gaze moved between them, the stress in his eyes deepening as he looked at her.
“Maybe that’s a deliberate oversight,” he said quietly. “Apparently Vance Brennan has raised concerns about Acacia’s performance. Quality issues, delays, the clubhouse square footage dispute. He’s pushing for a review of our contract at eight a.m. tomorrow morning.”
Meredith felt the blood drain from her face. She glanced at Connor, who closed his eyes like he’d been hit.
“He’s making his move,” he said under his breath.
Eli frowned. “What move? What are you talking about?”
Meredith walked to the door to close it. “Dad, we need to show you something,” she said. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
She started with the contractor pattern—three companies, same registered agent, same Fort Walton Beach address.
Connor pulled up the bid comparisons on his laptop, showing how the pricing tracked within three percent of internal budget allocations that only Vance had access to.
They walked him through the change orders, the vendor steering, the absence of competing bids on work that required them by contract.
And then the ductwork. Twenty-four gauge in the Alastair when the specs called for twenty. Cheaper material, billed at the higher rate. It happened with numerous other materials and bids. The margin disappeared into companies that traced back to the same mailbox.
Her father listened without interrupting. His exhaustion didn’t lift—if anything, it got worse—but underneath it, Meredith watched something harder take its place.
She could see his expression shift as he learned that someone had been stealing from a client under his watch.
When they finished, he was quiet for quite some time.
“How long have you known?” he finally asked.
“A week,” Meredith said. “But kudos to Connor who sniffed this out long before I did.”
He shifted his gaze to the other man, giving an infinitesimal nod of thanks.
“I just questioned the subs and bid patterns,” Connor said, quickly deflecting praise. “Meredith’s got her head in the big stuff and wouldn’t have any reason to examine that paperwork.”
She smiled at him, grateful for his willingness to drive from the backseat. He didn’t seek credit or praise, which reminded her of the other man in this room.
“Honestly, Dad, I really was going to sit you down this weekend and get your final call on how to handle this. But now…”
“Vance is forcing the timeline,” Eli concluded for her. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Because he must have sensed something and he’s trying to get us fired before you can present the evidence.”
“That would be our guess,” Connor said.
As if hearing the word “our,” Eli’s gaze moved between them, and Meredith saw something flicker in his expression that she couldn’t quite interpret. Interest? Surprise? Confirmation?
She didn’t know, but he always did have a freakishly good Dad sense when Meredith liked a boy.
And, yeah, after a week of late nights, a shared objective, and a whole lot of chemistry and tension, she sure liked this boy.
“So what do we do?” she asked, purposely steering back to the crisis.
“If we present this tomorrow without everything airtight, it’ll look like we’re deflecting from performance issues.
Fake performance issues,” she added. “But if we walk in there and play defense against his accusations without mentioning the fraud—”
“We lose either way,” Eli finished. “I know.”
A wrong move would cost Acacia the project—the revenue, the reputation, the two new hires in Atlanta who’d have to be let go. A right move could save everything, but only if it was convincing enough to turn Greg Hollister against his own employee.
Eli looked down, thinking, and, if Meredith knew anything about her father, asking for guidance.
“We present the facts,” Eli said finally. “Whatever we have. It may not be everything, but it’s enough to ask questions that Vance won’t be able to answer. And if Hollister is the man I think he is, he’ll want to know the truth more than he’ll want to protect his liaison.”
“Let me do it,” Meredith said.
Eli’s eyes snapped to hers. “Meredith—”
“Dad, I know this project inside and out. I know every number, every spec, every change order Vance has pushed through. I’m the one he’s been undermining for weeks—calling me demeaning names, demanding you instead of me, going over my head.
If you present this, it’s a senior partner accusing his client’s employee.
If I present it, it’s the project architect showing the team is on top of things even the client doesn’t know. ”
“It’s also my daughter walking into a room to take on a man who’s been trying to destroy her credibility.”
Connor leaned forward and looked at Eli. “And walking out having destroyed his,” he said.
Eli looked at him, then at her, and she saw the war between father and CEO playing out in real time. The father wanted to stand in front of her, take the hit, handle the hard stuff so she wouldn’t have to. The CEO knew she was right.
“Please, Dad.” Her voice softened. “I need this. Not just for the project. For me.”
He held her gaze, thinking. Then he nodded.
“I’ll be in the room. But it’s your presentation.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you need me to help before tomorrow?” he asked.
“No,” she said without hesitation. “Please go home. You look…bad.”
He gave a sad smile. “I’ve been better,” he admitted. Then he gathered his briefcase and glanced at his desk, ignoring everything on it. “Yeah, I’m going home. You two put together something bulletproof for tomorrow. I’m counting on you. On both of you.”
“Let me go out with you.” Meredith stood and walked with her father to the parking lot, grateful he didn’t question her need for some privacy. Outside, the early evening air wrapped them in a blanket of humidity as they headed toward Dad’s truck in the silent construction site.
“One more question?” she ventured.
“Anything, honey.”
“Will you tell me what’s going on?” she asked. “And I don’t mean Vance. I’m worried about you.”
He leaned against his truck and crossed his arms, looking less like her father and more like a man who was simply, profoundly tired.
“Kate and I have reached an impasse,” he said. “About faith.”
Meredith waited.
“I won’t go into the details now, but she’s asked me to choose between her and what I believe, and I…” He pressed his lips together. “I can’t make that choice, Mer. Not because I don’t love her. Because I do. More than I thought I could love anyone again.”
“Your faith isn’t negotiable.” She knew that—didn’t anyone who ever met and interacted with him to any deep extent? She didn’t understand it, didn’t embrace it, but she fully respected her father’s beliefs and his unwavering moral compass.
“It is not negotiable,” he agreed. “My faith in God is my foundation—and you know how I feel about those.”
She laughed. “Deep and strong and never on sand.”
He smiled. “It’s why the Summer House cost a small fortune. But my personal foundation is deep and strong and not built on sand, either. If she can’t or won’t accept that, then I can’t pretend it doesn’t matter.”
“Can’t she just…live with it? Admire it and even learn about it? I don’t get why she’s so intractable.”
“The slightest mention of Jesus can do that to people,” he said. “He told us that would happen. He warned us that families could break over His name.”
Meredith felt the ache of it settle into her chest—not just for her father, but for Kate, who she genuinely liked and admired.
“She’s leaving after the wedding this weekend,” Eli added quietly. “Going back to Ithaca with Emma.”
“Dad, I’m so sorry.” She hugged him, pressing her face against his chest the way she used to when the world was too much and Dad was the only fix.
“Get some rest,” she said. “We’ve got tomorrow handled.”
He pulled back and looked toward the office, where the light from the window cast a warm glow into the parking lot. Connor was visible through the glass, hunched over his laptop.
“Kate mentioned something,” Eli said carefully. “About you and Connor.”
Meredith felt the heat rise instantly. “Kate is very observant.”
“She’s a scientist. Observation is her superpower.” He paused. “Is she right?”
“I don’t know what she said.”
“She said there was an undercurrent of…something.”