Chapter 21 #2
Meredith opened her mouth, closed it, and settled on honesty because her father had never accepted anything less.
“It’s not…nothing,” she admitted on a laugh. “But don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried.” His voice was gentle as he kissed her forehead. “Just don’t get hurt again.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Plans change.” He opened the truck door, then turned back. “But also—don’t close yourself off to something awesome because some fool stomped all over you. Connor’s a good guy.”
High praise, she knew.
She blew him a kiss and watched him drive off, not moving until the truck was out of sight.
That man deserved to be loved and understood and appreciated, she thought. Because as “good guys” went? He was the best. She didn’t know much about heaven, not like he did, but surely Mom was up there watching him. Maybe protecting him from the wrong decision.
When she went back inside, Connor looked up from his laptop.
“How is he?” Connor asked.
“Tired. Heartbroken. Determined to do the right thing even if it costs him everything.” She sat down at her desk and pulled her chair closer to his. “So basically, classic Eli Lawson.”
Connor smiled. “What about classic Meredith Lawson? How is she?”
She looked at him—the hair, the dark eyes, the confidence that had become as essential to her days as coffee and blueprints—and felt the certainty she’d been denying for weeks settle over her like something warm.
“She’s ready,” she said. “For tomorrow. For all of it.”
He held her gaze. “All of it?”
On impulse, she leaned over and kissed him—quick, certain, a promise sealed in the space between two desks in the little office that had become their world.
“All of it,” she confirmed. “But first, we have a presentation to build. And if we pull this off tomorrow—”
“When we pull this off tomorrow,” he corrected.
She smiled. “When we pull this off tomorrow, you owe me a real celebration. Not in an unfinished house.”
“Deal.” He turned back to his laptop. “Now let’s go get this guy.”
They ended up working until two in the morning, side by side, building the case that would either ruin the account or Vance Brennan’s career.
Connor organized the slides while Meredith wrote the narrative. He pulled documents and she structured arguments. They moved around each other with the easy synchronization of two people who’d been working next to each other for years, not a few weeks.
By the time they finished, the presentation was clean, organized, and devastating.
Every contractor connection documented. Every bid discrepancy highlighted.
The ductwork gauge incongruity photographed and compared against specs.
A timeline showing how Vance’s vendor steering coincided with his efforts to sideline Meredith’s oversight.
It was, Connor said, the most thorough filing project of his brief career in architectural administration.
She drove home at two-thirty, slept for four hours, and was back at the office by seven with her linen blazer pressed to a crisp finish and her notes in perfect order.
She’d show Vance Brennan exactly what Kiddo and Company was made of.
The conference room at the Design Center was full by seven-fifty.
Greg Hollister sat at the head of the table, a tall, good-looking man in his mid-sixties with silver hair and an air of success. He’d built this company from the ground up, developed thousands of acres in northwest Florida, and didn’t suffer fools.
Nor, Meredith suspected, did he relish an emergency morning meeting to find fault with the architectural firm he’d personally handpicked.
Beside him, the two interchangeable sales associates, Andrew and William, looked like they knew there would be fireworks and high-quality water cooler gossip when it was all over.
Doug Fenton was there, coffee in hand, his stocky frame angled slightly away from Vance Brennan, who sat at the middle of the table with his clipboard and an expression of smug arrogance.
Her father had purposely chosen a seat on the side, leaving the other head of the rectangular table for Meredith. The move signaled that this was not his show, and earned a surprised flicker from Vance.
Meredith was grateful to see Dad looked rested, or at least less destroyed than last night, and when she sat down and caught his eye, he gave her a secret smile.
Connor sat at the corner next to her with his laptop open, the presentation loaded, every document organized in folders he could access in seconds. His face was calm. His broken wrist rested on the table, cast off. He’d worn a dress shirt and khakis and looked as handsome as she could remember.
Before the meeting started, she shared one quick look with Connor, who sneaked a wink that gave her exactly the injection of confidence she needed.
“Thank you all for coming on short notice,” Greg began. “Vance has raised some concerns about the Acacia scope of work that I think we should address directly. Vance?”
Whoa, no preamble. No “status” of the new builds. Just…concerns.
Vance straightened in his chair and cleared his throat, as if he’d rehearsed this speech a few times in front of the mirror.
“Thanks, Greg. I want to start by saying that Acacia has been a valued partner on this project, and what I’m about to say comes from a place of wanting to see Lakeside succeed.”
Meredith kept her expression neutral. Beside her, Connor’s fingers rested lightly on his keyboard.
“Over the past several weeks, I’ve observed a pattern of quality concerns that I think merit discussion.
” Vance opened his notebook. “The clubhouse event space remains undersized relative to marketing commitments. Several Phase One design revisions have created timeline delays. And frankly, the project management on the architectural side has been inconsistent, particularly in Eli’s absence. ”
He let that last phrase land and glanced toward Eli. The implication was clear—the boss was checked out, and his daughter wasn’t up to the job.
Dad didn’t move a muscle.
“My recommendation,” Vance continued, “is that Pippin Lake engage a local firm for additional architectural oversight. Not to replace Acacia, but to supplement and possibly divide the work with another qualified firm. That way, we can ensure we have constant access to seasoned professionals who are meeting the standard our buyers expect.”
Constant access to seasoned professionals or another company on the take? Meredith swallowed the thought as Greg Hollister glanced at Eli, who gestured toward Meredith.
“Do you want to respond?” Greg asked her.
She stood, making most of the men inch back in surprise.
Snapping her blazer in place, she looked from one face to another, waiting a beat on each and sensing the shift in the room.
“Thank you, Greg. I appreciate the opportunity to address these concerns, and I want to start with the facts.”
Connor clicked to the first slide and Vance blinked, clearly expecting her to whine out some kind of excuse for these alleged issues. Had he not paid any attention this past month? He wasn’t dealing with a whiner.
“Phase One of Lakeside is currently ahead of schedule. Ten foundations are poured. The first Alastair model is framed and roughed in. We’ve now sold twenty-three of sixty-four lots in the opening month, with the Alastair up to ten—the strongest sales performance of any floor plan in Pippin Lake’s development history. ”
She moved through the numbers with precision and certainty. Custom revisions, buyer feedback, zero compromises, and a creative elevation placement strategy that showed she could play three-D chess if she had to.
“Regarding the clubhouse,” she continued, “the event space was designed to the specifications in the original brief and approved in the initial contract review. I have the signed approval here if anyone would like to see it, but I have developed three new concepts for consideration that would come in on budget. Vance has them on his desk, where they’ve been for two weeks. ”
Connor pulled up the three design sketches, right on cue.
Doug Fenton cleared his throat. “I can confirm that Acacia’s work on Phase One has been excellent. The Alastair is the best house I’ve built in twenty years. And for the record, the timeline delays Vance mentioned were caused by a permitting backlog at the county level, not by design revisions.”
The room was quiet.
“Thank you, Doug.” Meredith paused, let the silence hold for one beat, then two. “However, there is a concern I need to bring to this group’s attention. It’s not about Acacia’s performance. It’s about the subcontractor pipeline.”
She watched Vance’s face. The first glint of something—not alarm, not yet, but the vague flicker of concern.
“Over the past several weeks, our team has identified a pattern in subcontractor selection that raises financial questions for Pippin Lake.” She nodded to Connor, who advanced to the next slide—a spreadsheet showing the three contractors, their bid history, and the budget allocations they’d tracked against.
“Three companies have received the majority of subcontract work across Phase One: Bayside Mechanical, Hawke Brothers Framing, and Gulf Breeze Electric. These three companies are registered to the same business address—a commercial mailbox suite in Fort Walton Beach—and share the same registered agent.”
The room temperature dropped so hard and so fast, it gave her chills. Or maybe that was the way the color drained from Vance’s smug features.
“Additionally, the bids submitted by these companies have consistently fallen within two to three percent of Pippin Lake’s internal budget allocations—numbers that are not shared with contractors during the bidding process.
” She let that settle for a moment, then took a breath.
“This pattern suggests that budget information may have been communicated to these vendors prior to bid submission.”
Greg Hollister’s face had gone very still. He was looking at the screen with focused attention.