3. Benedict
— ? —
Benedict
I am drowning.
Not metaphorically - though that too, probably, if I stopped long enough to think about it.
But right now, in this moment, staring at seventeen open browser tabs and four different financial models and a phone that won’t stop buzzing, I am drowning in the most literal sense that doesn’t involve water.
The Budapest deal is hemorrhaging money.
Two hundred million in projected losses if we don’t close by the end of the quarter.
The board is circling like sharks who’ve smelled blood, and my father’s legacy - the company he built from nothing, the empire he trusted me to protect - is being targeted by hostile investors who would gut it for parts and leave forty thousand people without jobs.
Forty thousand families.
Forty thousand mortgages and grocery bills and kids who need braces and college funds.
I can’t let that happen. I won’t.
Grayson offered to take Budapest himself last week. My COO. Twenty years in this business, better in a room than I am on my best day, and he stood in my doorway and said let me carry this one.
I told him no. I told him some things require the man whose name is on the building.
That sentence sounds like dedication right up until you hear it out loud.
So I sit in my office at - I don’t know what time it is. Late. Early. The windows show nothing but darkness and city lights, which could mean anything. I’ve stopped tracking hours. Hours don’t matter. Only the deal matters.
My eyes burn. When did I last sleep? There was that night at the penthouse, Christine’s light on when I finally came home, her door closed. I stood outside it for ten minutes trying to decide if I should knock. I didn’t. She needed rest. The baby needed rest.
I told myself that was why.
The truth is uglier: I didn’t knock because I didn’t know what to say.
I’m sorry doesn’t cover it anymore. I’ll do better is a lie we’ve both stopped believing.
And the worst part - the part that keeps me here, in this office, at this hour - is that when I’m working, I don’t have to see the disappointment in her eyes.
I don’t have to watch her look at me like I’m a stranger wearing her husband’s face.
Work is simple. Numbers make sense. Problems have solutions.
Christine doesn’t have a solution. We don’t have a solution.
So I work.
My phone buzzes again. Board member. Another complaint, another threat, another reminder that the Morgan name means nothing if I can’t save this deal.
I answer it, because answering is easier than thinking about the dinner Christine made three nights ago.
The one I said I’d be home for. The one I found in the refrigerator the next morning, wrapped in plastic, a Post-it note stuck to the top: Didn’t wait up.
She used to wait up.
She used to fall asleep on the couch with a book on her chest, and I’d carry her to bed, and she’d mumble something about me being ridiculous, and I’d tell her she was worth being ridiculous for.
When did that stop?
You know when, whispers a voice that sounds uncomfortably like my father. You stopped coming home. You stopped trying. You chose this desk over your wife, and now you’re surprised she’s stopped waiting?
I shove the thought down. Focus on the numbers. The numbers don’t judge me.
“You’re still here.”
Pauline’s voice cuts through the fog. I look up to find her standing in my doorway, two cups of coffee in her hands, looking more put-together at whatever-the-hell-time-it-is than I probably look at noon.
“Still here,” I confirm. My voice comes out rough. Underused. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“You mean you didn’t try to sleep.” She crosses the room, sets one of the coffees on my desk. “I brought you a red-eye. You’re going to need it - the Tokyo team wants a call in two hours.”
I take the coffee because refusing would require energy I don’t have. It’s good. Strong. Exactly how I like it.
“You should go home,” I say, even as I’m drinking the coffee she brought me. “One of us should have a life.”
“My life is making sure you don’t run yourself into the ground.” She perches on the edge of my desk - casual, comfortable, the posture of someone who’s spent too many late nights in this office. “Besides, if you collapse, who’s going to sign my bonus checks?”
I almost smile. Almost.
“The Tokyo projections need adjustment,” I say instead. “Their estimates are too optimistic. If we go in with those numbers and they don’t pan out-”
“Already handled.” She pulls out her tablet, swipes through a few screens. “I revised the models this afternoon. Conservative estimates, worst-case scenarios, the works. We won’t get caught with our pants down.”
Relief washes through me. It’s the first time I’ve felt anything other than stress in days, and I sink into it like a hot bath. “What would I do without you?”
“Crash and burn spectacularly, probably.” Her smile is warm. Sympathetic. “You need to sleep, Benedict. Real sleep, not the twenty-minute power naps you’ve been taking on your couch.”
“I’ll sleep when the deal closes.”
“You’ll collapse before the deal closes at this rate.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But the thought of going home - of walking into that penthouse and seeing Christine’s closed door and feeling the weight of everything I’m failing at - makes my chest tight.
“I’ll manage,” I say.
Pauline studies me for a moment. Her expression shifts into something softer, something almost tender. “She doesn’t understand, does she? Christine. She doesn’t understand what you’re carrying.”
I should defend my wife. I should say that Christine understands perfectly, that she’s been patient beyond reason, that the problem isn’t her comprehension but my failures.
Instead, I say nothing.
The silence says everything.
“You work so hard.” Pauline’s voice is gentle now. “You sacrifice so much for this company, for your employees, for everyone. And she gets to sit in that beautiful penthouse and complain that you’re not home enough?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it?” She tilts her head. “You’re trying to save forty thousand jobs. You’re under pressure that would break most men. And instead of supporting you, she makes you feel guilty for doing what needs to be done.”
“She’s pregnant,” I say, but it sounds weak even to my own ears. “She’s alone. I should be there.”
“You’re providing for her. For your daughter. That’s being there, Benedict. That’s being a father, a husband. Some women would appreciate that instead of-”
She stops herself. Shakes her head. “I’m sorry. That’s not my place.”
But the seed is planted. The doubt, watered by exhaustion and stress and the constant, grinding guilt that lives in my chest, takes root.
Maybe Christine doesn’t understand. Maybe she can’t understand, not really, what it means to have this many people depending on you. Maybe her disappointment is unfair, and maybe I’ve been killing myself trying to meet expectations that were impossible from the start.
It’s easier to believe that than to believe I’m simply failing her.
I think of Christine. Probably asleep now, in our bed that’s felt empty for months even when we’re both in it.
I think of the nursery she decorated - I saw the photos she sent, the soft yellow walls, the star mobile that catches the light.
I was supposed to help with that. I was supposed to be there, holding the ladder, arguing about paint samples, feeling our daughter kick under my hand.
I wasn’t there. I was here, in this office, with these numbers.
The guilt rises again, familiar and suffocating.
“I’ll make it up to her,” I say, more to myself than to Pauline. “After this deal. I’ll take time off. We’ll go somewhere - the Maldives, maybe. Where I proposed. I’ll make it right.”
Pauline nods, but something changes in her expression. Something I’m too tired to analyze.
“I’m sure you will,” she says. “Christine’s lucky to have someone so dedicated to his family’s future.”
She stands, smooths her skirt, all business again.
“I’ll prep the Tokyo files. Try to get at least an hour of sleep before the call?”
I nod, already turning back to my screens. “Thanks, Pauline. For everything.”
“Always.”
She leaves.
The office feels emptier without her.
I pick up my phone to text Christine - something, anything, some small proof that I’m thinking of her - and see thirty-seven unread messages from board members. A crisis in the European division. Questions about the quarterly report. Demands for my attention, my time, my energy.
The text to Christine never gets written.
I’ll do it later, I tell myself. After I handle this.
Later.
The numbers are waiting. The deal is waiting. Forty thousand jobs are waiting.
So I turn back to my screens.
And I work.