Chapter 2
Chapter two
Arthur
My office door stays open today because Henry is with me.
I intended to bring him to the office and set him up in the conference room with his tablet to minimise disruptions.
Except ten-year-olds don't like conference rooms.
I hear him down the hall now. His voice low and animated, punctuated by Janet's polite hum.
She's my secretary. Sixty-three, unflappable, terrifying to new hires. And she’s offering the sort of courteous response you give a child who is explaining something in painstaking detail.
"—and then the boss has three phases, but you can't use ranged attacks in the second one because of the shield regeneration mechanic—"
"So what do you do?"
"You have to switch to melee and time your dodges perfectly or you just get obliterated."
I glance at my watch. Ten-forty.
He's been talking for twelve minutes straight.
Irritation flickers through me.
I tamp it down and redirect my attention to the acquisition report spread across my desk in neat, ordered stacks.
He's safe. He's occupied. Janet is handling the situation.
Parenting, like everything else in my life, is manageable when I approach it with the right methodology and clear objectives.
That's the equation I've learned to live by over the past seven years. The framework that's allowed us to function.
Provide structure. Provide resources. Ensure proper supervision. Minimize disruption to essential operations.
Catherine handled the emotional components—the bedtime stories, the scraped knee consultations, the inexplicable tears that seemed to require specific responses I could never decode.
She possessed an intuitive understanding of Henry's needs that I observed but never quite comprehended.
She's been gone seven years now.
We've adapted. We've found our rhythm, our sustainable patterns.
I look down at my paper, but the numbers on the page refuse to settle into coherent patterns despite my attempts to focus.
I read the same paragraph about projected quarterly earnings three times before admitting that I'm distracted. The profit margins blur together, revenue projections becoming meaningless strings of data that my mind can't seem to process with its usual analytical precision.
Henry's voice drifts down the hall again, quieter now but still animated, still explaining some intricate detail of his digital world.
Janet responds with something I can't make out. She is probably asking the sort of follow-up questions that keep children talking. Whatever she said is followed by his bright, unguarded laugh.
The sound catches in my chest.
I know—because my staff has been gently hinting for months—that Henry needs more of me.
More time. More attention. More something I've never been good at quantifying.
Janet mentioned it last quarter when I asked her to arrange Henry's birthday party. "He'd probably just like an afternoon with you, Mr. Dupree."
My head of household said something similar when I asked him to recommend a tutor. "Kid's smart. He doesn't need help with homework. He needs his dad to ask him about his day."
I tell myself we'll address it later. After this quarter. After this deal. After things calm down.
The meeting notes I'm reviewing blur into meaningless shapes on the page.
I set the document aside with more force than necessary and check my watch again, the platinum face catching the afternoon light streaming through my office windows.
Lindsay should arrive any minute for our weekly debrief. Dependable as sunrise, reliable as clockwork—she's never late. Not once in the three years she's worked for me.
The familiar sound of her footsteps echoes in the marble-floored hallway outside my office, and something in my chest unknots slightly.
I glance up from my desk and there she is, pausing just outside my door with her small used handbag slung over one shoulder and tablet clutched against her chest.
But instead of entering immediately as she usually does, she's looking down the corridor toward the living area where Henry's voice continues to drift from his conversation with Janet.
Her expression softens. The professional mask I'm so accustomed to seeing melts away into something warmer, more genuine. Something that makes her look younger than twenty-eight.
Instead of coming into my office, she heads toward Henry. Her steps slow as she approaches.
Without hesitation, she crouches slightly to meet him at eye level, setting her bag gently on the floor beside her.
The gesture is so natural, so instinctive, that I find myself leaning forward slightly in my chair to observe.
I can't hear what she says through the distance and the soft acoustics of the hallway, but I watch the exchange anyway.
The way Henry's face lights up immediately, his animated gesturing becoming even more enthusiastic as he launches into what I can only assume is another detailed explanation of his game.
Lindsay listens without that subtle fidgeting that signals someone tolerating rather than engaging.
She's good with people. She's always been good at reading a room, anticipating needs before they're voiced.
That's why she's always been so remarkably competent at her job, why she can handle difficult clients and impossible requests with equal grace.
But watching her now, I realize she isn't managing him. She isn't employing some professional strategy for dealing with children.
She's enjoying him.
When she finally straightens and catches my gaze, there's no self-consciousness. Just a quick smile. Easy. Unforced.
My chest tightens in a way I don't have time to examine.
When Lindsay steps into my office, the space feels like it settles around her.
She closes the door with a soft click, sets her bag on the chair across from my desk, and pulls out her tablet. Standard routine. We've done this a hundred times.
But I notice things I've never catalogued before.
How rarely she needs clarification. How she anticipates problems before they become problems—flagging the vendor delay three days before it would have impacted production, rerouting the scheduling conflict I didn't even know existed.
How much quieter the office feels when she's here. Ordered. Functional.
I've always valued competence. I built an empire on it.
That's why I hired Lindsay in the first place. Her resume was impeccable—executive assistant to a VP at Harmon & Cross, flawless references, a crisis-management portfolio that would make most project managers weep.
I interviewed her for thirty minutes and offered her the position before she left the building.
I never expected her smile to become one of the small joys of my workday.
But as her boss, I can't cross that line. I've never allowed myself to examine the thought too closely.
Still, Lindsay's steady presence, her quiet reliability—it's gone deeper than I allowed myself to acknowledge. Lindsay doesn't create chaos. She absorbs it. Life runs smoother in her orbit.
Which is why, when she closes her tablet and pulls an envelope from her bag instead, my first reaction is irritation.
There must be a scheduling issue. A double booking, or a procedural hiccup she needs me to sign off on.
But then she smiles.
It's bright. Almost playful.
"I wanted to tell you in person," she says. "Before you hear it somewhere else."
She sets the envelope on my desk.
"I'm quitting."
The words barely register before she adds, lightly, "I won the lottery."
She winks.
For a moment, I don't respond.
My mind races through implications before my emotions catch up.
Numbers. Headlines. Exposure.
The kind of attention that chews people up and spits out headlines. I've seen it happen more times than I can count—lottery winners, sudden inheritors, people who stumble into wealth without the infrastructure to protect it.
Lindsay is still standing there, relaxed, watching my reaction like this is an inside joke instead of a tectonic shift.
"You're serious."
"Completely." She laughs, and the sound is warm. Unguarded. "I know it sounds insane. I still can't believe it myself. But yeah. I got the giant check and everything. It's real."
She explains—voice bright with excitement—how she never thought she'd actually win, how she took the lump sum payout, how her family screamed when she told them.
The resignation letter slides onto my desk.
I should congratulate her.
I do, eventually.
"That's… significant. Congratulations."
"Thank you." She's still smiling. "I know it's sudden, but I figured two weeks wouldn't make much difference at this point."
"No. That's fine."
What I don't say is that I know exactly what's coming for her.
The advisors. The opportunists. The people who will prey on her and call it help. The lawsuits. The relatives. The strangers who'll treat her like a resource instead of a person.
What I don't say is that she has no idea how much danger comes disguised as generosity.
When she turns to leave, I realize—too late—that I don't want her to go.
***
Henry appears in the doorway just as Lindsay reaches the hall.
"Are you leaving?" he asks, brows knitting together.
Lindsay pauses, then crouches again, that same easy warmth in her posture.
"Yep. Today's my last day."
Henry nods, processing. His face does something complicated—disappointment flickering across features still too young to hide it well.
"Oh."
"But hey." Lindsay's voice softens. "That doesn't mean we won't see each other again. Firth City's not that big."
"I guess."
She reaches out and ruffles his hair. He doesn't pull away.
As Lindsay walks down the hall, heels clicking against tile, Henry looks at me.
"Does that mean she won't come back?"
The question hangs there, simple and devastating.
I nod my head. "She quit."
Henry's face falls, but he straightens his shoulders. Puts on a brave face. Catherine's face.
"Oh. Okay."
Pause.
"But I like her."
I open my mouth—and find I don't have an answer.
I do too.