Chapter Twelve
CHARLOTTE
The next morning, I was in the London office before sunrise, tea in hand, ready to face the day head-on. My inbox was already a battlefield, but one message stood out.
It was a note from Gabriel letting me know he’d caught an early flight home. He’d made the right call. Family came first, and I hoped his brother was all right.
The remainder of the meetings weren’t without their headaches. John, in particular, made his disdain plain with every passive-aggressive comment and even in his pouting body language. By the time I was catching my flight home on Thursday, I’d made the call to include him on the layoff list.
Gabriel wouldn’t like it, but leadership wasn’t about keeping everyone happy. It was about building a team that could move forward. And I didn’t have the bandwidth for those, especially at John’s level, who were determined to stand in the way.
Still, there were bright spots. The rest of the London staff had been engaged, open, and cautiously optimistic. By the end of the week, I could feel the unmistakable shift in momentum and an enthusiasm for the future.
I only hoped once the cuts were made, we wouldn’t lose the momentum we’d fought to build. Even more reason to get them done in the next two weeks.
By the time my plane touched down after my twelve-hour flight, my only goals were to get a good night’s sleep and make Austin’s game tomorrow afternoon. A new message from Gabriel sat at the top of my inbox while I waited to deplane.
“Need more time. Will see you Monday.”
Short. Professional. Nothing more. And that was fine given his personal life wasn’t my business.
At least, it shouldn’t have been.
But as I reread his message, I couldn’t help recalling the man at the bar, the one who’d let down his guard long enough to talk about his daughter and his regrets about taking the job in London.
There’d been something real in that moment, and I found myself wondering what else there was to learn about him.
But another email from our internal recruiting manager to schedule my first interview for the CEO position snapped me back to where I belonged. Whatever that moment in London had been, it wasn’t something I could afford to dwell on. I had a title to chase.
The smell of fresh-cut grass, the sharp ping of aluminum bats, and the sound of kids laughing as they played baseball grounded me as I walked to the game on Friday after work.
I spotted Austin on the field to the north of the parking lot, his cap pulled low and his lanky arms loose as he warmed up his pitching arm.
My heart softened instantly. After the busyness of the week, I was grateful to get to see my son do what he loved.
“Cutting it close.” My ex-husband’s voice hit me before I’d even reached the bleachers. With his pressed polo shirt and designer sunglasses in place, Steve looked like he’d stepped out of an ad for Smug Ex-husband’s Weekly.
It hadn’t started this way in our marriage.
But something in him shifted the year my paycheck surpassed his.
What used to be mutual support while we both climbed the corporate ladders had turned brittle, and every success I’d earned seemed to chip at his ego.
The easy, equal partnership we’d once had gave way to something more transactional, where the care of our child became solely my responsibility to handle, and if I needed him to step up for a late night or business trip, the request was met with judgment.
When he started pushing to have another baby, right as I was still finding my footing in my job as COO, we both realized the relationship we’d started in was no longer the relationship either of us wanted in the future.
The divorce had been benign, and he’d quickly moved on and started another family with a wife who was content to stay home.
Now I ignored his jab, knowing my non-response would annoy him, and took a seat in the bleacher a few rows up.
He moved beside me. Although I didn’t want the company, his next words made me thankful we weren’t shouting them across other people. “Austin isn’t supposed to stay with you on my nights.”
“He’s old enough to make his own choices now.”
“The custody agreement—”
“Don’t,” I warned, my voice a quiet cut of steel.
“Unless you’d like me to take this back to court and push for full custody.
What do you think a sixteen-year-old would answer if a judge asked him where he’d like to spend his time?
I think we both know the answer. While I’m all about Austin helping with his siblings, leaving a sixteen-year-old alone with three kids under four is too much to ask.
Stop being so cheap and hire someone to help with childcare. ”
I couldn’t help the flicker of surfaced irritation. I well-remembered when I’d asked to hire someone to help with school pickups and drop-offs to make the balance between work and home remotely possible, he’d shut the idea down without hesitation.
Naturally, I’d hired her anyway.
And the irony? He’d later married her.
His sunglasses hid his eyes but not the slight twitch in his jaw before he looked away.
I let the small victory settle and turned back toward the field just as Austin threw his first strikeout. I clapped, letting the game and my son become the focus.
My son’s smile when he spotted me in the stands erased everything else. For the next seven innings, I was his biggest fan.
And for a fleeting moment, I believed I really could have it all. The title, the family, the balance. Everything Steve once swore I couldn’t handle.