15. Chapter Fifteen #2
He stared at the phone. Paulie had exaggerated since childhood, but he hadn’t invented the meetings or the questions sitting unanswered.
Hayden’s arrangements had worked for an emergency.
They weren’t enough for an absence with no clear end.
Admitting that didn’t make his father right about Caroline.
Hayden opened the blocked contacts, restored his father’s number and called him. His father answered on the second ring.
“So, you’ve remembered you have a company.”
The calmness in his voice concerned Hayden more than shouting would have.
“I’ve been working.”
“Intermittently. A chief executive can’t make himself available when it suits him, leave everyone else to cover the gaps, and expect the company to organize itself around his marriage.”
“Paulie shouldn’t be covering anything.”
“Then you should be here.”
Hayden rose from the desk. “I should’ve arranged better coverage. I accept that. I won’t accept you using Paulie to drag me back because I won’t abandon my wife.”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours to return to New York and appear in your office,” his father said.
Hayden went still.
His father continued in the same measured tone. “If you don’t, I’ll use the support I have on the board to remove you as CEO. I’ll put other people over your projects, and your place at the head of this company won’t be assured.”
“Do what you want.” Anger made the words easy. “Caroline needed me. She still needs me. I won’t apologize for taking care of my wife.”
“Then perhaps you should make your separation from this family complete.” His father’s voice hardened. “I’ll change my will. The remaining fortune and my controlling stake will go elsewhere.”
Hayden gripped the phone.
“Neither you nor that baby will get another thing from me. You can go and live with her in a trailer park if that’s what you want.”
“Don’t speak about my daughter that way.”
“You chose this.”
“No. You chose to threaten a child because her father stopped obeying you.” Hayden walked to the window, then turned before he’d taken two steps.
“And you’re wrong about the company. I earned my place.
I’ve given it years that never belonged to you.
I did the work. I made the decisions. You don’t get to pretend all of that was a favor you can take back when you’re angry. ”
“Twenty-four hours,” he said. “After that, you lose the position and the future I control.”
The call ended.
Hayden lowered the phone and paced from the desk to the end of the bed. It took only a few strides. He turned and did it again.
The threat had worked. That was the part he hated most.
Hayden had his own money, more than he could spend in several lifetimes. His father couldn’t take the homes, investments, or accounts Hayden already owned. This wasn’t about needing an inheritance to keep a roof over his head.
Lynch Properties was different. Hayden had given it his youth, his attention, and most of his adult life.
He’d taken the calls nobody else wanted and carried projects through problems that had seemed impossible.
He’d learned to lead there. The company wasn’t only his father’s gift to withhold.
It was work Hayden had done, choices he’d made, and a future he’d earned.
He couldn’t surrender it because his father had decided love made him weak.
He also couldn’t stay in Bakersfield while the list of unanswered decisions kept growing.
Going back didn’t mean his father had won the argument about Caroline.
It meant Hayden intended to protect every part of the life he was trying to build, including the work that had shaped him long before Vegas.
He stopped pacing and called Caroline. She answered quickly enough to make his chest tighten.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I need to tell you something.”
“What happened?”
“It’s work.” He heard himself rushing and slowed down. “I’ve got to go back to New York tomorrow. Some matters need me there in person.”
“Paulie got to you,” she said.
“Paulie can be persuasive.”
“He usually calls it being unbearable.”
Hayden almost smiled. “He is that too.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“It’ll be one day,” he said. “Two at most. I’ll come back as soon as I’ve dealt with it.”
The promise sounded too much like every future assurance he’d once expected Caroline to trust. Her mother would be moved to New York. Caroline could return to work later. He’d be home after the next meeting.
He leaned forward, his elbow on his knee. “If you need me, call. If your ankle gets worse, if you fall, if anything happens with the baby… Anything at all, you call me. I’ll answer.”
“Hayden…”
“Promise me you won’t struggle alone because I’m not there.”
She let out a soft breath. “Mom and Jemma are here.”
“I know. Call me anyway.”
He waited. On the other end, he could hear the television and the faint sound of a dish being placed on the counter. He could picture the couch, the folded blanket, and Caroline’s water within reach. He knew where he’d sit if he were there.
“Go, Hayden,” she said quietly. “Take care of your work.”
He couldn’t tell whether she was giving him permission, releasing him from worry, or reminding him that she’d managed before he came.
For the first time in years, leaving the work behind and returning to it both felt like risks.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
Caroline didn’t answer. She only told him good night.