16. Declan
Declan
Carl closes my office door behind me without asking whether I want coffee, quiet, or the rest of my afternoon cleared. He already knows the answer to all three.
The board packet lands on my desk with more force than I intend.
I loosen my tie as I cross to the windows, but the gesture does nothing to ease the pressure sitting hard beneath my ribs.
Thirty floors below, traffic moves through the city with its usual indifference.
People cross sidewalks, cabs cut too close at intersections, and construction cranes swing over half-finished buildings as though the entire world has not tilted in the last twenty-four hours.
That has always been the insult of a crisis. It feels enormous from the inside, while everything outside keeps moving.
I stand there longer than necessary, staring through my own reflection at a skyline I helped turn into strategy a dozen different times.
Crossridge has made offers on buildings I can see from this office.
We have walked away from others. I know the purchase histories, the zoning battles, the developers behind the glass and steel.
For years, that knowledge felt like evidence that I belonged here, that the city made more sense when viewed from a room where numbers became decisions.
Today, the view feels farther away than it should.
Behind me, the board packet waits on my desk. I don’t need to open it to know what it says. Reputational exposure. Governance concerns. Temporary separation protocols. Corporate language has a remarkable talent for making personal devastation sound like responsible planning.
I let out a slow breath and turn back toward the desk, but Talia’s voice follows me anyway. You made me the scandal.
The words have been with me since she walked out of the boardroom, not because they were fair in every detail, but because there was enough truth inside them to make defending myself feel useless.
None of this exists without me, without Flynn, without the seven years Talia spent building a life I never knew existed, and without Julian deciding that the fastest way to weaken Crossridge was to turn her into collateral damage.
The anger is there. Why wouldn’t it be. It has been sitting beneath my skin since the school photo appeared beside that forged memo, waiting for somewhere useful to go.
But anger by itself has never built anything worth keeping.
It burns hot, burns fast, and leaves other people to clean up the mess.
I’m done leaving messes for Talia.
A knock sounds against the door just as I reach for the folder.
“Come in.”
Carl opens it only far enough to step inside with a fresh cup of coffee. He sets it near my laptop, glances once at the unopened board packet, and wisely says nothing about either.
“Mr. Cross asked me to let him know when you’re available.”
“I’m not sure I am.”
“I assumed that would be your answer.”
Despite everything, my mouth almost curves. “Did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And yet you came in anyway.”
“I also assumed you would eventually prefer to hear from him before the board sends another memorandum with the word transition in it.”
That time, the smile almost makes it all the way.
“Tell Graham I have ten minutes.”
Carl nods once. “He’s already on his way.”
I’m not surprised.
Carl leaves, and I sit for the first time since entering the office.
The coffee is hot enough to burn my tongue, but I drink it anyway, more for the ritual than the caffeine.
The desk feels too orderly in front of me.
Laptop centered. Pens aligned. Board packet squared to the edge as if straight lines can make any of this manageable.
Graham arrives less than two minutes later.
He doesn’t come in like a CEO. He comes in like the friend who once sat across from me in a rented office while rain leaked through the ceiling and Marcus argued that we could not afford another month of bad coffee.
He closes the door behind him and walks to the windows instead of taking the chair across from my desk. For a while, he says nothing, and I don’t force him to start. We have known each other too long for silence to require explanation.
“The board is frightened,” he says at last.
“I know.”
“They’re going to ask you to distance yourself from Talia.”
He says it without judgment, which is the only reason I don’t immediately snap back. There’s no accusation in his voice, no order hidden beneath concern. He is simply stating the problem before someone else turns it into a weapon.
"They think distance protects the company," I say quietly.
Graham studies me for a moment before nodding. "That's what they'll argue."
I let out a slow breath, my gaze drifting back toward the skyline. “Maybe it protects the company.” I let out a slow breath. “It doesn’t protect her. It just leaves her to deal with it alone.”
Graham doesn't answer immediately. When he finally does, his voice is softer than before.
"No," he says. "It dosen’t."
I look down at the Crossridge logo embossed into the corner of my desk, the familiar mark pressed cleanly into the leather blotter Adrian insisted we order years ago because “successful companies should stop looking like they borrowed their furniture from a closing law firm.” I used to like seeing that logo in this room.
It felt like proof that the four of us had taken an idea and made it solid.
Now, for the first time, I wonder when the company stopped feeling like mine and started feeling like a cage someone else might lock from the outside.
“I’ve spent most of my adult life protecting this place,” I say.
Graham turns from the window, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“My life narrowed down to one thing. Calls taken between meetings, deals closed in airports, weekends that blurred into each other. I told myself it was worth it because Crossridge mattered.” I rest my hand briefly over the logo, then pull it back.
“It still matters. But if the board thinks I'm going to protect this company by walking away from Talia while someone is tearing apart her life, then they have misunderstood me more completely than I realized. "
Graham’s expression doesn’t change, though something in his eyes eases. “I already knew your answer.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because knowing your answer and watching you understand it are different things.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “That sounds like something Tessa would say.”
“It is something Tessa said.”
“Of course it is.”
His smile is brief but real. Then it fades into the seriousness that brought him here in the first place.
“Declan, I’m not telling you to walk away from her.
I wouldn’t. Not after everything I almost lost because I thought distance could pass for protection.
But the board is going to talk about liability.
They’re going to talk about succession. Marcus thinks they’re already counting votes. ”
“I know.”
“They can remove you from your operating role if this gets ugly enough.”
“I know that too.”
“And?”
I meet his eyes. “If protecting Talia costs me this office, I’ll find another office.”
Graham watches me for a long moment before nodding, and the gesture lands with more weight than approval. It feels like recognition.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Then be smart enough not to make the sacrifice before you have to.”
I lean back against the table. "There's the CEO."
"There's the husband who learned timing matters."
Graham moves toward the door, pausing as he reaches for the handle. Before he can open it, there's a quiet knock from the other side.
The door swings inward, revealing Adrian with a folder tucked beneath one arm. "I didn't realize I was interrupting."
"You aren't," Graham says. "I was just leaving."
Adrian steps aside to let him pass, then looks at me over the top of his glasses. His gaze lingers for a moment, thoughtful as always.
"Graham tells me you've already decided who's behind this."
"I have."
"Then be careful."
I raise an eyebrow.
"Certainty isn't evidence," he says. "It only tells you where to start looking."
For a moment, none of us speaks. Then Adrian gives a small nod, more to himself than to either of us.
"I'll let Marcus explain the rest. He's been waiting rather impatiently for his turn."
A quiet smile touches Graham's mouth. "That sounds like Marcus."
"It does."
Adrian steps back into the hallway without another word and Graham looks at me one last time.
"Get proof, Declan. If Julian is behind this, certainty won't be enough to stop him."
The door closes softly behind them as I make my way back to my desk and sit down.
The office feels quieter than before, though not empty.
Graham's warning lingers behind him, settling beside Talia's accusation until the two become impossible to separate.
I let out a slow breath and reach for the board packet, only to stop when my hand brushes the stack of media briefing notes sitting at the far corner of my desk.
Talia's handwriting fills the margins in neat blue ink. Update Foundation timeline. Confirm donor attendance. Ask Sloane about revised statement. Nothing dramatic or personal. Just the careful notes of someone doing her job.
My thumb traces the edge of the top page before I catch myself.
It occurs to me that she's been working in this office long enough for her presence to become ordinary.
Her coffee mug sat beside mine yesterday morning.
Her legal pad has occupied the corner of my desk for weeks.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing those things because they had simply become part of my day.
Now the empty chair across from me feels conspicuous.
I straighten the pages she left behind, placing them back exactly where I found them, because she’ll be looking for them tomorrow.
The thought comes so naturally it takes a second to understand why.
Because, despite everything that’s happened, some part of me still assumes she’ll walk through that door.