Chapter Thirty
Cait
She heard him on the stairs and knew from the pace that something had happened.
He came through the door and she looked at his face and put her pen down.
"Crestline Capital," he said.
She did not know the name. She would know it within the hour, but she did not know it in the moment he said it, and for the two seconds before she caught up she saw what he looked like when he was angry, which was nothing like she had imagined and exactly like she should have expected: very still, very contained, the stillness not of calm but of someone holding something with considerable force.
He told her. She listened without interrupting. She had a legal pad in front of her and she wrote two things on it: Crestline Capital, and then, below it, Monday.
When he finished she looked at what she had written. "If they acquire," she said, "the term sheet."
"Transfers technically. In practice, at their discretion."
"Our discretion," she said. "The union's position on the transfer of obligations is not optional. It's contractual." She picked up her pen. "I need to call our legal team."
"Yes."
"And Petrov."
"Yes."
"And I need you to get me everything Ashford Meridian has on Crestline. Their acquisition history, their labour practices, how they've handled existing obligations in previous deals."
He sat down. "I'll have it to you within two hours."
She looked at him. He was watching her with the focused attention that had been there since the first morning, but there was something underneath it now that had not been there in the conference room in November: a directness that was not professional.
It was the directness of someone who had something at stake that was not on the balance sheet.
"This is not over," she said.
"No," he said. "It isn't."
"The Monday call. I want to know what's said."
"I'll tell you." He met her eyes. "Everything. The same day."
She nodded. She picked up her phone. She had four calls to make and a research task that was going to occupy the rest of her Friday and most of her weekend, and she had the particular clarity that came to her when a problem arrived fully formed and required everything she had.
She had been here before. Not exactly here, not with this specific combination of factors, but in rooms where the thing that had been won was suddenly in question again. She knew what it cost to fight from that position. She also knew, from six years of doing it, that it was possible.
"Garrett," she said, before he reached the door.
He turned.
"Thank you," she said. "For telling me first."
He held her eyes for a moment. "Always," he said. And left.
She looked at the legal pad. Crestline Capital. Monday.
She picked up the phone and started with legal.