23. Oliver
CHAPTER 2 3
Oliver
W e called an emergency board meeting to discuss the potential sell-off, even though we’d met the previous week. Rob had suggested giving them a preview of the MLB opportunity, even though the deal wasn’t solid, hoping it would convince those planning to leave to wait. However, few members were forthcoming about what SonicCom was offering to tempt them to sell their shares.
“Is Cody stable at this point?” asked Annabeth Luce, one of the members I was most worried about. “I’m not interested in losing this investment. Without Adam at the helm?—”
“Adam has not been at the helm for years,” I interrupted, trying to keep my voice calm and stable. “I am CEO of this company, and have been since its inception. In the last three years, Adam’s role became something of a figurehead as he moved toward retirement. Though it was certainly regrettable—for me most of all, Adam Cody’s death has little impact on the future of this company.”
“Regrettable?” Annabeth parroted, her eyes narrowing at me. Clearly she believed Adam’s son would use a different word to describe his death.
I stared her down and eventually she dropped her eyes.
“There is a major deal on the horizon. At this point, that deal is being worked out between the attorneys for both organizations, and we can’t offer details?—”
“Then what do we really have to encourage us to hold our shares?” another member asked. “This company has been losing value over the last six months. I’m sorry, Oliver. I had a great respect for your father, and for you, too, but this is business.”
“You have my word,” I said, standing.
Rob caught my eye and I nodded as he began to speak. “The negotiations should be complete by the end of April,” he said. “But when the media gets hold of this deal, the attention alone will boost the value of your shares, and I expect we’ll have interest from other investors.”
“Give me one month,” I said, angry that some of our original backers were suddenly ready to give up on something they’d once believed in, angry that this was my fault for letting things fall apart after Adam’s death. “If you still want to sell, I’ll have a list of investors who will be happy to buy your shares.”
“SonicCom will buy them now.”
“As you said, they aren’t worth what they were,” I pointed out. “If you’re that desperate to get out, you can do it in a month, and you’ll make more money in the transaction. If it’s all about the money for you, you’ve got an out.” I couldn’t help the anger that seeped around the edges of my words. None of these people were in this for the money when we started. The people around this table were Adam’s friends, his former coworkers. Now they seemed more like vultures, ready to pick at the remains he’d left behind. A hot shard of pride and loyalty for the man I’d called my father blazed in me. “Give Adam that much respect. One month. I think you’ll see that the company he and I built together is still here, and stronger than ever.”
There was grumbling around the table but no one made any more noise about selling. I needed the board to hold firm. If the company looked like it was about to be acquired, it could undo everything with MLB.
As the meeting came to a close, a few members came to shake my hand on their way out.
“Good to see you back,” said Burton Pax, one of Adam’s closest friends. “I know your father would be proud.”
I met his eyes, looking for any irony there. Did this man know I’d been adopted? The question was on my lips and I almost pulled him aside to ask him, but another man slapped a hand across my shoulder just then, forcing me to turn and thank him for coming, letting Burton disappear.
When the room was empty, save for Rob, Pamela, and me, I slumped into a chair and stared out the plate glass to the city that looked sharp and hard today in the afternoon glare.
“I think that went as well as could be expected,” Pamela said.
“I think we’re fucked,” said Rob.
I shook my head. “Adam did one thing right,” I told them, leaning forward, resting my forearms on the conference table. “He handpicked his investors. Those people were his friends and confidants. It’s not going to be an easy choice for them to leave.”
“Especially after you played the dead-dad card,” Rob murmured.
I shot him a look, but his quip didn’t hurt or piss me off the way I expected it to. Instead, a laugh actually escaped my lips. “Gotta use all the tools I’ve got, right?”
I worked late that night and hadn’t expected anyone else to be around, but Pamela was standing in the executive reception area in front of an open file drawer when I returned from an evening spent running errands, trying to get my mind off work and everything else. “Pamela, hi.”
“Oliver! I didn’t expect you back tonight.” She smiled and looked embarrassed, glancing at her feet. Her shoes were next to her desk, high-heeled sandals that I would have taken off at the first opportunity, too.
I shrugged. “I’m like a ninja, you never know where I’ll pop up.”
A wry smile lit her face and she said, “Yeah, you’re exactly like a ninja.” She shook her head. “That’s what my son says all the time, too. Neither of you seems to get that ninjas are quiet.”
I stepped closer, intrigued. “Is this him?” I lifted a picture from her desk of her with a grinning little boy. I’d passed it a hundred times and never really looked at it. I didn’t know why I’d thought Pamela was single.
She nodded. “He’s four. He’s with his dad tonight, so I thought I’d catch up on a few things.”
“I’m sorry, I should have known you had a child.” I ran a hand over my beard. “I’ve been a little self-absorbed lately. Or maybe always.”
“With good reason,” she said, her voice full of understanding. “Did you have dinner? I can order something before I go.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.” As I thought about it, I realized I was starving.
Pamela followed me into my office with a fistful of menus. I sorted through them and held up a sushi menu. “My treat. Stay and have dinner.” I didn’t know why I asked. I had come back to the office to be alone, but her quiet, stable presence was welcome and kind of a comfort.
She cocked her head to one side as if listening to a voice I couldn’t hear and then said, “Okay, I will. But only because you chose sushi. If you’d picked southern barbecue, I’d be outta here.” A playful grin flitted across her features.
We ordered, each working silently until Sal downstairs rang up to let us know our food had arrived. We set up dinner over the table in my office and for the first time, I sat down with Pamela and found myself in very pleasant company.
“What’s your son’s name?” I asked.
“Kenner,” she said, looking slightly embarrassed. “His father is a preppy.”
“And you and his dad are . . . ?”
“Both living our own lives, but sharing parenting responsibilities.”
I nodded, thinking about that. “Is it hard?” I asked.
Pamela wrinkled her forehead at me as she ate a bite of salmon. When her mouth wasn’t full she said, “What? Parenting in general is hard as hell. Seriously, I’ve never felt so outgunned, outsmarted, or undone as I have been by the little man who lives with me. He’s a deviant genius in a tiny body.”
The laugh that escaped me was rueful. Would Holland’s child be a deviant genius? “He sounds fun, actually.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes it’s fun, but the stakes are so high, sometimes it just feels impossible.”
I thought about that for a minute. “You’re not alone, though,” I said. “Kenner’s dad helps?”
She nodded and then put down her chopsticks, giving me a frank look. “Do you want to talk about things, Oliver?”
“What?”
“The questions. It feels like you’re trying to solve a mystery here.” She seemed to be thinking about something, and then said, “Do you want to talk about Holland?”
I couldn’t help staring. Was she fucking clairvoyant? “What?”
She shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “I know you think you’re very sly, but everyone on this floor knows you’ve been seeing Ms. O’Dell.”
“Did she . . . ?”
“I doubt she’s actually said a word to anyone but me. But she needed a friend.” She shook her head slowly and picked her chopsticks up again. “But even if Holland and I weren’t friends . . . you’ve been calm and happy since you’ve come back—for the most part, at least. And Holland O’Dell has been around a fair amount, and her name comes up.”
“That’s because of her involvement in the MLB deal,” I pointed out, covering, though I couldn’t have explained why. I wanted to talk to someone about Holland. Maybe this was an opportunity. I sighed. “But you’re not wrong. I guess you already know that, though. Holland and I are involved. That is, we were.”
“And . . .”
“It’s just . . . it’s complicated.”
“Because she’s pregnant?” Pamela asked around a ball of rice.
I squinted at her, unsure how much to say. I was surprised Holland had confided so much. It hurt my heart to think of my duchess needing a friend, but I was glad she’d found one. It would be a relief to have someone to talk to. I dropped Pamela’s gaze. “But I don’t think the baby’s mine.”
Her face remained expressionless. She wasn’t giving it away if she knew the truth. “There are ways to find out for sure, you know.”
I stared at her, trying to decide how much to tell her about my thoughts, my suspicions. If she was friends with Holland, maybe this wasn’t the best idea. But I had no one else to talk to, not really. I decided to go all in. “I know. I’m not sure what to do.” I told her the story about going to Holland’s, about finding the brochure, accusing Holland of lying to me.
“Do you really think she’d do that? Plan things so carefully to entrap you?” Pamela’s voice was skeptical. But even if Holland had lied to me, had planned things this way, she wouldn’t have told Pamela that part.
The old darkness filled me. “She’s pretty big on plans, actually.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, Pamela watching me thoughtfully and me trying to think of other things to prevent myself from having to throw something. Her voice interrupted my misery.
“It took a while for Kenner’s dad to decide he wanted to be involved. We weren’t married. I was working as a receptionist in one of the other towers, and your dad had always been friendly when he came over for meetings and things. There was one day, where I just didn’t know how I was going to do everything—I was broke, I was alone, I was young . . . and he found me crying. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Adam talked me off a ledge and helped me see that I could do it myself, that I’d be okay. He also bought me a crib and came to the hospital when I was in labor. He was right outside through the whole thing, and when Kenner was born, he flew in to see if I was okay. Adam held my son before I did!” Pamela smiled as she said it, her eyes misting. I knew she could see the memory in her mind as she described it.
“Adam did that?” I couldn’t believe it. I tried to remember Adam four years ago when Pamela would have been having Kenner, but I couldn’t find a memory of him talking about anything like this.
“He was very discreet, and he spoke to John—Kenner’s dad—when he finally showed up at the hospital to meet Kenner. I have no idea what he said to him, but it was enough to make John stick around for those first couple weeks when things were really hard.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I didn’t know . . .”
“He and your mother were very kind to me. And Adam gave me a raise and helped me get Kenner placed in campus daycare even though there were no openings.” Her voice had gotten quiet, and she was sitting, tracing a line on the table with her finger. After a long silence, she looked back up at me from under the soft line of hair falling in her eyes. “Now you see why I’m loyal to your father.”
The way she talked about Adam had caused a longing inside me, an emotion I didn’t want to feel that made me wish for things that were impossible. To talk to Adam again, to have my mother’s arms around me. I wanted to hate them for not trusting me with the truth of my adoption, but it was becoming more and more difficult in the face of my lingering love for them. I cleared my throat, hoping to push down the emotion that had welled up.
She fixed me with a gaze that was evaluative, her light brown eyes unreadable. “Here’s the thing, Oliver. Do you love Holland?”
I had already admitted it to myself. Hell, I’d already said as much to her. I did love Holland. I nodded.
“What do you think about fatherhood? Are you ready for that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, something uncomfortable turning in my stomach at her words.
“First time moms don’t know, either,” Pamela said. “But we don’t get a choice. We get just under a year to wrap our heads around it and then it happens, ready or not.” She paused, watching me, and then continued, “Having a baby changes everything for a woman. Things I’m not sure men can understand, and maybe they don’t need to. But that switch, that process of going from thinking about yourself to thinking of someone else first—having a baby rewires every circuit we’ve got and things never really shift back. So what is happening to her now—what will happen to her—it’s huge.”
I nodded. I got that.
“Whether it’s your baby or not—and for the record, there’s not a single doubt in my mind that it is—you need to figure out if you want to be involved, and it’s a choice you don’t get to make and then unmake. If she has a partner in this, she needs to know that and feel confident about it.” Pamela narrowed her gaze and her voice lowered. “But if there’s any part of you that isn’t sure you’re in—really in . . . She might love you, but if you’re thinking of this as an optional situation in any way, or planning to decide on your level of involvement later . . . she’s better off without you. Even if she doesn’t see that yet.”
I let her words sink in and stood, thinking as I paced the room with Pamela’s words reeling through my head.
The anger I’d felt over finding the brochure had dissipated, and I was left feeling stupid. I’d jumped to one huge fucking conclusion, and had potentially ruined everything I’d just barely gotten back. But the time had given me a break to think about being a father, having a baby. What if it was mine? I’d been completely blown away when Holland first told me, the idea of my blood running through a child’s veins, of seeing part of me in another person, had been overwhelming. It had seemed like the answer to the question that had been hounding me since I’d found out about my own adoption. But with the distance I’d had over the last week had come a swarm of creeping doubts. Was I really ready to be a father? I knew I loved Holland, but what if I couldn’t do it? What if it was too much? The last thing I wanted was to try and then let her down. “I don’t like this at all,” I said.
Pamela shrugged but her eyes were sympathetic. “She’s a package deal now,” she went on. “And if you’re not completely committed, you might as well get out now. Give her time to settle on her own—or to find someone else.”
Fire spiked in my blood at the thought of someone else in Holland’s life, but I knew it wasn’t fair to feel that way. If I couldn’t commit one hundred percent to being a father, I had no place feeling jealous if someone else could.
“You don’t mess with a single mom,” Pamela said. “Take it from a single mom. We’ve got enough shit on our plates.”
My heart sank as I raked a hand through my hair. Pamela was right.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe that wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I told her. “But it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Pamela put the last of the food into the garbage can and moved to the door. “I should get home,” she said. “You okay?”
I nodded and thanked her, and then sat down behind my desk and dropped my head into my hands. A familiar blackness was edging in around the sides of my consciousness, and the deep sadness I’d kept at bay for so long threatened to envelop me again.