Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
JO
Awoman stands up to speak, and the sound of her steps echoes loudly through the church, giving me a chance to clear my throat and blink away the tears. The vicar introduces her as one of the CEOs on his board and then stands aside for her.
The woman who rises to the podium is impeccably dressed in a charcoal-colored dress, her silver hair pulled into a disciplined knot at the nape of her neck.
Her heels click sharply against the marble tiles behind the podium before she stills herself.
She doesn’t look at the congregation at first. She looks at the coffin.
Then she lifts her chin and turns to address her audience.
“My name is Eleanor Vance,” she begins, her voice clear and steady, trained for speaking in boardrooms during hostile takeovers. “I’ve had the privilege of serving as one of the chief executive officers of Manswell Technologies for twenty-three years. Serving the company… and surviving it.”
There’s a ripple of restrained laughter through the church, the kind shared by executives who have aged with the kind of pressures I know nothing about. Eleanor allows herself the smallest smile.
“Joseph did not believe in good enough. He didn’t tolerate it. He didn’t recognize it as a valid state of being.”
She glances towards the front pew, towards the family, and then quickly looks away.
“If you presented him with a five-year growth plan, he wanted a ten-year one. If you showed him projections that were aggressive, he asked why they weren’t impossible. I remember one night, it was 2.17am. I know because I had just convinced myself I could finally sleep when my phone rang.”
A few knowing murmurs roll around the cavernous space.
“I considered ignoring it. I truly did,” she says, and her lips curve faintly. “But when Joseph Manswell calls you, it doesn’t matter what time it is you answer the call.”
Soft, scattered laughter fills the space this time.
“He said, ‘Eleanor, I’ve been thinking.’ And when Joseph had been thinking, the rest of us were about to start working.”
More laughter sounds at that, warmer now, at a memory that many of his staff seem to share.
“He had identified a weakness in our European expansion strategy. A flaw no one else had seen. Not something flagged by analysts, but something he had felt.” She taps her temple lightly.
“Completely based on intuition. He asked me three questions. Three. By the end of that call, our entire strategy had changed. And within eighteen months, that shift generated an additional four hundred million dollars in revenue.”
A murmur of appreciation runs through the congregation.
“That was Joseph. He saw around corners. He saw what the so-called experts hadn’t even realized was there.”
Her expression tightens into something sad, but not grief exactly. It’s something more complex than that.
“He demanded excellence. Relentlessly. If you came to him unprepared, he would dismantle your argument in under a minute. If you came to him complacent, he would make sure you never did it again.” She folds her hands together on the podium.
“I have left meetings with Joseph feeling invincible. And I have left meetings with Joseph feeling about two inches tall. Sometimes in the same day.”
Another soft laugh sounds, and then a quiet honesty settles over the room.
“Joseph truly believed that pressure created diamonds. And he applied that pressure without apology. But here is what people outside of our world didn’t see.
” She straightens slightly and looks around at everyone before going on.
“When markets crashed, Joseph was the first one in the building and the last one to leave. When we had layoffs, and we did in the early days, he insisted on reviewing every severance package personally. Every single one. He once told me that if he was going to take someone’s livelihood away, he would at least know there was no other choice available.
“He funded scholarships for employees’ children without announcing it.
He covered medical bills through anonymous donations.
He did not do kind acts to be recognized publicly.
He did not believe in sentimentality.” Her eyes lift now, scanning the congregation.
“But he believed in responsibility. And he carried it like armor.”
She pauses for long enough before she speaks again.
“Joseph once said to me, after a particularly brutal quarter, ‘if I don’t demand more, we will all become ordinary. And ordinary is how companies die. Joseph was anything but ordinary. And he refused to let any of us be ordinary either.”
She rests her palm lightly against the edge of the podium.
“He built something that will outlive all of us. Not just in market value, patents, or headlines. But in culture. In discipline. In the expectation that we are capable of more than we think. I did not always like him. But I respected him. Completely.”
Her throat tightens on the last words, and she visibly swallows her emotions down.
“And if I am an effective leader today, it is because Joseph Manswell refused to let me be smaller than my potential.”
She steps back slightly, as if the next words need more space.
“He was relentless. He was brilliant. He was exhausting. And he was ours.”
Her gaze returns to the coffin.
“Thank you, Joseph. For the push. For the pressure. For the vision. And for believing we could always be better.”
She inclines her head, a movement that is not for dramatic or theatrical effect, but borne out of sincerity, and then she steps away from the podium.
The church remains silent a second longer than expected before the applause begins.
It is measured. Respectful. Corporate. I see plenty of people dabbing at their eyes with tissues all the same.
The vicar steps back into place and announces that we will now have a few moments to silently reflect on our memories of Joseph. I bow my head when everyone else does because I don’t want to stand out.
Abide with Me begins to play, and I sit rigid, my hands clasped in my lap. Grief rolls through me in strange, unpredictable waves. It isn’t the devastating tidal surge you see in films. It’s quieter and much more confusing.
I’m grieving, not just for Joseph, but for a version of myself that never existed.
The girl who had a father to tuck her in at night.
The girl who might have visited her father every summer.
The girl who had the pleasure of knowing the proud and wonderful man Eleanor had so vividly described.
The girl who knew where her violet eyes came from.
Towards the end of the hymn, the pallbearers step forward once more to carry away the coffin.
When the hymn ends, the vicar subtly moves to the side door and nods to Lydia, who stands.
The pallbearers move first, followed by Lydia, and then the entire front row follows her out of the church.
I wait until the row in front of me begins to move before standing up, and then I slip out with the secondary guests.
Outside, the chaos from earlier intensifies.
Cameras flash relentlessly now. Microphones stretch forward. Reporters call out questions about succession, about stock prices, about the future of Manswell Technologies. It’s grotesque.
I hang back near the edge of the building.
When the pallbearers begin to carry the coffin forward, I feel something in my chest crack open at the sight of it moving past me. That’s it. That’s the finality. That the dream of one day getting to know my father is gone forever. I press my lips together to keep them from trembling.
The burial takes place in the cemetery within the grounds of the church. We follow the coffin around the building to the cemetery part of the grounds. Statues of angels are dotted around between the headstones, and the place is immaculately cared for.
The security from earlier brings up the rear, and slam the iron gates closed once the last mourner is in, leaving the reporters on the other side of the fence. Even so, the paparazzi still remain, hovering beyond the perimeter fence, their lenses glinting like giant insect eyes in the sun.
I stay well behind the main group as they approach the freshly dug grave. I am just close enough so that I can see the gathering around the grave, but not close enough to be a part of the circle.
The wind is sharp here. Prayers are said, and the coffin is lowered.
Then comes the sound of dirt hitting wood as people step forward to throw handfuls of soil into the grave.
The sound is softer than I expected it to be, but something about that sound undoes me.
It’s so final. So mundane. Earth onto wood.
Life onto death. I swallow hard, my vision blurring as tears spring up once more.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper under my breath, though I don’t know what I’m apologizing for or even who I am apologizing to.
It’s kind of foolish crying over someone I’ve never met, but I feel unaccountably sad.
All said and done it is a loss. My father didn’t know me.
But he wanted to. Gavin said so. He left instructions that said he wanted me here.
And now I am here, standing thirty feet away from his grave like a ghost at my own father’s funeral.
The burial service is short, and the media surge forward again as the family steps away through the gates.
Lydia shields her face elegantly. Sheldon looks furious.
Axel steps slightly in front of them, his body angled protectively, blocking the cameras with a quiet authority.
He catches sight of me again. Even at this distance, I feel his eyes on me.
A flicker of something unreadable crosses his expression.
Assessment? Suspicion? Irritation? All of the above? Or something else entirely?
The crowd begins to disperse. This is my moment. If I leave now, I can slip back to the car unnoticed. Back to the estate and up to my suite rather than into the wake. Back to anonymity.
I turn around, keeping my head down, weaving through the outer ring of guests.
No one stops me. No cameras swing my way.
If they knew who I was, the cameras would be on me.
Relief blooms in my chest at the small mercy that they don’t seem to know about me.
I’m almost at the edge of the cemetery when a voice cuts through the air.
“Miss Button.”
I freeze. Fuck. I turn around slowly to find Gavin striding towards me, his black coat buttoned neatly, his expression calm but firm.
“I was hoping to catch you,” he says as he reaches me.
“I was just heading back,” I reply lightly. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
“You are not intruding,” he says, the tone of his voice brooking no room for an argument. “You are Joseph’s daughter. Whether publicly acknowledged yet, or not.”
The words land heavily.
“I thought it best to remain unobtrusive,” I say.
“For the service, perhaps,” he agrees. “But there is a wake at the estate. Close associates. Board members. Family friends.”
I hesitate. I don’t belong there either. Surely, he knows it as well as I do. He studies me carefully.
“Joseph specifically requested that you attend all post-funeral gatherings,” Gavin adds quietly.
My breath catches in my throat. “He did?”
“Yes.”
That hollow space in my chest shifts.
“He wanted you to be present.”
I look back towards the grave one last time, the final resting place of the man I will never meet.
Then I glance towards the cluster of black coats and flashing cameras moving through the grounds.
And I realize something slowly, painfully inevitable.
Joseph Manswell always gets his way. And if he wanted me at this event, Gavin is going to make sure he gets me there.
I don’t want to cause a scene, so I nod my agreement.
“Alright,” I say softly.
Gavin inclines his head, satisfied. “Good. Your car is waiting.”
As I follow him towards the line of vehicles, I can’t shake the feeling that my life is about to take an unexpected turn. The funeral was for Joseph Manswell. But the wake? The wake feels like it might be for me.