Chapter 23 #2
Simone’s gaze moved a fraction, betraying her expectation that there would be some pushback from Alexandra.
“Alexandra—”
“I’m going to ask you something,” she interrupted. “And I want you to be honest with me about it. Will you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Simone’s eyes stayed steady on hers. The brittleness that Alexandra had been watching for since Simone walked in came through, just at the edges, just enough to hear it in the next sentence.
“Because it won’t stop at this article. Tomorrow, there will be another piece, and next week, a longer one, potentially an expose.
The longer this drags out, the worse it gets for you, the company, and the board.
I can take it off the table with one move, and I’m the only person who can.
I’ll publicly withdraw, cite the conflict, and the intrigue dies.
If the merger doesn’t exist anymore, there’s nothing to scrutinize.
You’ll keep what you’ve built, and it stays intact. ”
“And you’ll go to London.”
“Yes.”
“Because you decided that loving me meant that you needed to leave?”
Simone looked away, but she didn’t rebuild her walls and Alexandra saw the flash of emotion across her face. “That’s not fair.”
“I know,” Alexandra said. “It isn’t. I’m asking anyway.”
“It’s the loving thing to do.”
“I know.”
Simone’s eyes welled up with unshed tears. “Then let me do it.”
“No.”
The word hung suspended between them with only the tick of the radiator audible.
“Would you please sit down?” Alexandra asked.
This time, she didn’t resist.
“Thank you. I want to tell you what I see when I look at you right now,” Alexandra said. “I want you to hear it before you go anywhere or do anything. Will you let me?”
“Yes.”
“I see a woman who loves me enough to walk away from me on purpose. I see a woman who flew back from Maplewood to do it face to face instead of by phone. I see a woman who has chosen the most painful route available to her because she believes it is the right one. And I see my mother.”
Simone’s mouth opened slightly. “Don’t…”
“I have to. Because the thing you're doing right now is the thing I watched her do for forty years.
She loved my father and she loved me. And the way she expressed both was by maintaining a perfect distance from everyone by managing what people saw of her.
By assuming that what she felt was a problem the people she loved would be better off not having to deal with.
She called it discretion and strength and being a Vaughn.
And it is the loneliest thing I have ever watched in my life.
“I’m not asking you to stay so you can fix that for me.
I'm telling you that the version of love you came in here with is the version I was raised with, and I am asking you choose something different.
Not because I can't survive it. I can. I survived my mother.
I would survive you. I'm asking you not to do it because there is another version of love possible for us, and I don't want to live the rest of my life knowing I let you walk out of this room before I showed it to you.”
Simone adjusted in her chair. “What’s the other version?”
“Come to dinner with me. The private room in Elements at seven.
I will have the document with me, and you can read it then.
If, after you've read it, you still want to do what you came in here to do, you can do it.
The flight to London is at ten. You'll make it.
I won't follow you or fight you. I will help Audrey draft the statement myself if that's what you need.”
“You’d do that?”
“For you? Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t show you the other version, then neither of us gets to live it. And I’d rather lose you to a decision you made with all the information possible than win you in any other way.”
Simone closed her eyes, and when she opened them, a tear had fallen down the curve of her cheek. She didn’t brush it away. “Seven?”
“Seven,” Alexandra confirmed.
“I’m not promising anything besides walking in there.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
Simone inhaled slowly. “Okay.” She stood and picked up her coat and slid her bag on her shoulder. “I’ll see you then.”
The door clicked shut behind Simone, and Alexandra released the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding the whole time.
Alexandra arrived at Elements at six-forty-five.
The valet recognized her car and didn’t say anything when she handed off the keys.
Ruby met her at the hostess stand. She’d been the night manager for nine years.
She took Alexandra’s coat herself, then walked her to the private room without small talk.
The door closed behind her with a soft thud.
Instead of the large banquet table, Alexandra opted for the smaller, more intimate circular table with a vase of flowers and candle on it.
Nothing in the room had changed since she had last been here—teak table, low pendant lights, wall of glass to enjoy the view.
Tonight, the rain was running down the window in slow, vertical lines, and the cranes in the distance were softened into halos.
A server she didn’t recognize—slim, dark-haired, mid-thirties—brought her a glass of Chenin Blanc.
“Ruby said this is your favorite,” the waitress said before turning to leave.
“Thank you.”
Alexandra swirled the glass three times to let the wine breathe, then took the first swallow without tasting it. Her chest had been tight under her sternum since the morning, and she no longer fought it.
Simone arrived at six-fifty-eight. The heavy wood door opened, and she walked in.
The first thing Alexandra noticed was that Simone had changed her clothes since she had last seen her.
She now wore black trousers and a soft green sweater, and her hair was down, loose by her shoulders.
The hollows under her eyes were still there, but her hair softened her face.
She brought a different coat than the one she’d worn this afternoon.
Simone stopped just inside the door and looked at Alexandra, and Alexandra looked back. Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
“You came,” Alexandra said.
“I promised I would.” She sat across from Alexandra.
The server came in behind her with a second glass of the Chenin and set it down in front of Simone and slipped out, and the door clicked shut. Simone walked to the round table and sat. She didn't reach for the wine. She put both hands on the table and looked at Alexandra across the candle.
“I have to be honest with you about something before we start. I still haven’t changed my mind. I only came because you asked me to, not because I think anything is going to change.”
“I know.”
“I just need you to know that going in.”
“I do.”
Simone nodded and picked up the wine. She took a long sip then swallowed, small and careful, the way she drank during meetings. Alexandra realized Simone was treating tonight as an appointment, and the only thing that betrayed her was that she kept her hair down.
Alexandra reached for the portfolio on the chair beside her and set it on the table between them. She didn’t open it. “I want to tell you what’s in this before you read it.”
“Okay.”
“I started writing it Tuesday night. After you left, I came back into the study and sat down at the desk and wrote until two in the morning. I wrote more on Wednesday after the meetings. I came in this morning intending to call Ruth on Friday and bring it to the chairman next Tuesday. When the newspaper article came out, it only changed the timeline, not what’s in it. ”
“All right.”
“This isn’t a restructured version of the merger you had proposed earlier. It’s a completely new deal.”
Simone’s eyes didn’t leave hers.
“The two companies would combine into a single entity, with equal representation on the board.
We'd serve as co-CEOs, with leadership distributed by domain rather than hierarchy.
You'd take the international portfolio and the acquisition pipeline, since those are your strengths, and I'd take North American operations and the civic commitments division.
Neither of us reports to the other. We both report to the board, which is built from equal numbers of seats on each side.
Headquarters stays in Phoenix Ridge, but London becomes a true second-home office rather than a satellite, and we'd shift somewhere between twelve and fifteen percent of the executive function there over the next three years.
“The civic commitments would double. Phoenix Ridge gets thirty million annually instead of fifteen, and the schools, the hospital wing, the housing fund all expanded.
And sustainable energy moves from a peripheral division to a core line of business.
Forty percent of capital expenditure over the next five years goes there.
That's the part Vivian was right about, and I'm willing to say so on the record.”
Simone let out a small, quick exhale that didn’t quite form into a laugh.
“And our relationship is acknowledged in the announcement. The press release we’ll put out tomorrow morning, jointly, says we're in a personal relationship, that we became aware over the course of the original takeover negotiations that our professional vision aligned, and that we are presenting this combined entity as a deliberate choice. The conflict of interest gets disclosed up front, and the deal stands on its merits.” She slid the portfolio across the table.
“That's the deal. The document has the rest. Take as long as you need.”
Simone stared at her. Her jaw was set, and tears formed in her eyes. She opened the portfolio. Alexandra picked up her glass and took another sip.
Simone read. The first pass was fast, then she went back to the first page and started over, slowly.
The second page was where Simone actually processed.
Simone’s jaw kept tensing and releasing, and her breathing was uneven.
She turned the page and paused. Her hand came up to her cheek and brushed at it, and Alexandra realized Simone was crying, quietly, while she read.
Alexandra’s chest squeezed, but she didn’t say anything.
Simone got to the last page, then looked up without closing the portfolio. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you create this version? Why did you double the commitments, why London, why announce us?”
“Because I love you,” she said plainly. Her voice was lower than she’d meant. She hadn’t said the words aloud to anyone in a long time, and they felt strange in her mouth.
Simone closed her eyes, and her chest rose and fell with her breath. When she opened her eyes, more tears had fallen. “Say it again.”
“I love you, Simone.”
Simone kept looking at her but didn’t say anything.
“Since October,” Alexandra continued. “I didn’t know it then, of course, but I knew it on the trail. Tuesday night, I admitted it to myself, and I knew if I didn’t tell you, I would spend the rest of my life knowing I let you go without giving this a chance.”
Simone put a hand over her mouth and held it there. When she took it down, she said, very quietly, “I love you too.”
“Come here.”
“What?”
“Come here, please.”
Simone stood, and Alexandra stood too. The round table was small enough that the distance was nothing, and they met beside the chair.
Alexandra raised her hand and put it against the side of Simone’s face, caressing it softly, and Simone leaned into it.
Alexandra drew her in and kissed her slowly.
When they pulled apart, Simone rested her forehead against Alexandra’s.
“Yes,” Simone said, her voice cracking.
“What?”
“Yes. To the deal, to staying, to you.”
Alexandra exhaled, and her body slumped slightly. Simone moved her chair around the curve of the table and sat next to Alexandra, the candle in front of them now rather than between them. They ate their dinner side by side.
They left Elements at a quarter past ten. Ruby held the door for them at the front entrance, and they stepped into the covered driveway where the valet had pulled Alexandra’s car around.
“I’ll follow you home,” Simone said.
“All right.”
“My bags are still at the apartment. I’ll cancel my flight and get them tomorrow.”
Alexandra nodded. They stood under the awning for a moment, then Simone reached for Alexandra’s hand.