Chapter 12 - WHAT EACH OF THEM WAS TRYING TO SAVE
The four of them met three days later.
Not at the Westbrook house.
Not at Margaret’s.
At the office of Emily’s attorney.
Emily requested the meeting.
Her lawyer remained nearby but allowed the family discussion to happen without turning every sentence into legal strategy.
Celeste arrived first.
Adrian arrived alone.
Margaret sat beside Emily but slightly behind her.
That choice was deliberate.
Emily began.
“I need both of you to stop telling me what you did because of somebody else.”
Adrian looked at the carpet.
Celeste straightened.
Emily turned to her.
“You lied about Mom’s shares because you were afraid of losing control.”
“I was protecting a company Robert spent forty years building.”
“No. You were protecting your position in it.”
Celeste’s lips tightened.
Emily continued.
“You told Adrian I could give him something I couldn’t give him.”
“I believed Peter intended—”
“You knew the documents weren’t final.”
Celeste did not answer.
Then Emily looked at Adrian.
“And you.”
He raised his eyes.
“You weren’t trying to save the company.”
Adrian’s voice was quiet.
“I thought I was.”
“You wanted the CEO job.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked toward his mother.
For once Celeste appeared uncomfortable.
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Because I’m thirty-seven years old and I still walk into that building as Robert Westbrook’s grandson and Celeste Westbrook’s son.”
Emily waited.
“If I became CEO, maybe something there would finally be mine.”
There it was.
Not money.
Not only money.
Approval.
Identity.
The exhausted hunger of a man who had mistaken authority for independence.
It explained him.
It excused nothing.
Emily touched her sling.
“You made my body pay for that.”
Adrian covered his mouth with one hand.
“Yes.”
Margaret watched Celeste.
“What were you protecting at dinner?”
Celeste looked at Emily.
“The refinancing.”
“Not Adrian?”
“Both.”
“Not Emily?”
Celeste’s silence answered.
Margaret leaned back.
Celeste had always described cruelty as duty whenever the Westbrook name benefited.
Emily said, “I’m separating from Adrian.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Adrian did not react.
Perhaps he had expected it.
“I haven’t decided about divorce,” Emily continued. “I haven’t decided anything about the baby after birth beyond safety.”
Adrian nodded once.
“But tomorrow you are both going to tell the board what happened.”
Celeste looked up sharply.
“Emily—”
“No.”
Emily’s voice rose for the first time.
“You used me to influence my mother’s vote. He assaulted me while doing it. Then both of you sat at that dinner pretending I was the problem.”
Celeste glanced toward Margaret.
Margaret said nothing.
Celeste understood.
Nobody was rescuing her from the choice.
“If I refuse?” she asked.
May you like
Emily looked toward her attorney’s closed office door.
“Then we stop handling this as a family matter.”
