Chapter 14 - THE LAST OFFER
Grant asked to speak with Emma alone.
She said no.
He asked again.
She said Maya could be present.
Eventually he agreed.
They met in a small courtyard outside Maya’s office.
Grant looked thinner.
He had been on leave for nineteen days.
The wedding ring they never used still sat somewhere in the townhouse, unless he had thrown it away.
Emma no longer cared.
Grant handed Maya a proposed written statement.
It acknowledged that the $612,400 attributed to Daniel Brooks had not represented money personally received by Daniel.
It acknowledged that the prenup language overstated the Brooks family’s responsibility.
But one sentence remained.
Daniel Brooks knowingly participated in unauthorized financial practices resulting in material loss to Hale Development.
Emma looked at Grant.
“You still need Dad to carry the center of it.”
“He did participate.”
“So did you.”
Grant rubbed the back of his neck.
“I was trying to keep the company stable.”
“You told accounting not to raise questions.”
“I was thirty-two years old trying to keep my father from destroying a company four hundred people depended on.”
There it was.
Not excuse.
Motive.
Grant had built his identity around being the competent son.
Thomas’s fixer.
The person who solved problems before outsiders saw them.
Emma used to admire that quality.
Until she became a problem to solve.
“You could have told me,” she said.
“I thought you’d leave.”
“Yes.”
Grant looked away.
“I know.”
The honesty arrived much too late.
Emma placed the statement on the table.
“If you want me to support a private resolution of the estate claim, the record has to identify everyone’s participation accurately.”
“You want me to implicate my father.”
“I want you to stop implicating mine alone.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“That could end his control of the company.”
Emma almost laughed.
“You hit me because you were afraid I wouldn’t sign a piece of paper that helped protect him.”
Grant lowered his eyes.
“I know what I did.”
“No. You know what it cost you.”
He looked up.
That hurt him.
Good, Emma thought.
Then she disliked herself for wanting it to.
Maya slid over a revised version.
It stated that Daniel had approved irregular transactions, that Grant had directed internal handling of vendor concerns, and that Thomas had authorized related transfers under review.
No one was declared innocent.
No one was assigned sole blame.
Grant read it.
“You already sent this to the board?”
“No,” Maya said.
“Why not?”
Emma answered.
“Because I wanted to know whether you could tell the truth without being cornered.”
Grant stared at her.
“And if I refuse?”
“The board receives the documents anyway.”
He leaned back.
“So this is blackmail?”
“No.”
Maya’s tone remained calm.
“No demand for money. No threat for personal advantage. Emma is offering you an opportunity to correct a misleading statement before she provides relevant records to people already conducting a legitimate review.”
Grant looked at Emma again.
“Do you hate me?”
She thought about the bridal suite.
The slap.
The years before it.
The coffee he had made after her father died.
The way he had learned her favorite diner order.
The way he could be gentle when gentleness cost him nothing.
“I don’t know what I feel about you anymore.”
That answer seemed worse to him than hatred.
Grant picked up a pen.
Then stopped.
“My father will never forgive me.”
Emma looked at him.
“That’s the choice you kept asking everyone else to make.”
Grant stared at the signature line.
He put the pen down.
“I need twenty-four hours.”
Maya shook her head.
“The review committee meets at four.”
Grant looked toward Emma.
He understood.
The final exposure would happen today with or without his cooperation.
At 3:52 p.m., Maya’s email to the review committee sat completed on her laptop.
May you like
At 3:56, Grant still had not signed.
At 3:58, Emma told Maya to send it.
