Jaden looked up from his homework, said, "Hi, Vivien." With the easy familiarity of someone who had decided she was part of the landscape, and went back to his math. Vivien sat down at Malcolm's kitchen table, the actual kitchen table, not a conference room, not a lobby, and Malcolm poured two cups of coffee and told her about the Garrett Cole call. She listened without interrupting all the way through. Then she set down her cup.
"How much?" She asked. He told her. She was quiet for a moment. He watched her face do the thing it did when she was calculating.
Not just numbers, but consequences. That's a career-defining contract, she said. I know. It's also 300 families. I know.
What did you tell him? That I'd call back by end of week. What do you want to do? He looked at her. I want to tell him no.
Something moved through her face. But but it's not just me. I've got 22 people on my payroll. Men and women who work hard and who I am responsible for. A contract that size changes what I can offer them.
Changes their lives, too. He looked at his coffee cup. So, I'm sitting here trying to figure out if the right answer is the one that's clean on principle or the one that accounts for all of it. Viven was quiet for a long moment. Then she said something that Malcolm hadn't expected.
What would you have told Garrett Cole 5 years ago before the Sinclair projects? Before your company had the profile it has now? He thought about it. I'd have said no immediately without thinking about it this hard. What changed?
The stakes got bigger. The stakes, she said carefully. Or your fear. He looked at her. Fear of what?
He said, "Fear that if you say no to the biggest offer you've ever gotten, the next one won't come. That you'll have missed the window. That being principled will cost you and your people more than it costs the people it's supposed to protect." She held his gaze. "That's not an accusation, Malcolm.
I know that fear very well. I built my company on the edge of it for a decade." He sat with that. She was right. He could feel the exact shape of it.