She's completely unafraid. Do you know what I'd give to be that unafraid? You hung up on Adrien Cole this morning, Nathan pointed out. That's a fair bit of unafraid. Victoria was quiet for a moment.
Then, can I tell you something I've never told anyone? Of course. I built the entire company out of fear. She kept her eyes on the field. Everyone thinks it was ambition, vision, all the words they put in the magazine profiles.
It wasn't. It was fear. My father lost everything when I was 12. A bad partnership. A man he trusted who ruined him.
And we went from a house to an apartment to my mother's sister's spare room. And I watched my father, who had been this huge, confident, laughing man, become small, ashamed. He'd flinch when the phone rang. He died when I was 19. And I think it was really the shame that killed him slowly over years.
Her hands were tight in her lap. And I decided I was maybe 15 when I decided this, that no one would ever be able to do to me what that man did to my father. That I would be so powerful, so untouchable, so completely in control that I could never be made small. That's not vision, Nathan. That's a scared little girl building a fortress and calling it an empire.
Nathan didn't say anything for a moment. On the field, the ball squirted loose and a dozen children ran after it in a clump. "And then you built the fortress," he said. And you let a man move into it who spent 2 years making you small anyway from the inside. Victoria closed her eyes.
Yes, because a fortress keeps out the enemies at the gate, Nathan said slowly. But it doesn't do a thing about the one you invite in and hand the keys. She turned and looked at him and her eyes were wet again. How do you do that? How do you just see it?
See straight through to the middle of a thing? Nathan shrugged, uncomfortable with it. I've had a lot of quiet years. When you're the guy, nobody notices. You spend a lot of time watching.
You learn to read a room because nobody's talking to you. So, all you've got is watching. He kept his eyes on the field. I've watched you for 3 years, Victoria. From the corner, up a ladder, behind a cart.