Three words. Can we talk? He typed back. Yes. 6:00.
The coffee place. She was there before him. She was already on her second cup, which told him she'd been there a while, and she was wound up, which was unusual. Lauren was not a woman who wound up visibly. He told me, she said before he sat down.
He sat down. What did he tell you? He came to my office after your meeting. He told me he'd had a conversation with you. He said he'd asked you to be professional.
She looked at Daniel directly. What did he actually say? He asked me to create distance for your benefit because you need to be focused on the right things right now. She closed her eyes for one second, opened them. He said that in those words.
He went to my employee, she said, and her voice had a quality Daniel hadn't heard before. Not loud, not breaking, just stripped of every layer of accommodation. Raw underneath. He went to my employee and asked him to manage me. Without telling me, without asking me?
Yes. And you told him? I told him I wouldn't do it without you knowing about it because that's the same thing you've been trying to get away from. She stared at him for a moment. Nothing moved.
Then she laughed a short, sharp, completely humorless sound. Do you understand? She said that in 6 years I have watched my father move three different people out of roles in that company because they pushed back on him. Not badly, just pushed back. She leaned forward.
One of them was a VP, 14 years with the company. He disagreed with my father about an acquisition in a board meeting. 6 months later, he was in a different role, different department, lesser title, and the acquisition happened anyway. I understand the risk, Daniel said. Do you?
Because I grew up watching him do this. I know how it works. He doesn't fire people. He reorganizes. He restructures.
He manages things until the problem is in a different box. Her voice was tight. You told him no, Daniel. You told him you wouldn't manage me without my knowledge. That is not a small thing in his world.