Not because he wants something from me. Because he knows this industry and he looked at what I've built and he called it what it is. " She leaned forward. "You want to know what he's been to me? He's been honest. That's it.
Completely uncomplicatedly honest. Do you know how rare that is for me? For me, inside this company, inside this family, Richard was quiet. You've been arranging my life for 4 years. Lauren said, "My role, my public profile, my relationships, the Heartley engagement, all of it arranged before I was ever asked. " She stopped, made herself go slower.
"I know why you do it. I know it comes from the same place everything you've ever done for me comes from. But dad, I am 30 years old. I have a graduate degree. I have 18 months of work on a business model that is real and viable, and I have never once been asked what I want.
Richard looked at her for the first time since she'd walked into the room. He looked at her as if he was actually seeing her and not the version of her that lived in his plans. "What do you want? " he said. It was the same question Daniel had asked her in the diner 3 months ago, a lifetime ago. I want to build my program, she said.
Outside of Whitmore, my name on it, my decisions, my mistakes if I make them. She held his gaze. And I want you to accept that Daniel is someone I talk to. Not because I'm asking your permission, because I'm telling you as your daughter that he matters to me, and I'm not going to let you manage that out of my life. The room was very quiet.
Richard sat back in his chair. He looked at the desk, at the window, at his hands. When he looked up, his face had something on it that Lauren had not seen there in years. Not since her mother was alive, and would sit in this same room and say the true thing directly to his face without decoration or apology. It wasn't defeat.
It wasn't agreement. It was the look of a man who has just recognized himself in a mirror he didn't expect to walk past. Your mother used to say that I managed things because I was afraid of losing them. He said quietly. Lauren said nothing.
She was right. He paused. She was usually right. I know, Lauren said. I just He stopped.
Started again. You're all I have left of her. You look like her. You think like her. When I arrange things for you, I tell myself I'm protecting you.
But your mother would have told me. He stopped again. His jaw moved. She would have told me that protecting someone and controlling them are not the same thing. Lauren felt something in her chest that she'd been holding clenched for 4 years start very slowly to loosen.