"Get some sleep," he said. "Not as a pleasantry, as an instruction. She hung up and went back to work and told himself absolutely nothing about how he felt. He was only partially successful. Saturday morning arrived the way good things sometimes did, quietly and ahead of schedule.
Marcus was already at the Bennett property at 7 when the dark blue car pulled in and Olivia stepped out in jeans and a simple dark jacket and no laptop bag. Just a phone in one hand and two coffees in the other and she looked different. Not smaller, not less, just less managed. He noticed it immediately and said nothing about it. Black?
She asked. Extending one. You remembered. My father mentioned it. She handed it over.
He mentions a lot of things about you. Likewise, Marcus said. She looked at him quickly. Then away. I want to hear what he says about me, but I suspect it would be easier not to.
Probably. Then let's work, she said. And there was something almost funny in the way she said it. Decisive business-like as if they were entering a meeting. And Marcus felt the corner of his mouth move in spite of himself.
They sat on upturned crates in the part of the property where the morning was still cool. And Olivia laid out the board situation in the way someone lays out a battle map clear organized every piece in its place. She knew her material. She knew her numbers. She was, as Richard had said, very good.
The core problem, she said, is that Whitmore and Chen, those are the two I think are genuinely concerned rather than self-interested. They're afraid I moved too fast into the Southeast expansion before our operations infrastructure was ready. And they're right. I did. The infrastructure wasn't ready.
I knew it wasn't. And I moved anyway because the market timing was right. And I calculated that catching the window was worth the operational stress. And was it? Marcus asked.
Financially, yes. The revenue numbers from that expansion are the best we've had in four years. A pause. Operationally, I burned out two department heads and had turnover in three critical positions that were still recovering from. Marcus looked at her.
And you haven't said that to the board. The financial numbers speak for themselves. The people don't. She looked at him. Whitmore and Chen aren't worried about the revenue.
Marcus said, "If they were purely worried about revenue, they'd be satisfied. They're worried about what you did to the people. They're worried that you make decisions the way someone plays chess. The pieces move. The position improves and the pieces don't have feelings about it." Olivia was very still.