Tonight, Richard confirmed. Don't wait. He hung up. He sat in his kitchen for another minute. He thought about Diane, which he did sometimes when a decision mattered enough.
He thought about what she would have said. Diane had been a woman of profound clarity. She always knew the right thing. She just said it faster than most people had the courage to. She would have looked at him right now and said, "Marcus, stop thinking about it and do the right thing." He called Olivia.
It rang four times and he thought she wasn't going to answer. And then she picked up Marcus. Something in her voice was already slightly off. Not quite right. I was going to call you.
He stopped. Why? A pause. I got a call today from a colleague, Bridget Holston. She sits on two boards in the city.
She was trying to She called it a heads up. A pause. Someone is circulating a narrative that my father is investing in a contractor. He has a personal interest in. And that I am aware of and complicit in this and that my board should know it represents a conflict.
Olivia, I need to ask you something directly," she said. And her voice was the CEO voice fully and completely. And it was like a door closing, and he heard it close, and his chest tightened. "Is my father investing in your company?" He offered, Marcus said. "I haven't agreed to anything.
I told him I needed a week to review it independently." "Silence." "When?" She said, "The offer was this morning, and you didn't tell me. I found out tonight that it had become a problem for you. I'm telling you right now, that's why I called. But you knew this morning. I knew this morning that your father made me a business offer.
Olivia, I didn't know this morning that some's going to use it as a weapon against you. He paused. Those are two different things. Another silence longer. He could hear her working through it.
The way she worked through things systematically, quickly, feeling it, but not letting the feeling run ahead of the thinking. "You're right," she said. And her voice had dropped the CEO precision by about 20%. Those are two different things. Are you all right?
He asked. I'm I'm She stopped. I'm managing it. That's not what I asked. A pause.
And in that pause was the whole distance between managing something and being all right. Which were not the same country and both of them knew it. "No," she said quietly. "I'm not entirely all right." "Tell me," he said. Another pause.