Rowan gestured for her to sit and she sat because there was nothing else to do. He asked the ordinary questions first, and she answered them with the mechanical precision of a woman fighting not to unravel. Then he leaned back slightly and asked the question she had not prepared for. What was your greatest failure as a leader? She had rehearsed a hundred polished answers over the years, safe deflections that made weakness sound like wisdom, and in that instant, she discarded every one of them.
Sloan looked at him, at the man she had convinced herself she had done the practical thing by leaving, and she told the truth. I once believed that to move forward, I had to leave behind the people who slowed me down. Rowan did not flinch, did not offer her the mercy of a change in subject. He simply asked, "And were you right?" The question was gentle and merciless at the same time, the way only an honest question can be.
She held his gaze and answered, "No, I only discovered far too late that they were the only ones who could see I was walking in the wrong direction." Rowan closed her file without another word, and in the silence she understood the interview had already given her more than any job could. He told her at last that she was not yet qualified to reclaim the company, but that she might be qualified to begin again from the lowest rung. There was no gloating in it, only a statement of fact. Rowan explained that Whitmore Meridian was losing money every single day it stayed in its current state.
Gideon had sold off customer data, gutted the maintenance budget, and quietly prepared to close seven hotels once the last profits were rung from them. Hail North Partners had not bought the company to strip it for parts, which was the only reason anyone bought companies like this. Rowan intended to rebuild it and to transfer a genuine portion of its ownership to the people who actually did the work. Sloan fought to keep her composure, but she felt something close to insult rising in her throat, hot and unwelcome. The man she had once left behind was now sitting across from her, calmly explaining how he planned to save her family's legacy.
He slid a document across the table, a 90-day probationary contract with terms as precise as a scalpel. She would hold the title of chief recovery officer and report directly to him. She would have no authority to contact the old board on her own, and every decision she proposed would be measured against the interests of the employees rather than the vanity of the family name. If she concealed a single relevant fact, the contract ended that same day without appeal or ceremony. Sloan asked him quietly whether this was how he had chosen to take his revenge.