Her Broke Handyman Husband Was the Secret Billionaire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The All-Hands

Marcia reads the divorce petition to the managers, Kasey asks where the rescue money comes from, and Landon hands Elias an envelope on the loading dock.

I read the petition to the end, because I'm an accountant and I read everything.

Then I put it down on my own desk, the one I'd paid off with six years of nights.

"No," I said.

Landon's smile didn't move.

"You haven't heard the offer."

"I heard it Thursday, and I heard it again two minutes ago. Get out of my chair."

He took his feet off my desk.

"Your mother is calling an all-hands at ten," he said, standing. "I'd come, if I were you. She has something to read."

The whole company met on the factory floor, two hundred and twelve people in hairnets and hoodies.

My grandfather's first sawblade hung from the rafters above them.

My mother stood on a pallet with a microphone, in her camel coat.

Landon stood at her elbow.

"Friends," she said, "the next six weeks decide whether Haverkamp Furniture sees its hundredth year."

Nobody moved.

"Mr. Huddleston's investor insists on stability at the top of this family, and so I've asked my daughter to resolve a personal matter."

She unfolded a sheet of paper.

I realized with a lurch what she was holding.

"Petition for dissolution of marriage," my mother read, in her boardroom voice. "Petitioner, Kasey Haverkamp. Respondent, Elias Rudd, handyman."

A few people shifted.

A few looked at me, and then looked away.

"She only needs to sign," my mother said, and held the paper out across the crowd. "Kasey? In front of everyone, so there's no confusion."

I walked down the aisle between the presses, past the sanding line, past men I'd known since I was twelve.

I took the paper from her hand.

I folded it once, then again, and I handed it back.

"No," I said.

"Kasey," my mother said, softly, through her teeth. "Do not do this here."

"You did it here."

Somebody laughed at the back, and stopped.

I turned to Landon.

"Mr. Huddleston, one question, since this is a company meeting."

"Of course."

"The nine million. What bank is it sitting in right now?"

"It's committed," he said. "Escrowed at an institution I'm not at liberty to name."

"And the Zeeland land?"

His eyes flicked, very briefly, to my mother.

"Standard terms," he said. "Collateral moves on closing."

"On day one," I said. "Before the money."

"Kasey, honestly." He laughed and spread his hands for the room.

"Look at her. She loves a spreadsheet. This is why you need someone like me."

"I wasn't asking for a joke."

"Sit down, Kasey," my mother snapped.

"She can talk," said a voice from the sanding line.

The foreman stepped out, a big man with a gray mustache and a cast on his left wrist from a basketball game he never mentions.

"Mrs. Haverkamp," he said, "with respect. Kasey's husband rebuilt the press brake in August on a Sunday, and he never put in for it."

"That is enough," my mother said.

"He did the dock door in the rain. He sat with my kid in the ER when I couldn't leave the line."

"That is not relevant."

"It is to me." He looked at the crowd. "I don't know what he is to you folks. To us, he's ours."

Somebody clapped once.

Then twenty people did, and my mother's smile went flat as a plate.

"Lovely," she said. "Break."

Landon was already walking.

I followed him, because I could see where he was going.

Out the east door, down the concrete ramp to the loading dock.

The big overhead door sat crooked in its track, and a man in a canvas jacket stood on a ladder with a wrench.

Elias had been up there since eight.

I hadn't known the foreman had called him.

"Rudd!" Landon called.

Elias looked down.

A dozen men from the line had drifted out behind us for a smoke and to watch.

Landon took an envelope from inside his blazer and held it up so the sun lit its edges.

"Five thousand dollars," he said, loud and friendly. "Cash. For your trouble this morning, and for your cooperation."

"What cooperation?" Elias asked.

"You sign a consent to the divorce, you walk away clean, and you never have to tell a soul what a good sport you were."

The dock went completely quiet.

"Elias," I said. "Don't."

He climbed down the ladder, one rung at a time.

He wiped his hands on his jeans.

Then he took the envelope out of Landon's fingers and weighed it in his palm.

"Thank you," he said. "Gas is expensive."

He slid it into his jacket and went back up the ladder.

I stood on the concrete in front of a dozen men and could not make a sound.

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