Chapter 21: Chosen

Caleb's POV

My father-in-law caught me in the corridor outside the boardroom with a hand on my sleeve.

I should say that he is not my father-in-law yet.

I had been thinking of him that way since Sunday, and nobody had stopped me.

"Walk with me," Richard said.

We went to the end of the fifth floor, past the glass offices.

We passed the desk I had moved there three years ago.

He stopped at the window that looks down on the loading dock.

"You withdrew your name," he said. "In front of seven people. Without telling me."

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

I had practiced the answer for two days, and now I could not find the front of it.

"Because I've spent three years being the stepson who works twice as hard to be allowed," I said.

"I'm tired of it."

"And?"

"If the chair goes to me, half the building will say it was a gift from you. If it goes to Lena, nobody can say that. She earned it twice."

"She's the owner's daughter."

"She's the best retail mind in the state of Ohio, and she'd tell you that herself if you gave her a minute."

Richard laughed once, short and rough.

"The board met while you were in the hall," he said.

"Four of them, the chair among them, came to me."

"What did they say?"

"They don't want a vote in December."

"They want her."

"They want both of you. Co-presidents, equal salary, equal vote, shared office. Or nobody, and they find an outside man."

I said nothing.

"I told them it was your decision," he said. "And hers."

"Mine?"

"You're the one who walked out of the room."

I looked down through the glass.

Two forklifts were backing up to the dock.

Below them, at the end of the concrete apron, was the space where I had parked my truck for three years.

It was as far from the main entrance as I could get.

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