An Understated Dominance novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Who Built It

Three hundred faces looked up at me, and I made myself stand still.

The atrium was brick and glass and morning light, with the climbing wall rising behind me.

Staff had crowded the staircase, the balcony rails, and the factory-floor doors.

Reporters were let in at the back, at Bev's insistence.

The stool wobbled under my heels.

"Thanks for coming," I said.

Nobody laughed.

"You've read the article."

"Some of you have been told it's wrong, and some have been told it's right. I'm going to tell you which."

"It's mostly right."

A ripple went through the crowd.

"My husband is Colter Merrow, and I only found out yesterday."

"I need you to hear that sentence twice."

"I did not know he had money."

"I did not know his family owned a freight company."

"I did not know that for six years a fund called Pine Street Partners, which I thought was a stranger, was my husband."

"I found out in a kitchen at two in the morning, and again in an office over a hardware store."

I saw a woman in the front row, a patternmaker with silver earrings, put her coffee down.

"So here's the truth."

"He put in money, a lot of it."

"At least thirty million dollars over six years. He covered two payrolls when we were three days from missing them. He made calls to buyers."

"I'm not going to stand here and tell you I did it all myself."

"I thought I did."

"I was wrong."

The silence was enormous.

I took a breath and kept going.

"But I want you to know what he did not do."

"He did not design the Alder pack, which my team built over two winters in a cold garage."

"He did not stitch the first ten thousand units."

"He did not stand in front of a buyer from Chicago and say the product sells itself, and then sell it."

"I did, and you did."

"A fund can write a check. It cannot make a jacket that people zip up at ten below and still trust."

"That was you."

"That's what the article gets wrong."

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