Chapter 13: What I Didn't Say

Ivo's POV

My father stood on the restaurant steps with his cane planted and waited for my answer.

He had waited that way for everything my whole life.

Joelle stood three feet away in her red dress, and I did not look at her.

If I looked, I would see her face, and I would say yes to the wrong thing.

"Well?" my father said.

"No."

"You haven't heard the terms."

"I heard them. Eight percent and the chair." I kept my voice level. "Eleven years ago you offered me the same seat to stay quiet about my mother."

"That was different."

"It was the same offer. Only the price has changed."

His face went dark red.

"You would throw away a company for a copywriter?"

"I would throw it away for a lot less."

Behind me I heard Joelle breathe in.

My father leaned toward me and lowered his voice, but he did not lower it enough.

"Then hear this. Tidewell's chairman has played golf with me for twenty years."

"Is that a threat?"

"It is a phone call."

He turned and went back up the steps, one hand on the rail.

He never looked at Joelle again. He had decided she was furniture.

I turned around.

She had her arms crossed and her chin up, and she was looking at the street, not at me.

"I'm not taking it," I said.

"Fine."

"Joelle, I want you to know I..."

"Do what you want with your seat." She still did not look at me. "I'm not a reason for anything."

She waved down a taxi and climbed in with her bad ankle held stiff.

I put my hand on the door.

"Let me take you home."

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