By the time Leah left my office, the decision had already been made.
That wasn’t cruelty. It was necessity.
I closed the door behind her and stood there longer than I intended, my hand still resting against the wood. The urge to move followed immediately. Not to call her back. Not to explain. Just to reassert order. To remind her that this wasn’t chaos, it was structure.
I stayed where I was.
Wanting anything that badly was a weakness I couldn’t afford.
I turned back to my desk.
The board meeting was in forty-eight hours.
I picked up my phone. “Cancel my afternoon,” I said the moment my assistant answered. “I need legal and PR available.”
“Yes, Jacob,” she replied without hesitation. “And Lizzie has called three times.”
I exhaled slowly. “I’ll deal with that later.”
Emotions were
