His company was not destroyed. Alexander had been precise about that. Carter Holdings existed, had revenue, had a product, had employees. But the shape of the future Ethan had been building toward—the IPO, the liquidity event, the particular kind of power that comes from being the founder of a public company—that shape had changed. The scaffolding had come down and what was underneath it was smaller and less magnificent than what he had imagined, and he was going to have to do the hard work of rebuilding from the actual foundation, which was the work he had never fully done because the scaffolding had always been there holding the shape of something bigger.
Whether he would do that work, Emily did not know and would not spend much time thinking about. She had her own work to do.
The apartment she moved into was not fancy. It was in a neighborhood three miles from the financial district, a building with a working elevator and a small terrace and windows that got good morning light. She had found it in two days, moving quickly the way she always moved when she had a clear direction, and she had furnished it sparsely at first—a bed, a kitchen table, two chairs, a lamp—with the understanding that the rest would come with time, and that there was something to be said for a space that felt like a beginning rather than an arrival.
She called her father on the third evening after moving in, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, the city glittering through the window in the way cities do after dark—indifferent and brilliant and alive.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Quiet,” she said. “I like it.”
“I imagined you would.”
She turned the cup in her hands. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Good.”
“I need to do something. Work. Something real.” She paused. “Not because I need money. I know that’s—I know you’d take care of—” She stopped, started again. “But I need to build something. I think I’ve always needed to build something. I just spent two years building the wrong thing.”
“Not wrong,” he said. “Just not yours.”
She considered that. “Not mine,” she agreed.
There was a quiet moment.
“I have a proposition,” he said. “You don’t have to say yes. I want you to know that sincerely—I’ve thought about this carefully and I’m not presenting it as an obligation.”
“Tell me.”