The first thing I did when I turned my phone back on was call a real-estate agent and put my condo on the market. I decided that the moment the company was sold, I was hitting the road. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was sure I’d find a place where I could land solidly on my feet. Maybe I’d go to Europe. I’d always wanted to go on a long hike through the French countryside. Or maybe I’d lounge on a few beaches, visit some of the best resorts in the Bahamas. Or I could stay in the States, take an epic road trip through the southern part of the country. Maybe I could even talk Angela into going with me. We’d both be out of work soon. Why the hell not?
Then I showered and dressed one last time in professional attire. I didn’t think I’d be terribly interested in business once the company was gone. Berryman Construction was the only company I had ever cared about, the only place I had ever imagined myself working. Once it was gone, I didn’t need to work. My mother had seen to that. I’d decide sometime down the road, but right now work seemed like a terrible waste of a very short life.
Angela was clearly surprised to see me when I breezed past her on the way to my office.
“Addison,” she said, following me as quickly as she could, “I am so sorry about the other night. I had no idea—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but if I’d known, I never would have asked you to be there.”
“I know.” I dropped my bag in the center of my desk and turned to look at her. “Where’s my father?”
“He’s in the conference room with a group of lawyers.”
“Let him know I’m here.”
“He’s been worried about you,” she said, her voice a little hesitant as though that were something she shouldn’t have been telling me.
I just waved her away, uninterested in what she was saying. Like a good assistant, she understood my mood and disappeared as instructed.
I sat behind my desk and glanced at the messages left there. Most of them were from the construction sites, foremen wanting to know what the hell was going on with the supplies. And clients wanting to know why their projects were at a standstill when they drove by. My e-mails were about the same with a few inquiries on payment mixed in. Suppliers still wanting to know if they were going to get paid, despite the fact that my dad had basically put everything, including both incoming and outgoing monies, on hold this week.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I looked up to find my dad, red-faced and angrier than I’d seen him in a very long time, storming across the room.
“I needed some time.”
“Now? While we’re in the middle of negotiations to sell the company?”
“That’s your deal. My job essentially disappeared the moment you gave up.”
“Gave up? Is that what you think I’ve done here, Addie?”
“Don’t call me that.”
He stopped moving toward me, gripping the back of one of the chairs situated in front of my desk, his eyes weary as they moved slowly over me.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, acid dripping from his words.
“Grant McGraw is back in town. Did you know that?”
He licked his bottom lip, but that was basically his only reaction. He simply looked at me like he didn’t understand why that would mean anything to either of us.
“I know you paid him off.”
My dad shrugged. “What kind of a man takes a check in exchange for leaving the woman he supposedly loved?”
“But you knew all this time, all that time I was crying my eyes out over him, and you never told me.”
“Because you can’t grieve your life away. You pick up the pieces and move on.”
“But if you’d told me—”
“Grow up, Addison!” He pushed himself away from the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You were a child. You thought you were in love, but it was obviously something else to that jerk. I saved you a lifetime of heartache by paying him off.”
“I was not a child!”
“You were. And you were about to make the biggest mistake of your life!” He came around the desk, his fingers gentle as he touched my face. “I wasn’t about to sit back and watch you get hurt. I did what I had to do.”
I shook my head. “You betrayed me.” I stepped back, rounded the edge of my desk to put distance between the two of us. “As soon as the sale is over, I’m leaving town. I don’t want to see you again.”
A heavy silence fell over the room.
He cleared his throat. And when he spoke, his voice was soft but steady.
“Then we should talk about the offers we have on the table.”
I waved my hand without turning around. Again he cleared his throat.
“Only one of the offers is what you wanted. The others…one wants to break the company into pieces and sell it off to competing firms. The other wants to clear out all the employees and start from scratch.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“The third is willing to keep all the employees for six months.”
“Six months?” I turned to face him. “Why only six months?”
“Because…” He crossed his arms over his chest again. “I’m not sure you’re going to like this.”
“Tell me.”
“The buyer wants you to stay on as COO.”
I shook my head quite emphatically. “That wasn’t the deal.”
“These people have made it the deal.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. The lawyers say that their client likes the way you’ve handled yourself over the past three years, and he thinks you have potential as the COO.”
“Who is this client?”
“I don’t know. The lawyers say he insisted on remaining anonymous until the contracts are signed.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s unusual,” my dad said, coming toward me, his eyes weary as he watched me. “But it’s not unheard of.”
“I won’t stay.”
“If you don’t, the deal is off.”
I pressed my fingers under the braid I’d tied my hair into, scratching at my scalp as I thought about what he’d just said. Six months. That was a very long time.
“What happens after the six months?”
“That’s up to you. The way the lawyer explained it, if you agree to this deal, you will retain everything you have now—a quarter ownership and the position of COO. And if you do your job well and work closely with the new CEO, if the two of you can turn the company around with the current stable of employees, then you will be given a choice at the end of the contract. You can quit and be given the cash value of your interest in the company, or you can stay and be given a fifty-fifty interest.”
My eyebrows rose. That was a more generous offer than my own dad had made me when I graduated from Yale.
“And the employees?”
“No employee changes for the first six months without your consent. After that, they promise there won’t be large layoffs, but they retain the right to replace whoever they feel needs to be let go.”
“What does that mean?”
My dad shrugged. “It’s better than what the employees face with the other two offers, Addie.”
“Why me? What about you?”
My dad’s eyes fell. “I’m gone either way.”
“Then why do they want me? Why does the whole deal hinge on me staying?”
“I don’t know.”
I started to pace, my thoughts moving in a dozen different directions. I’d actually been excited about the idea of traveling. I even went on the Internet night before and made a tentative itinerary of the many places I wanted to see. But then an image of Billy filled my mind. Sweet, strong Billy who was almost like a second dad to me. He was in his fifties. What were the chances he’d be able to find work if Berryman Construction disappeared? He was too proud to ask for money, but he had six kids, two who were still teens and four who were in college or grad school.
He talked about them all the time, mentioning the names of their schools. Those schools were not cheap.
And Angela. She was young; she could find work. But could she find one that paid as well as we did? That provided the health benefits I’d insisted my dad include in the package offered to our employees? Not to sound conceited, but we paid ten times better than other construction companies and offered much better benefits.
Maybe that was part of the reason we were going under.
I couldn’t walk away knowing that all these people I worked with day in and day out weren’t being taken care of.
“I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
“We always have a choice,” my dad said. “We could just walk away.”
“And allow all these people who’ve spent ten, fifteen, twenty years working for us be forced out onto the street?” I looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since he walked through the door. For the second time this week, I noticed the circles under his eyes and the slight slope to his shoulders. He looked so tired. “We can’t betray these people after all the loyalty they showed us.”
My dad inclined his head slightly. “I thought that was what you would say.”
We went together to the conference room. A man in a cheap suit with wire-frame glasses was sitting at the head of the table, a stack of file folders in front of him. He looked more like a tax auditor than a lawyer.
“Ms. Berryman,” he said, standing with his hand outstretched.
“And you are?”
“John Philips.”
I shook his hand and took the seat to his left that he indicated with a little wave of his hand.
“I’m sure your father has already told you most of the details of my client’s offer, but I’d like to go over the particulars with you.”
My dad began to sit beside me, but Mr. Philips cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Berryman,” he said with a touch of a smile, “but my client specifically asked that you not be present during this part of the negotiations.”
Two perfectly round red spots appeared on my father’s cheeks. “This is my company. I started it when I was only twenty-one—”
“I’m aware of that, sir, and so is my client. But this was his request.”
“It’s alright, Daddy,” I said, touching his hand lightly.
He stared Mr. Philips down like he thought he could intimidate the man, but despite his appearance, he didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who could be easily intimidated. My father finally backed down.
“I’ll be in my office, Addie.”
I watched him go, then turned to Mr. Philips.
“Can I ask who your client is?”
“You can ask.”
He opened a file folder and began searching through it, setting several pieces of paper in front of me. He was clearly not going to answer my question, and that annoyed me more than it probably should have. I sat back and waited for him to organize himself, trying to remind myself how important this moment was for Billy and others like him.
“My client would like to purchase Berryman Construction at a price of fifty million dollars.”
My eyebrows rose slightly. I knew the company had been appraised at forty million dollars three years ago. But that was before things began to go bad. Fifty million seemed like a foolish amount of money to offer.
“My client will place your share of that money—twelve point five million dollars—into an escrow account that will be paid to you, plus interest, at the end of the contract I’m about to show you. And that is yours whether or not you choose to remain with the company after the six-month contract is up.”
“Okay.”
I was surprised, but not terribly. That was the way these things were done. If they handed me that money right away, they had no way of knowing if I would continue to be loyal to the company. Holding it was actually a pretty smart move. Besides, my trust fund was worth so much more than that. I didn’t really care about the money.
“Your father has been given a portion of the remaining monies that my client felt was appropriate to the situation. The rest will be placed in a trust fund that you will be the conservator of after the initial six-month contract is complete.”
“What do you mean, trust fund? And conservator?”
Mr. Philips looked a little confused as he studied my face. “It was my client’s understanding that you are deeply concerned about the future of the employees of Berryman Construction. This is simply his attempt to satisfy those concerns.”
“But doesn’t the purchase price of a company like this one usually go to the person who owns the largest shares in the company?”
“The monies can go wherever the seller and purchaser wish for it to go.”
I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest, my curiosity as to who this client was growing by the second.
“Your position as chief operating officer for Berryman Construction will continue as it has been since you joined the company. You will be given access to an account immediately upon signing this contract that will allow you to pay off all monies owed to suppliers, employees, and anyone else waiting for their money from this company. You will then be expected to aid in searching out new contracts and adding employees to handle the added business.”
I inclined my head slightly. “That was usually the CEO’s job.”
“You will be working closely with the CEO over the next six months. My client is new to the construction business and he would like for you to show him the ropes, as they say.”
“Has your client ever worked in construction?”
“Yes, but it was many years ago.” Mr. Philips slid a piece of paper across the table to me. “If you could review that and sign it, we could move on.”
The paper basically outlined everything he’d just told me. I signed it, wondering if I was doing the smart thing, or if I was getting myself into a situation I couldn’t control.
When I pushed the paper back across to him, Mr. Philips handed me another.
“This basically just states that you agree to the financial arrangements for the sale and that you will not attempt to use your ownership shares in the company to arrange a better deal in the duration of your six-month contract.”
I signed that one, too, again wondering what the hell I was getting into. And why this client was being so cautious.
“This is your actual contract,” he said, handing me a rather thick packet of papers. “You will note that it actually states within the body of the contract that no employees will be let go without your consent while this contract is in force. Again, my client will be looking to you to help him learn the ropes of running such a company.”
“If he knows so little about running a construction company, why is he interested in buying this one?”
Mr. Philips sighed. “I asked him the same question. He was in another line of business and insists that he wants to try something new. I’ve warned him, but he tends to be a little stubborn.”
“And if he runs the company into the ground?”
Mr. Philips reached over and turned over several pages of the contract, tapping his finger against one particular paragraph. It read:
If the company should fall into worsening debt or should show signs of failure within the six-month period of this contract, Addison Berryman shall have the right to end this contract. She will still be entitled to the money held in escrow, but she will forfeit the right to prevent firings of the staff.
“So if he runs the company into the ground, this client of yours, the deal is null and void.”
“And you both lose something. He’ll lose the millions he put into the company, and you allow your employees to be thrown out into the street.” Mr. Philips looked at me for a long second. “I think you both have something to lose if you can’t make this company work. Together.”
“What if I want out of the contract before it expires?”
“Again, you will forfeit the right to protect your employees. And if
you terminate this contract early for any reason other than a mutual, unpreventable failure of the company, you forfeit all the money you would have made in the sale.”
The money didn’t matter. But, again, the idea of all those people out on the street gave me nightmares.
“When do I get to meet your client?”
Mr. Philips waved his hand at the contract I was looking over. “The moment you sign that.”
“He’s here?”
“He’s nearby.”
“This is all very clandestine,” I said as I focused on the contract again.
There was a lot to it. The language was dense, making it difficult to get through. But I’d read many contracts like this one since coming to work at Berryman Construction. And I kept coming back to the one thing that I couldn’t get past. This wasn’t about me. It was about the employees.
I could put up with six months working with a stranger who would be more like a student than a leader if it meant protecting the people I grew up around. It might even be fun. I could implement all the new ideas I’d come into the business with that my father had never listened to. This guy…if he didn’t know what he was doing, he wouldn’t have the same objections my father had. Maybe for the next six months I could run this place the way I always wanted to.
I signed the bottom of the contract with something of a flourish. Why the hell not? I could still travel when this was all said and done.
I handed the contract back to Mr. Philips, who signed it, as well, and then slid it into his folder.
“Is that it?”
“I’m just texting my client to let him know the deal is done.”
“What about my dad? Doesn’t he need to sign something?”
“He did.”
Mr. Philips set another contract in front of me. It was, quite literally, the contract that sold my dad’s company. I picked it up and began to read through it, skimming over parts that were too full of legalese and reading the other stuff that seemed a little more interesting. And then I got to the section that talked money.
Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s how much my father was walking away with from the sale.
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