Chapter 8 - The Man Chad Needed
The merger deadline kept moving closer.
Every week Ethan spent listening to employees was a week Northbridge's lawyers spent wondering whether Vance Hospitality still knew what it wanted.
Chad wanted an answer.
He cornered Ethan in the test kitchen on a Thursday afternoon while chefs argued over a new banquet menu six feet away.
“You're avoiding the merger.”
Ethan tasted a spoonful of soup and winced. “Too much salt.”
Chad stared at him. “Seriously?”
“I can hear you and taste soup at the same time.”
“No. You can use soup to delay conversations.”
Ethan set the spoon down.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say yes or no.”
“I haven't decided.”
“That's not leadership.”
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Chad immediately looked tired.
“Sorry.”
“No. Finish.”
Chad glanced toward the chefs.
“Not here.”
They moved into the loading corridor.
Chad shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I need to know whether you're coming back enough to run this company or staying chairman while I do it.”
“Those aren't the only options.”
“They are to me.”
Ethan looked at him.
Chad's face had the drawn look of someone who had slept badly for months.
“I agreed to interim because you asked me,” Chad said. “Then interim became nine months. I missed my daughter's school play because a lender called from London. I postponed a vacation twice. Brooke thinks I'm choosing work over her.”
Ethan blinked. “You and Brooke are having problems?”
Chad laughed without humor. “Did you think dating her turned my life into a victory speech?”
Ethan looked away.
“Sometimes I hate you,” Chad said.
That brought Ethan's gaze back.
“Not because you're in a wheelchair. Not because you came back. Because you trained everyone around you to wait for your decision, and then you disappeared without letting anyone learn how to decide without you.”
Ethan absorbed that.
Chad continued.
“I wanted the CEO job. I still do. But I don't want it if every choice gets treated like evidence that I was plotting while you were hurt.”
Ethan thought of the gala.
The secret test.
Brooke's face.
Isabella's disappointment.
“I was unfair to you,” he said.
Chad looked almost suspicious.
“That easy?”
“No.” Ethan exhaled. “That simple.”
They stood in the loading corridor while carts rolled past.
Ethan said, “I don't want to be CEO again.”
Chad went still.
“I want to remain chairman,” Ethan continued. “I want final say on major capital decisions. I want to rebuild our workplace accessibility standards. But I don't want the daily operating job.”
Chad's eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
“No.”
That surprised a laugh out of him.
Ethan smiled faintly.
“But I think I was confusing coming back with becoming exactly who I was before.”
Chad leaned against the wall.
“What about the merger?”
“I want revised terms. Less centralization. Stronger labor protections. Keep our foundation independent.”
“Northbridge may walk.”
“I know.”
“And if they do?”
“We refinance smaller and sell one development site.”
Chad nodded slowly.
For the first time in months, they were discussing the company instead of competing over what it meant.
Then Chad said, “I should tell you something.”
Ethan waited.
“Brooke didn't know I was going to be listed as interim CEO on the gala screen.”
Ethan frowned.
“She knew the speech mentioned leadership transition. She didn't know the slide.” Chad rubbed his jaw. “I added it with communications because I thought the board wanted the room prepared for Monday.”
“You thought I was leaving.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't ask me.”
Chad looked ashamed. “No.”
Ethan almost laughed.
“What?” Chad asked.
“Apparently that's contagious around here.”
That night Ethan called Brooke.
“Chad told me about the slide.”
Silence.
Then, “Okay.”
“You didn't plan it?”
“No.”
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“I'm sorry I assumed you did.”
Brooke was quiet.
“Thank you,” she said.
He hesitated.
“Are you two okay?”
A longer silence.
“Not really.”
He almost asked why.
Then he stopped.
It wasn't his relationship anymore.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
“So am I.”
They hung up.
Ethan sat in the dark living room for a while.
He had spent months believing Brooke and Chad had moved cleanly into the life he'd lost.
It turned out they had built something messier.
More ordinary.
Less insulting than his imagination had needed it to be.
That did not erase the gala.
It did something harder.
It made him see people instead of roles.
The following Monday, Ethan moved out of the corner office.
Not entirely. He kept a smaller chairman's office two floors down, but the twenty-third-floor suite belonged to the CEO role and Chad was about to have it.
Ethan packed almost nothing himself because most of the objects were company awards he had stopped seeing years ago.
Chad arrived while a facilities worker was carrying out framed photographs.
“You don't have to do this today.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because if I wait, I'll find a reason the timing is wrong.”
Chad looked around.
On the desk sat a brass hotel key from the first Vance property Ethan's father had opened.
Ethan picked it up.
“This stays with the office.”
Chad frowned. “Your dad gave you that.”
“He gave it to the CEO.”
Chad took it slowly.
For a moment both men looked uncomfortable.
Then Chad said, “I don't want to become you.”
Ethan laughed. “That's rude.”
“I mean I don't want people waiting for one person to save every decision.”
“Good.”
“And if I screw up?”
“I'll probably tell you.”
“Loudly?”
“I'm still me.”
They shook hands.
It was not a coronation.
Just one man handing another a key and accepting that the room would continue without him.
Before they left the loading corridor, Chad stopped him once more.
“There's something else.”
Ethan waited.
“If I get the CEO job, I need you not to undermine me with side conversations.”
Ethan almost bristled.
Then he remembered the card in his wallet. Ask. Wait. Believe the answer.
“What would support look like instead?”
Chad stared at him, surprised.
“Bring disagreements to me before the board. Don't promise managers things I haven't budgeted. And don't let people appeal every decision to you because they think you're the real boss.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
“That last one will be hard.”
“I know.”
May you like
“So say it again when I forget.”
Chad smiled. “I will.”
