2026-02-14 23:05:42
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-EIGHT
On a Tuesday Margaret officially announced that she was retiring.She did it during a meeting. Not in a one-on-one conversation with Robert, but in a routine Tuesday morning operations check-in with six people in the room. She was going through the scheduling adjustments of the next week, and she had finished with the last one on her list and then she said, without altering her voice, or her pose, that she would retire at the end of the month.It was utterly silent in the room.Robert stared at her.Margaret looked at her note pad. Then at Robert. She wore the expression which she wore when she had decided and was ready to receive the answer to the decision and could not be moved by any of the answer.“You cannot retire,” Robert said."I already have," Margaret said. "This is the notification." She gazed about the room. “I have just found my successor and have been training her for three months and her name is Claire Osei. She is detailed and meticulous and knows how this office funct
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN
The Caroline Adeyemi lunch was a lengthy affair.Three hours and forty minutes. The same restaurant. It was the same corner table that Gerald had requested and which seemed to hold such importance in the world of Gerald Okafor that Caroline Adeyemi had sought after it the moment he arranged the meeting.She came just in time. Fifty-two years old. Natural hair cut close grey. A dark green jacket that said that she had ceased to dress to please the opinion of others at some point in her forties and found the outcome more successful. She shook his hand, with the momentary hard squeeze of a person who made his mind up in a short time, and changed it only gradually.Gerald was already seated. He rose as she entered and gave her a momentary embrace in the dignity of two people who during the long years of their acquaintance had grown close enough to be able to give each other the respect of friendship and not that of profession.They ordered. They talked.Caroline was a straightforward girl
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX
In March, Dave started dating somebodyRobert discovered about it the way he came to learn much of the personal life of Dave and not because Dave told him directly but because Dave, in the course of a conversation about something else, had spoken about it in the particular casual manner which Dave applied to everything concerning him. The tone of a person making an administrative update as opposed to discussing something meaningful.It was a Wednesday afternoon in the hall between the conference room and the office of Robert when Dave made the comment. They were talking about the Caroline Adeyemi lunch which was schedule for next Thursday and whether Brighton should be included in the initial meeting and Brighton was free but he had been busy this week as he was juggling between a client appointment and a social event with a corporate attorney called Priya.Robert stopped walking.Dave took two more steps when he found that Robert had stopped. He turned."Priya," Robert said."Yes," D
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE
On Tuesday morning, Gerald Okafor called Robert.Not by his assistant. Not through the mediums that most people at the professional level of Gerald use whenever they wished to have a word with someone at Robert's professional level. Directly. His personal number. The one which Robert had given him at lunch that they had spent three hours together and Gerald had made up his mind that Robert was the sort of man who picked up his own phone when it mattered.Robert answered on the second ring.“I would like to introduce you to someone,” Gerald said. His voice was as it always had been. Unhurried. Direct. The voice of a man who had long since ceased to play the game of urgency, and had discovered that things moved better without urgency."Who?" Robert said.“Her name is Caroline Adeyemi," Gerald said. “She owns a mid-sized renewable energy company. Good company. Well built. She has eleven years of running the company and is ready to think of a transition of ownership.” He paused. “She is q
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR
On a Friday evening, Roxanne explained to Robert about the business idea.They had eaten dinner, and the table was cleared and she was holding a glass of wine in her hand with a certain look that she gave when she made up her mind a long time and then decided that the time was right to stop thinking.Robert recognized the look. He set down his own glass, and gave her his complete attention.She explained it to him, with great care, with great passion. A consulting model that focused on working with businesses at their early stages of development and not the startup world, but the challenging middle stage when a business was past its first stage, and was attempting to determine how it would become something sustainable. She had been thinking about it for months. She had made considerable research. She had a precise understanding of the market gap, and a realistic model of how to fill it.She talked for half an hour.Robert was listening. He could look at her face as she spoke. The part
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE
The silence arrived like weather.Not suddenly. Gradually. The manner in which actual silence would always follow a long period of noise, not in a single morning but during a sequence of mornings which were successively less pressurized than the previous one until one morning Robert got up and picked up his phone and put it down and sat in the grey light of the bedroom and realized that the reaching had not been urgent but a habit.He lay there for a moment with that understanding.Then he made coffee.Roxanne was already at the kitchen table when he came out of the bedroom. Laptop open. Coffee made. That specific morning version of herself which he had been learning to think of as one of the best things in his day-to-day life, present, centered, entirely herself, before the day had claimed either of them.As he entered she looked up. She made no reply. She went back to her screen.He sat opposite her with his coffee and his reports and the morning took its own way about the two of th
You may also like
Marcus Hamilton Trillionaire In Disguise
Emerald71.7K viewsThe Rise Of The Unknown Zillionaire Heir
Gem Lynne162.7K viewsThe Secretly Rich Man
Two Ears is Bodhi7.4M viewsBecoming A Trillionaire After Divorce
Esther Writes73.4K viewsThe Underestimated Ex-husband
Preshy Wrights1.4K viewsThe Poor Student Turns Out To Be A Second Generation Heir!
Sage12.9K viewsFrom Prison To Billion-Dollar Empire
Sam-crowned1.3K viewsThe Roman Walter Effect
Melissa Crowns367 views