The heir they threw away

CHAPTER SEVEN

The evening couldn't have gone any better, but Ethan knew that the real show was actually yet to begin.

He had the Harmon Group's last four annual reports open on his laptop by two in the morning, cross-referenced against the public filings of every company that had submitted a partnership inquiry in the past eighteen months.

What he found when he laid them side by side was a pattern so deliberate and so patient that he had to sit back and look at the ceiling for a moment just to absorb the scale of it.

Jordan Marsh had not been chasing the Calloway contract because he needed twelve million dollars. JHe did it because winning it would have positioned Marsh Capital as the dominant player in the city's mid-tier infrastructure space. That was precisely the space that fed supplier contracts into the Harmon Group's green energy pipeline, and a dominant position there would have given him the leverage to walk into tonight's reception not as a supplicant but as a necessary partner.

He had not been after Simone because he wanted her. He had been after the Harmon Group for two years and Simone was simply the door he had found unlocked. Poor Simone.

Ethan closed the laptop and sat in the darkness of room 114  and thought of how many years he had wasted building a family that didn't even want him when he could have been here, getting rid of men like Jordan.

Well, he was done carrying the weight of a family that didn't love him and embraced the duty of a dynasty that needed him.

At five-thirty he showered, dressed and went down to the twenty-four hour diner on the corner. He ate scrambled eggs and drank two cups of coffee that were not good but were hot enough, and by the time he walked back out into the grey October morning he had his first three moves out in his head perfectly.

His phone buzzed and he glanced down at it, Douglas Hale.

"I know it's early," Douglas said quickly when Ethan picked up.

"I've been awake since two." Ethan replied flatly.

"Then you've probably already seen what I wanted to tell you about Marsh Capital's supplier relationships." He said and paused for a few seconds to make sure he still had news worth telling. "Your grandmother used to do that. She read everything at two in the morning when she couldn't sleep. She always said the numbers were quieter then."

Ethan looked at the street, as the slow traffic and noises of people began to close in. "Douglas. The two board members, Arden Walsh and Patricia Ng, what do they actually want?" He asked, ignoring every other thing he had said.

"Arden wants the green energy pipeline to move faster than the current timeline. He thinks Eleanor was too conservative in the rollout schedule and he's been making noise about it for eight months. Patricia on the other hand wants board representation on the Harmon Foundation's grant committee, which Eleanor denied her twice and which she believes was personal." Douglas paused.

"Both of those things are things you could give them, Ethan. Both of those things are also things Jordan Marsh cannot give them, because he has no authority over either."

"Set up meetings with the both of them today if possible." Ethan said flatly

"I scheduled them last night," Douglas said, "at eleven and two. I thought you'd ask."

Ethan scoffed and paused for a moment, smiling into the horizon as he remembered how much he'd actually missed this position of power.

"Thank you," he said, and meant it with the whole weight of the last twenty-four hours behind it.

"Don't thank me," Douglas said briskly, in the tone of a man who is uncomfortable with gratitude. "Thank Eleanor. She told me to look after the company until you came back, and since I am constitutionally incapable of doing things halfway, I have been looking after it thoroughly."

He added and when Ethan didn't say a word, he said, "The meetings are at Harmon Group headquarters. The thirty-first floor is ready for you."

Ethan put the phone in his pocket and turned toward the city and walked, because he had seventeen blocks to cover that cold morning even though he had a variety of cars at his disposal.

He was halfway there when his phone buzzed again. He frowned at the screen and read the name again. Simone.

He looked at her name on the screen for a long moment, and when he felt a slight prick in his chest, he put the phone back in his pocket without answering and kept walking.

Whatever she had understood overnight, whatever recalculation Jordan's revelation about the inheritance had triggered in her, he didn't want to hear it. Everything she needed to say to him could be said through attorneys.

He had a company to reclaim.