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This morning, even I could admit that skinny-dipping in the City Hall Park fountain wasn’t the smartest move. Everything felt fuzzy. I didn’t think I’d downed that many shots, but the pictures said otherwise. I must have been really blitzed.
“Do you have any idea how badly this could affect the company? Affect me? Her father is not someone you fuck around with.”
I shook my head without adding words. The pictures were pretty incriminating. Knowing who she was now, not banging her looked pretty fucking brilliant. I hadn’t done that, had I?
“We’ve already had a telephone-board meeting this morning.”
“I didn’t hear about it.” I was on the board, but had been overlooked for this particular meeting, and I could guess why.
“You were there,” he assured me. “As the topic.”
For support, I leaned on the back of the leather visitor’s chair I normally chose to sit in. Now I could add a queasy stomach to my pounding headache. Our previous you-better-straighten-up-son talks had never involved the board.
“My tenure as CEO was also up for discussion.”
I gulped. “Dad, I didn’t mean—”
“Sit.” He motioned to the chair. “What you did or didn’t mean is irrelevant now.” His tone had not returned to normal, but it was something closer, as was his color. This was still a time to tread lightly. My contract is up for renewal at the annual meeting.
His implication stared me in the face. “But Dad, it’s your company. Our name is on the company, on the building.”
His words came out slowly. “We have shareholders now and I report to the board. Does a member of the Ford family still run Ford Motor Company?”That question answered itself. He had four months until the annual meeting where his fate would be decided.
I rounded the chair and sat. This was bad if they were threatening Dad’s position. He’d given up the chairmanship to his friend George Graff, Martin’s father, as a nod to good corporate governance. It was probably a move he regretted right now.
I sure did. If I’d cost him his job, that would haunt me forever.
He tapped the open paper on his desk. “These photos are all that matter now. The board feels, and I have to agree with them, that you’ve disgraced this company one too many—no, a dozen times too many. They printed your name and position.” He emphasized it with a finger on the page.
He was right that this wasn’t the first time I’d appeared on Page Six. But it was the first time I remembered any mention of my association with the company.
I gripped the arms of the chair and waited for his next words, for the ax to drop and Dad to tell me he was letting me go. The words didn’t come.
“I’ve already called her father to apologize for you. What else do you think we should do?” he asked after a few seconds.
He’d fired plenty of people before me, but I’d never been here to see how he went about it. Did he make it easier on himself by forcing the wayward employee to quit under the weight of his glare?
I knew my reputation on the street. I was the ruthless shark in a suit, a nickname that had served me well across the negotiating table. But here I was about to pee my pants, in front of my Dad no less. I sucked in a breath. “Are you asking for my resignation?”
“What do you think is appropriate in this circumstance? If you were in my shoes, that is?”
He wasn’t letting me off the hook. He was still going to make me say it. Dad turned everything into a learning experience.
This was one time I didn’t want the lesson. If this had been one of my employees, I’d let him go with an extremely stern warning the first time. But this wasn’t my first time on Page Six, and if I was honest, I’d be firing me if I were him. So I took a deep breath. “I’d be asking for my resignation.”
“Really?”
I steeled myself for what was to come. “Not for the first infraction, but this isn’t the first. So, yes.”
“And the family connection?” That question gave me an out, but I didn’t take it.
“Irrelevant,” I answered, barely able to breathe with the tension in the room.
Dad stroked his chin and appraised me for several agonizing seconds. “That’s not the way I see it.”
I felt my lungs inflate.
“Trust is the most important commodity in a business. Wouldn’t you agree?”
