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“It seemed smart, given the circumstances.”
“Absolutely. I appreciate your consideration.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he grinned, and the flirtatious gleam was back in his eye. “Always nice to be appreciated.”
“Of course. But truthfully, I don’t have much. It’s a rather quiet morning for me, I’m afraid.”
“Excellent. Then perhaps we have some time to talk?”
“I was planning on getting to work on my next employee appreciation event, but I suppose we can do both.”
“Perfect. Let’s devote half the morning to my notes, and the other half to working on your event. Does that work?” His sparkling eyes and wide smile were captivating, like a snake-charmer’s flute. I might agree to anything when he looked at me that way.
Somehow, I managed a reasonable response. “Seems fair to me, although I’m not sure I want to know what’s in your notes.”
He chuckled. “It’s not like that, I promise. It might surprise you to hear it, but your dad is a hard man to pin down.”
“Shocking.”
“I know, right? Well, he was tricky, but I think I got a list of things you and I can work on.”
My back stiffened, and the smile froze on my face. “A list?” I asked, my voice strained.
Jake picked up on it immediately. “I asked your dad for some criteria he considers important for you to take over as CEO. I told him it’s not fair to say you aren’t ready when he has given you zero guidance on his expectations.”
Something warm and gooey settled in my stomach at those words. It almost sounded like he was on my side…
“It wasn’t easy. He didn’t really know how to verbalize what he was looking for at first. But we talked for a while and I feel I at least have a start.”
The annoyance about the entire situation welled in my chest, dampening the warmth from a second ago. “Well, that’s a relief.” The sarcasm in my tone was clear.
“Hey, Ellie, this isn’t personal, okay?” Sincerity radiated through Jake’s warm brown eyes, his tone gentle. “Your dad has to adjust his attitude about this, even more so than you feel you need to adjust. The issue isn’t that there is a right and wrong way to manage this company. The issue is that you two need to meet in the middle and work together. Getting a list of expectations from him gives us a starting point.”
“So what, I check off all the items on his list and he sails off into the sunset? Somehow, I don’t think it’ll be that easy.” I leaned back in my seat, arms crossed over my chest.
Jake’s eyes darted between me and my open door, then he abruptly stood and closed it before returning to his seat. “Look, can I be frank with you?”
“Always.”
“I don’t think your dad has a solid grasp on why he thinks you aren’t ready to take over.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I think he’s not sure what he’s going to do with himself when this isn’t his life anymore. I think he knows he needs to bow out but is looking for excuses not to. Which is why getting a straight answer from him about what expectations you’renotmeeting was like pulling teeth—there aren’t any. He’s just going off of some general ‘feeling’ and I told him that’s not good enough. So our goal should be to steer him.”
“Steer him how?” I knew my dad was a tough man to dictate to, but I had a growing flower of hope in my chest. Perhaps Jake had a plan that would form a bridge between me and my dad, and I just needed to hear him out.
“To put it bluntly, steer him into a corner. I’ll keep working on getting specifics from him about what you need in order to be ‘ready’ by his standard. We’ll work together on showing him how you meet those criteria. Trust me, it’ll reach a point where he won’t have another place to turn, and he’ll just have to accept. That’s our goal.”
This was sounding an awful lot like Jake was on my side. I didn’t want to let my hopes get up too high, but it was definitely a start.
“Okay,” I said with a small smile. “Hit me with the list.”
Chapter7
Jake
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