Deals didn’t “close.”
Not really.
The paperwork did. The press releases did. The stock tickers did.
But the human part?
That was a slow-motion collapse.
Or reconstruction.
Sometimes both.
The week after closing was a blur of motion without anchor.
Emails exploded. Calls multiplied. Integration meetings spawned sub-meetings like hydra heads.
Margot ran triage with mechanical efficiency.
She blocked and re-blocked Declan’s calendar, carving out slivers of time for him to think, to rest, to not scream at someone for asking the same question three times.
She did not, in all that motion, forget.
The pilot.
The withheld email.
The young version of him, code in hand, walking into NexTelis’s sleek offices while her father sat in a worn chair and wondered how he’d pay the electricity bill.
The knowledge sat in her chest like a jagged rock.
She worked around it.
She was civil.
Professional.
Efficient.
She was not… soft.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
“Did I… piss you off?” he asked on Tuesday when she answered one of his snappish comments with a cool, “Noted,” and nothing else.
“Yes,” she said.
He waited.
She said nothing more.
“About…” He gestured vaguely.
She raised an eyebrow. “The pilot. The hiding. The existential betrayal. Take your pick.”
He flinched. “Right.”
He didn’t push.
He gave her space.
Or tried to.
It was hard, when she was always *there*.
At his desk. At his door. In his meetings. In his head.
He found himself glancing at her more often.
Looking for signs.
Of forgiveness.
Of softening.
Of… anything.
She kept her face like glass.
Except when someone else needed something.
Jess came by with a list of plant issues.
Margot smiled at her. Warmth.
Raj griped about an engineering VP who kept re-inserting himself into decisions.
She rolled her eyes and said, “Tell him if he wants to schedule time with Declan, he can take a number like everyone else.”
Eliza vented about the board.
Margot listened. Nodded. Offered chocolate.
For everyone else, she was still… her.
For him, there was an almost imperceptible buffer.
Not distance exactly.
More… caution.
He hated it.
He understood it.
He hated that he understood it.
On Wednesday, in therapy, he said, “I hurt her.”
Dr. Kline nodded. “Yes.”
“I told her the truth,” he added. “Eventually.”
“Eventually,” she repeated. “After she saw the email.”
He grimaced. “Yes.”
“What kept you from telling her sooner?” she asked.
He stared at the patterned rug.
“Fear,” he said finally.
“Of what?” she waited.
“That she’d… leave,” he said. “That she’d see me as… the enemy. That she’d be right.”
“And now?” she asked.
“She might leave,” he said. “She does see me as… complicit. And she is… right.”
“So your fear was accurate,” she said. “What’s different?”
He thought.
“She’s still here,” he said.
“For now,” Dr. Kline said.
“Yes,” he said.
“And how does that feel?” she asked.
“Unbearable,” he said.
She smiled slightly. “Progress.”
He glared. “You always say that when I’m miserable.”
“Because you’re usually miserable when you’re growing,” she said. “You want easy feelings, go get a dog.”
“I had one,” he said. “It died.”
She paused. “You never told me that.”
He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“File that for later,” she said. “For now, Margot.”
He sighed.
“What,” he muttered.
“What are you going to do,” she asked, “besides hate yourself and hope she stays?”
He frowned.
“Fix NexTelis,” he said. “Prove I’m not… that guy.”
“That’s… large-scale,” she said. “What about directly with her?”
“She said she wants… repair,” he said. “I don’t know what that looks like.”
“What does she need?” Dr. Kline asked.
“Transparency,” he said without hesitation. “Control. Agency. She needs to know she’s not being… used.”
“And what would show her that?” she asked.
“Letting her… lead,” he said slowly. “On the parts that hit her hardest. Supplier remediation. Communication. Oversight.”
“And what scares you about that?” she asked.
“That she might… decide I’m not… enough,” he said. “That she’ll see more and… leave anyway.”
“And what scares you more?” she pressed. “That she might leave after seeing you clearly… or that she might stay without seeing you clearly?”
He shut his eyes.
“The second,” he admitted. “I don’t… want her to love a lie.”
Dr. Kline’s eyebrows rose. “No one said anything about love.”
His eyes snapped open.
He scowled.
She smiled. “Homework,” she said. “Make a concrete list of three things you can give her control over that matter to her and to you. Then… do them. And tell her why.”
He groaned. “I hate homework.”
“You love control,” she said. “Think of it as… rebalancing the equation.”
He huffed.
“Fine,” he said.
***
On Thursday morning, he handed her a folder.
She frowned. “What’s this?”
“Supplier Remediation Task Force,” he said. “Your task force.”
She blinked. “My… what?”
“You said you wanted to not be my accomplice,” he said. “You wanted to… know we’re doing something real for the people NexTelis hurt. This is… that. Or the start of it.”
She opened the folder.
Inside: a draft charter. A list of proposed members—someone from Legal, someone from Operations, Priya, an external ethics consultant.
At the top: *Lead: M. Chen*.
Her chest tightened.
“You want me to…?” she started.
“Chair it,” he said. “Design it. Run it. You tell me what we should do about the old contracts. The ones like your father’s. Morales. Others. I’ll sign the checks, take the board heat, deal with regulators. You… decide how we make it right. As much as we can.”
Her throat went dry.
“That’s… a lot of power,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s also a lot of… work. And pain. And… conflict. You’ll be pushing against profit sometimes. Against… me. I’m not… easy to argue with.”
She snorted. “Understatement.”
He smiled, brief.
“I’m not… handing you this to… buy your forgiveness,” he said. “Or your… affection. I’m handing it to you because you’re the only person I trust to not let this become PR window dressing.”
She stared at the paper.
It blurred.
She blinked hard.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why not before?”
“Because before, I was still… pretending I could do it all myself,” he said. “That my… good intentions were enough. They’re not. You made that very clear.”
She exhaled.
“Dr. Kline told you to do this, didn’t she,” she said, trying for lightness.
“She suggested I… cede control,” he said. “I hate it. You’re welcome.”
A laugh escaped her, involuntary.
He watched her.
“This is yours,” he said. “Say no, and I’ll find someone else. Say yes, and you’ll make my life… harder. And better.”
She looked back down at the folder.
At her name.
At the weight of it.
For years, she’d watched from the edges.
Running rooms.
Whispering in ears.
Influencing.
But never… owning.
This was… ownership.
This was also a minefield.
If she failed, people like her father would suffer. Again.
If she succeeded, she’d be the one who’d made his company more than a slicker NexTelis.
“I don’t forgive you,” she said, voice rough.
“I know,” he said.
“I might never,” she added.
“I know,” he repeated.
“But I…” She swallowed. “I want this. Not for you. For… them. And… maybe a little for me.”
He exhaled, something like relief flickering in his eyes.
“Good,” he said. “Then it’s yours.”
She flipped through the pages again.
“Ground rules,” she said.
He nodded. “Of course.”
“One,” she said. “I report to you, but I don’t… answer to you. On this. If I recommend something and you say no, you explain why. Fully. No ‘trust me.’ No ‘not now.’”
“Agreed,” he said.
“Two,” she said. “We publish something. A report. Regularly. About what we’re doing. Who we’re helping. Who we’re not. Internally, at least. Externally, if we can.”
“Painful,” he said. “But… necessary. Agreed.”
“Three,” she said. “No using this as a shield in front of the board. No ‘we have a task force, look how ethical we are.’ If we’re going to talk about it, we show them the messy parts too.”
He winced. “They’ll hate that.”
“Good,” she said. “They should.”
He studied her.
“You’re… terrifying,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
He smiled, small and real.
For a moment, the rock in her chest shifted.
Not gone.
But… moved.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
She braced. “You can ask. I reserve the right to ignore.”
He huffed a laugh. “Fair. When you… think about… us. About… this. What scares you most?”
She stared at him.
“That you’ll… stop trying,” she said finally. “Once it’s harder. Once the novelty wears off.”
He swallowed. “And… hope?”
She closed the folder gently.
“That you won’t,” she said.
His breath stuttered.
“Color,” she said quickly, cutting the tension.
“Yellow,” he said.
“Workable,” she said.
She stood.
“I have task force invites to send,” she said. “And a conscience to structure.”
He watched her walk back to her desk, folder in hand.
The countdown in his head shifted.
No longer just to some arbitrary thirty-day mark.
To something… longer.
Messier.
More real.
He’d given her power.
He didn’t know yet whether that would save him.
Or be the thing that finally, properly broke him.
He suspected both.
---