The boardroom never looked more like an arena.
The long, gleaming table. The wall of glass with its dizzying view of downtown. The curve of leather chairs already half-occupied by men and women in expensive suits, their expressions composed, their eyes sharp.
Maya stood at the side credenza, laying out print packets and bottled water like offerings.
“Calm,” she told her hands under her breath. “Steady. No stabbing.”
Her phone buzzed in her blazer pocket. She ignored it. There wasn’t room for life in this room right now; only numbers and narratives and the quiet rustle of power repositioning itself.
A notification flashed on her laptop—her mother, a selfie in a silly hat, thumbs up, captioned: *Turtle says hi.* She took the microsecond it took to screenshot it and file it in a folder called *Reasons To Leave Someday*.
Marcus walked in at 8:58.
He’d opted for dark navy again—of course he had—with a crisp white shirt and a tie that looked like it had been knotted by a somber monk.
He radiated focus.
She felt the shift in the room when he stepped in—the way conversations tapered, how chairs straightened almost involuntarily.
He glanced at her as he moved to the head of the table. The connection was brief, but it steadied her.
You. Me. We’ve got this.
Oliver slid into the seat to his right, looking like a more relaxed professor cousin in his charcoal suit and rimless glasses. Veronica sat further down, tablet open, expression composed but watchful.
At the far end, Nicholas Hart lounged in his chair like he owned the building already.
He didn’t.
Not yet.
“Good morning,” the board chair said, rapping their pen lightly to call the room to order. “We have a full agenda. Let’s start with the headline item. Marcus?”
Marcus rose. No notes. He put both hands on the table, fingers splayed, and regarded the room.
“I’ll be blunt,” he said. “Hart Capital’s latest letter is not entirely wrong.”
A subtle ripple. Hart’s mouth curved.
“They are wrong,” Marcus continued, “about their diagnosis of this company. About what we stand to gain by chopping up Arcturus or gutting our labor commitments. But they are not wrong that we need to be clear with you—our board—and with our shareholders about our strategy, our timelines, and our thresholds for change.”
He paced once, slowly, the way she’d seen him do on earnings calls when he wanted to rattle an analyst who thought they were smarter than they were.
“Hart Capital framed this as a binary,” he said. “Either we ‘unlock value’ by spinning off assets and cutting costs, or we’re complacent stewards of capital more concerned with optics than outcomes.”
He stopped at the head of the table again.
“That’s bullshit.”
The word cracked across the polished air like a whip.
Someone cleared their throat. Someone else shifted, half-disapproving, half-gleeful.
“I don’t do binaries,” Marcus said. “You all knew that when you hired me. I do long games. Complicated equations. I do both/and where other people are satisfied with either/or. And I would be failing in my job if I allowed an outside fund with a single-digit stake to dictate our direction based on their fund cycle instead of our actual prospects.”
Oliver gave the barest nod. Jenna—seated against the far wall with the other non-voting execs—scribbled something that was probably a line for the internal memo.
“As for my so-called ‘stakeholder turn’—” he almost smiled at that “—I’ll say this once. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to hug trees. I looked at accident reports. I looked at turnover. I looked at how much it cost us every time someone like Miguel in Long Beach got hurt because we pushed too hard in bad weather. Investing in safety and people isn’t charity. It’s risk management. It’s ROI. Hart knows that. He just doesn’t like that it takes longer to show up in his quarterly letter.”
Hart’s eyes glittered, but he said nothing.
Marcus let the tension hang a beat, then nodded to Oliver.
“Numbers,” he said. “Go.”
Oliver stood and began walking them through slide after slide—projected returns on Arcturus over five, ten, fifteen-year horizons. Debt schedules. Sensitivity analyses that showed how much value *would* be destroyed by a rushed spin-off.
Maya monitored the room as much as the slides.
Some board members were clearly in Marcus’s camp—leaning forward, nodding. Two others watched Hart with the slightly dazed eagerness of those who’d been courted hard.
Hart himself sat back, fingers steepled, absorbing. Cataloguing.
When Oliver finished, the chair opened the floor.
Hart spoke first.
“Appreciate the show,” he said easily. “You’ve always been good at theater, Marcus. The numbers look…fine. On your assumptions. But your assumptions are exactly what we’re questioning. Your timeline. Your comfort level with slower value realization. The street is not patient. We all know this.”
“The street has a memory of about three weeks,” Marcus said. “I’m not here to indulge its ADD. I’m here to build a company that outlasts the current crop of talking heads.”
“And what about your compensation?” one of the more conservative board members interjected. “Hart’s letter makes a point. Your package is…significant.”
“Significant” was a nice way of saying *eye-watering.*
Marcus didn’t flinch.
“It is,” he agreed. “And I won’t pretend I’m underpaid. I’ll also remind you that a large portion of it is equity and performance-based. If we miss our targets, I miss my bonus. I’ve proposed tweaks in the materials you’ve all reviewed—more weighting toward long-term metrics, sharper cliffs on underperformance. I’m not opposed to skinning myself in this game. But I won’t let Hart frame my pay as a moral failing while he takes a two-and-twenty off other people’s capital.”
Soft laughter.
“Let’s separate the noise,” Oliver said. “There are three real questions in Hart’s letter. One: should we move faster on Arcturus monetization? Two: should we cut deeper on costs? Three: should Hart have a seat on this board?”
“Yes,” Hart said smoothly. “And I’d like answers, not op-eds.”
“Fine,” Marcus said. “One: we’re already accelerating integration where it makes sense—tech, procurement, non-core assets. We’re not selling the crown jewels to juice a single year’s comp. Two: we’ve identified cost saves that don’t involve mass layoffs or unsafe workloads. Anything beyond that starts eating into the muscle you need for growth. Three: no.”
Silence dropped like a stone.
“No?” Hart repeated, a faint smile skating over his mouth. “That’s…curt.”
“This isn’t about personality,” Marcus said. “You are smart. You are successful. You are also misaligned with our time horizon and too comfortable treating people as expendable inputs. I’ll take your calls. I’ll engage with your ideas. I will not give you a vote in this room.”
Some of the board shifted, uncomfortable at the bluntness.
Hart’s gaze cooled. “You don’t get to decide that, Marcus,” he said. “The shareholders do. I’m just the messenger.”
“You’re more than that,” Marcus said. “You’re a catalyst. You want a fight because you win either way—attention if we push back, upside if we cave. I’m not playing that game.”
“And if the shareholders side with me?” Hart asked, almost gently. “What then?”
“I adapt,” Marcus said. “Or I leave. I’m not welded to this chair. But I didn’t come this far to hand it over because someone with a sharper pen wants a faster hit.”
Maya’s lungs felt too small in her chest.
Because he meant it.
She could hear it.
If the board chose Hart’s path, he would walk.
Not bluff.
Not theatrics.
She’d seen him move too many times when people underestimated his willingness to cut.
Her heart pounded at the thought.
A life where he wasn’t here. Where some other suit sat in his chair, and she… what? Became theirs? Walked with him? Launched BridgeOps at warp speed?
The possibilities made her dizzy.
The chair cleared their throat. “Let’s keep this focused,” they said. “We are not here to oust anyone today. We are here to decide on a response to Hart Capital’s demands.”
Demands. Plural.
“Marcus has made his case,” they continued. “Hart, you’ve made yours in your letters. I propose we break for thirty and reconvene without non-board present.”
Maya’s stomach sank.
She hated the closed-door part.
Because it meant decisions without their eyes.
Without her.
Without him.
Marcus glanced at her as the room began to shuffle.
He held her gaze a beat.
Read everything she couldn’t say out loud.
Don’t let them pin this on you. Don’t martyr yourself. Don’t … leave.
He gave the slightest nod, like he’d heard, even if he couldn’t promise.
Then the board and Hart filed out, leaving the executives to exhale.
“This sucks,” Ryan whispered near the back wall.
“Language,” Jenna murmured. “Save the f-bombs for when we’re off-site.”
Maya moved to the table, beginning to collect stray papers, her movements automatic.
Oliver dropped into his chair with a weary sigh. “I hate activists,” he muttered. “They make everyone feel like they’re in high school again.”
“You were probably terrifying in high school,” Maya said.
“I wore glasses too big for my face and carried a calculator like it was a security blanket,” he said. “No one was terrified.”
“You underestimate the menace of mathletes,” she said.
He smiled faintly.
Marcus remained standing at the head of the table, fingers drumming once. Twice. Then still.
“You okay?” Maya asked quietly as she came close enough.
He huffed. “Define ‘okay.’”
“On a scale from ‘mildly irritated’ to ‘ready to throw Hart out the window,’ where are we?” she pressed, because repetition anchored him.
“Somewhere in the seismic zone,” he said.
She glanced at the glass. “The windows don’t open.”
“Pity,” he said.
He looked around at his team.
“Veronica,” he said. “We need contingencies. If the board caves on a seat, what are our red lines?”
“I have a list,” she said. “Term limits. Observer status only. Restrictions on committee assignments. You know this.”
“I want them prioritized,” he said. “And I want you ready to walk if they try to turn this into a personality contest.”
Her jaw set. “Understood.”
“Oliver,” he said. “If they push for more aggressive cuts, where can we bend without breaking?”
“We can accelerate some tech consolidation,” Oliver said. “Tighten vendor contracts. Maybe close an underused warehouse. Beyond that, we’ll be chopping bone.”
“Jenna,” he said. “How bad will this look if Hart wins a point or two?”
“Depends on the spins,” she said. “We can frame it as ‘responsive governance’ or ‘capitulation’ depending on how much you piss me off.”
“Good,” he said dryly.
He turned back to Maya.
“And you,” he said.
She lifted a brow. “Me?”
“Remind me why I care what Hart thinks,” he said.
She blinked.
“You don’t,” she said. “Not really. You care what your people think. What Miguel’s wife thinks. What my mother thinks. They’re not reading his letters.”
“Some are,” he said.
“Then they’re bored,” she said. “And bored people are easily manipulated. That doesn’t mean you hand them the knife he’s offering.”
His mouth twitched.
“Stay close,” he said quietly. “When we go back in.”
“Always,” she said, before the weight of that word hit her.
The closed session felt like an eternity.
They weren’t in the room.
They heard bits when someone went in or out—a raised voice, a steady one. Hart’s smooth cadence. The chair’s measured tones.
They waited.
Maya answered two urgent emails. Texted her mom. Glared at the clock.
When the door finally opened forty-seven minutes later, board members filed back in wearing expressions that gave little away.
Hart looked…pleased.
Her stomach dipped.
The chair called the meeting back to order.
“We’ve reached a preliminary consensus,” they said. “On three points.”
Maya’s heart hammered.
“First,” the chair continued, “we will not be pursuing a spin-off of Arcturus at this time. We concur with management that the value is better realized integrated.”
Relief slid through the room like a breeze.
“Second, we will be asking management to identify an additional fifty million in cost efficiencies over the next eighteen months, with a preference toward non-headcount-related savings.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened. Oliver’s mouth thinned.
Maya’s brain immediately began scanning budgets in her head—places she’d seen waste, duplication, redundancy.
“Third,” the chair said, “we have agreed to add an additional seat to the board.”
Silence hummed.
“Filled by…?” Oliver asked quietly, though they all knew.
“Nicholas Hart,” the chair said.
Hart smiled, small and satisfied.
Maya felt the air go thin in her lungs.
Marcus’s face didn’t move.
Only his knuckles whitened where his hands rested on the table.
“It will be a one-year term initially,” the chair added quickly. “Subject to renewal by vote. Committee assignments will be limited. We believe this is a compromise that acknowledges Hart Capital’s stake while preserving this board’s independence.”
Maya saw it then—the calculus.
Give him a chair.
Dull his teeth.
Keep the wolf inside the fence, where they could watch him.
It was a gamble.
Marcus straightened.
“Understood,” he said, voice even.
Hart’s gaze slid to him, gloating under the veneer of civility.
“I look forward to working together,” Hart said.
“I look forward to documenting every vote,” Marcus replied calmly.
Some of the board shifted, discomfort flickering.
The chair cleared their throat. “Let’s move on,” they said. “We have other business.”
Other business.
As if they hadn’t just invited a fox into the henhouse.
Maya’s mind whirled.
She caught Marcus’s eye.
He gave nothing away.
But she saw it. The fracture line.
Something had broken.
Not beyond repair.
But changed.
***
Afterward, when the room had emptied and the others had scattered—to Legal, to HR, to the bathroom to mutter curses in private—he remained.
Hands in his pockets.
Staring out at the city as if the answer might be printed in skyline.
She walked up beside him.
“They blinked,” she said quietly.
“They flinched,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“In boxing,” she said. “Not in governance.”
He didn’t smile.
“Are you… okay?” she asked, because she had to.
He let out a slow breath.
“They chose the path that keeps the market calm,” he said. “Not the one that keeps my life simple.”
“Your life was never going to be simple,” she said. “With or without Hart.”
He huffed softly. “True.”
“Can you…live with this?” she asked. “Him. In that room. Breathing your air.”
He considered.
“For a while,” he said. “With eyes open. With good lawyers.”
“And if he pushes too far?” she asked.
His gaze stayed on the glass.
“Then I walk,” he said. “On my terms. Not his.”
Fear and something like exhilaration twisted together in her gut.
Because if he walked…
So many dominos would fall.
“You’d really leave,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said simply. “I won’t preside over a company that treats people the way he wants to. I did that once. At Kanetech. I’m not doing it again.”
“You were a different person then,” she said.
“I wasn’t,” he said. “I just had fewer reasons to care.”
He glanced at her then.
The implication was clear.
She was one of those reasons now.
“You know,” she said, voice unsteady, “if you walk, it makes my decision easier.”
He nodded once. “I know.”
“Does that scare you?” she asked.
He thought about that.
“No,” he said slowly. “It…clarifies things. If I leave, I want to do it with you having something under your feet that isn’t just my shadow.”
BridgeOps. The review letter. Her mother’s slowly stabilizing health.
Her own spine.
It was more than she’d had a year ago.
She stared at his reflection in the glass.
“You asked for a timeline,” he said. “When we talked. Some measure of…when I might ask you to step out of this role.”
She had.
She hadn’t expected him to bring it up.
“Given this,” he said, nodding back at the boardroom, “I’d say…a year. Maybe less. We’ll see how fast Hart overplays his hand. But I won’t be here indefinitely. And I don’t want you tied to a chair when I go.”
Her heart climbed into her throat.
“A year,” she repeated.
“A lot can change in a year,” he said. “Arcturus could explode. Your company could launch. My mother could decide she wants grandkids and start sending me baby clothes catalogs.”
“You’ll hide them,” she said.
“I’ll forward them to you,” he said.
She laughed, wet.
“A year,” she said again. “To build something. To…decide.”
“Yes,” he said.
Silence pulsed.
She let the number settle in her bones.
Twelve months.
Four quarters.
A span of time she understood in budgets and birthdays.
Enough to ease into change.
Not so much that she could pretend it wasn’t coming.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She glanced at it.
Mom: *Scan clear. Nurse says remission. Told you I’d outlive you.*
Her vision blurred.
A little choked sound escaped her.
Marcus turned toward her, alert.
“What?” he asked. “What happened?”
She thrust the phone at him, tears spilling over.
He read the text.
A slow, incredulous smile curved his mouth—bright and unguarded in a way she so rarely saw.
“Remission,” he said.
She nodded, crying and laughing at once.
“Remission,” she echoed.
Without thinking, she stepped into him.
Into his space.
Into his chest.
His arms came up around her, solid and sure.
He held her.
Not like she was fragile.
Like she was a person who’d been carrying too much weight for too long.
She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed.
For her mother.
For the months of fear coiled in her spine.
For the boardroom battles and exit plans and the wild, terrifying fact that she loved this man who held her like she was the only thing tethering him to the floor.
He didn’t say anything trite.
He just stood there, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other firm at her waist, breathing with her.
Matching her inhales.
Her exhales.
Anchoring.
When the worst of it passed, she sniffled and pulled back slightly.
Realized where she was.
Who she was wrapped around.
“Shit,” she whispered, stepping away like the space between them burned.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she said, wiping her face with the heel of her hand. “We said… We promised… hugging in the war room is probably a policy violation.”
“HR can add it to their binder,” he said. “Under ‘exceptions.’”
She laughed, shaky.
He reached out like he might brush a tear from her cheek, then thought better of it and let his hand fall.
“I’m happy for you,” he said. “For her.”
“She’s going to be insufferable,” Maya said, voice thick. “In the best way.”
“She already is,” he said. “I look forward to more.”
Their eyes met.
Something glowed there now.
Hope.
Real, tangible hope.
Her mother’s crisis—the thing that had hung over everything—had shifted. Not gone. Never gone. But lighter.
“Congratulations,” he said again, softer. “Truly.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Not just for this.
For the space he’d held.
For the time he’d cleared.
For the bridge he was helping her build.
This, she thought, was what love looked like in real time.
Not fireworks.
Not dramatic hallway kisses.
Standing in a glass room after a brutal board meeting, holding onto each other as one of the worst possibilities in your life got downgraded from *terminal* to *manageable.*
Fault lines.
Fireworks.
And somewhere in between, a road.
She didn’t know where it led.
But for the first time, she could see a little further down it.
And she wasn’t as afraid.
Not with him beside her.
Not with a year on the clock.
Not with her mother texting turtle emojis like they were sacred.
The rest, she thought, could wait.
For tonight, she just wanted to go home.
Call her mother.
Cry some more.
Maybe, if she was brave, open her deck and add a new slide.
— *Status: In progress.*
Just like her.
Just like him.
Just like this impossible, inconvenient, undeniable thing between them.
***