My brother called me a financial idiot in front of two hundred wedding guests, and ten seconds later, my phone asked whether I wanted to remove him as CEO of his own company.
Chapter 1
“Everybody in this family knows Emily is the last person you ask about money,” Jason Mercer said into the microphone, grinning beneath the crystal chandeliers of the Lakeview Country Club outside Chicago. His new wife, Megan, touched his arm and whispered something, but Jason waved her off. “Seriously, if Emily ever gives you investment advice, do the exact opposite.”
Laughter rolled through the ballroom. Some of it was polite, some genuine, and some came from people who laughed because the groom was laughing and they wanted him to remember them fondly. I stood near the dance floor in a navy dress, holding a glass of club soda, while executives from Jason’s company watched to see whether I would laugh too.
I gave them the small smile my mother had trained into me decades earlier.
Don’t make a scene. Don’t spoil his night. Be the bigger person.
My father was at Table Six, laughing louder than anyone. “Jason was always the businessman,” I heard him tell one of Megan’s uncles. “Emily never cared about that stuff.”
Jason heard him and pointed across the room. “See? Dad knows.”
More laughter.
Only one man in the ballroom didn’t smile.
Walter Grant, chairman of Mercer Dynamics, sat near the windows with his hands folded over his dinner napkin. He wasn’t watching Jason anymore. He was watching me.
Then my phone vibrated inside my evening bag.
I lowered my eyes and checked it beneath the edge of the tablecloth.
BOARD RESOLUTION: 6–1.
Recommendation: Immediate termination of Chief Executive Officer Jason Mercer.
Controlling shareholder authorization required.
Awaiting your approval.
I read the message twice.
Across the ballroom, Walter gave me the slightest nod.
Jason raised his champagne glass again. “Here’s to family. Even the financially hopeless ones.”
The room laughed one more time.
He thought my silence meant I had lost.
What Jason didn’t know was that the chairman of his own board was waiting for my signature to decide whether he would still have a job when the sun came up.
My cousin Rachel appeared beside me and squeezed my wrist. “Come dance before I throw something at him.”
I let her pull me onto the floor. “You’re wearing heels. Your aim would be terrible.”
“That man has been asking for a champagne bucket to the head since 1998.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
We had barely made it through one song when Jason approached us, still holding champagne. Megan had gone to speak with her parents, and without her beside him, the charming-groom expression disappeared.
“Em.”
I stopped dancing.
Rachel looked at him, then at me. “I’ll be nearby.”
Jason waited until she moved away. “Don’t be weird about the speech.”
“I wasn’t planning to be.”
“You barely laughed.”
“You called me financially incompetent in front of your employees.”
He shrugged. “It was a joke.”
“For you.”
His mouth tightened. “Come on, Emily. Everybody knows I’m the business person in the family.”
I looked over his shoulder toward Walter.
Still waiting.
Jason lowered his voice. “People respect success. Maybe you wouldn’t understand that.”
For the first time all evening, I smiled without forcing it.
“Are you sure tonight is the night you want to talk to me about success?”
Jason stared at me for half a second and then laughed directly in my face.
“There she is. Mysterious Emily. You read three articles online and suddenly you’re Warren Buffett.”
He walked away before I answered.
My thumb rested against the phone in my bag.
Three years earlier, Mercer Dynamics had been close to collapse. Jason believed a private investment company called Harbor Ridge Capital had rescued it because its partners were impressed by his leadership.
He had never asked who owned Harbor Ridge.
He had never wondered why certain decisions by his board required approval from a shareholder whose identity was buried behind layers of private holding companies.
And he had certainly never imagined that the woman controlling that vote had spent Christmas dinners quietly listening while he explained compound interest to her.
Ten minutes later, I stepped into the hallway for some air.
Jason followed me.
“You’re making this awkward,” he said.
I turned. “I’m making it awkward?”
“It’s my wedding.”
“Yes. I noticed.”
“Then act like you’re happy for me.”
“I am happy for you and Megan. That doesn’t require enjoying being humiliated.”
He exhaled sharply. “This is why I never talk business with you. You make everything emotional.”
I folded my arms. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
I studied him. “Did you disclose the acquisition losses?”
Jason stopped breathing.
For one second, all I could hear was the muted band playing through the ballroom doors.
“What did you say?”
“The losses from the Carson Systems acquisition.”
His eyes sharpened.
“That isn’t public information.”
“I know.”
“Then how do you know about it?”
Before I could answer, my father pushed through the ballroom doors.
“There you two are. Jason, they need you for pictures.”
Jason kept looking at me. “We’re talking.”
Dad frowned. “About what?”
“Apparently Emily is upset about my speech.”
Dad’s expression immediately softened toward Jason and hardened toward me. It was an old family reflex. “Emily, whatever he said, tonight isn’t the night.”
“You heard the speech?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “It was teasing.”
Jason gave me a triumphant little smile.
That smile ended something in me.
For forty-seven years, I had been waiting for my father to notice the difference between peace and surrender.
I took out my phone.
BOARD RESOLUTION AWAITING AUTHORIZATION.
Underneath it, I typed:
Proceed with emergency governance meeting. Final authorization pending review of management disclosures.
I pressed send.
Jason glanced at the phone. “Balancing your checkbook?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Making a decision.”
“About what?”
I slipped the phone into my bag.
“Your future.”
