But then seeing what she’d written about me, even though she knew how much Astro meant to me. I had to blank it out of my mind or I’d drive myself crazy.
“Are you even listening?” Jacob handed me a screwdriver. “I’ll hold this and you screw it in,” he said, holding up a long wooden bracket.
“I am listening. I know what she was saying. I don’t need to hear it from you.”
“Well, I think you do. She basically said you’re better than everyone else—like morally or something—because you’re looking after the best interests of the customers and employees.”
That’s not what she’d said. She’d said I wasn’t up to the job, plain as day. But there was no point in arguing with Jacob.
“She basically accused all other CEOs of focusing on their survival. You’re the only one who does the job they’re meant to.”
“Honestly, Jacob, I think you must have banged your head while you were putting up these shelves. Where did she say that?”
“Get it up on your phone,” he instructed, pulling the bracket from the wall. I scowled at him, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He swiped and tapped and then started to read.
“‘Cove doesn’t realize that the first rule of business is survival, so while other FTSE bosses are wining and dining the City, he sits in his office poring over algorithms. He’s doggedly determined to stay at Astro but doesn’t understand that he’s no longer the game master. The fundamental rules of the game have changed.’”
My jaw clenched as Jacob read out the words like specials on a restaurant menu the way we did at family dinners because Mum always forgot her glasses. I didn’t need to be reminded.
“Exactly. She thinks I don’t understand business.” Slightly ironic coming from a journalist, but I guess that’s what I get for agreeing to such a stupid idea as having the Post follow me around.
“Not business,” Jacob said. “The politics of business.”
“A distinction without a difference.”
“You’re acting like it’s a takedown but it’s really not. It says lots of nice things but concludes that you’re in the wrong job—”
I guffawed. “Exactly. It’s a job I’ve been doing nearly ten years. I built the company from scratch and now it’s one of the most successful insurance companies in the whole of Europe. She had the nerve to call me naïve.” How dare she. She knew nothing about my business.
“But not in a bad way.” He scrolled through the article. He didn’t need to. I had most of it committed to memory. “Here—she says you’re charmingly naïve.”
“Oh, well that’s alright then,” I replied. “Are we going to do this bloody shelf or what?”
Ignoring me, he continued to read out snippets of the article. “‘Smart CEOs are master manipulators of profits and investments. Everything presents well; their job is to sell the image as much as the product. That’s the game. That’s survival. But that’s not how Nathan Cove comes to play.’”
“Right,” I said. “There it is. She says I’m not a smart CEO.”
“She says you’re not a manipulator of profits and investments. That’s a compliment, Nathan.”
“It’s not one I want. She knew the entire point of her interviewing me, coming to meetings, even coming to meet my family, was to save my image and my job.”
“She’s painted you as someone who’s ethical and honorable.”
“Are you listening?” I asked. “Save my image so I could keep my job. Her article says I’m not the right person for my position. You can’t argue with that.”
“No, you’re right. She says you’d be better off doing something else that would make you happy.”
Finally, he got it. “I’m plenty happy at Astro,” I said, and I enjoyed being successful. Some people had lots of skills, could turn their hand to anything. I’d been lucky with Astro. Been in the right place at the right time. It was the kind of success that didn’t come along twice in a row, the kind that made me happy.
“Are you really though? You haven’t seemed like yourself since Astro listed on the stock market.”
“Why wouldn’t I be happy? I’m the CEO of a FTSE 100 company—my company. I don’t want to be a show-off, and I know it doesn’t count because I’m not a doctor, but I’m one of the most successful businessmen of my generation.”
Jacob grabbed the screwdriver out of my hand and tried to fit the shelf up by himself as if I wasn’t even there. “You’re a fucking idiot. It’s got nothing to do with being a doctor. You can’t measure happiness and fulfillment on the zeros in your bank account or the share cap of the company you built.”
Silence settled between us as Jacob tried and failed to screw in the bracket. In the end he gave up and turned to face me. “Simple question: Do you enjoy your job?”