The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

Harry stalled. Two, three sips of his glass of water. “Indefinitely.”

“By indefinitely do you mean months?” He gripped the chair arms. Months was a non-issue. Annoying at worst.

“I mean indefinitely. I’m sixty-two. I’m in good health. There’s no reason why I need to retire anytime soon.”

Jesus H. Christ. “That’s not what we agreed.” Were the rumors true? Was there an affair, a divorce in the offing?

“You’re, what, Tom? Thirty, half my age. You have time on your side. I wasn’t CEO till I turned forty-five.”

“I’m supposed to wait around for you to decide to retire.”

“That was our agreement.” Harry dropped the friendly tone. “You’d take over after me.”

“But you announced your retirement date.” Tom tried to keep his own tone neutral, but it was like he could hear the color red.

“I just unannounced it. I did you the courtesy of telling you first.”

Red was discordant jazz, a loud jangle of irritating sound that sparked up his spine. “And if that’s not suitable for me?”

“What’s not suitable is that sounds like a threat, Tom.”

He couldn’t unhear his own anger but he couldn’t let it take him over. “It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Waiting on you with no indication of how long I’m supposed to stick around isn’t what we agreed.”

“Look, I’m not unsympathetic to your disappointment,” Harry said, eyes sliding sideways to his desktop. He wanted out of this conversation. Here come the platitudes. “We value you. You’re a sharp operator. A superstar. But you’re not the only suitable candidate in the city, or the Rendel network, for MD.” He refocused on Tom for the punch line. “If you should choose to move on, we’ll regret it. As you well know, Rendel is stronger than any one employee.”

Stronger than Tom O’Connell. Not, it seemed, stronger than Harry Hardiman.

He left Harry’s office, fifteen minutes after he’d arrived. That’s how long it took to break a promise and derail years of deliberate commitment, unshakable loyalty, and single-minded ambition.

Wren was waiting in his office, her lips crumpled into a cartoon character look of distress. “He doesn’t mention family trouble in the memo,” she said. “Just that he’s not retiring.”

That was quick. It accounted for the eyes on him as he made his way across the office. Now everyone would be waiting for his reaction.

He looked at his desk. He was supposed to sit in it and bill clients for the time he spent thinking about how to help them sell more drugs, devices and procedures. He was supposed to manage a team of consultants who did the same, each with their own portfolio of clients. He made this firm millions of dollars every year. That was his job, as long as he still wanted it.

“You should get outta here,” Wren said. “Go hike a mountain.”

He had deadlines, a 4:45 work-in-progress meeting.

Fuck ’em. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“Will you?”

He shut her down. “I’ll see you Monday, Wren.” She had the right advice, but it wasn’t mountains he needed. He stepped outside the elevator and pulled his phone from his pocket to turn it off. There was a text from Wren: Don’t fall off.

Another from Josh. Shit, T. Am so sorry.

He should read Harry’s memo, so he knew what everyone else was seeing, right across the Rendel network, all the way to Beijing.

He responded with, Totally pissed off with Harry.

Josh was online. Three little dots and then, Understandable. What now?

Fucked if I know. Need to think.

Here if you need me.

Tom typed his thanks and muted his phone. That red jazz was still in his head, it clattered in his body all the way to the market, down the fresh food aisle. It accompanied him while he slung chicken breasts, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, onions and breadcrumbs in the cart. It thumped behind his eyes while he got eggs, then detoured for beer before checking out of there. He couldn’t think for the distraction of it, just went through the motions.