Then I remember what Davis told me in the car: He’s as nervous as I am about this meeting, and yet here he is, playing subtle and stupid corporate power games with the single most intimidating man I’ve ever seen.
Be confident, be cutting, and be an asshole.
True to form, Davis and Gus both get right down to business. Davis volleys questions and Gus answers them succinctly, before sending his own questions back at Davis.
—Would you replace our corporate functions in favor of your own?—
—We would most likely integrate them into our existing teams and they wouldn’t be FundRight-specific. But nobody would lose their jobs.—
—And if they don’t want to work for Davenport-Ridgeway?—
—We would buy out their contracts via severance. What’s the sentiment rating for the acquisition?—
—Seventy-nine percent approval.—
This goes on for a good twenty minutes at least, and my head is spinning the entire time. It’s genuinely like watching a tennis match, where my eyes go back and forth between the two men who talk increasingly less politely as the meeting progresses.
“Look,” Gus says after Davis asks him about their current valuation. “I’m well aware that your father’s dinosaur of a company is used to getting what it wants. I read the news and I follow the tickers. You and I both know that you didn’t need to fly to London to tell me how many successful acquisitions you’ve all gotten under your belts. The real reason why you’re here is because I need persuading. Me. And right now, I don’t know what the hell else you can offer me other than money. To be honest, I’ve got a metric fuck ton of that already.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Davis does that thing where he blinks and glances down at his notebook before he looks back up at Gus.
“If I wasn’t clear,” Gus continues, “I’m asking you all what you have to offer me that I don’t already have.”
“Legacy,” I comment.
To my chagrin, the silence persists, but this time Gus is staring right at me. Those eyes bore into me, and I swear his nostrils flare.
“Did you say legacy?” When he asks the question, the words sound like profanities on his tongue.
“Yes.”
“So you don’t think I have a legacy,” he clarifies, keeping his expression flat and letting the sharpness of his tone do all of the heavy lifting. “You’re telling me that founding a company when I was twenty-two years old from a shitty, leaky flat and turning it into one of the most successful investing ventures in the world, garnering unicorn funding for it in the process, isn’t a legacy?”
“It sounds to me like you’ve peaked,” I answer, which prompts Marvin, seated on the other side of the table, to cough into his own cup of coffee.
Gus reclines in his chair. “That’s the play? You’re going to come in here and insult me and that’s somehow supposed to convince me to sell you my company?”
“I’m not insulting you. I’m offering an opinion of what I see and what I’ve heard. Based on what you’ve said, your legacy is currently comprised of things that you did in the first three years of your career.” I shift in my seat, aware that my heart is pounding so hard that I can feel it through the pulse lines in my arms. “It poses the question: What the hell have you done in the last seventeen years since then?”
He lets out a scoff and glances at Davis before he focuses back on me. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m asking you a question,” I reply, summoning Gus’s attention back. “This is a genuine, real question. What have you done in the last seventeen years that you’re particularly proud of? You sustained your company’s growth, made a lot of money, and according to filings it looks like you’ve secured a spot on a healthy number of ‘richest CEO’ lists. That’s great by most standards, but is that what you’re proud of?”
“Is that not enough for you, Olivia?” he replies, throwing up one hand in this blatantly practiced and condescending gesture. “Have I not achieved enough for you?”
“So you admit, you’ve already done all that you could ever aspire to. The man you are today—that’s the same legacy you’re going to take with you through the rest of your life. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking.”
When I finish speaking, I dare a look in Davis’s direction. When our eyes meet, he doesn’t shift his expression but he does raise the corner of his lips minutely. That small act of confirmation is all I need to keep from second-guessing what I’m doing.
Gus leans forward and rests his arm on the table, his attention drawn to the side. “And if that’s the case,” he begins, “is that so bad?”
“It’s not bad, but it’s a choice. You’re only in your early forties and you’ve been heralded by countless people over the years for being exceptionally good at your job. You have a legacy and it’s a commendable one. It’s more than most of us will ever do. But if you could build a time machine and talk to yourself when you were a kid, would you be excited to tell that kid that you made a metric fuck ton of money by your forties and plan to ride that wave for the next sixty or so years that you have left? Or, would you want to tell that kid that you made a metric fuck ton of money by your forties, sold your company for literal billions, and that you’re going to spend the next sixty or so years doing things far greater than you’ve already achieved?”
With that, I reach out and pick up the pot of hot water in the middle of the table and pour myself a cup of tea.
Gus Winter lets out a heavy breath before he reclines back in his chair. His expression is pensive. “You know, when I was a kid, all I wanted to do was save enough money to go to Graceland,” he says after a long pause.
“Same, but for me it was the Mall of America,” I reply.
“No shit.” Gus lets out a soft chuckle. “Mall of America?”
“I’m from small town Missouri, so the idea of a gigantic shopping mall seemed like the pinnacle of luxury to me. Plus, it was only a couple of states over.”
His stare lingers on me for another beat before he faces Davis. “What about you, Ridgeway? What magical place did you dream of going to when you were a kid? Seeing as your father could take you anywhere, I’m going to guess—Narnia?”
To his credit, Davis takes the dig well. He simply raises a shoulder and says, “The M&M store in Times Square. My dad said it was for tourists.”
“Have you been?” I ask.
“It was the first thing I did when I moved to New York when I was twenty-four,” Davis admits. “And it was worth the wait.”
“Gus, have you been to Graceland?”
“Nope,” he answers. “I’ve never been, and it sounds like I have a hell of a lot more to do.” Gus claps his hands together once before he puts them on the table to scoot his chair in. “So which one of you is going to talk to me about the legacy we’re going to build together?”