Chapter 14: She Handled It Well

Zake's POV

Carson opened with the quarterly report.

"Revenue is down four percent from last quarter." He set the report down. His eyes hadn't left Kiera since she sat. "Which brings us to the current situation." A pause. "The uncertainty around leadership."

"The leadership," Kiera said, "is sitting at the head of this table. What's the uncertainty?"

"You have no background in this industry." Carson's expression didn't change.

"I have no background in this specific company," she said. "That's different."

"Is it?" Williams cut in from finance without looking up from his copy of the report. "No finance degree. No track record in anything connected to what we do here. No..."

"I have a six-year track record of building a company from nothing." She looked directly at Williams. "Revenue up forty percent year on year for the last three. Ninety-two percent client retention rate. Twelve-person team with a waiting list." She tilted her head slightly. "What are your retention numbers looking like?"

Williams looked up.

The table went quiet.

"Events planning," Carson said, "is not..."

"Is not finance. Yes, I know." She turned back to him. "I'm not walking in here claiming to know everything about this industry. I'm walking in claiming to know how to run something, how to make decisions, how to build teams, how to keep clients, how to grow something people said was too small to matter."

"You've been gone your entire life." Carson pressed forward. "This company existed without you. Henry ran it, built it, kept it standing for thirty years and you..."

"I inherited it," she said. "Whether that's convenient for this table or not. My name is on the deed. My name is now on the door. That's not up for debate."

"She also walked away from her London business," Williams said. "Left it. Which, frankly, raises questions about..."

"I didn't leave it." Her voice sharpened. "I left it in the hands of people I hired and trained. It is still running. I am still running it remotely. Which means I was managing two things at the same time before I walked into this building."

Murmurs began. Low, tense.

"The professional concerns are noted," Daphne said. "But there's something else the board needs to address."

She folded her hands.

"The media coverage, the child. The public questions around paternity." She paused, letting it sit. "That kind of personal instability attached to the CEO's name affects the company's image. The stock price already reacted to the wedding announcement. Add this and..."

"That's enough." My voice cut through cleanly.

Daphne looked at me. The room looked at me.

"Her family is not a talking point." I held Daphne's gaze. "If you have a professional concern about her ability to lead this company, put it on the table. If you're using her personal life because you've run out of legitimate arguments, this meeting is over."

"It is a legitimate..."

"It is not." I looked around the table. "She walked into this building as the CEO and the majority shareholder. Her name is on this company alongside her father's and the next person at this table who decides her personal life is relevant to her professional abilities is going to have a very short conversation with me about their future here." I leaned back. "Are we clear?"

Nobody said anything.

Carson's jaw tightened. He looked at Kiera, then at me, then back at Kiera like he was recalibrating something.

Fiona, who hadn't said a single word the entire meeting, hands folded, completely still, was watching Kiera from across the table with an expression nobody could read.

Kiera looked back at her for exactly one second. Then looked away first.

"The stock dropped four percent," Kiera said, pulling the room back, her voice completely even again. "Walk me through why."

Carson blinked. "The announcement..."

"Which announcement specifically?" She asked. "The inheritance or the marriage?"

"Both generated.."

"So the market reacted to uncertainty," she said. "Which means the market needs certainty. Which is what I'm here to establish."

She looked at the report in front of her.

"The China market restructure in Q3," she continued. "it's incomplete. Why was it stalled?"

"Resource allocation. Henry was..." Damian stopped. Started again. "There were other priorities."

"Our number one priority is to finish it," She looked up. "The EU client relationships that have been stagnant, I've read the correspondence. Three of those accounts are salvageable. We go back to them."

She turned a page.

"Can someone explain to me why the internal communications structure looks like it hasn't been updated since 2018." She paused, apparently finding the right word. "That is a mess."

A beat of silence.

"It is," Damian said. "It's been a mess for three years."

"Then we fix it." She looked at him directly. "I want two hours with your team this week. I want to understand what's actually here before I start moving things."

Damian looked at her for a long moment.

"We can do that Friday morning," he said.

"Friday morning it is then," she agreed.

"You've been here three days," Carson said. "You're talking about restructuring communications, finishing a multi-million dollar market initiative, rebuilding EU client relationships..."

"Yes." She looked at him. "Is that a problem?"

"It's ambitious for someone who just arrived." He said.

"I'm going to keep being ambitious," she said. "Whether this board is comfortable with it or not, and in six months when the numbers reflect it, I'd like to revisit this conversation." She looked around the table one more time. "Any other concerns?"

Silence.

"Good." She closed her folder. "Then we're done for today."

People filed out fast. Nobody made sustained eye contact. Carson left last, slowly.

The door closed.

Kiera sat for a moment without moving.

Then she exhaled, barely audible, completely controlled, and stood up.

She stood up. "Thank you."

"For what?" I asked.

"You know what." She turned. "You didn't have to..."

"You're my wife." I said it simply. "That's what I'm supposed to do."

She looked at me with the expression she used when she didn't have a counter-argument and wasn't ready to admit it.

"Go find your office," I said. "It's got your name on the door."

She nodded, then walked to the door and pushed it open.

Derek was already in my office.

He was standing at the window with his coffee, which meant he'd been thinking.

"Okay so," He turned around. "That was genuinely one of the most intense board meetings I've ever watched through a glass panel and I have watched a lot of board meetings through glass panels."

"They tried to undermine her." He said.

"The way she dove straight to the Q3 numbers," he sat down. "That was impressive, she handled the room well."

"She prepared for it." I said.

"You briefed her." He said.

"She prepared," I said again.

"The board is going to give her a hard time." Derek said. "Carson isn't done and Williams is going to find a new angle."

"She can handle it." My voice was steady.

"Yeah, with you next to her." He said. "You two were something in there. She moves, you cover. You push, she closes it. The Full power couple."

I said nothing. Derek was quiet for a moment.

"Henry would have liked her," He said finally. "The way she sat at that table. The way she didn't flinch."

"He did like her," I said quietly. "He just didn't know how to say it while he was alive."

Derek looked at me.

I turned to my screen.

"Get me the updated Q3 projections," I said. "She's going to need them for Friday."