I sighed and flopped into the chair in front of his desk. “I would have rather had you with me all day. I’m an idiot.”
Marcel always seemed to see right through me. “How so?”
“York Junior is taking all the bullshit treatment I dish out, or worse, turning it back on me. It’s not as much fun as I’d hoped.”
Marcel bit his tongue and tried not to smile but failed. I glared at him.
“Grey, perhaps the incident in the past doesn’t carry as much weight for him as it still does for you. And maybe he doesn’t care as much about his reputation at the office as you think he does. I did the research you asked. It looks like he’s moved to Vermont to work for a small private boarding school. Warrington Academy.”
The news surprised me. I might have expected him to teach at a small law school or even teach law at a community college. But high schoolers? “Never heard of it. What’s he teaching?”
“He’s the head of development, which usually means corralling the alumni and pressuring them into donating money.”
That didn’t make any sense. “He went to a boarding school in Connecticut. I could understand him returning there out of some kind of… sentimentality. But why Vermont?”
“I’m not sure yet. His sister works at the school too. Maybe that was the draw.”
I thought back to the young woman I’d seen with the York family at the country club during those summers. Gigi York had been a stunning woman, tall with long, wavy blond hair. She’d always been kind to the people around her, and I’d wondered if she’d taken after her mother while Ellison had taken after their father. Mrs. York had also never had a cruel word to say to any of the servers at the club, but that didn’t mean she was a good person. Plenty of those club members had the ability to act one way in public and quite another in private.
“I wonder why he no longer wants to practice law,” I thought out loud. It was curious. An ambitious, very well-educated attorney with over ten years of experience in New York could earn obscene money on a partner track at almost any firm in town. With degrees from Yale and Columbia, he could probably write his own ticket. I couldn’t imagine a development director salary even broke six figures. I knew from the company reports he’d been making over half a million a year at York before any profit sharing. “Could there have been a falling-out with his father?”
Marcel shook his head. “I did a few discreet inquiries with some of the junior staff members here. Supposedly, Ellison and his dad aren’t close. He’s much closer to his sister and mother. And according to the head of Human Resources, Warren offered Ellison a huge promotion and raise to renew his employment commitment to York. He turned it down.”
I didn’t want to like Ellison, but I couldn’t help thinking of the ancient proverb: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Screw that.
Ellison York would never be my friend.
I stood up and glanced back at Marcel. “See if you can find out why. Is there a woman in Vermont? Maybe he met her through his sister. If he didn’t move for money, he had to have moved for love. It’s one or the other.”
The thought of Ellison and a faceless but attractive high school teacher who wanted to play house with him made my skin crawl. He was about the right age to find a wife and settle down. Surely his mother would be thrilled for him to find a nice, upscale suburb to raise a family in.
I could just picture him with a house and yard, a family SUV with bumper stickers on it bragging about their lacrosse stars and honor students. The nausea I felt at the image was my own abhorrence of anything so conforming and domestic. I would have loved for my mother to have had the opportunity to become one of those moms, but life wasn’t fair to most of us. At least now she got to live a life of comfort and ease, but it would never take away the things she’d sacrificed first.
After leaving Marcel, I made my way back upstairs and entered the conference room again, quickly taking my seat and murmuring an apology to Desi for being late.
I glanced at Ellison, who looked uncomfortable and anxious. That was unexpected.
I got right down to business. “I wanted to take the opportunity to check in with you about your thoughts and feelings regarding the transition of majority ownership and find out what your own goals are. As you know, I wanted to meet personally with several of the top executives before coming to a decision about your future with the company.”
Desi seemed completely at ease. He proceeded to flatter me and try to impress me with several humble brags. When I asked him about specific plans and goals for the next several years of asset management at York, he answered in generalities and made ridiculous comments like “I see York continuing to grow and flourish over time. We have an excellent team and will stay focused on our mission to create wealth and support successful investment endeavors.”
When I encouraged him to speak more specifically about how he’d like to see York change and/or grow, he repeated the same generalities. I even asked targeted questions about what industry sectors he felt the company should focus on and what rounds of seed or series funding he felt were best for York’s portfolio.
“All of them,” he responded with a grand wave of his arm. “The more, the better if you ask me.”
I glanced over at Ellison and saw the same look on his face I probably had on mine. Surprise mixed with serious concern. This was the CFO of an incredibly large venture capital firm, and he was speaking like a first-year marketing intern. The man was playing me.
“That sounds excellent, Desi,” I said, standing up to indicate the end of the meeting. Whatever reason Desi Martinez had for answering my questions so vaguely, it was clear he was not going to continue in his role as CFO any longer. “Why don’t I think over your outlook and come back to you with any questions I have? I appreciate your time.”
We shook hands before Desi turned to thank Ellison too. “Ellison, son, I hope to see you back with us now that we’re under exciting new management,” he said with a smile. “I’m sure your dad would be happy to have a York on the team regardless of who’s in charge.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you,” Ellison said politely.
As soon as Desi left, Ellison moved to close the door behind him. “That was a disaster,” he muttered.
“Where the hell did he come from? Is he that uninformed, or was he trolling me?”
“Does it matter? If he’s uninformed, he needs to go. If he’s disrespecting you by acting uninformed, he needs to go. It’s the latter, by the way. Besides, when I asked him about the investments, he claimed ignorance. That didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was the look on his face. Like we both knew he was lying about it. He had a kind of… I don’t know. Twinkle in his eye, like I was supposed to know the truth of it somehow. Regardless, if he did this knowingly, he deliberately violated company policy. That could have legal ramifications. If York was ever tied up in litigation over questionable business practices and it came to light that the executives—”
I held up a hand to stop him since he seemed fairly upset about it. “You’re right. The truth doesn’t matter if we’re going to let him go anyway. I appreciate your honesty about it.” And it was true. I was pleasantly surprised, not only at his candor with me, but by the obvious disappointment he felt at the disloyalty by the York CFO. It implied Ellison himself had an ethical standard. And that he chose the side of right rather than the side of family loyalty.