Episode 1234: Family Business

He accepted the dog’s quick greeting then quickly made a call to his son-in-law who he’d only just left a moment earlier.

After getting a promise from Ryley and Damita that they wouldn't divulge the news of a Marques returning to the company, he hung up without answering any of their further inquiries.

“None of it is a done deal yet,” Phillip said to Walter, scrubbing his furry head, “as much as I want it to be. It’s not like me to be so giddy that I can’t contain myself. I don’t want word to get back to Sebastian and have him feel like his autonomy was taken away. We know Avalon would have an opinion on my making choices for him and put a kibosh on the whole endeavor. I can’t have that, not when it feels like Sebastian is so close to changing his no to a yes. As excited as I am about the possibility of working alongside my son, I need to stop being such an uncharacteristic blabbermouth.”

“We should have only agreed to keep quiet about him bringing in one of his nepobabies if he guaranteed this hiring wouldn’t leave us redundant and fired,” Damita said. Her arms were tightly crossed as she paced the boardroom’s lush carpet.

“We’ll still have our jobs,” Ryley said, finally getting out of his own head enough to quell his colleague’s concerns. “We might be bumped down the power list a little but our jobs are safe. I’ve been here long enough to see Sebastian and Justine come and go from the mothership without their tenures coming at the cost of anyone else. Don’t worry about losing your job.”

“If our jobs are safe and our bumps down the power ladder only slight, why do you look like you’re freaking out as much as I am?” Damita asked.

“I’m worried about my wife. Marques didn’t say which of his children is supposedly coming to work here.”

“Well, it won’t be her, that’s way more ridiculous to worry about than losing our jobs,” Damita replied. “She already has her theater thing. It has to be one of the other two. Does the son even have a job? It has to be him.”

“Maybe. But lately Addie has been consumed with making the theater an even bigger success and if her father convinced her that joining forces would do that… I just… His influence on her right now would just make a bad situation worse. She’s been prioritizing the wrong things the last few months, the last thing she needs is him in her ear telling her she’s doing the right thing when she’s not, when it hasn’t been good for our family.”

He and Damita didn’t usually talk about anything personal, still, she took what he said without missing a beat, seizing her opportunity to try to reassure him as he’d tried to do for her earlier about their jobs. “I’m telling you, it’s her brother who’s taking a position here. If your wife was making such a big move she would have talked it over with you first.”

“I’m not so sure.”

Episode 1235: The Same Old Song