“You expanded it.
You served as chief executive.
You became its public face.
Those are not the same thing as owning a controlling interest.”
Dominic looked around the table.
“Everybody here knows what I built.”
One board member lowered his eyes to the document.
Another began reading the attached schedule.
Their silence was different from the silence at the theater.
Last night, people had been embarrassed for me.
This morning, they were calculating what Dominic’s mistake might cost them.
He realized it too.
“Eliza,” he said, turning toward me.
His voice softened.
“Enough.
You’re hurt.
I understand that.”
The condescension was almost impressive.
He had kissed another woman in front of two hundred cameras and still thought my problem was wounded feelings.
“Do you?” I asked.
“What happened with Sierra was a mistake.”
Beside him, Sierra went rigid.
There it was.
The first crack between them.
Last night she had believed the kiss made her chosen.
Now Dominic was already calling her a mistake.
She looked at him.
“Dominic.”
He ignored her.
“We can handle this privately,” he told me.
“There’s no reason to damage the company over our marriage.”
Arthur reached for the second document.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “you made the matter public yourself.”
He passed around a provision from Dominic’s executive agreement.
My father had insisted on it when Dominic became chief executive: conduct creating material reputational exposure, conflicts involving direct reports, concealment of relationships affecting corporate governance, or public behavior reasonably likely to impair investor confidence could trigger an emergency review of executive authority.
It did not automatically fire Dominic.
It did something he hated more.
It took the decision out of his hands.
Arthur continued.
“As controlling shareholder, Mrs.
Stone requested the review at 12:18 this morning.
The board was notified at 12:31.
Pending the board’s determination, Mr.
Stone’s authority to enter extraordinary transactions, remove senior executives, access trust-held assets, or represent himself as acting with unrestricted corporate authority has been suspended.”
Dominic pushed his chair back.
“You suspended me?”
“The board did,” I said.
He looked toward the directors.
Not one contradicted me.
His face reddened.
“Because I kissed someone?”
Sierra flinched at the word someone.
Arthur closed one document and opened another.
“No.
The kiss is evidence of a broader governance concern.”
This was the part Dominic had not anticipated.
