Chapter 8 - DECLAN PIERCE WAS NOT THE NEXT HUSBAND
The newspapers decided otherwise.
Of course.
Photograph:
Grace entering Pierce Global offices seven months pregnant.
Headline:
CALLOWAY WIFE ALIGNS WITH BILLIONAIRE RIVAL AMID CORPORATE COUP.
Another:
PIERCE, GRACE CALLOWAY SPOTTED TOGETHER AGAIN AFTER CEO OUSTER.
Reality:
Board meeting.
Lawyers.
A baby-carrier catalog Grace accidentally left in Declan’s conference room.
Boring.
The internet disliked boring.
---
Declan called.
“Apparently we’re having an affair.”
Grace looked at Lila sleeping in her bassinet.
“Congratulations.”
“My mother wants details.”
“Tell her I’m exhausted and leaking milk.”
Silence.
Then Declan laughed so hard she had to move the phone away.
“Grace Calloway.”
“You called me.”
“I regret it.”
“No, you don’t.”
He did not.
---
But their relationship stayed exactly what it was.
Professional.
Then friendship.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing romantic required.
Grace appreciated him because he never tried to convert help into intimacy.
Six months after Lila’s birth, Declan offered her a formal board seat.
Grace stared at the contract.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“At Calloway?”
“Yes.”
“You know my divorce is still active.”
“Yes.”
“You know people will say you gave me the seat because we’re sleeping together.”
Declan shrugged.
“People also say I wear lifts.”
Grace looked at his shoes.
“Do you?”
“Meeting over.”
She laughed.
Then became serious.
“Why me?”
He looked at her.
“Because you understood the company’s debt structure faster than two independent directors who have been paid to understand it for six years.”
That answer mattered.
Not:
Because you are brave.
Not:
Because Ethan hurt you.
Competence.
Grace accepted.
---
She returned to corporate work slowly.
Two meetings a month.
Then four.
Harbor developments.
Affordable-housing requirements.
Tenant strategy.
She remembered how much she loved building things.
Not houses exactly.
Systems.
Deals that became streets and windows and places people lived.
She had given that part of herself away gradually.
No one stole it in one moment.
That meant she could take it back the same way.
May you like
Gradually.
---
