Chapter 20 - PREPARATIONS AND PROMISESThe weeks leading up to our departure for Geneva were a blur of high-energy chaos that only two twelve-year-old twin girls could generate.
Our Boulder ranch became a makeshift laboratory. Blueprints, soldering irons, half-built circuit boards, and spare lithium-ion batteries covered every available surface of the living room coffee table. Elena Vance, now the director of our foundation’s technical division, flew in from Chicago to help the girls package their youth coding project—an AI-driven parental filter designed to detect and block predatory phishing attempts targeting minors online.
"You realize," Elena said, laughing as she watched Betty carefully solder a microchip onto a circuit board, "that by the time these two graduate high school, they’re going to run circles around my entire cybersecurity engineering team at Harden Systems."
"That’s the general plan," Daniel replied, leaning against the doorframe with a mug of coffee in hand, watching his daughters with an expression of intense, quiet pride. "Though I’m hoping they keep their corporate sabotage strictly digital."
I walked up beside him, nudging his shoulder with mine. "You're nervous about the Geneva speech, aren't you?"
Daniel turned his head, raising an eyebrow. "Me? Nervous? I’ve dismantled hostile takeovers and stared down federal prosecutors. Why would I be nervous about talking to a few thousand international policy experts?"
"Because this time, you aren't talking about spreadsheets or market capitalization," I said softly, looking out at the girls. "You're talking about why you walked away from all of it to build a family. That takes a lot more courage than signing a billion-dollar merger."
Daniel fell silent for a moment. He set his coffee cup down on the side table, wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me close against his side.
"You're right," he murmured, pressing his lips to my temple. "For thirty years, I thought my worth was measured by how many servers my company owned or how high our stock climbed. It took a pair of eight-year-old girls with yellow baby shoes and a stubborn mother to teach me that my real net worth was standing right here in the kitchen."
"Don't get too sentimental, CEO Harden," I teased, smiling against his chest. "You still have to pack your own tuxedo."
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"Tuxedo?" Daniel groaned dramatically. "I thought this was a coding conference. Can't I wear my flannel?"
"Not in Geneva, you don't."
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