A profound silence settled in the room.
“When I ran out of money, I was evicted,” she continued in a low voice. “I spent months in a women’s shelter.”
Daniel clenched his fists.
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
He looked out the window.
“I eventually found a job as a maintenance worker in a hospital. Then I inherited an old house that my grandmother had left me. It was falling apart… but it was the only thing no one could take from me.”
Daniel lowered his head.
Suddenly, the flowers he held in his hands seemed like stones to him.
Finally, he spoke.
“The company is on the verge of bankruptcy,” he admitted. “Whitmore Industries is on the brink of collapse.”
Emily inclined her head slightly.
“And why would that interest me? Why?”
“You were the true strategist behind our best projects,” Daniel admitted. “Without you… I was just making money.”
Emily slowly took the flowers from her hands.
For a moment, Daniel felt a glimmer of hope.
Then she dropped them to the ground.
“I learned something here,” she said calmly.
“Flowers cannot fill an empty stomach.”
“Fine words don’t pay the bills.”
“And promises don’t heal wounds.”
Daniel swallowed with difficulty.
“So you’re not going to help me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She opened a small wooden box and took out an old folder filled with documents.
“Those were our unfinished projects,” she said. “Ideas you mocked.”
Daniel flipped through the pages.
His heart stopped.
It was a comprehensive strategy to make the company a global leader in sustainable technologies.
“That’s wonderful,” she murmured.
“It was wonderful ten years ago,” he replied.
Continued on the next page
