Chapter Thirty-Seven
Cameron
I had only left Natalie's house twice over the weekend, the first being back to the cabin to move all my stuff into my parents' house. I had thought about it and decided not to take my place in Provo off the market. I wanted to be close to Natalie, and I could still do that from Holladay. My parents had built their home with their family in mind. I hadn't been in enough of a hurry to introduce them to any grandkids, but I felt that if that was in the cards for me, I wanted to do that in the family home.
Natalie had come with me, and it had been a little painful bringing her to my parents' house without any parents she could meet. My father had known her, which comforted me a little. I wanted to think that he liked her too since apparently, he had talked to her and asked her to help him speak to me about taking over the company. She had told me the story as she helped me go through my parents' stuff at the house. All my mom's jewelry, their art, clothes, cars, some of it had to go. Not all of it; I didn't think I'd be able to say goodbye to everything, but some of it definitely would have been better going to someone who could use it.
We had been in the great room downstairs; I had been giving Natalie a tour of the place. She loved it. It was starkly different from the interior decoration of her home, but she loved looking at all the collections my parents owned: their antiques, the china, the furniture, and the books; I felt a little proud showing it all to her. It had become mine though tragedy, but it made me think, recklessly that she wouldn't mind that much living there with me. I wasn't going to ask her, of course. Not yet, but it made me hopeful for a time that I maybe could.
There was a family portrait on the wall of the three of us with portraits of the extended family covering the rest of the wall, all the way back to my great-great-grandfather and his family who had emigrated from Scotland. She told me that he had come to her and asked her to talk to me for him.
"What had he expected you to say?" I had asked her.
"I don't know. He kept talking about you and me being peers, almost the same age and what not so maybe my opinion would be easier to swallow for you than his."
"I guess he was kind of right?"
"I don't know. I think he overestimated how much clout anything I say has with you."
"I think he might have seen something I hadn't," I had told her.
I would never get to introduce my parents to another woman again, and being with Natalie after a while of not being involved with anyone, that sucked. I was proud of Natalie. A corporate lawyer as a girlfriend who looked like that? Hell yeah, I was proud, but there was this loss that I didn't think I'd be able to get over. This feeling that I could have listened to my mom's nagging and done the wife and kids thing early enough for them to have gotten to see. On the other hand. I knew they wouldn't have wanted me to rush into anything and end up unhappy, so it was a weird place to be.
The second place I had gone, without Natalie that time, had been the cemetery where my parents were buried. I had been back since the funeral, but it had felt necessary to visit them since once again, things were changing for me. I was back and staying this time. All the shit they had tried to drum into me for the past almost thirty years had finally crystallized. Better late than never, I guessed. I was here now, and since this had been the destination all along, I was going to chalk the bumps in the road up to lessons learned.
Natalie spent the night with me at my parents’ place Sunday night so we could go to work together Monday morning. The staff at the house had been happy to hear that there would be someone living there again, and honestly, I had, too. The house was big, and the grounds were bigger; I didn't need all that space to myself, but it gave me that solitude I sometimes craved without being totally out of the way in isolation. I had been in enough relationships to know that it was like being on drugs when everything was new and fresh. The possibilities felt infinite. I knew how easy it was to get carried away thinking about Natalie, but it didn't feel like a fantasy with her. Maybe one day, I'd fill the house up so it wasn't just me and the staff, and I could say that if that future was for me, I could see myself sharing it with Natalie.
In the whirlwind of the past weeks, I felt level again. Walking into work with Natalie, I realized that not everyone felt the same way. It took forever to get from the ground floor lobby up to the top floor because there had apparently been more questions about me than anyone had been available to answer.
"We have to talk to Brett," Natalie said, as we came out of the elevator. We walked fast to discourage anyone slowing us down to talk to me.
"Have you talked to him this weekend?"
"No. Nothing," she said. So he doesn't know I'm back yet, I thought. How would he react to that? I wanted to say well, but I had pretty much hung the guy out to dry while I ran away to a mountain sanctuary with no way of anyone contacting me. If him seeing me again was the catalyst that made him walk out the door, then I couldn't be mad about it or even blame him. We went to his office and found out from Hope, who had stayed on and been assisting him after my dad's death, that he was heading a stockholder meeting.
"I didn't realize it would all happen so fast," Natalie said as we made our way to the conference room where the meeting was already in progress. "I don't have to be here for this, right?"
"The hell you don't," I said, taking her hand before she got any ideas. I pushed the door open, and we walked in without knocking. Brett was standing at the head of the table. Four men, vaguely familiar but whom I wouldn't be able to name if my life depended on it, were around the table with two others I had never seen. I got to see the exact moment when everyone realized what was happening.
"Gentlemen," I said when nobody else said anything.
"Cameron." Brett looked... he looked good. I mean he looked the same. It had only been a few weeks, so I wasn't sure what I had been expecting exactly. What I was getting was nothing. He recovered from his lapse and quickly turned back to the men, introducing me. I reluctantly let go of Natalie's hand when she pulled it out of my grasp. It wasn't the time or the place. I had been away from work for a long time, and if everything I had heard was true, none of the men around that table had a very high opinion of me.
There was a Mr. Granger, Mr. Giordano, Mr. Hollis, and Mr. Chaffin. The last two men were the investors who had been interested in taking my percentage of the company off my hands. Just a few days ago, I had been more than ready to hand it over, but I had to ruin their day today.
"The way Mr. Hamm talked about you, we were led to believe we'd never see you again," Mr. Chaffin said.
"Unfortunately, you're about to see a lot more of me from now on." The atmosphere was a little wired, but they were restraining themselves.
"Welcome, Mr. Porter. You'll find that many things have happened during your absence," one of the men said. I'd get their names down eventually. I'd have to at this rate if I was staying.
"I'm aware. The arrangement with Mr. Hamm was never meant to be permanent. We have remained in contact throughout."
"Your reappearance no doubt signals a change of plans?"
"Not a change, simply what has been intended since the beginning," I said. Brett moved from where he had been standing and let me take over. He took a seat near the far end of the table, and Natalie took one next to him. Whatever they had been talking about before was soon forgotten. Moments after I sat, the questions began. I hadn't known what we would be walking into, just that I had taken my time up to now and could no longer afford to do that.
The short explanation was Porter Holdings would continue as an organization under my management, a decision that had been in place more or less since I had been born. The longer explanation was I knew my place now. I had been fighting back against something I had built up in my head. Running wasn't an option. It had never been an option. I had control over who I was and what I did, which was all anyone was allowed to ask. Porter Holdings was what my father had left behind besides me, and it was my job to take care of it.
The investors more than any of the stockholders were understandably upset about the deal falling through, but after talking to them about upcoming developments, their interest was piqued again. They agreed to keep in touch. It took maybe thirty or forty minutes from the time Nat and I arrived until the meeting's end. The men filtered out ‘til it was just Brett, Natalie, and I left.
"You know what?" Brett said finally. He hadn't said much through the meeting, mostly letting me carry it. "Your father would have been proud seeing that."
"I'd sure hope so. He's probably been turning in his grave this past month."
"I'm going to guess you had something to do with finally getting him back down off the mountain," he said, looking at Natalie. She blushed and looked at her hands on the table.
"You didn't ask for her help not thinking it would work, did you?"
"Might have worked too well," he laughed. Natalie laughed too, and I had to wonder how much he knew about what had happened between us.
"This was what you wanted, wasn't it?"
"It was what your father wanted. He wouldn't have wanted to leave the company to anyone but you." I nodded, getting it, finally. "Are you ready to get back to work?"
"Yeah," I said, looking over at Natalie, "heads up though. You're not off the hook yet, neither of you." Brett laughed and said he had figured as much. It had never been the plan to abandon me once my father died. He came over and hugged me, welcoming me back before walking off, leaving Natalie and me together.
"You did so well, Cameron," she said.
"Yeah? Can't believe how boring those fucking things are."
"Get used to it. No, not here," she said, pushing my hand away as I tried to touch her. "Not at work."
"Can't I do what I want? I thought I was the boss now."
"Then when will you find time for all your responsibilities?" she asked sweetly. After a while of not being here, I was about to become busy again but in a different way. I let it slide, and we walked over to my dad's old office and let ourselves in. To my new office, and you know what? It felt great.