CEO Humiliated the Single Dad at Christmas — Then Her Father Called Him “Boss”
Chapter 8
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He had been reconciling the master seating file against the printed cards because the head table had an empty setting, and the name on it matched a guest already seated by the kitchen doors. He brought it to her quietly, holding the tablet at an angle so only she could see, and said the placement had come down from the chairman's office in the original file six weeks ago, at position two.Position two at the head table is the seat on the chairman's immediate right. It is not assigned by accident, and it is not assigned to plant managers.Celeste read it twice and arrived at the only conclusion her framework permitted: her father had done this. Her father—who had spent three years pretending to be retired and still took calls from her board members—had reached into her event, at her hotel, on her night, and seated one of his sentimental strays at her right hand, in front of Hollerin Steel and two of her largest institutional holders. It was not, to her, a question of one chair: it was a question of whether the chairman's office could still reach into her company and move things, and whether the people in that room could see it happening.She crossed the floor with the folded card in her hand, and she did not go quietly this time, because the point of what came next was that it be witnessed."Luke."She stopped at the table by the kitchen doors, and four directors drifted after her, the way people drift toward a scene they intend to describe later. She set the head table card face up on the linen so that he could read his own name on it."There's been a clerical problem, and I'd rather resolve it directly than have you sit through the rest of the evening with the wrong expectation. You were placed at the head table. That placement was a mistake, or a favor, and either way, it isn't going to stand."She picked the card back up, tore it once cleanly, and let both halves fall beside his water glass. "Christmas charity ends at the lobby."Luke looked at the two halves of the card for a moment. Then he looked up at her, and his voice was so ordinary that it took several people a full second to register what he had actually asked."Are you sure that's what you want?""Very," Celeste said."All right." He pushed his chair back and stood, taller than she had estimated. "Then what would you like me to do with the rest of my evening?"She had not expected the question, and because she had not expected it, she answered it with the first thing that would restore her footing in front of the four people watching: there were, she said, roughly 200 employee gift boxes on pallets in the service corridor behind the kitchen, which needed to reach the loading dock before midnight because the vendor truck came at 6:00; logistics was short two people; if he wanted to stay for the dessert service, he was welcome to make himself useful in a way that actually matched his skill set.