The data room opens at eight. I have the term sheet, two associates, and a reputation for closing mergers other people call impossible. I am Caroline, thirty-six, and I have never walked into a negotiation unprepared. Until the door opens on the other side of the table and the buyer's CEO walks in, and it is Adrian.
Three years. A church in Lyon, a hundred and forty guests, a bouquet I eventually threw in the Rhône. He never sent a word. I had to read his resignation from our old firm in a trade paper.
He sits. He opens his folder. He says, “Good morning, Ms. Aubert,” as if the name is new to him.
My associate begins the walkthrough. I don't hear a word of it. I watch Adrian's hands, which are steady, and his mouth, which is not. He has a new watch. He still taps his pen twice before he speaks. When he finally does, it is to question a clause on page forty, the one I drafted at two in the morning, and his objection is precise and correct and I hate him for it.
We break at eleven. The associates leave for coffee. The room empties until it is the two of us and a bowl of mints no one has touched.
“Six weeks,” he says. “That's the timeline for signing. I suggest we keep this professional for six weeks.”
“You're suggesting silence. You're good at that.” I close my folder. My hand does not shake, and I am proud of it. He looks at me then, properly, for the first time in three years, and there is something in his face that could be regret or could be strategy, and I have built a career on telling those two apart. Today I can't. He slides a sealed envelope across the table. “Read it after signing,” he says. “Or now. Your call.”
