"Not the right one."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Hamm. I can understand why it's important that he comes back, but I won't pretend that I get chasing him like a child to take responsibility of something he knows very well is his to take care of. At this point, wouldn't it make sense to let him go? Let him do whatever he's doing up there in the mountains in peace instead of putting everything on hold for when he feels like gracing us with his presence again?"
"If that was an option, we would take it," he said sagely.
I wanted to throw my hands in the air and give up. What were these codes and expectations the people around here operated on? Why did it make more sense to chase a grown man around instead of cutting our losses?
"Mr. Hamm, I think Cameron is showing us just how much he cares about Porter Holdings and the futures of everyone who works here. I don't think it's a jump to suppose his clear lack of passion and willingness would affect the way he ran things even if he did take his rightful place in charge."
He sighed and leaned back in his seat, obviously exhausted even though it was hardly ten in the morning. He was over it. So done with Cameron's ridiculous games. I remembered the conversation we had had a few weeks ago about how he wanted to retire soon.
He was doing what Cameron had asked him: taking the wheel while he was gone, but like everything Cameron had done lately, it didn’t seem that he cared very much what that meant for the older man. He hadn't signed up for this. Angry stockholders calling him names because Cameron wanted to play in the snow. A position he had probably never wanted at Porter Holdings despite how readily he had taken it.
"I'm only doing what his father would want me to do, Natalie," he said quietly. "There are a lot of things they said to each other that I never heard. Cameron knows why his father wants him here, but without him and his mother, he's having trouble returning to the world he believes is vapid and corrupt."
I almost rolled my eyes. Cameron had gone on about that stuff like a broken record when we had had lunch. How out of touch was he? Did he realize it was the fact that he was part of that vapid and corrupt world that he could even afford figuratively and literally to sell his multiple homes and move into the mountains on a whim?
The amount of money and assets that had fallen into his lap after his parents had passed was enough for him to never have to work again if he didn't want to. He thought money and power were wrong, but he wouldn't be Cameron Porter without them. If he hated it so much, why didn't he have more of a problem benefitting from all that access and money? I didn't know whether I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore. I was getting very tired of the headache Cameron Porter was giving everyone around him.
"This can't go on forever."
"You're right. That's why I wanted to talk to you." Goddammit, not again.
"Mr. Hamm, I don't—"
"Please hear me out on this, Natalie. We're the only two people who have any hope of getting through to him." Yeah? Well, I wanted off the Cameron Porter babysitting team. What had I gotten him to agree to besides lunch that one time? And even then, I hadn't been able to get him to stay; he had gone and announced that he was going off the grid to find himself.
"It hasn't worked so far. He doesn't listen to me. He doesn't care."
"He's had time now. He wanted to go out into the mountains and be alone for a while, and he's gotten it. That means he's had time to think."
I jumped to the conclusion he was trying to lead me to and shook my head. "Mr. Hamm, you can't. I can't."
"I know where he's staying. The address of his cabin. I need you to go to him, Natalie."
"Why?" I asked, exasperated. "I'm sorry, Brett, but usually when you give someone a chance, and they don't take it, you give it to someone who will," I said, dropping all formality. What he was asking and had asked me since this whole saga had begun had been miles removed from what I was here at Porter Holdings to even do. I had gotten rop
ed into this as a favor I had promised to Mr. Porter, and now I was suddenly one of the only two people who could possibly get through to Cameron. We weren’t even friends. I didn’t like him, and I knew he felt nothing for me. Even professionally I didn’t think I had a dog in this fight.
Brett remained calm, looking at me from across the desk. "Whatever he's going to do, we need an answer. It may not be the one we want, but we still need to get one."
"I don't know what else I can even say to him, Mr. Hamm."
"Do your best to convince him. We need an answer, yes or no; we can't just hover in between them. The stockholders are going to make sure that we can’t."
"What can they do?" I asked. I knew, but almost nothing was impossible if you had enough money. Cameron was the majority stockholder, as much as he was stressing all of them out. That meant he was at the top of the food chain, and it would be considerably hard to knock him off his throne. Hard, but not impossible.
"Force a buyout," he said grimly. "Take him out of the equation completely."
"That's what he wants."
"If it is, then he has to come here and tell us that himself." I couldn't say anything to that. Here I was again somehow, commissioned to do the impossible. "Our time is going to be limited. I don't expect them to give us longer than a month." It sounded like a long time in theory, but it would go by fast. I had never hated my job before, but after the past couple weeks, I could say that I did. Not the work itself but all the sudden Cameron-centric extracurriculars I had to do. Hate might have been a strong word, but I was tired. Nobody could tell me why we were treating a grown man with kid gloves, and now I had to go to the fucking mountains to coddle him in person.
"When did he head out to the mountains?"
"Friday."
"It's only been a few days then. I don't think that's long enough if I'm supposed to be able to get him to listen to me." Maybe if I bought enough time, he would surprise us and show up again on his own. Hypothermia was no joke. Maybe all he’d need was a few days of frozen mountain air to make him come to his senses. He had done nothing so far to make relating to him easy or even enjoyable. If he did this, I’d be grateful forever. Brett pressed his lips into a line, thinking.