He looked at me as if he thought I was joking.
I turned the phone toward him.
The message requested a meeting with senior officials at the Pentagon.
“Potential contract value is forty-seven million.”
“The Pentagon wants to hire you?”
“They want to discuss the system.”
“For what?”
“Training. Adaptive education tools can be used in many settings.”
He read the message again.
“This is real?”
“Yes.”
He handed the phone back.
For several seconds, neither of us said anything.
The lab hummed around us.
Marcus looked from the message to the servers, from the servers to the awards, then toward the window where the roofline of my ordinary white house was visible through the trees.
“When you were working on your laptop at family dinners…”
“I was usually reviewing proposals, managing development projects, or communicating with clients.”
“And when we told you to stop playing with computers…”
“You were telling me to stop running my company.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“We had no idea.”
“No.”
“Because you never told us.”
“I did tell you pieces of it.”
He looked at me.
“And we didn’t listen.”
“That’s closer.”
We walked back toward the main house.
The three supercars were still visible inside the open garage.
Marcus’s red Porsche sat in the driveway beyond them.
For the first time, he looked at it without pride.
“Emma, I owe you the biggest apology of my life.”
“Yes, you do.”
He nodded.
“We were wrong about your job.”
“Yes.”
“Your finances.”
“Yes.”
“Your choices.”
“Yes.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“You could make this easier on me.”
“I’ve been making it easy on you for years.”
That stopped him.
He looked toward the Honda.
“We were completely wrong.”
“You were focused on what success looks like from the outside. You never bothered to find out what it looked like on the inside.”
He studied the Civic.
“So the Honda really is just your daily car.”
“It’s reliable. It’s inexpensive to operate. It blends in.”
“And the house.”
“Paid for. Customized. Private. Close to my development facility.”
“And the clothes.”
“Comfortable.”
He shook his head.
“I spent three hours explaining wealth to a woman worth ninety-four million dollars.”
“That did happen.”
A small laugh escaped him, then disappeared.
“I’m embarrassed.”
“You should be embarrassed by how you spoke to me. Not by the Honda.”
He looked at me.
“That’s fair.”
My phone rang again.
This time the screen showed Janet Rodriguez, my chief financial officer.
I answered.
“Hi, Janet.”
“Emma, I have the final Q4 numbers.”
“Go ahead.”
“Revenue came in at twenty-one point four million, up forty-three percent from last quarter. Net profit was twelve point eight million.”
Marcus’s jaw dropped.
I glanced at him but kept listening.
“Excellent. Cash position?”
“Thirty-one point seven million in liquid assets, plus eighteen million in the expansion fund.”
“Good. Authorize the new East Coast facility.”
“Already in progress. Boston should be operational by March.”
“Perfect. Send me the construction update tomorrow.”
We ended the call.
Marcus stared at me.
“Thirty-one million in cash?”
“Operating liquidity.”
“And another eighteen million in expansion funds?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re opening another facility?”
“Our third major development center. The main operations are here, we have a secondary center in Austin, and Boston will help us serve East Coast clients.”
He sat down on the front steps.
For once, he had no lecture prepared.
“Emma.”
I waited.
“How do we make this up to you?”
I leaned against the porch railing.
“You can start by understanding that success comes in different forms.”
He nodded.
“You can stop judging people’s worth by visible possessions.”
Another nod.
“And you can recognize that some people don’t need to advertise everything they’ve built.”
“What else?”
“You can stop treating my work with children like a sentimental side project.”
“I will.”
“The students we serve matter. The labs matter. The scholarships matter. The teachers matter.”
“I understand.”
“No. You’re beginning to understand.”
He accepted the correction.
“And the Honda?”
I looked toward it.
“You can stop being embarrassed by a reliable car.”
Marcus finally laughed.
A real laugh this time.
“I promise never to complain about the Honda again.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Victoria.
Marcus leaned over slightly.
“What did she say?”
I read it aloud.
“‘Marcus, what’s taking so long? Did you finish explaining to Emma why she needs to get her life together?’”
He closed his eyes.
“That aged badly.”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand.
“What should I tell her?”
“Tell her I’ll be happy to discuss my life choices at next month’s family gathering.”
He typed.
“And?”
“Tell her I might drive something different to the country club.”
Marcus looked toward the garage.
“Which one?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“The Ferrari?”
“Maybe.”
“The Aston?”
“Maybe.”
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