by Claire Adams
"Like chasing money, letting power go to your head, losing moral values."
I frowned. "Chasing money? All a lot of people want is just enough to be comfortable. Enough to feed themselves and their family while keeping the house warm during winter."
"When you have everything, you move the goalposts, rewrite the rules."
"You're Cameron Porter. Sounds like that description could apply to several people you know personally," I said. "And to you too."
He scoffed. "You're right, but not about me."
It was now my turn to scoff. "You're the exception? Of course you are."
"I didn't say I was, I just said you were wrong," he said as he leaned forward again. "What do you do when you finally have everything you're supposed to want? Money, love, power—what then?"
I shrugged. "Live happily ever after."
"You'd think, but a lot of people don't stop. They keep going. More money, cars, power, sex, more than they need or even want because that's what happens. At a certain point, it isn't about what you want; it's about what you're supposed to want."
"And what’s that? A life of degeneracy?"
"Sold as the ultimate destiny," he said.
This was heavy lunch conversation. It was heavy for any time of the day, but I was the one who had asked him to meet me. We had started small, me asking why he didn't want to work at the company in his father's position. He still hadn't given me a direct answer to that question. Instead, he had taken the scenic route, and we still weren't at the point.
"You sound upset about it."
He shrugged. "That's one way to put it. I'm not upset. I just want more. I want to get to the end of my life and know I lived it on my terms. I didn't lose sight, and I didn't become...that." He said the last word with so much disgust I felt like he had to be referring to a specific individual.
"So what are you going to do?" I asked. He had clearly thought about this a lot; I wanted to hear solutions. If he was disillusioned by the way money and power destroyed people, what was he going to do about it, being a man with both of those things in vast supply?
"I'm leaving."
"What?"
"The world I grew up in is toxic. My parents are probably the only reason why I went to all the parties and events, pretended to like and respect all those people. They're gone, and I don't have to be part of it anymore."
"Wait, you're moving?"
"Soon as I can."
"Wait a minute; you can't just leave. Where are you going?"
"The mountains," he said with an annoying little tilt of his head. Sure. The mountains, because people just went off the grid on a whim like that.
"Be serious," I deadpanned.
"I'm dead serious, Natalie. Hand to god. It's too much. I want out."
"For a vacation? A few weeks ‘til this bout of mania has passed?"
He laughed, which just made me mad. "For as long as it takes. You're worried about the company; I know that's why we're here. I need time to think."
"And the snow-capped Rockies are where you plan to do it," I said dryly. "Listen, Cameron. I don't know if Brett has told you already, but hundreds of people's livelihoods are now your responsibility. I can't put it any plainer than that. You refusing to run your company could mean terrible things for many people."
"What happened to all the time I had to make my decision? All the legal stuff and paperwork selling my stake was going to take?"
I rolled my eyes. "You're not still thinking of doing that," I said.
"Sure am. And I'll be doing it from my wood cabin in the snow-capped Rockies," he said, imitating me. He got up. "Don't you need to get back to work? It's getting kind of late." Fucking asshole, I thought. He had paid the check already; we had lost track of time talking.
"This is a time-sensitive decision," I protested, following him out of the cafe.
"I'll be in touch," he said lightly. He unlocked his car and held the passenger side door open for me. Was he serious? We weren't done yet.
"Cameron, this is big. Bigger than just you. It's the other stockbrokers. It's hundreds of people's jobs." The architects, contractors, landscapers, everyone who got a job when a new property development started. Everyone who would potentially lose their job if both Cameron and Brett were out of the picture. The stake he owned, which was valued in the hundreds of millions, that many people, a lot of those people he claimed to hate so much, would be after him. He slammed the door shut and turned to me.
"I'm not running. You know exactly where to find me. I trust Brett. He'll understand when I tell him what I'm doing." How was he still not seeing the point? "Can I take you back to work now, or is there something else?"
Any more of this, and we'd just keep talking in circles. He was being stubborn. Stubborn and selfish. He wasn't going to budge. I opened the car and got in. He took me back to the office and drove away without a word. I would have to tell Brett this ridiculous plan of his. Yeah, I thought, and he just gets to drive away, not a care in the world about the consequences of his actions and the lives of hundreds of other people. All I would have to do was have an uncomfortable conversation with Brett; for a lot of other people, it was going to be much worse.
Chapter Nine
Cameron
It only took me a few days to get everything packed. The living room, office, and kitchen were already bare. The stuff that wasn't coming to the new house with me was all in storage. I'd do something with it at some point, but nothing was certain yet. I owned my house in Provo and had been going back and forth about selling it. I owned three other places besides the one that I lived in, and those were definitely getting listed. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the properties my parents had owned, so I hadn't done anything. I had a shit pile a mile high to tackle; I had to start somewhere, and this was it. Some time out in the mountains, and I'd probably manage to think of something. If I didn't... well, not doing anything wasn’t an option I had. With everything on my plate, I had to start somewhere. If anything was happening, it wasn't going to happen from here.
I was going to get to the house, settle in, and then once I felt like I wasn't going to explode anymore, the other shit could get taken care of. That was the plan, but I actually had to get out there first. I had moved before, but never like this, out somewhere I’d have no neighbors, and the nearest town was miles away. I was excited; was that weird? It was finally a break. A total separation from everything and everyone I knew. The light had totally gone out for me once my parents had died. I couldn’t do anything to fix the world I lived in, and leaving it wasn’t an absolute solution, but it was the closest I’d ever have to one.
I walked into my bedroom and started moving the boxes full of my clothes out to the truck. I had used it for the first time moving out of my parents’ place and driving to college. I figured I'd get better use out of it than I got out of my BMW, so I sold the car to a dealership. The mountains got snow early, and it would be cold already. I liked to think that I would be prepared, but I wasn't sure what would happen out there. Not once I was alone. I just wanted to leave. I wanted peace, and it wasn't going to come while I was still here. Still surrounded by everything I hated in the wake of my parents' deaths. Frankly, I had nothing to lose and nothing keeping me where I was. It was that simple. Once I finished with the house in an hour or so, I was gone.
My new place was in the mountains. It would take me at least two hours to get there, then up to another hour more on the unpaved mountain trail to get to the actual house. I mean, that was what my realtor had told me. I hadn't been there yet. I had seen enough pictures of the place to get a good enough idea though. It had been out of use for a long time but recently renovated. About one thousand five hundred square feet, secluded after miles of all-weather road. The closest city, Park City, would be thirty miles away.
"Need help?" I looked up and saw Brett coming out of his car. I hadn't heard him drive up. I dusted my hands off and jumped down off the back of my truck.
"Skippin
g work, Brett?" I asked.
"Looks like I caught you just before you went off the grid."
"Naw, it's not all that," I told him. "If I was trying to disappear and never be found again, I'd head out further than just the mountains."
"Natalie told me that was your plan. I had to come ask you myself." He had a coat over his usual work clothes, what I used to wear every day too. Those, I had left in the house. Getting rid of them felt a little premature. I wasn’t chomping at the bit to sell and run anymore, and I wanted to have at least made a definitive decision before letting go of them.
"The two of you seem to spend a lot of time together," I observed.
"That might be changing soon," he said. "She's sick of you."
I nodded and shrugged. "Well, there's no chance of us running into each other again after today."
"Are you sure about this, Cameron?"
"I bought the house already, and I'm moving in."
"I'll tell you," he said, "you couldn't have picked a worse time to do this if you tried."
"I'm sorry, Brett, but I have to do this. I can't be here anymore. Everything was one way, and then it had completely changed in a second. I wasn’t ready for it. I have nothing. Everyone's looking at me to have all the answers, and I just don't Brett. Not yet, maybe not ever."
"This isn't permanent, is it? Cameron, you can’t just disappear—"
"It isn't. I'm tired, not an idiot. This will only solve part of the problem, and not even the biggest part. I realize that. Let me do this first, and hopefully, the rest of the stuff will start making sense.”
"How much did that mountain house set you back?" he asked.
"If you're trying to buy me out, it isn't going to work."
He laughed and shook his head. "Can you blame me for trying?" he asked. I couldn't. I knew why he was doing it. He had to. I had asked him to take care of things at the company, but that move had to be temporary. I felt bad about it, but he had to understand why I did it. The company shit... I'd get to it but I couldn't right now.
"Nope. You're just doing your job."
"My job is helping you do yours." I nodded. "You do what you need to do. Taking some time away is going to help, but it isn't going to decide the fate of Porter Holdings."
"I know that. Thanks for getting it. I'll figure it out. I just can’t right now, not like this."
"If you decide to come down out of your cave, you know where to find me," he said with a smile. He offered to help again, but I told him not to bother. I'd have to get used to the heavy lifting. He asked for the address, and I gave him the directions my realtor had given me, even though I thought he’d probably never use them. After he left, I heaved the last of the boxes onto my truck then went back to the house for one last check to make sure I didn't leave behind anything I needed. Flashlight and batteries, basic tools, first aid kit in case of emergencies. Anything else I'd figure out when I got out there.
I started my trip, taking the two hours it took to get to the mountains fast. The city disappeared, and the looming mountain range got bigger, closer. The trees started outnumbering buildings, and the mountains rose on either side of the road. Traffic slowed, and for stretches, mine was the only car on the road. I had to slow down significantly turning off the asphalt. The road was bumpy. I didn't want to rattle anything off the back. It wound through arid grassland, spotted with trees. Only one car drove past me there.
Snowfall had already begun, and it was significantly colder than it had been in the valley; I felt it even though the car was all sealed up. The elevation was gradual enough to not feel like a climb but dragged on forever at the speed I had to use. I saw a few other cabins on the way there, but according to the realtor, the closest one to me was two miles away. I liked the sound of that.
I went right at a fork, and the tree cover increased with all aspens and firs on either side of the road. It got a little harder to negotiate too, steeper and narrow enough to hardly fit a second car alongside mine. I was barely moving at a crawl, trying to get over it without losing anything. It was annoying, but anyone who wanted to come up here after me would have to deal with that. I was betting that that would mean few to zero visitors.
The road turned into the driveway, and I saw it. First cabin on the left after the fork, the realtor had said. It was surrounded by trees and built on about a four-foot elevation from the ground with a stone and wooden stilt base. Grass poked through the carpet of fluffy white snow, and light cover frosted the trees. There was a wooden table with two chairs on the large porch. It was all wood. I parked my truck and got out. The air was frigid; I felt it through my leather jacket and sweater. There was a fireplace, so that sounded like a good first order of business. I turned, looking out around the house. Trees and snowy peaks were all I saw. No noise, cars, or people; it all washed over me at once. It was just me, finally. Welcome home, I thought, and made my way to the house.
Chapter Ten
Natalie
There was a knock at my door. I looked up from my computer as it opened, and Brett poked his head inside.
"Natalie?"
"Good morning Mr. Hamm," I said.
"Morning," he said, walking in with his hands in his pockets. "Busy?"
"What do you need?" I asked. It had been about half an hour since I had gotten to the office. After the drama and the past couple weeks with Cameron, Brett's visits to my office had had something to do with him. He might have disappeared into the mountains, but he wasn't gone.
The rumors around the office swirled like tornadoes, and the truth was that it didn’t matter where he was—the mountains two hours out of the city or the fucking moon—because he was supposed to be here. Brett was a capable leader, more than Cameron seemed to be if you asked me, but I was keeping that opinion to myself. It didn't matter so much who was better because Cameron was it. He plainly didn't have a choice in the matter. It wasn't fair, but it was what it was.
"You haven't heard anything from Cameron, have you?" he asked.
"Nothing since we talked last week. Has something happened?"
"Something is about to," he said, taking a deep breath. "There's a meeting starting in about ten minutes upstairs. Stockholders. I wanted you there in case any of them wanted to discuss legal."
"Oh, of course," I said, standing.
"This is going to be the first stockholder meeting since the accident. I've been pushing it back because of the situation with Cameron."
"It's going to look bad that he isn't present," I commented.
"Not being present is one thing. Disappearing off the map after making massive property sales is another thing entirely. They're going to have questions, and if we don't have answers, they'll come up with their own."
"How would they know all that?"
"The deaths of his parents shot him into the public eye. It's never been a secret that he was next in line to take over Porter Holdings. People in the industry have known as long as he has, and they noticed when he disappeared." God, Cameron. What are you doing? I didn't understand why he acted how he did, but with this, I could imagine how stressful it would be having people breathing down your neck so soon after a tragedy.
In reality, expecting something to happen doesn’t always mean it’s going to be easy when it does. He could have known all his life that he would be replacing his dad, but now that it was real, he was finding out the hard way that knowing that it would happen hadn’t really made him ready for it. I didn't think he was handling this the best way, but it didn't matter what I thought. It should have only mattered what he thought, but at the moment, the impatient stockholders upstairs didn’t give two shits about his feelings.
He was in trouble; that was what I was hearing. I had been more concerned about the scores of people on the lower end of the business that would suffer because of Cameron playing truant than the people up there at the top with him, but maybe I should have brought it up with him when we had had lunch the other day. Maybe he would have cared when the people he w
as screwing over were as rich and powerful as he was.
I went up to the top floor with Brett. I had never sat in on a stockholder meeting at Porter Holdings before. Mr. Porter had tended to look for legal advice if he ever needed it before or after the meetings, not during. We went to a conference room where four men were already seated, talking amongst themselves. They kept quiet when Brett and I walked in. Large leather chairs surrounded a long, black conference table. He introduced me as we sat, him at the head and me on the chair to his left. I had never met any of the men before, but they were all middle-aged. Brett tried to run through introductions before they started.
"Are we really wasting more time on introductions after starting late?" one man asked. He was in a slate gray suit, and his hair had thinned to almost nothing. Mr. Granger; I had caught his name before he had interrupted Brett.
"We thought you were leaving to get the boy," another said. Black suit and blue tie. Copious facial hair and a faint foreign accent.
"Where is the boy? Surely, she's not here as his representative," Mr. Granger said, referring to me.
"Ms. Cooke is here as legal counsel," Brett said tightly.
"So are you the one who did it?" the third man asked me. His hair was fair and his face angular and kind of sallow.
"Did what?" I asked.
"Where is he, Hamm?" the last man who had remained silent ‘til then asked, directing the questions back at Brett. He was a big man. His face was round, and he was glaring at Brett like he owed him money.
"He doesn't know either," Mr. Granger raged.
"Of course he does. He's hiding him," the fat man retorted. I sat there too stunned to say anything. I hadn't been to one of these meetings before, but I wanted to guess this wasn't how they usually went. I didn't have that high an opinion on rich men who wore suits, but I wanted to believe they behaved better than this. The rumors of Cameron's location, it appeared, had traveled outside the walls of Porter Holdings.
"Gentlemen," Brett said, trying to calm them. "Mr. Porter's absence follows the tragic accident that took both his parents. It isn't unreasonable that he's retreated from the public eye."