The email arrived Saturday morning at 6:47 AM.
Subject: Board Meeting - Tuesday 2PM - MANDATORY ATTENDANCE
From: Margaret Ashford
Victoria's coffee went cold as she read: "In light of ongoing concerns regarding the flagship renovation delays, I am calling an emergency board session immediately following Tuesday's designer presentation. We will be voting on the formation of a special oversight committee. All board members required to attend. No exceptions."
An emergency vote. Tuesday. Margaret wasn't waiting to see how the presentation went. She was forcing a showdown regardless.
Her phone rang. Simone, calling before seven AM.
"Tell me you saw it."
"I saw it." Victoria kept her voice steady despite the panic rising in her chest.
"Geoffrey called last night. She has four confirmed votes. She needs six for a majority."
"So she's two votes away from turning me into a figurehead."
"Two votes away from destroying everything you've built." Simone's breath hitched. "This all comes down to Tuesday. If Hayes's presentation is extraordinary, you might hold them. But Victoria? It has to be perfect."
After Simone hung up, Victoria stood at her bedroom window watching the gray November morning. Twenty years of building this company, and Margaret was going to destroy it in seventy-two hours.
She did something she rarely allowed herself: she called Harrison.
He answered on the fourth ring, voice thick with sleep. "Mom? What's wrong?"
"I just wanted to hear your voice."
"You never just call." A pause. "What is it?"
She told him. Not everything, but enough. The board tensions, Margaret's maneuvering, the vote that would determine her future.
"So basically," Harrison said, "Grandmother is trying to force you out."
"She's trying to limit my authority."
"She did the same thing to Dad. Made him feel like he was never good enough. She broke him, Mom. Now she's trying to break you."
"I won't let her."
"Good." Harrison's voice softened. "For what it's worth, I think you're a better CEO than Dad ever was. He ran the company the way Grandmother wanted. You transformed it. She can't stand that."
After they hung up, Victoria looked at the ocean. Seventy-two hours to save her career. And it all depended on a twenty-eight-year-old artist she'd never met.
The Preservation Society gala that evening felt like enemy territory.
Victoria arrived at the Breakers in midnight blue Valentino. The Widow's colors softened just enough. Her armor is firmly in place.
"Victoria, darling!" Bunny Carmichael descended immediately. "You look wonderful. So put it together."
Put it together. As if Victoria might fall apart at any moment.
She found Geoffrey on the terrace. "How bad is it really?"
"Chen is leaning toward Margaret. Kowalski is undecided. You need both on Tuesday." Geoffrey looked grim. "And even then, it's only a tie."
"Unless the presentation changes minds entirely."
"Victoria." Geoffrey studied her carefully. "Margaret's going to eviscerate him. She'll find every weakness, every risk. Chen and Kowalski respond to data, not passion. If you walk in with vision but no concrete business case, you'll lose them."
Before Victoria could respond, Margaret herself appeared.
"Victoria. How lovely." Margaret's smile was surgical. "I trust you received my email about Tuesday?"
"I did."
"Excellent. We just want to ensure Edmund's legacy is protected."
"Edmund's legacy was a company losing thirty percent annually when he died," Victoria said. "My legacy is the billion-dollar brand it became. Let's be clear about which legacy we're protecting."
Something cold flashed in Margaret's eyes. "How interesting that you see them as separate. I would have thought a devoted wife would view them as one."
Victoria escaped to the bathroom before she said something she'd regret. Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
"Random question: if you could design any space in the world, no budget constraints, what would it be?"
Kieran Hayes. She should ignore it. Should maintain professional distance.
Instead: "A library. All glass and natural light. A place where people could get lost in books and find themselves."
His response came immediately: "That's beautiful. Why a library?"
"Because books are where I learned it was possible to be someone other than who you were born to be."
Three dots appeared. "Tuesday just got a lot more interesting."
Victoria stared at the message. Warmth unfurled in her chest. "What would you design?"
His response took longer: "A space where people remember how to be brave. Where they can shed all the armor they've built and just exist. We spend so much time performing who we think we should be. I want to design spaces where you can stop performing."
Victoria closed her eyes. We spend so much time performing.
"That sounds dangerous," she typed.
"The best things usually are."
She left the gala early, drove home along Ocean Drive. At her mansion, she poured wine and stood on the terrace.
Her phone buzzed. Kieran: "Sorry if that was too personal. Simone says I don't understand boundaries."
"It wasn't too personal," Victoria typed. "Professional boundaries are overrated."
His response came quickly: "Good. Because I have about a thousand questions about what makes you tick."
"Ms. Ashford?" Maria, her housekeeper, appeared. "There's an urgent call. She wouldn't give her name."
Victoria's stomach dropped. She took the call in her office.
"Ms. Ashford, this is Claire Chen from the Providence Journal. I'm working on a story about board tensions around the flagship renovation. Some members feel the company needs younger leadership. Comment?"
Younger leadership. Margaret's fingerprints everywhere.
"No comment. If you print anything unverified, our legal team will respond."
"Off the record?" The reporter's voice softened. "The narrative is shifting. If you want to control your story, Tuesday needs to be spectacular. Career-defining spectacular."
The line went dead.
Victoria's phone exploded with texts.
Simone: "Journal called. Margaret is positioning you to fail regardless of Tuesday."
Geoffrey: "Chen just told me he's voting with Margaret. Says the story convinced him you've lost control. I'm sorry."
The reporter: "My editor wants to run this tomorrow. I can hold it until Wednesday if you give me an exclusive after Tuesday. Your choice."
Victoria stared at her phone. Chen had flipped. She needed Kowalski and had to change another board member's mind. The odds had just gone from difficult to impossible.
Her fingers moved: "If I give you the interview Wednesday, you hold the story?"
Response: "Deal. But make sure there's something worth writing about. My editor wants blood. Yours or Margaret's."
Victoria walked to the terrace, pulled up Kieran's number: "I need complete honesty. Are you ready for Tuesday? Because it's not just a presentation. It's a professional execution. If your work isn't perfect, we both go down. Are you ready?"
She sent it. Past midnight. He was probably asleep.
Her phone rang. Kieran Hayes.
"I'm ready." His voice was confident, touched with an Irish accent. "And Ms. Ashford? I don't do perfect. I am honest. If that's not good enough for your board, then fuck your board."
Victoria's breath caught. "You can't say that in the presentation."
"I won't. But I need you to hear it now." He stopped. "Simone told me what's at stake. I'm not walking in to play it safe. I'm showing them something they've never seen before. Something that makes them remember why they fell in love with beautiful things."
"And if they don't?"
"Then we fail spectacularly. Together." His voice dropped. "But Victoria? I've been doing this long enough to know when something matters. And you matter. What you've built matters. I'm not letting some entitled monster destroy it because she's afraid of women with actual vision."
Victoria smiled despite everything. "You haven't even met me."
"I've seen your work. That tells me everything." A beat. "Get some sleep. Tuesday's going to be long."
"Kieran. Thank you."
"Thank me after we win."
He hung up. Victoria stood holding her phone. She felt something she hadn't felt in years: possibility.
Seventy-two hours. A reporter waiting to destroy her. A board vote she would probably lose. And a twenty-eight-year-old artist who thought fuck your board was appropriate.
It was insane. Reckless. Exactly what Margaret would use as proof Victoria had lost her judgment.
And for the first time in four years, Victoria didn't care.
She opened her laptop and pulled up Kieran's portfolio. If she was going down, she was going down fighting. She began building the business case. Revenue impact, ROI projections, everything Chen and Kowalski needed to see this wasn't just beautiful, it was smart.
She worked until three AM, building armor to protect Kieran's vision from Margaret's attacks.
You could be passionate and strategic. You could choose the beautiful thing and prove it made business sense.
You just had to be willing to fight for it.
And Victoria Ashford had been fighting her entire life.
She wasn't about to stop now.