“That was your money.”
“And paying the rent would be my money.”
“Exactly.”
Nathaniel laughed.
“I see where Ruby gets it.”
Claire remained serious.
“I need to be able to support my daughter.”
“Accepting help once doesn’t mean you can’t.”
“No. But the kind of help matters.”
Nathaniel considered this.
“What kind would you accept?”
Claire had an answer.
“Help the building.”
Nathaniel did.
Not by buying it.
Not secretly.
Not by making a grand announcement.
Instead, he commissioned an independent valuation of the damages arising from Graves Energy’s failed cooperative sale twelve years earlier.
His board resisted at first.
The company had changed.
Shareholders had changed.
Employees who had never heard of Aldridge Street wondered why Graves Energy should address a property dispute that had been dormant for more than a decade.
Nathaniel did not force them.
He gave them the complete record.
He acknowledged his own failure to supervise the division properly.
