“It’s Saturday.”
“I know, but you’re here.”
“So you came on a Saturday because you knew someone might be able to push it through?”
She looked at Gage.
He answered for her.
“I figured you could help.”
I looked up.
Less than a day earlier, he had told me not to come to his home because his wife thought I would make the whole party stink.
Now he was sitting in my office because he figured I could help.
“You figured I could help,” I repeated.
Gage’s face tightened.
“Look, about the text—”
Tegan interrupted him.
“Oh, come on.
That was obviously a joke.”
I looked at her.
She gave a little shrug.
“It was a barbecue.
People joke.”
“My mother laughed.”
Tegan opened her mouth.
“My father sent a heart,” I continued.
“Gage told me not to come.
I said, ‘Got it.’ Which part are you saying was the joke?”
Gage stared at the floor.
Tegan’s expression hardened now that embarrassment was no longer working for her.
“This is exactly why family stuff shouldn’t get mixed into business.”
I nodded once.
“You’re right.”
That answer caught her off guard.
I reached for my desk phone.
Gage leaned forward.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping family stuff out of business.”
I called my assistant and asked her to contact the finance manager handling the request and someone from Legal.
Then I said one sentence that changed the entire room.
“I need to disclose a personal relationship with the requesting party and remove myself from the approval decision.”
Tegan sat up straight.
“Remove yourself?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re the CFO.”
“Yes.”
“So who approves it?”
“The same people who handle an exception when I have a conflict.”
Her voice rose.
“That could take longer.”
“It could.”
Gage stood halfway out of his chair.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I do.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“No.
This is policy.”
He stared at me as though policy were something I had invented that morning specifically to punish him.
I closed the folder.
“If I approve your request immediately after you come into my office identifying yourselves as my family, I create a problem for the company and for myself.
