Chapter 15 - Dominic’s Letter
He wrote:
For months I treated it like cosmic punishment.
I thought I lost my only child because I failed you.
Then:
That makes the baby about me.
Good.
Then:
The truth is I failed you before I knew there was a baby.
He listed.
Affair.
Lying.
Camera.
Stairs.
Hospital.
Then:
I stepped over you because I was angry that your injury interrupted my night.
That sentence was brutal.
Specific.
Then:
I told myself I was shocked. I wasn’t. I was selfish.
He wrote about surgery.
He had hidden because fertility threatened masculinity.
He was afraid I would pity.
Then:
I was already cheating while terrified I might never have children. That is how little sense I was making.
Then Paige.
He did not blame.
“I chose.”
Good.
Then money.
I hated that you could save company without me.
Not because you did anything wrong.
Because I had built my identity around being man who carried everything.
Then:
You were carrying company and I never knew.
Then:
I don’t want shares back. They are already mine to extent they are mine. I mean control. I understand now.
Good.
Then final:
I am sorry about our child.
I do not know whether you ever named them privately.
I will not ask.
I folded.
Therapist asked:
“Do you want respond?”
“No.”
Not yet.
Then life.
I returned to board quarterly.
Claire Benton improved margins.
Cut risky projects.
Expanded safety program.
No dramatic empire.
Aster Vale’s investment value increased.
At one point, Henry recommended selling down.
I agreed.
Over five years, Aster Vale reduced stake from 62 to 41 percent through secondary sale and employee ownership program.
Why?
I did not want Vance Construction to become monument to my control either.
Professional governance.
Employee trust acquired shares.
Eventually Aster Vale no longer majority but remained largest single investor.
Dominic’s stake diluted modestly through transactions he consented to or had rights.
Fair.
Then mansion sale proceeds.
Aster Vale Property Holdings sold and reinvested.
I never moved back.
Then my $80 million trust.
It grew, declined, diversified.
I did not define life by number.
I began funding scholarship in my father’s name for construction safety engineering.
Why construction?
Because dad was engineer.
Not Dominic.
Then Paige.
Three years after trial, she sent letter through Sophia.
This time I accepted.
Audrey,
I knew you were Aster Vale before Dominic did.
Then:
I thought that made you dangerous, not worthy.
She admitted something new.
Victoria told her:
“If Audrey leaves Dominic, she’ll use Aster Vale to destroy him.”
Paige believed.
So when Victoria confronted me, Paige saw it as defense of Dominic.
Then:
That was how I justified doing nothing.
Then:
You were bleeding, and I stayed because I was afraid if I helped you, Dominic would see me as disloyal.
Pattern again.
Loyalty to wrong person.
Then:
I’m sorry.
No request.
I wrote:
I received this.
Nothing more.
Then Dominic released.
He did not request meeting for two years.
He worked outside construction industry first, in operations for a manufacturing distributor.
Lower title.
No executive control.
He complied.
Then board eventually allowed him to vote shares normally after restrictions ended.
No special role.
Then he asked for meeting.
Not marriage.
Not money.
May you like
One question:
Could we talk about the child?
