I started to give him a diplomatic answer, then stopped.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But you never tried to find out.”
“Exactly.” He smiled, but it was sad. “You know what I realized today? I’ve been playing a role for three years—acting like the future executive, saying the right things, looking the part. But you’ve been actually living it.”
Before I could respond, our parents approached.
Mom looked like she’d been crying. Dad looked furious.
“We need to talk,” Dad said. “All of us. Now.”
Marcus and I exchanged glances.
“The conference room is probably empty,” I suggested.
“No,” Dad said sharply. “Not here. At home. This is a family matter.”
“Actually,” I said calmly, “this is a business matter, and I’m the CEO now. So if you want to discuss company business, we discuss it here.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Mom’s eyes filled with tears again. “Paige, honey, we had no idea.”
“That’s the problem,” I said gently. “You had no idea what I was doing, what I was capable of, or what I wanted. You just assumed.”
“We assumed you weren’t interested in leadership,” Dad said defensively. “You never said anything about wanting to run the company.”
“When would I have said something?” I asked. “During the dinners where you and Mom planned Derek’s future? During the family meetings where you discussed Marcus’ development track? When exactly was I supposed to express interest in something you’d already decided didn’t involve me?”
Dad opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.
“We were trying to protect you,” Mom said softly. “The business world is so competitive, so harsh. We didn’t want you to have to deal with that pressure.”
“So instead,” I said, “you decided Derek should deal with it. Even though he clearly didn’t want it either.”
“I wanted it.”
Derek’s voice came from behind us.
We all turned.
His tie was loose now, and his hair was messed up.
“I wanted the job,” he said again. “I wanted the respect, the authority, the success. I just… I didn’t want to earn it.”
The honesty of that statement hung in the air.
“I’ve been watching you for three years,” he said to me. “Watching you learn, watching you solve problems, watching you actually care about making things better. And I kept telling myself it didn’t matter because leadership was about more than just understanding the business.”
He laughed bitterly. “But it’s not, is it?”
“It’s exactly what leadership is about,” I said. “Understanding the people, understanding the problems, understanding what needs to be done—and having the courage to do it.”
“Paige, I’m not angry with you,” Derek said quickly. “I’m angry with myself because deep down I knew this was coming. I knew Grandpa was testing all of us and I knew I was failing.”
He looked around at our parents, at Marcus, at me.
“The difference is, you weren’t trying to pass a test. You were just trying to do good work.”
And for the first time since I’d known him, my older brother looked at me with something that might have been respect.
The family dinner that night was the most awkward meal of my life.
We sat around the same dining room table where we’d eaten thousands of meals together, but everything felt different. Every comment had weight. Every silence had meaning.
Mom had cooked my favorite meal—pot roast with potatoes and green beans—which felt like both an apology and an attempt to return to normal.
But normal was gone forever.
“So,” Dad said finally, cutting into his meat with more force than necessary, “I suppose we need to discuss logistics.”
“What kind of logistics?” I asked.
“Your transition into the role. Training, preparation, you’ll need time to—”
“Dad.” I set down my fork. “I’ve been preparing for three years.”
“Answering phones isn’t the same as running a company.”
The comment stung, but I kept my voice level.
“You’re right. Answering phones isn’t the same as running a company. But learning every department, understanding our client relationships, identifying operational inefficiencies, and implementing solutions that save millions of dollars? That’s exactly the same as running a company.”
Derek snorted. “She’s got you there, Dad.”
Dad shot him a look. “You’re finding this amusing.”
“Actually, yeah. I kind of am.” Derek leaned back in his chair. “Do you know what I’ve learned about our business in the past three years? I can recite our quarterly projections from memory. I can explain our market positioning strategy. I can give you a PowerPoint presentation on synergistic opportunities.”
He paused.
“But I couldn’t tell you why our shipping costs went up last quarter, or which suppliers are causing quality issues, or why employee turnover in the logistics department is twice what it is everywhere else.”
“Those are operational details,” Mom said. “Management is about bigger-picture thinking.”
“Is it?” Derek asked. “Because Paige’s operational details have been saving this company money and solving problems while I’ve been thinking big-picture thoughts that don’t seem to relate to anything real.”
Marcus had been quiet through most of the exchange. Now he looked up.
“She knew about the Henderson contract problem six months ago.”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“The shipping cost miscalculation that almost cost us the renewal. Paige identified it in January. I saw her talking to the accounting team about it, but we didn’t fix it until Derek ‘discovered’ it in May.”
“Why didn’t she say anything?” Mom asked.
Marcus and Derek both looked at me.
“Because,” I said quietly, “every time I brought up a concern or suggested an improvement, you either dismissed it as me not understanding the complexities, or credited someone else with the insight. So I stopped bringing things to you. I started fixing them myself.”
The silence that followed was crushing.
“How many problems have you fixed that we don’t know about?” Dad asked finally.
“Dad—no.”
“I’m serious. How many?”
I thought about it.
“The Morrison quality issue. The Henderson contract. The West Coast shipping delays. The accounting software inefficiency. The IT security vulnerability that would have cost us our insurance coverage. The supplier billing error that was costing us thirty thousand a month. The—”
“Okay,” Dad said, holding up his hand. “Okay. I get it.”
“No,” I said, surprised by the steel in my own voice. “I don’t think you do. Those weren’t little problems that I happened to notice. Those were major issues that could have seriously damaged this company—issues that I identified, researched, and solved while you were planning Derek’s ascension to a job he didn’t want and wasn’t prepared for.”
“We were trying to do what was best for everyone,” Mom said, tears starting again.
“Were you?” I asked. “Or were you trying to do what looked right to everyone else?”
That hit home. I could see it in their faces.
“Mrs. Patterson from the country club,” I continued. “Mr. Williams from Dad’s golf foursome. The board members who’ve known Derek since he was ten. You were worried about what they would think if the youngest child—the daughter who didn’t go to business school—ended up running the family company.”
“Image matters in business,” Dad said defensively.
“Does it, or does competence matter?”
Derek laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “She’s right, Dad. All those people you’re worried about impressing? They care about results. And Paige has been delivering results while I’ve been delivering presentations.”
“This isn’t just about you kids,” Dad said, his voice rising. “This company is our family’s legacy. Your grandfather built something important here, and we need to make sure it continues to thrive.”
“Then why would you hand it over to someone who’s never actually done the work?” I asked.
The question hung there.
“Because,” Mom said softly, “we thought the work would come naturally once Derek had the position.”
“And because,” Dad added reluctantly, “we thought leadership was about making decisions, not understanding details.”
“But decisions are only as good as your understanding of the situation,” I said. “And you can’t understand the situation if you’ve never been in the trenches.”
Marcus pushed his food around on his plate. “So… what happens now?”
“Now,” I said, “we figure out how to work together.”
“If you want to,” Mom added.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, Derek and Marcus still have roles in this company—important roles—but those roles need to be based on your actual skills and interests, not on some predetermined succession plan.”
I looked at Derek.
“You’re good with people. Charismatic. Clients trust you. That’s valuable.”
Then at Marcus.
“You understand the financial side better than most people realize, and you have connections that could help us grow.”
“But,” Derek said, “neither of us should be making operational decisions about things we don’t understand.”
“And I shouldn’t be giving investor presentations or schmoozing at charity galas,” I said. “We all have strengths. We should use them.”
Dad was staring at me like he’d never seen me before.
“When did you get so wise?” he asked.
“Probably around the time you stopped paying attention to what I was thinking.”
It wasn’t meant to be cruel, but the truth often cuts deep.
Mom reached across the table and took my hand. “We’re proud of you, sweetheart. We should have said that earlier. We should have seen what you were accomplishing.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But this is going to take some adjustment.”
“For all of us,” Dad warned.
“I know. And there will be people who question my qualifications, my experience, my age.”
“Dad,” I interrupted, “I’ve been questioned and underestimated my entire life—by clients who thought I was too young to understand their problems, by suppliers who tried to inflate prices because they assumed I didn’t know better, by our own employees who thought I was just the receptionist.”
I smiled.
“The difference is, now I have the title to go with the competence. And anyone who wants to question my qualifications is welcome to review the past three years of improved performance metrics.”
Derek raised his wine glass. “To my little sister, who apparently isn’t so little anymore.”
Marcus raised his glass too. “To competence over appearances.”
Mom and Dad exchanged a look, then raised their glasses as well.
“To family,” Dad said, “however unexpected the leadership might be.”
We drank to that.
But as I sat there surrounded by my family, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the real challenges were just beginning. Because announcing that I was the new CEO was one thing.
Actually becoming the leader this company needed?
That was going to be something else entirely.
My first official day as CEO started at six a.m. with a crisis.
The night security guard called my personal phone—the emergency number that previously would have gone to Grandpa—to tell me that our largest production facility had an equipment failure that would shut down manufacturing for at least twenty-four hours.
By the time I arrived at the office, word had spread. Employees were gathering in small groups, whispering about production delays and missed deadlines. The overnight shift supervisor looked like he hadn’t slept.
“How bad is it?” I asked him directly.
“Bad?” he said. “The main assembly line is down. We’ve got three major client orders that won’t ship on time, and repairs could take two days minimum.”
“What about the backup systems?”
He looked surprised. “You know about the backup systems?”
“I know about everything.”
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