Regrets - Chapter Thirty Two
The gloves come off in "Contenders and Consequences" as Nicole shows both plans to the board for a review and a vote, and Rick Chambers states his case.
Wednesday - Week 3
(part 2 of 3)
Contenders and Consequences – Nicole
Nicole remained standing at the head of the table, shoulders squared beneath her cropped jacket, voice steady as she addressed the assembled members. “As acting CEO, I’ll begin with a brief summary of the current trajectory. This is Plan A, as presented in the documentation from Monday.”
She clicked to the first slide of a conservative, data-heavy deck. “This was the strategy laid out by the former administration with the objective of stabilization of our core electronics division, reestablishment of our international licensing, and the goal to wait out the current market cycle.”
She didn’t rush. For thirty full minutes she walked the room through every projection, every appendix, until there were no blind spots left. Then she paused, letting the silence hold. “It is conservative. It is proven. And it may very well preserve the company as it stands.”
Only then did she advance the slide. The screen shifted to a streamlined deck titled: Plan B – Integrated Innovation & Expansion.
Her tone shifted too, quicker, charged, alive with momentum. “This was a framework discovered in my father’s private notes and partially developed before his passing. With Jim Watmore’s help, I’ve updated its projections to reflect our current market standing. It leverages our existing assets in cybersecurity and AI development and proposes a tiered transition to shift 40% of our focus over three years.”
The room stirred. Nicole kept her pacing sharp, moving them through pilot programs, partnerships, government inquiries in half the time. She built energy as she spoke. “We don’t abandon the past. We build from it. This is a plan that scales. A plan that innovates with the Templeton name in front, not behind.”
As she spoke, she caught it. Aaron, pen moving across his copy, passing notes into Elizabeth’s waiting hand. Nicole didn’t falter. She kept her posture straight, her voice even. Across the table, Alexis saw it too. Her glance cut sharp, not at Nicole but at Aaron, a silent indictment that said she wasn’t fooled.
Nicole closed cleanly. “I welcome the board’s questions. And I believe that Rick Chambers should speak to this as well.” Rick Chambers, already adjusting his cufflinks, gave a curt smile.
Before he could speak, Jim stood. “Let’s hold presentations for now. It’s been a long morning. We’ll break for 45 minutes, then reconvene for questions and formal CEO pitches.”
Outside, the Arizona sun was blinding, but Nicole welcomed the heat. She didn’t take her phone. She didn’t tell Lorraine. She just walked.
Past the marble benches. Past the koi fountain her father had always hated. Around the far side of the campus where the cacti grew unpruned and the parking lot smelled faintly of creosote.
The heels came off after the first turn. She stepped barefoot onto a patch of shaded grass beneath mesquite trees. The coolness grounded her. Her facade cracked.
One plan was built to preserve control. The other had been a version of her father’s unfinished legacy. But neither had asked what she wanted. What if winning the board meant losing herself?
Maybe what she needed wasn’t victory, it was clarity. She thought of Charles’s quiet offer. New capital. Different investors. The third plan she hadn’t dared put on paper.
She didn’t have to burn it all down. But the choice was hers alone.
When Nicole returned to the boardroom, she let her eyes find Alexis first. A single look from Alexis, calm but razor-sharp, hit Nicole in the chest. The look did its job and grounded her as she moved through the room.
Then she saw Elizabeth bent over her packet, Aaron at her side, margin notes flowing as though he’d been co-author all along. He leaned close, sliding pages toward her mother like a whispered alliance.
When Aaron spotted Nicole, his face lit with polished concern. He reached for a bottle of water from the side table, then crossed to her with deliberate ease. “Can I steal you for a minute?” he asked softly, just enough for the rest of the room to hear.
Nicole didn’t resist. She allowed him to lead her through the glass doors, performance intact. Inside, the board saw a devoted fiancé attentive to his partner.
Outside, Aaron angled closer, brushing her elbow as he passed her the water. His smile carried weight, pitched for show. He reached up, tilting her chin lightly between two fingers, as though emphasizing intimacy. “Interesting presentation,” he murmured, voice low but sharp. “But Plan B is reckless and risky. Let Elizabeth and me kill it quietly before it does any more damage.”
Nicole let her mouth curve into the faintest smile, the picture of a woman comforted, humored, reassured. Through the glass, she knew Alexis had seen every inch of it, and if Aaron touched her like that again, Alexis would probably come straight through the pane.
When she glanced past his shoulder, she caught her mother’s faint, satisfied nod, as if Aaron had just proven himself useful. Nicole filed it away, then eased her chin free with practiced grace, lowered the water bottle, and reentered the boardroom. Mask flawless.
Jim tapped the gavel lightly, reclaiming order.
“Before we proceed, each candidate will present their qualifications, their overall vision for the company, and the strategic direction they would pursue if selected as CEO.”
Rick Chambers rose first, cufflinks gleaming. He buttoned his jacket with the practiced ease of a man who had rehearsed this moment. Not in front of a mirror, but in front of smaller rooms that had said yes.
“Thirty-one years,” he began. “Seventeen of them at Templeton. I came up through commercial operations… national accounts, enterprise licensing, global distribution.” He took a deliberate pause, then started in again. “I built the revenue infrastructure this company still runs on. The contracts you’re collecting on today? I closed most of them.”
True. She knew it was true. That made it worse.
“Robert and I didn’t always agree.” He paused again, the kind that invited the room to fill in the blanks for him. “He was a visionary and I respected that. But Robert also knew when to call me in. Because vision without revenue discipline is just ambition with a slide deck.” Something shifted at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile.
Nicole kept her expression neutral. Her father had tolerated Rick the way he tolerated quarterly reviews: necessary, occasionally useful, never the point. Rick had just rewritten that into a mentorship.
He moved through his proposal with the rhythm of someone who had sold things his entire life, incremental product upgrades, preserved capital structure and innovation redirected to the current catalog. He used words like discipline and stewardship and proven return until they lost shape entirely.
“The market rewards execution, not experimentation. Our customers don’t need us to reinvent. They need us to deliver what we promised better, faster and cheaper. That’s the sales cycle.”
That’s the ceiling, she thought. That’s the whole ceiling and he’s calling it a strategy.
His gaze settled briefly on her without acknowledgment. A small, deliberate erasure.
“Unproven directions. Sentimentality in strategy. Leadership requires detachment.” He paused once more to look around the room, then sat down slowly in his leather chair, letting the action signal the end of his statement.
Nicole stood next. She didn’t button anything. Didn’t adjust.
“I didn’t come to Templeton through a title,” she said. “I came through the work.”
She let that sit for exactly one beat.
“For years, I sat in rooms most of you never knew I was in. Strategy sessions. Vendor negotiations. R&D briefings my father brought me into before I had a business card that warranted it. He didn’t do that out of sentiment.” Her eyes moved, not a sweep, but a deliberate stop at each face that she knew needed to hear this. “He did it because he was building something, and he needed someone who would be able to understand the whole architecture.”
“When he died, this company didn’t have a succession plan. It had a holding pattern.” She paused, taking a slip of water. “I stepped in. Not because the board or my mother asked me to, but because the alternative was watching seventeen years of infrastructure erode while people tried to figure out the next steps.”
She referenced the licensing renegotiation that preserved two divisions, the vendor consolidation that recovered margin inside sixty days and the personnel decisions that stopped the quiet exodus from the engineering floor. “Those weren’t legacy moves. They were triage. And they worked.”
Nicole moved, just a slight shift in weight that changed the whole posture of the room.
“My father was building something. Project Ascension wasn’t a pivot, it was the direction he always intended, based on the paper and the financial tracking. The infrastructure we have, the team we have, the government interest we have … none of that is accidental. He built the conditions. I’m asking you to let me finish what he started.”
Her tone didn’t sharpen. It settled.
“My leadership is rooted in data, integrity, and clarity of purpose. The path I’m presenting is scalable, responsive, and thoroughly vetted. We have everything we need.” A brief pause. “I don’t believe detachment builds anything. My father was a builder. That’s what I am trying to honor here.”
She sat back in her chair and waited. She glanced at Elizabeth, who was looking down at her notepad, not at her. The questions followed.
Frank Geller leaned in. “Ms. Templeton…your numbers assume continued liquidity. What’s your contingency if credit tightens again?”
Nicole answered evenly, looking at the documents before her. “That’s why Plan A remains on the table. We don’t eliminate conservative hedging. If liquidity contracts, we preserve core divisions and slow the rollout. Both paths are accounted for in the models.”
Helena Price raised her hand. “Government contracts are fickle. How do you protect us from exposure if cybersecurity doesn’t land?”
Nicole’s tone sharpened. “Diversification. The AI applications in health and logistics alone generate projected revenue without a single federal dollar. Government contracts are an accelerant, not a crutch.”
Mitchell Scott leaned back in his chair, one brow arched. “Rick, just so we are all clear, beyond preserving Plan A, do you have any new directions? Any initiatives you’d lead if you were in charge?”
Rick didn’t hesitate.
“Our current product catalog is strong. The market appetite for it is proven.” He straightened slightly, as if his posture could help sell his vision. “What I’d bring is discipline around cost structure. I’d identify where we’re bleeding margin, pull back on development cycles that haven’t delivered return, and reinvest that capital into upgrading what we already sell. Incremental. Methodical.” He spread his hands with an open gesture that he probably used in all of his sales presentations. “We don’t need to chase new markets. We need to own the ones we’re already in.”
Mitchell didn’t move.
“My priority is stability. Markets don’t reward improvisation. Proven strategies are best left untouched.”
The silence that followed was Mitchell’s, not Rick’s. He let it expand, sit there until the answer finished collapsing under its own weight.
Nicole folded her hands, composed, letting the moment favor her.
Then Elizabeth stood, voice smooth as glass.
“Risk management must always be our highest priority. Nicole, if this board were to bring you forward as CEO, but ultimately chose to advance with Plan A, would you abide by that decision? Would you execute faithfully, even if it isn’t your preferred path?”
Nicole’s reply was clean.
“My role as CEO would be to serve the board’s decision with integrity. Plan A is fully developed and viable. If that is the direction chosen, I will lead it with the same commitment.”
She knew it was a trap. Obedience or recklessness, either way diminished. She didn’t give Elizabeth either.
Elizabeth’s expression didn’t shift, but her eyes flickered sharply. “Nicole has always favored passion over prudence,” she said smoothly. “But strategy requires discipline, not sentiment.”
Charles coughed loud enough to interrupt. Mitchell arched a brow. Alexis said nothing, but her glance was dagger-edged. Nicole didn’t waver.
Elizabeth pivoted to Jim. “The board hasn’t had proper time to review all of this. I propose we postpone the final vote.”
Jim raised a brow. “The board has had the packet since Monday. Both proposals were circulated for review.”
Elizabeth waved a hand, lightly dismissive. “Still. These things take time. Everyone’s here for another two days for the party…” She hesitated, regrouped with a polished smile. “Then we’ll vote Friday. Noon. I’ll have a meeting room prepared. That way the golf crowd can get their swings in.”
Jim tapped the gavel once. “Any objection to postponing until Friday?”
There was a murmur. A few of the old guard spoke up, Frank among them, saying they wanted to revisit the presentations, to look more closely at Nicole’s numbers before deciding. No one pressed further.
Jim inclined his head. “The motion stands. Final vote: Friday, noon at Sorelle.”
Nicole sat still, hands folded, mask unbroken. Inside, the calculation was clear: Elizabeth wasn’t buying time out of caution. She was buying time because Nicole had made a dent where she hadn’t expected one. Elizabeth had counted on the Scotts to close ranks behind her, behind Aaron and the engagement, not shift toward Nicole.
The power had shifted. Nicole saw it. So did everyone else.