An Intangible Pattern - Fate Bound.

Assembling the jigsaw

“Oh, yeah. He tends to get a little down at this time of year, so I made it a tradition to cheer him up.”

“Doesn't he like Christmas?”

“I don't think he particularly dislikes it in principle, it's more the family aspect of things.”

Alex thought back to how he interacted with his father at the Halloween party, there was definitely something cool about the way they spoke to one another.

“What is going on there? Does he not like his family?”

Ben looked a little awkward, clearly not comfortable discussing his friend's personal business behind his back. Alex grimaced, “Sorry, that was a bit forward of me.”

“It's fine, it's not really a secret. There is a fair bit of resentment between Noah and his father. Noah inherited his grandfather's shares of Courentin and Stone. He also inherited his title as CEO...” 

“And his father resents him for it?”

“Not exactly. You see Noah effectively owns C&S, but as soon as Julius died, Noah renounced the title and put Henry and Gillian in charge of running the company in his stead.”

“That's what I thought, so I don't understand why that would upset Henry, surely he would be annoyed at his father for making a child the CEO of a multinational corporation?”

Ben shook his head gently, “No, it was quite the opposite. Henry worshipped his father, and seems to blame himself for not being born an Alpha. He felt that Noah had betrayed his grandfather’s last wishes. Julius put a lot of time into training him to take over and he chose to pursue research.”

“... That's crazy!”

“Yeah. But that's what Julius was like! He was very traditional: he honestly believed that Alphas were born to rule. Henry wanted his father's recognition but he wasn't an alpha, so when Noah came along, I think he felt that he could finally win his father's approval through his son.”

“So if Noah didn't want the job, why did he hold onto the shares?”

Alex had scoured the financial data and knew that Noah had the ruling share of the company and could do whatever he wanted. However, he rarely ever drew down a dividend from the profits, instead he took a salary and reinvested the money back into the C&S.

Ben grinned wickedly, “Leverage. He considered splitting the shares between himself, Arthur, Arthur's dad and uncle, Gillian and Henry so it was fair and everyone had an equal vote on how the company was run, but he got fed up of his father trying to control him so he kept the shares and outvoted every attempt to put him in charge. In all honesty, I think he was right, he would be a terrible businessman: he's too decent and you have to be a bit of a bastard to keep everything going, but he's an excellent scientist and the reason C&S is so well respected is because of his research. Henry would never admit it, but they owe a lot of their success to a disobedient teenager.”

It made sense and from what Alex had been able to surmise from reading the minutes of the board meetings, Noah interfered surprisingly little. When he did speak up, it was always related to the research and development lab. The only other occasions he appeared in the notes were when there were decisions to be made about charitable donations and on one occasion when he vetoed the decision to fast track a new drug because it had not been sufficiently tested on the elderly. He seemed completely ambivalent to everything else.

Alex shook her head, “So he hates Christmas because it's awkward between him and his father.”

“The Courentin’s are… well they're a stiff bunch. Gillian's the nicest of them but even she has a hard streak. There's a lot of emphasis on maintaining the family reputation and toeing the line, that's why Noah moved out as soon as he could.”