His company was not destroyed. Alexander had been precise about that. Carter Holdings existed, had revenue, had a product, had employees. But the shape of the future Ethan had been building toward—the IPO, the liquidity event, the particular kind of power that comes from being the founder of a public company—that shape had changed. The scaffolding had come down and what was underneath it was smaller and less magnificent than what he had imagined, and he was going to have to do the hard work of rebuilding from the actual foundation, which was the work he had never fully done because the scaffolding had always been there holding the shape of something bigger.

Whether he would do that work, Emily did not know and would not spend much time thinking about. She had her own work to do.