Chapter 9: The Night They Fixed It

"Okay," he said at 1:15 a.m. "Let me ask questions now. Can you move some production to domestic manufacturing?"

"It costs thirty percent more," Isla said.

"How many units could you move?" Cole asked.

"Maybe thirty percent of the volume," Isla said. "Probably less."

"So you move the highest-margin items domestic," Cole said. He was typing as he spoke. "You tell Jonathan Price that you're shifting strategy, doing a limited edition domestic-first collection to position as premium, and you keep the full timeline on the rest of the items by moving to a secondary supplier."

"A secondary supplier that doesn't exist yet," Isla said.

"But does exist," Cole said. He was still typing. "Because you already have leads, don't you? You've spent eighteen months in this space. You have competitors. You have suppliers you didn't choose. You have a list of alternative vendors because you're competent and you make lists."

Isla had a list of alternative vendors. It was at 2 a.m. in the morning, in the pit of what she had assumed was failure, that she realized Cole was right. She had a list. She had options. She had been so focused on the problem of James Chen's departure that she hadn't examined the problem of actual alternatives.

"I have three possible suppliers," she said slowly.

"Then we call them," Cole said. "We find out which one has capacity. We negotiate a rate that works for both of us. We break your order into pieces and distribute it. We message the strategic shift as a feature, not a bug."

"We're you saying 'we' as in the conceptual we," Isla asked, "or the literal we, where you're helping me fix this at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday after you flew back from Tokyo?"

"I'm saying we," Cole said, "as in the literal we where I'm helping you fix this because you married me and I married you and apparently that means I'm now invested in the success of your company."

"You're invested because the venture round was your due diligence," Isla said.

"No," Cole said. He stopped typing. He looked at her directly with the kind of focus that was becoming increasingly difficult to look away from. "I'm invested because I'm tired and you're tired and you're probably going to cry in about forty-five minutes when the adrenaline wears off, and I would prefer to be here when that happens instead of letting you process failure alone at three in the morning."

Isla felt something crack inside her. It was not a small crack. It was the kind of crack that meant everything was going to rearrange itself around this moment. She was not going to cry. But not because Cole had called it. She was not going to cry because she was busy looking at her brand-new husband who was jet-lagged and focused and treating her company failure like it was a problem they could solve together.

They worked through it. By 3:47 a.m., they had a plan. Move thirty percent of production to domestic suppliers. Reach out to three alternative international suppliers. Position the shift as a luxury domestic initiative. Keep the timeline intact on ninety percent of the inventory. Adjust the profit margins accordingly. Break even instead of failing.

Cole made the spreadsheet beautiful. Isla didn't know why he needed to make the spreadsheet beautiful at 3:47 a.m., but he did. He color-coded it. He added a tab for risk analysis. He added notes about which variables were most sensitive to change. He treated her crisis like it was a mathematics problem that deserved precision.

"Thank you," she said when it was done. When the plan was clear and the path forward existed.

"You're welcome," Cole said. He was doing that thing again where he said minimal things like they meant everything. He was looking at her with the kind of attention that was entirely focused and entirely for her.

He stood up from the kitchen counter. He walked behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder and left it there for long enough that she could feel the weight of it, the reality of it, the fact that he was standing next to her in her crisis and not leaving.

"Go to bed," he said. "You need sleep. We'll handle the calls in the morning when you're less fragile."

"I'm not fragile," Isla said.

"You're completely fragile," Cole said. "You're also completely brilliant, which is why this is solvable. But you're still fragile right now."

He moved his hand from her shoulder. He said goodnight. He went to bed, which meant Isla was alone in the kitchen with her laptop and her suddenly viable company and the memory of his hand on her shoulder and the knowledge that she had married a stranger and that stranger had become someone she couldn't imagine doing this without.

She didn't sleep. She sat in the kitchen and made the calls. She reached out to the first supplier at 6 a.m. New York time, which was 9 p.m. the same night in Singapore. They had capacity. They could take thirty-five percent of her volume. They wanted a long-term commitment.

Isla could give them a long-term commitment because Cole had taught her, in a single sleepless night, that solving problems was better than surrendering to them.

The second supplier could take fifteen percent. The third supplier was acquired by another company and out of the business. But two out of three was not bad. Two out of three was actually better odds than Isla usually got in business.

By the time Cole came downstairs at 7:15 a.m., Isla had solved her supply chain problem. She had three suppliers. She had a timeline. She had a viable business.

"Did you sleep?" Cole asked, making coffee.

"No," Isla said. "I kept working. The first supplier can take thirty-five percent. The second supplier can take fifteen percent. I'm at ninety percent of my original volume."

"What about the domestic shift?" Cole asked.

"I'm calling Jonathan Price at eight," Isla said. "We're positioning it as luxury domestic production. Premium tier. Higher margin. He's going to hate it, and then he's going to love it because retail loves a good story and a supply chain narrative is the hottest story in fashion right now."

Cole poured her coffee. He set it in front of her. He sat across from her and drank his own black coffee and did not say anything because sometimes the thing you needed was just someone sitting across from you while you finished solving your own problem.

"You're a very good person to be married to," Isla said at 7:47 a.m., which was probably not what marriages of convenience were supposed to look like. "I need to be clear that I know this isn't part of the contract."

"It's part of something else," Cole said. "I'm not sure what yet. But I'm starting to think it's something bigger than the contract."

"I'm starting to think that too," Isla said.

They sat in the kitchen of his apartment as Manhattan woke up around them. She had a business. He had a person who stayed up until three a.m. with him to solve problems. They had something that had started as a transaction and was slowly becoming the kind of thing that people built their lives on.

"I need to make the call," Isla said, checking the time. "Jonathan is going to want to discuss this in person."

"Then we'll go together," Cole said. "I want to see how you do this. I want to watch you turn a crisis into a narrative."

They went together. Isla wore her power suit. Cole wore his precision. And by noon on Wednesday, Quinn & Earth had a new supply chain, a new positioning strategy, and a venture round that felt less fragile than it had.

But more importantly, Isla had someone who understood that the best way to show love was to sit across from her at 2 a.m. and help build spreadsheets instead of just building dreams.