Page 66 of His Master

“All in favor?” Vivien asked.

“Aye!” a large number of the board said, raising their hands.

“Nay!” a tiny handful said, including Uncle Vincent.

“What are you doing?” he demanded of Vivien. “There has been no discussion, no formal opening of procedures.”

“We followed protocol to begin official proceedings of the meeting earlier,” Eddie said, winking across the table at Vivien.

Uncle Vincent still didn’t see what was going on. “You cannot do that,” he growled. “At least one member of the family must be present for any board meeting to officially convene.”

“One was,” Vivien said simply, smiling.

Uncle Vincent gaped at her. “You would go behind my back as well?”

“What, like you haven’t gone behind my back, or favored Victor over me, every day of my life?” she demanded.

“You cannot do this,” Uncle Vincent said, slamming his hand on the desk and standing. “I will not allow you to railroad me like this, you ungrateful beta.”

I felt terrible for her, but the only sign of Vivien’s lifelong pain of always being second best, always being considered inferior, was a slight pinching of her face.

That and the way she turned to the rest of the board and said, “With a vote of thirteen to three, the motion passes. The bylaws have been amended as laid out in the examples you all hold.”

Without missing a beat, she went on to say, “I ask for a motion that Vincent Woodbury and Victor Woodbury be removed from their active roles in Victory Holdings.”

“So moved,” one of the board members called out, a greedy light in his eyes.

“Seconded,” the one who had seconded the earlier motion said.

“All in favor of removing Vincent Woodbury and Victor Woodbury from their offices?” Vivien asked.

“Aye,” most of the same men as before called out.

“Nay!” the three who had opposed the earlier motion said, including Artemis.

Vivien burst into a triumphant smile. “The motion passes. Vincent Woodbury and Victor Woodbury, you can pack up your offices and get your rotten alpha asses out ofmycompany, effective immediately.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Simon

It happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure what was going on.

As soon as the vote was passed, Vincent rose to his feet and shouted at everyone, “Are you all out of your minds? I built this company. I made you what you are. Everything you have is because of me.”

The board members squirmed, but most of them looked away from Vincent, turning to Vivien like they were her slaves and she was the undisputed master.

Until the board members who were opposed to the change started shouting and picking arguments with those who had voted in favor, which was the thing that prompted the massive, roiling argument that descended on the boardroom. I almost cowered, the chaos was so loud. I was just waiting for someone to pick up their chair and throw it.

The only one who didn’t get up to argue or fight or throw their weight around was Victor. Victor sat back in hischair, smiling across the chaos at Vivien. His confidence and excitement had me feeling hot all over.

Vivien’s smug smile faltered when she saw how unaffected Victor was by everything she’d just made happen. That expression sank even more into confusion, and she grabbed the copy of the bylaws in front of her and flipped through the pages. It made me question whether she’d actually read through the work my parents had done before hatching whatever plot she had or if she’d just searched out the bits that would benefit her and assumed the rest was to her liking.

She wouldn’t have been the first person to be so bored by legalese that she skimmed a contract, and from what Victor had told me about her minimal involvement in the company so far, I wondered if she really had the chops for what she was trying to do now.

Whether she saw the change to the non-compete clause or not, she was quickly distracted by Vincent stepping around the table to shout at her, “You would stab me in the back like this? Your own father? This is akin to patricide!”

“I did what I had to do,” Vivien shouted at him. “And you were never a father to me. You wanted Victor, never me.”

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