Page 25 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I nod at April. It took guts to help me. It occurs to me that I could give her a raise. Or can I? I own fifty-one percent of the company so it seems like I should be able to. Yet not. Because while I steer fifty-one percent of this company according to my title as majority shareholder of the steering board, it doesn’t feel like I'm in charge of it at all, any more than riding a bucking bull results in any kind of steering of it.

They go over financials first, and there are a series of motions on pension funds—switching up investment vehicles or something like that. At first I try to keep up, asking for things to be explained, a task that Henry always takes on with his icy blue gaze at me that sends shivers skittering over my skin.

“…the balance sheet is figure two in your packet. We’re unhappy with an underperforming pension fund investment. Are you going to vote with us to make it right?”

“Smuckers concurs,” I say. Like I even get any of it.

I was always good at school, but this must be how somebody who doesn't speak English feels when they’re plopped down into an English-speaking school. All these new terms. Now and then April, who is apparently the type to pull for the underdog, brightens from over in her corner, like when she thinks I asked a good question.

Ninety minutes tick by. Two hours. I question what I’m doing here, but I remind myself how I don’t let rich people push me around. How Henry had me detained, tried to bully me and pay me off.

Never again.

So I sit up. I get mentally tired of asking questions, but I ask them, then I vote however Henry votes.

Henry did, after all, make the company bigger and stronger, according to the reports I crammed on the way over. He’s fiercely protective of it, too, which I suppose is admirable. As CEO, he handles day-to-day operations, but I get to have the final say on those operations as Kaleb once did.

So, in a way, I’m in charge. I’m steering the ship and he’s my galley slave. The idea of him sweaty and shirtless, straining at the oars, comes to me unbidden. He works out. Maybe weights. No, he’s too cool for that. Henry would go for something sporty, like soccer. Or probably a sport where you hit something. Maybe boxing. Or rugby, all rough and tumble.

“Vicky?” Henry’s staring imperiously at me. “Does Smuckers have a vote?”

“Smuckers is with you,” I say. “On this one, anyway.” I say it like Smuckers might not always vote with him. Smuckers is an independent thinker.

Henry turns to the next page of the agenda, calm and suave, a Gucci menswear god without a care in the world.

They drone on to the next item. I make us take a break, blaming it on Smuckers having to go out, but it’s really me. Ten minutes later, we’re back at it.

The one woman in the meeting, Mandy, seems to be a financial person. Brett is all about business relationships. Henry is the vision and strategy guy, and Kaleb is the corporate bottom line and super-argumentative guy. Other people are heads of various business divisions.

They discuss questions at length, look at all the sides of things. They respect and admire and protect each other. They trust each other.

It makes me feel lonely.

Another hour claws by. I’m hungry. Tired. Starting to feel like I did in the police station, and not at all like I'm taking my power back. I look down at my nails, which I painted special for today, just wanting to do a good job. Just wanting to show I’m not this piece-of-shit scammer.

I brush a bit of Smuckers’s fur off my dark dress. Really, I’m so tired of fighting.

Six

Henry

Did Mom thinkshe was leaving me with one last little piece of hell? Getting the final word in? I should be thanking her; there’s nothing I like better than a fight. Especially a fight I’m going to win.

This company is my family and has been for a long time—long before my mother chose a scammer and a dog over her own son.

And there’s nothing I won’t do for my family.

I propose another mind-numbing financial move. I’ve noticed she’s actually interested in construction stuff—it’s the only time she’s really tracking. So I keep the focus on the financials. This is business we could conclude in a tenth of the time, but I’m reading everything. I warned the group that I would.

It’s working; I’m wearing her down. When she feels especially tired, she scratches the dog’s head, as if that will perk her up, and she’s doing that now, big brown eyes glazing over.

If she had a team backing her up, we’d know about it by now. According to our PI, she has no business background, aside from selling ridiculous dog collars and things. My guess is that she got her hooks into my mom thinking she was an easy, small-change mark and only later realized what a big fish she had. And she got greedy, tried to take down this thing herself.

All alone. Messing with Henry Locke. Who does that?

Soon I’ll go in for the kill. I watch her stretch subtly in her chair. It took guts, I’ll give her that.

Now I’ll destroy her. I’ll strip her of everything. I find myself wondering if her neck will pinken when she realizes. Will she come at me with anger? At times she seems almost to despise me.

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