Page 41 of The Cinderella Secret
“He’s killing me out there. I can see the judge is swinging in his favor. I can’t compete with thatlet’s all go golfing next Tuesdaything that he does.”
“You golf.”
“I know how. But I mean the social event of golfing. Like he and the judge move in the same circles. They’ve met each other before.”
“You knew coming in that this wouldn’t be a home court advantage.”
“Yes, but I didn’t count on it being someone else’s home court. I thought it would be more neutral. And I certainly didn’t count on giant stupid face over there being smart.”
“And funny.”
“Don’t get me started. He thinks he’s hilarious, but he isnot. I have not laughed once. The rest of the courtroom can go ahead, but I’m not going to.”
“Stand firm,” advised Nai Nai, nodding her head.
“I cannot lose this case, Nai Nai.”
“You’ll have to lose some time,” said her grandmother. “Nobody is perfect.”
“I could maybe stand losing,” said Ella. “But Uncle could not. Getting on the board of this company is crucial to his future plans.”
“So he can buy an interest like a normal person. Not try to force it down their throat.”
“He was promised those shares. He should get them,” said Ella firmly.
“Your father was promised them twenty years ago—not your uncle. And the evidence is… not convincing.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Your uncle hates the Deverauxes. Are we sure he’s not set his heart on this company because he wants to hurt them?”
Ella was silent.
DevEntier had several innovative solar patents that were about to come through. Having access to them would be extremely useful to Zhao Industries. But DevEntier wasn’t the only fish in the sea. Zhao Industries didn’t need DevEntier. Her grandmother was right—this was very, very personal to Bai. Ella supposed it should have been personal to her too, but it really wasn’t. She could see that Zhao Industries had been her father’s dream. His hand was all over the founding documents. She could feel it in the way that Bai would sometimes wax nostalgic and saywe were going to… She never had to ask who he meant—he meant Bo. For Bai, Zhao Industries was supposed to have been a family proposition and she knew that Bai wanted her to be next in line for the throne. She would probably do it, she supposed. She was trying not to think about it. Zhao Industries was a mammoth and being CEO was all consuming. She wasn’t sure she wanted that for her life. But while she couldn’t focus on Bai’s dreams for the rest of her life, she could try and bring him a tiny bit of revenge and peace—she could bring him DevEntier.
Only Aiden blocked her at every turn. It hadn’t occurred to either Bai or Ella that the Deveraux would deny that Bo had ever been a full employee of DevEntier. As a contract employee, he wouldn’t have been eligible for the stock shares of an employee, and that meant Randall’s nebulous email was her only weapon. At least until she’d turned up a box of records that showed that Bo was getting a 401k contribution removed from his paycheck. That had allowed her to subpoena bank records that she hoped would conclusively prove he’d been employed at DevEntier.
She hoped. Maybe. Fingers crossed. As long as Aiden didn’t manage to come up with something else. Her uncle was counting on Ella to bring him his white whale. And Aiden Deveraux stood in her way.
“I owe this to my uncle,” said Ella quietly. “I can’t lose.”
“Why?” asked Nai Nai.
“Oh, I don’t know. The last six years of food, housing and college, for starters.”
“Meh,” said her grandmother, with a shrug.
“Zu mu!” Ella was shocked enough to use the formal term for grandmother.
“Ella, you listen to me. Just because he hates the Deveraux doesn’t mean you have to. You’ve already discovered he was wrong about this one. What makes you think he’s not wrong about the others?”
Ella bit her lip. The thought had already crossed her mind, but she had tried to bury it.
“And if it comes down to who owes what, maybe you should consider what he owes you. He built his empire on the work your father did. Maybe he should have tried a little harder to find you when your father died. You should not have had to show up on our doorstep like a beggar girl. He should have found you earlier.”
“I’ve seen the file, Nai Nai. He tried. Mom changed our names and moved like eight times to four different countries. Not exactly an easy trail to follow.”
Nai Nai snorted, clearly unswayed by Ella’s argument. “I’m simply saying,” she said as she heaved herself out of the chair, “that your life is your own. You don’t have to do everything to please him.”
