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“You do not need to attend these meetings Stella, as I have reminded you in the past. You have meager shares. Your husband will attend on your behalf if he sees fit and deal with his own shares.” Meager shares, this fucker really thinks he’s fooling anyone. Even before my marriage to Jaxon, I held twenty percent of the shares of this company. No one would call that meager, but him. There are board members sitting here with less shares than I own, and he treats them with respect. The only difference is the cock I wasn’t born with, but make no mistake my balls are bigger, as he’s about to find out.
A smirk crosses my face and I watch as the large vein in his forehead starts to throb. He’s angry at me for the interruption, perhaps even a bit embarrassed that his only child decided to attend a meeting of her family’s empire. A woman, no less, one that he has deemed inferior to him and those present.This will make this whole situation even sweeter for me, I will enjoy inflicting pain on him as he has on me in the past.
I tear my eyes away from my father’s outraged and disappointed ones and look over each of the preceding board members. All men in their mid to late forties, fifties and sixties. Not a single woman is present on the board of my family’s company, even though both my mother and I are share owners. That will need to change. I have no intention of allowing this toxic male superiority to remain at Penticton Industries or at Stratford Industries. The world is changing and these men are about to experience a rude wake up call.Hey assholes, the world is half female and it’s our turn to shine.
“Is that so?” I move closer to the end of the oval board table, directly opposed to my father and stare at the man sitting in the plush chair. “It seems father, that you may be unexpectedly and unmercifully misguided. My husband will not in fact be present for any board meeting for Penticton Industries as he owns no shares.”
The gray-haired idiot before me, opens the folder that Tyson dropped in front of him, which contains only one document. The one that clearly shows how many shares I currently own. He stares at the document in disbelief and then raises his brown eyes to meet my unrelenting ones. “I suggest you move; you are in my seat.” My words leave my lips in cold, calculated malice.
“What are you babbling about, girl! Of course your husband has shares in the company, I myself provided him with them for your matrimony.” A dowry of course, he provided my husband with a dowry to marry me like we are living in some medieval world. Thomas Penticton’s face swells up with anger and agitation, he reaches over and rips the folder from the board member next to his hands. The room is silent as he contemplates what he is seeing before him.
I quirk my lips as I take the newly vacated seat, crossing my hands before me on the desk. The perfect picture of a dutiful queen, one that he ensured I knew how to play the part of. He should congratulate himself once the fury has settled down a bit. He is partially responsible for making me the woman I am today. Without his mistreatment, lack of support, empathy and general sexism, who knows what I may have become.
“As you can see from the document before you, father.” I sneer the word out, making sure that all present hear my disdain for it. “Jaxon generously signed over his shares and his board seat to his wife yesterday. That would make me,his wife, the majority shareholder in Penticton Industries, not you.“ The biggest surprise was that my timid mother also signed over her shares to me when I requested them, without any hesitation or questions.
My father slams the folder down on the desk before him, rising to his feet and leaning over the table, his large belly protruding over the belt of his black dress pants. His face filled with rage, blotchy and red, sweat dotting his receding hairline. I’m almost sorry that I am hurting him, he is my father but the mistreatment and disdain over the years at his hands stays any sentiment that rises within me. He will be the first of many that I will have cowering at my feet when I am done. I don’t think he will enjoy the trip down to the bottom. To be subjected to my rule, and my control, but oh well, life is never fair.After all, I should fucking know first hand, I’m a woman.
“This is ludicrous. You cannot have the majority shareholder’s position Stella!” He slams his fist down hard on the tabletop ensuring that the water in the glasses before each of the shareholders sloshes out and wets the tabletop before us. His breathing is harsh and his chest is rising and falling with angry pants. He is working himself into one of his rages. The ones he subjects my mother and me to. The ones that portray a less civilized version of Thomas Phlip Penticton than the world gets to see. The tyrant is actually an abusive monster behind closed doors.
“Why is that father?" I raise my eyebrow and meet his affronted glare. “Could it be because I am a woman?” I sit back in my chair, demonstrating to all those before me a rational, collected and serious countenance. I will not allow any of them to judge or misalign me with the stereotypes attributed to women. I am not prone to hysteria, fear or tears and I will not cower before a group of men.
“What have you done Stella? You think this little stunt will change anything? You are a woman, your place is at home running your husband’s house and ensuring that he is taken care of, giving birth to the next generation. Not in a corporate office and certainly not heading Penticton Industries.”
Indignation fills me and I have to stop the outraged retort that wants to leave my mouth. How dare he insinuate that all I am good for is being my husband’s property, breeding and running his home. I tighten my fingers on the edge of the table until they are bloodless before me and take a few short breaths through my nose, glowering at my father. The man I once worshiped with a little girl’s admiration for her poppa. He never deserved it, even when I was a child. Always lamenting the lack of a son and making me feel small and unwanted.
“Regardless of your opinion father, the fact is right there in black and white before you, and undisputable. I am the majority shareholder, with even more shares than you. I have my shares, Jaxon’s shares and my mother’s which gives me fifty one percent. Which means that I will be heading this company going forward from today onwards.” I raise my hand to silence whatever wrathful words are about to leave his lips. “Be wary father, I have no qualms about taking my shares public and selling our family legacy to the highest bidder if you try in any way to stop my takeover.”
“You would destroy over two hundred years of Penticton legacy in spite, Stella?” Spittle flies from his mouth as he moves around the table towards me. A huge lumbering presence seething with wrath. I feel Tyson move forward at my back and spy the other board members moving further away from the table at my father’s approach.They are smarter than they look, bastards.He is a volcano about to explode and they don’t want to be in his immediate vicinity when he does.
“I would burn it all to the ground and sleep well at night. Your legacy, your name, and the empire that our family built.”
He reaches out with his large hand and grabs my chin in his tight grasp, tilting it so that I have no choice but to meet his ferocious gaze. The sweat that at first dotted his forehead is now trickling in drips down the side of his face and his nostrils are flaring. He looks like an enraged bull, ready to attack. His large body is locked tight, perhaps with the restraint of not raising that meaty paw in punishment. If he were to slap me here, like he so often does, these men would know what type of man Thomas Penticton really is. The type that uses his hand and fists on his wife and daughter to ensure obedience and fear.
Someone clearing their throat behind me catches everyone in the room’s attention and has my father releasing his tight hold on my chin. I move my jaw back and forth to loosen up the feeling of his fingers. I have no doubt that his meaty fingerprints will be present there tomorrow.Motherfucker!
“Thomas, I thought that I had already warned you about touching a Stratford. In particular the one your fingers were just on.” Jaxon’s voice rings out behind me filled with cold malice and a vibrant threat.
I watch enthralled as my father swallows painfully, his face rising with further color as he moves away from me. His body is almost trembling with the resentment he is trying to suppress. His hands are now clenched at his side and he’s grinding his large meaty jaw. I don’t bother to turn in my seat, I can picture the look of malicious intent on Jaxon’s face. He did warn him and even though I don’t need him to fight my battles, a warm satisfaction fills me at the look of abject fear on my father’s face.
“She is my daughter.”
“She is my wife, Thomas. That trumps being your daughter. She is also the majority shareholder at this company and you will show her the respect that both those titles require or…I. Will. Destroy. You.” Jaxon’s voice never raises with the threat but the deadly intent behind his words has a shiver racing down my spine. He moves further into the room, his scent reaching my nose and helping to release some of the tightness in my chest. I should question why his mere presence is having that effect on me. Something to ponder at a later opportunity when I am not surrounded by enemies.
“How could you have done this Jaxon? Have you lost your mind?” Thomas seethes.
“Done what exactly, Thomas? Given my wife the shares that rightly belong to her as Penticton Industries is her family’s legacy? Provided a highly educated and business savvy woman the right to lead her own empire? Which part vexes you the most? That she will be your superior and run the company or that she is a woman and outsmarted you?”
15
Jaxon
“There’s something special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.” Rihanna
AsIawaitmynew father-in-law’s reply to my question, my eyes fall over the young man at my wife’s back, positioned as a sentinel. No doubt this is the new personal assistant she hired. It seems my wife and I will be having words about hiring good-looking young men as her right hand.
Hypocritemy mind whispers. I know that it’s a double standard, I have no qualms about attractive women working for me at Stratford Industries but I don’t want my wife surrounded daily by handsome men. The little kernel of emotion rising within me has a vibrant green tinge to it and I don’t for one second enjoy it.
“She will never be my superior; you are misaligned and insane for even suggesting it. You need to get firm control over my daughter, Jaxon.” I snort at his comment and his attempt at reminding me of ownership. Stella is no longer his, she’s all mine now. The fucker is insane. He obviously doesn’t know the first fucking thing about Stella, if he honestly believes anyone can get control over her. I have no doubt that she will fight me tooth and nail for the rest of our lives over control, and I may never come out the victor. Yet the thought of all the battles I am going to face and all the ways I’m going to try to force her to submit to me, make me feel alive.
