AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Daddy…” she said.
“You’re giving us…everything?” Chloe asked, her voice shaking with shock.
Everything?What the fuck was going on?
Leon nodded, then said, “Well, not everything. Your mother and I are retaining thirty shares, split evenly between us. As you’ll see, Amara, you’ll be getting two hundred. Chloe, Delia, Ella, and Brie, you each get one-ninety.”
My mind leapt into the mental calculations, and realization dawned.
“There are still ten shares up for grabs,” I said, ignoring the fact that I was expressly prohibited from speaking during these proceedings.
Lena glared at me, but Leon nodded, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Correct, Mr. Ryder. For the first time ever, Delatou, Inc. is selling shares to a non-Delatou party.”
“I want them.”
He’d planned this. I didn’t knowhowI knew, only that I did. Leon had to have guessed that working under a CEO I didn’t believe in wouldn’t sit right with me, and that I would immediately be seeking other employment opportunities. He was offering this stock up to me on a silver platter, giving me a reason to stick around. Maybe he realized I was our best chance at survival, at keeping his daughter in line.
I had no idea what this stock was valued at, or how much of my nest egg I’d just spontaneously offered up, but it didn’t matter. I’d been looking for a way in for five years, for a way to become more than just the man who managed this company’s finances without reaping any of the benefits. I didn’t know what the profit share looked like, or what hoops I’d have to jump through to make this happen. If it required my first born child, I’d do it.
But this, at last, was my in. My chance to make myself indispensable. As a stockholder, I’d be wholly involved in business decisions for the corporation moving forward, not just as the CFO, but as someone whose bottom line would be directly affected by everything we did from here on out.
Including personnel decisions.
Maybe, I could…
No. I wasn’t going there right now. One thing at a time.
Leon surely clocked the desperation in my gaze as I silently implored him to give me this. He studied me for several long moments, unblinking, and I refused to be the one to break first. At last, he turned back to his family.
“All those in favor of selling the remaining ten shares of Delatou, Inc. stock to Calvin Ryder, raise your right hand.”
Per the bylaws, this votehadto be unanimous in order for the motion to pass. I held my breath, desperately trying to choke the life out of the hope threatening to rise in my chest.
With a sigh, Lena lifted hers, and her daughters fell like dominoes after her.
All but one.
“Amara?” her father implored.
“No.”
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy, and that the party princess would deny me. I brought the girl home one time and kicked her out before anything happened that we couldn’t come back from, and suddenly, I was the worst man to ever walk the planet.
“Amara,please.” My tone was borderline begging. “Please let me have this.”
Amara stiffened with my words, her back going ramrod straight, and she angled her head slightly but stopped herself, as though she’d been about to look at me but thought better of it at the last second.
“Amara?” her father asked again.
With a sigh that had her entire torso rising and falling dramatically, and a sound from the back of her throat that couldn’t be confused as anything other than disgust, Amara raised her hand.
My attempt at gettingLeon and Lena to see my side of things and not hand over the reins to Amara obviously hadn’t gone as planned, so it was time to try a different tack.
I approached Chloe first.
Once the meeting ended, and the reporters conducted their interviews and left, the sisters began filtering from the room. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Chloe was the last one out, too busy tapping away on her phone to realize she’d been left alone with me until it was too late. Once everyone else had exited, I quietly closed the door behind me, and her gaze shot up to mine.
“Cal?” she asked, clearly confused. “What’re you doing?”
