by Claire Adams
“In the meantime,” I continued, “Stella and I are here to help you. My stepfather was near and dear to every single person’s heart, and I want you to know that our doors and ears are open. If you want someone to talk with, we are here for you. If you want someone to cry with, we will come sit with you. If you want someone to indulge in memories with, we’re here for you. All of you. Always.”
Stella’s eyes were hooked onto the side of my face, but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, this meeting was over. Everyone had smiles on their faces, a few tears in their eyes, and they were nodding along with every word I had to say.
“If anyone has any questions or comments about anything, in particular, you are more than welcome to stick around and talk with myself or Stella. We want to know your feedback on how you feel we could make this place shine brighter than my stepfather ever thought possible. But, if you do not have anything you wish to talk about at this time, then you are free to leave. The schedule for the week is behind the counter out front if anyone needs an assurance and a reminder.”
They all clapped before they got up and left, and I turned to Stella with a pleased look on my face. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my baggy suit pants, but all she was doing was staring at me with a frown on her face.
If looks could kill, I would’ve been dead the moment I stepped into this room with her.
“I need to go call the contractor,” I said. “The sooner they can get going on these offices, the faster we can move into them.”
“You’re not going to even run that idea by me?” she asked.
“Do you think it’s a bad one?” I asked. “Having offices right here where we are accessible to our employees?”
Her silence spoke volumes.
“Go ahead and get a checkup done on the projects your father had spinning. I know one of them is close to being rolled out, but I’m not sure how close,” I said.
And with that, I held my head high. For the first time in quite a while, I felt as if I had a forward trajectory with my life. Our jobs were clear, the way the work in the company was delegated was clear, and there were tasks we both had to get done before the weekend arrived.
But the stomp in Stella’s foot as she left the meeting room told me she wasn’t happy.
It was going to be a long road.
Chapter Ten
Stella
The office space my father used was two blocks down the road from the main supplies store. My father set it up like that to keep him active, but Christian wouldn’t know that because he never came by when he was younger. While moving the office space right above the medical supplies store seemed convenient, it wouldn’t keep us active. My father was a proponent of healthy choices while aiding those who didn’t always make the best ones. He took care of himself while being in the business of helping others.
It was the dichotomy that ran the entire store, and Christian knew nothing about it.
I was unpacking my stuff into the space my father used as a meeting room for special clients. Sometimes, people wanted to talk privately with my father, and he had an entire setup for it. The room had a comfortable couch, three cushioned chairs, two vending machines, a plush rug, a beautiful window the sun could shine through, and shelves of books on every subject he thought would be necessary and comforting for someone to see.
There was no desk, and I preferred it that way.
I unpacked a few of my things and set the necessary items on the coffee table before I pulled out a picture of my stepmother and my father. The woman was a saint, putting up with some of the quirks my father had, and I realized I never cherished her as much as I should have. She was beautiful, she had been vibrant, and you could see it in the way my father looked at her that he loved her with every bit of his soul.
“They were a power couple, weren’t they?”
Christian’s voice startled me so much I almost dropped the picture onto the ground.
“They loved each other, that’s for sure,” I said breathlessly.
“You remember when that picture was taken?” he asked as he walked over to me.
“No. I honestly don’t,” I said.
“It was taken on beach trip we took during that massive storm,” he said as he plucked the picture from my hands.
“Oh, I remember that. The one we thought would completely wash out the hotel,” I said.
“It was an anomalous storm that no one knew what to do with,” Christian said. “Mom was petrified.”
“ And Dad was excited to ride the damn thing out,” I said, giggling.
“Remember all the jokes he made about being on the East Coast and finally getting a taste of how they felt during hurricane season?” he asked.
“Remember how pissed your mother was that he was making all those jokes? She kept saying—”
“‘—Lives are lost in those storms, Charles. Not in front of the children,’” we said in unison.
“They took this picture right after the storm cleared the coast,” he said. “Right there on the beach after that storm completely tore through it. Your father was astounded by the beauty that followed such a violent event.”
“I’d like to think he wasn’t talking about the beach, but about your mother,” I said.
“Who’s talkin’ ‘bout my mama?”
Greyson’s terrible joke interrupted the friendly conversation Christian and I were having.
“Greyson,” Christian said.
“Christian! Congratulations on the company, man,” Greyson said as he held out his hand for Christian to shake. “It’s about time someone younger stepped up and ran this thing.”
“With a team like Stella and I, things can only go up from here,” Christian said.
“Listen, I’m proud of you stepping up and taking control when your stepfather asked you to. Don’t let little Stella here try to take that from you,” Greyson said.
I threw my gaze over to him, my eyes wide with horror. Did he say what I think he just said? How the hell did he know what I was trying to do?
“Well, my first order of business was hiring Stella to be the senior vice president of the company. She’s got way too much knowledge to throw away on this business. Intimate knowledge of how her father ran things that will become very useful to me,” Christian said.
“Spoken like a true owner,” Greyson said, smiling. “At any rate, I was rooting for you the entire time. Sometimes men are just better at this kind of thing, eh, Christian?”
“Actually, as of 2015, women CEOs rake in more than $1.5 trillion dollars of the United States’ overall GDP. Over 9.4 million businesses are owned by women, and of those companies, a whopping 31% of them have created close to 8 million jobs over the past eight years,” Christian said.
“Whopping, huh?” Greyson said, grinning. “Well, we’re all rooting for you,” Greyson said.
“And I’m rooting for us both,” Christian said.
The two of them looked at one another for a little while, and I couldn’t help but grin. I had no idea why in the world Christian had just stood up for me in front of Greyson, but I was honestly thankful for it. It was nice to think someone was in my corner.
You know, before it came back to me that my father had given him the family business.
“Let me know if you need any help, alright?” Greyson asked. “We all want to see this place succeed after the passing of your stepfather.”
“This place will succeed. I hired my secret weapon as my VP,” Christian said, grinning.
I watched Greyson leave before Christian turned his smile toward me. I was at a complete loss to what had just happened. Not only had Greyson come in and blatantly insulted me in my own damn office, he hadn’t even acknowledged the fact that I was in the room.
“You alright?” Christian asked.
“Why would you stand up for me like that?” I asked, turning my surprised look to him.
“He’s a dick, Stella. We all know that. No one on this planet knows why you’
re dating him,” he said.
“He really isn’t such a bad guy,” I said. “He’s just set in his ways.”
“And those ways just happen to think you aren’t capable of running this company,” he said.
“Well, he’s not the only man in my life who thinks that,” I said.
“Remember what I promised you?” he asked.
“What?”
“That we would figure out why your father did this the way he did?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Together. That’s what people do during tough times. They band together and get out of it side by side. They don’t put each other down to make the other feel superior,” he said.
“Are we still talking about my father?” I asked.
“Does that sound anything remotely like your father?” Christian asked, grinning.
I couldn’t help but smile at him, but my phone ringing in my bag interrupted the conversation.
“I’m heading on back to the store. The contractor will be out here within the next hour to take a look at the dimensions,” he said.
I felt myself bristle at that statement. It was just another reminder of why I was doing this. Of why I was taking the company back and putting it in the hands of who needed to control it.
He was destroying everything.
“Sounds good. That’s probably one of the warehouses calling me back,” I said.
“Let me know what they say,” he said before he turned and left the room.
I scrambled for my phone, recognizing the number showing on the screen. It was my lawyer calling me back, and I hoped he had good news to share.
“Hello?”
“Miss Harte, I’ve got some good news,” he said.
“Perfect. Hit me with it,” I said.
“You do have one other avenue you can pursue with regard to taking the company back from Mr. Gunn, but it’s going to require liquidating your father’s other assets.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your father left the company to Mr. Gunn, but he left control of his estate to you. So, his stock and bond portfolios, his bank accounts, and his property are all under your control,” he said.
“Alright. So, what do I have to do with them?” I asked.
“You’d sell them. Cash it all in, sell the property, and put it all into a dump account and slowly purchase shares of your company’s stock. If you can gain the controlling percentage of the stock in the company, it doesn’t matter whose face represents the company in the media. Whoever holds majority stock holds the best interest of the company,” he said.
“If I liquidated, would I have enough money to even execute something like that?” I asked.
“You would have to do it over an extended period of time. One, maybe even two years.”
“No. I need something sooner than that. He’s already making changes that my father never would’ve agreed to. He’s going to run this place into the ground,” I said.
“If you feel he’s mentally unfit, we can always take that route. You can put him through the wringer in court and scoot him out. This is your only other option if you don’t want to mutually settle it with him,” he said.
“And there are no other avenues?” I asked.
“None. Take your time and think on this, Miss Harte. Whatever route you choose, it’s a long one, and it’s going to drudge up a great deal of ill will along the way,” he said.
“Thank you for your call, sir,” I said.
I hung up the phone before I tossed it onto the couch. My eyes fluttered back to the picture Christian had left standing on the coffee table, and the happiness in my father’s eyes brought tears to mine. There wouldn’t be a day that would go by for the rest of my life that I wouldn’t wish he was here to help me through these decisions, and I felt a tear run my cheek before I wiped it away.
Harte To Heart Medical Supplies deserved better than Christian, and I was going to make sure it got what it deserved.
Chapter Eleven
Christian
“So, how was the first day?”
I lifted the heavily weighted barbell as Todd helped me rack it. I’d gotten up early this morning to go to the gym with him since he had a day off, and I was glad. While the first day at work seemed to go well, I knew Stella was still trying to take the company away from me.
Which meant I had been tense and on my guard all day.
“I mean, it went well. I walked in, and Stella was already trying to control everything,” I said.
“Did we expect any different?” he asked.
“Well, it confirmed my fears,” I said.
“What fears?” he asked.
“She’s still trying to take the company from me,” I said.
“Is that a shocking thing to you?” he asked.
“Well, I hoped offering her the job would squash that passion in her,” I said.
“Dude, I didn’t tell you to hire her to shut her up. I told you to hire her so you could keep her close.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “You ready?”
“Yeah, switch out.”
I got up from the bench, and Todd laid down before I put on another set of weights. He was grunting out his reps and sets of bench presses as we were beginning our exercising, but my mind was swirling with other thoughts.
“What’s going on in that head?” he asked as he racked the weights.
“I just never pictured myself as a business owner, you know? But, by the end of the day yesterday, people were already congratulating me on the good job I was doing,” I said.
“Think they were just trying to kiss ass?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I mean, it’s not like anyone called me out of the blue and told me that. That would be ass kissing. But, people I encountered throughout the day would pat me on the back and tell me,” I said.
“Ah, so they were being soothing and supportive. Got it,” he said. “Was Stella one of those people?”
“Is that really a question you have to ask?”
“Well, at least she’s partially honest in where she stands,” he said. “You want to go another round?”
“Nah, I’m good. I could go for a round of pull-ups though,” I said.
“We can do that,” he said.
I walked over to the corner and jumped to grab the bar before I pumped out a round of 20. By the time I was done, sweat was bursting on my brow, and Todd was itching to get up there. Todd was scrawny, but he was strong. The way his body seemed to fool you into thinking he was a weak little coffee nerd before he beat your ass in football was something I always laughed at.
It was very entertaining, watching people underestimate him before he whipped their ass.
“I guess I could try to work on my relationship with Stella. You know, since we didn’t cultivate one when we were younger,” I said.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Todd said breathlessly.
“She’s not my enemy, dude. She’s my stepsister. I want her to feel at home in the company. I want us to work well together,” I said.
“Well, she’s trying to take it from you, so if you want to go the lovey-dovey route, be my guest. Just protect yourself, Christian. Keep an eye out,” he said.
“You know who did drop by to wish me a job well done, though?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Greyson,” I said.
“Oh, shit! The douche-friend stopped by. How did that go?”
“He berated Stella and her ability to run the company right in front of me. Spewed some bullshit about how men were better at working than women,” I said.
“Why the fuck is Stella with him again?” he asked.
“I don’t fucking know. I mean, I’ve heard Daisy mouth off about him a couple times, but that was the first time I’d ever met the guy,” I said.
“Daisy?” he asked.
“Stella’s best friend,” I said.
“She
hot?” he asked.
“Shut up.”
“Just asking! Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said. “What did you say to the dick?”
“I gave him a few updated statistics on the number of women who were CEOs of companies and how many jobs those women have created as well as how much revenue women-owned businesses bring to the country’s overall GDP,” I said.
“And you say you’re not fit to run a company,” he said with a smirk.
“I don’t like him. I have no idea why the hell Stella’s fucking around with a guy like him.”
“Well, that’s a first,” he said.
“A first what?” I asked as I jumped for the pull-up bar.
“I’ve never heard you be a protective stepbrother before. It looks good on you. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks,” I grunted.
I finished my second set of 20 reps of pull-ups before I hopped down. Todd got his set in before the two of us sat down on the bench, but my mind was no longer focused on the workout.
It was focused on the next day of work.
“I know that look,” Todd said.
“What?”
“You’re thinking about work,” he said.
“Not a chance. It’s the weekend. Any parties we should be getting into?” I asked.
“You’re thinking about work. It’s official. You’re the owner of a company who’s doing this ‘adult thing’ right,” he said.
“Whatever, man.”
“Let’s finish up and get you home so you can have more thoughts about what work will bring next week,” he said, grinning.
“I’m not thinking about work!”
“You can lie all you want! I know what thinking about work looks like,” he said.
“Because you do it all the time, of course,” I said.
“Oh, that hurts. That hurts deep, man,” he said.
We finished up our workout with a decent run around the track before we parted ways. He was right; my mind was whirling with things from work. Numbers and figures and designs for the offices. Stella had yet to get me the information and dates for the projects already in the works, so I was planning how I would approach her Monday. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t living in the present. I was worrying about the future and what it would bring, and I didn’t like it.