Shelby's Awakening: Legacy Series: The Beasley's Book Three

by Lacey, Leila

  “Oh boy, please, a limp dicked donkey could do a better job at running this family than you. Well, then again you are an ass so…” Queenie said to her son.

  “Granny, please,” Shelby said to her grandmother trying to hide her grin. “Daddy, Greyson is not taking over, I am,” she said walking over to stand in front of her father. “And before you ask, yes I know that I can take the company over and do a better job than you. Daddy, don’t fight this. We all are in agreement on this and with all of us together we out vote you. Step aside with some dignity and grace.”

  Before anyone knew it, Jackson had slapped Shelby across her face and knocked her to the floor. With a low growl in his voice, Logan was pushing Jackson against the wall pressing his forearm into Jackson’s throat pressing hard to cut off his air. Sarah screamed and ran to Shelby along with Greyson.

  “Jackson, have you lost your mind?!” Sarah yelled at her husband.

  “Don’t you ever touch her again!” Logan was whispering to him menacingly.

  “Get off me,” Jackson sputtered trying to take a breath. Logan grabbed Jackson’s collar and pulled him toward him and then slammed him against the wall again putting a whole in the wall behind him.

  “This is the first and the last time I will ever say this to you, old man. If you ever put your hands on her again, I will kill you, and I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean literally. I will literally kill you. Your money can not buy you back from the afterlife. You got me?” Logan said in a low and menacing tone. Jackson went to say something and Logan pressed his arm harder into his throat. “I don’t need to hear your voice, blink once for yes and twice for no,” Logan growled. Jackson blinked once and Logan let him go. Jackson fell into a heap on the floor coughing and grasping for air. Logan went over to Shelby looking at her face and rubbing her cheek with his thumb. He kissed her forehead and whispered, “Are you ok?” Shelby nodded with tears streaming down her face.

  “Jackson, I never thought I would see the day that I am ashamed to say you are my child,” Queenie said with tears streaming from her eyes. “Get out of here, boy!” Jackson started to speak and Queenie interrupted him. “GO!” she said pointing at the door. “You better get out of here before I get mad!” she finished turning her face away from her son. Adjusting his suit and clearing his throat, Jackson looked around the room at his family. No one, including Sarah, would look at him.

  “Sarah,” Jackson said holding his hand out to her. Shelby, Greyson and Savannah looked at their mother, willing her to be strong enough to stand up to him. Sarah looked around the room at her children and her husband. Taking Shelby’s face in her hands, she whispered in her ear, “I am so sorry, baby! I am so sorry I hurt you. You, your brother and sister are my children and my greatest joy. But he is my husband,” she finished. She pulled Shelby into a hug that was almost too tight and walked over to Jackson and took his hand and left with him.

  Savannah was in tears on the floor. Shelby was in Logan’s arms, safe again. Greyson was pacing the floor.

  “Shep, we raised a monster,” Queenie whispered quietly from her seat looking the heavens sadly. Queenie often “talked” to her husband when she was sad or afraid. He had always been her champion in life and death.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As expected, two days later when Shelby put to the Board her proposition to take over as CEO of Beasley Holdings, Jackson had tried to fight her but lost by a land slide vote. Jackson had promised that all that had betrayed him would be sorry and stormed out of the meeting. Shelby had not spoken to her mother in days. She hoped she was going to be at the celebration that Cassidy had set up for Shelby in her new office.

  Shelby had taken over her father’s corner office. She had asked Cassidy to come with her on her first day there. As soon as they had walked in, Cassidy had leaned over and whispered, “This is the office of a crazy man,” pausing she had waved her arm out. “What fifty-eight year old heterosexual man has a petite statue of Michelangelo David in his office with balls just a-swinging?” she had finished with her face contorted in a way that you knew that was gross to her.

  “Cassidy!” Shelby had said laughing as she walked in and went to sit behind her father’s over-sized Mahogany desk. She still felt like a little girl spinning around in her daddy’s chair. Only her daddy was not the man she thought he was, and Cassidy was right; the alabaster statue of David and his exposed penis was quite distracting. “Um, Cassidy?” Shelby said looking up at her friend.

  Cassidy was holding one hand up to stop her from asking the question and the other hand holding her phone to her ear, when she said, “Say no more. I’m already on it. That’s just nasty.”

  Within a week, Cassidy had Shelby’s entire executive office suite completely redecorated. The only ideas that Shelby had been able to give Cassidy was that she wanted a more open team environment. Cassidy had done an amazing job. The initial concept was based on the idea of creating functional spaces of modern character. The design intent was to create, through language and environment, an architecture that is out to the institutional basis of the assumption of office as being a second home. It had a mixture of natural materials like marble and wood, in contrast color tempered glass, stainless steel and iron, creating balanced compositions of color and textures; simultaneously a combination of modern and warm.

  The elevators in the lobby were the contrast between the marble and white Calacata steel plates and black patina which created an effect somewhat contradictory. This access leads to the reception hall which changes to elegant and warm tones through enlightenment.

  At the end of the reception hall is located the executive secretarial area, which is enclosed by glass doors etched with geometric shapes, decorated with a painting of Jose Villalobos and engravings by Piranessi. This part of the project comprises two executive offices, meeting rooms and a lounge, all with contemporary furnishings, wood trimmings and panels that are combined with plaster ceilings, velvet curtain complements giving the office a residential environment and a touch of elegance.

  Sarah had not arrived yet but Shelby knew that her mother was a woman that liked to make an entrance. Ivy was there standing across the room talking to Logan, Lance and Logan’s mother. Ivy, like Logan, was never really comfortable in Shelby’s wealthy environment, but she tried for her.

  She had given her an engraved wooden frame that had a picture of them together at the arboretum when Shelby was a year old. Shelby did not remember it, of course, but Ivy had said, “This was the last time I spent any time with you before your daddy thought it would be confusing for you to have me in your life.”

  Shelby was touched that her mother had kept this picture and was giving it to her. The engraving on the frame was, “To my one and only miracle.” Shelby had wrapped her mother in a bear hug and whispered for the first time, “Thank you, Momma,” which had, of course, brought them both to tears.

  Shelby had been working non-stop since the vote and had not been able to spend much time with Logan. She knew that he was tired of waiting for her every night only to fall asleep alone. She had gotten so wrapped up in reading reports that she had completely forgotten about Gia’s first swimming lesson and she had promised the little girl she would be there. She had apologized to Gia and Logan for days and although Logan said it was fine, she had been getting the silent treatment for a week.

  “Ok, what have you done to that sexy man you have to make him look like that?” Cassidy said to Shelby snapping her out of her thoughts.

  “What? Oh, what do you mean?” Shelby stammered looking away from her friend.

  “Ohhh, it must be bad. You do not stammer unless it is something really bad,” Cassidy said.

  “Spill,” she finished.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Cassidy. Besides we are having a celebration. What way is he looking? He looks normal to me,” Shelby said to her friend looking everywhere but at Logan.

  “Don’t give me that shit. Shel, last week you could not keep your hands
off each other and you were regaling me with all your ass eating adventures; which I am still traumatized by, by the way. This week you are having a small celebration in your brand new impeccably designed, if I do day so myself, office and you two are on opposite sides of the room the entire time. Do I look stupid to you?”

  “Well...” Shelby started to say but Cassidy cut her off.

  “Don’t get smart!” she said pointing her finger as Shelby was smiling.

  Sigh. “He is angry because I have been so busy with learning the ropes that I have not spent very much time with him lately. I keep telling him it’s only going to be until I get the hang of things, but he feels ignored,” Shelby said, frustrated with the whole situation.

  “Shelby, you don’t think that you should let Grey do a little more of the work? You and Logan are so new. You really need to try and focus on that,” Cassidy said to her friend.

  “Cassidy, why do I have to give up the business to have a relationship? Why can men do both?” Shelby said.

  “THEY DON’T!” Why do you think so many men that are wealthy or CEO’s are divorced, or cheating on their drunk wife?” Cassidy said popping a piece of cubed cheese into her mouth. “Look at your mom; she is miserable, drinks too much and is terrified of your father,” Cassidy said. “People can have both but the relationship has to be solid FIRST or it is doomed to fail, in my opinion,” Cassidy said sipping her champagne. Shelby knew Cassidy was right. Sitting down her champagne, she hugged Cassidy.

  “What was that for?” she said to her friend.

  “Because you the best friend a girl could ask for,” Shelby said smiling.

  “Aww… thank you, boo boo,” Cassidy said smiling. “Now go and pull that man into one of these conference rooms and give him some pussy! I am gonna go and see if I can get your sexy brother to molest me,” she finished.

  “Cassidy! You know his divorce just became final six months ago, right?” Shelby said to her.

  “Yeah… and?” Cassidy said looking at Shelby like she had just said the dumbest thing ever.

  Shaking her head and laughing, Shelby said, “Never mind. Go get him,” and started walking toward Logan.

  Walking up to him, she grabbed his hand. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said squeezing her hand and smiling at her. Being close to Logan and seeing him smile always made the world feel right to Shelby. His presence put her at peace. She realized then that she was going to have a meeting with Grey to delegate more of her responsibilities to him. He was there all the time anyway.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?” she said to him. Here comes the moment that Logan had been dreading since Shelby took over the company; when she tells him they are not compatible, that she loved him but they could not work. The moment when she broke his heart. “Sure,” was all he said.

  “Shelby, Shelby, darling, I need to talk to you,” Sarah said rushing into the office. She was out of breath and disheveled; two things Shelby had never seen her mother be.

  “Hi, Momma,” Shelby said to her hugging her. “Of course, we can but slow down. What is the matter?”

  “Oh, Shelby, I made so many mistakes, I have done so many wrongs,” Sarah said tears streaming down her face. Her hands were shaking.

  “Momma?” Greyson said from the corner coming toward them, “What has he done now?”

  All attention in the room was now on Sarah and she was almost too hysterical to speak.

  “Grey, get her a glass of water,” Logan said to him as he and Shelby guided her to one of the couches in the office. Sitting down with her and hugging her tightly, Shelby said, “Momma, you are scaring me. What’s the matter?”

  Sarah took the glass of water from Greyson and took a sip. Grey pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the tears away from her face. Sarah was still unable to speak, tears flowing.

  The sound of Queenie’s wheel chair rolling over to the sofa was all that could be heard in the room. When she stopped, Shelby, Greyson and Sarah all looked at Queenie waiting for what she had to say.

  “Sarah, where is my son? What have you done?” was all Queenie had a chance to say before…..

  “EXCUSE ME, EXCUSE ME! You cannot just barge in here!” Shelby’s assistant said. Two uniformed police officers and one police detective marched in the room.

  “I can….with this,” the detective said holding a piece of paper in the air. Standing up and snatching the paper from his hand, Greyson read it over.

  “What is this?” he said looking at the cop.

  “It’s an arrest warrant,” he said looking around the room.

  “Oh shit!” Logan said. He had been arrested by this dirty cop enough to know he was about to have a very long day.

  “What?” Shelby said running to Logan’s side. “You are not taking him out of here...” Shelby started to say, when Greyson interrupted her.

  “SHEL!” he started reading the piece of paper. “He is not here for Logan,” he finished.

  “What?” Shelby said looking around. “Then who is he here for?”

  “Her,” the detective said pointing at Sarah. The two officers went forward and forced Sarah to her feet as the Detective said,

  “Sarah Beasley, you are under arrest for the murder of Jackson Beasley. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...” as the officers cuffed her.

  “WHAT?” Shelby said grabbing him. “Did you just say that my father was dead?” Shelby said to him, over all the “oh my God’s” and “Jesus’s” in the room.

  “Ma’am, take your hands off me, please,” the detective said. We were called to the Beasley estate this afternoon where we found Jackson Beasley shot five times.”

  The room irrupted in chaos and the officers took her quiet and broken mother away in handcuffs.

  TO BE CONTINUED!!!!

  What will become of the Beasley’s? Find out in the fourth and final book of the Legacy Series: The Beasley’s.