Chapter 3

3: 3

I stared at the share-transfer agreement, and all at once I was eight years old again, the day I came home from elementary school with a perfect test score.

My father was happy about the perfect score, and then he let out a long sigh.

"Ah, Iris. If only you'd been a boy."

Back then I didn't really understand what he meant. I'd grown up modeling myself after my mother, after all.

Now I understood.

In my father's mind, only a son could carry on the family line.

But if he wanted to carry on his line, he should go back to the countryside and tend those few acres of his family's land. What business did he have reaching for my mother's premarital property?

I pushed the share-transfer agreement back across the desk.

"Dad, if I remember right, the company is my mother's premarital property. You married into her family. What right do you have to anything of hers?"

At the words married in, his face darkened.

"Married in? Your mother forced herself on me, she took everything I had!"

"I'm a grown man, two hands, two feet. You think I'd just move into a woman's household on a whim? Your mother made me do it!"

And then, right on cue, he started fake-crying.

"Iris, you have no idea how much I've suffered all these years. Always second to your mother, living in her shadow. It was worse than death. There were times I wanted to jump off a building and end it."

"But I thought of you, and I changed my mind. Thank God you're grown now, old enough to tell right from wrong."

When I didn't react, he suddenly grabbed my hand.

"Sweetheart, I'm not asking you to sign the company over to me because I'm greedy for it. I'm truly afraid you'll end up like your mother, backlash and all, struck down by some terrible illness and taken from me. And I promise you, even after you transfer every share, I will never push you out of the company."

The clammy warmth of his grip made me want to be sick.

If my mother hadn't lifted him out of the life he came from, he'd still be scratching a living out of the countryside, barely able to feed himself.

And now, while she lay dying and couldn't speak up for herself, he was calling her a woman who took everything from him.

Disgusting.

I slid my hand free without a word and wiped it with a tissue.

"I've heard what you have to say. Give me some time to think it over."

His face soured further, but he arranged it into a show of trust.

"Good. Dad knows you're a good girl. You'll make the right choice, you won't disappoint me!"

I said nothing.

Millicent looked like she wanted to add something, but my father pulled her out.

Once the door shut, I looked at the transfer agreement on the desk and let out a cold laugh.

Won't disappoint him?

Then he'd guessed very wrong.

Guilt trips don't work on me.

I tore the agreement up, dropped it in the trash, and called Adrian in.

"Go and set it up. I want to hold a board meeting tomorrow."

Adrian asked,

"And the agenda?"

"Put down: a report on the company's recent projects and a change to management personnel."

Adrian paused.

"Do you need me to name specific people?"

"Yes. Regarding Noel Lambert."

Once the internal email went out, copied to all of management, a message from my father popped up.

He thought I meant to sign over the shares in front of everyone, and he was in a wonderful mood.

【My good girl, I always knew you were different from your mother. Tomorrow you're announcing that the shares go to Dad, aren't you?】

I didn't reply, so he sent a 4D ultrasound image from a prenatal checkup.

【Look, isn't your baby brother adorable? Once he's born, the two of you should get close.】

Truly unbearable.

I muted him.

Then last night, all of this. The housekeeper, Stephanie Lambert, called.

"Miss, there's trouble. A woman named Millicent Lawrence insists she's your stepmother and forced her way to the estate. When we wouldn't let her in, she stood outside shrieking."

"We were afraid she'd keep it up and embarrass you, so we brought her inside. Now she won't leave. She went straight into your wardrobe room, saying all the clothes and bags in there are hers. What do we do?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Call the police."

"Tell them there's a burglar in the house and to come catch the thief."

Before I hung up, I added a few more things.

"Oh, and when you get a moment, pack up all of Noel Lambert's personal clothing."

"And from now on, he is not allowed to set foot in the estate. Not just this one, but every property the Fox family owns."