CHAPTER 10
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Liam cornered Emily the day after the attempted conspiracy. He didn't have to bluff to know that she was following Michael Foreman's orders, but he needed her to come clean.
Still, she didn't open her mouth.
It was obvious that Michael Foreman had a tight grip on her. It didn't matter if it was money or a threat, that scoundrel wouldn't open her mouth.
If he could get her to sign the affidavit, he could use it as evidence to frame Michael Foreman on the partner morality clause and strip him of his voting rights.
It would be a big weight off his shoulders.
Since she wouldn't talk, Liam fired her because he knew Michael wanted to avoid a public confrontation and wouldn't defend her after the public scandal.
Liam claimed that Emily came to attack Emma at her desk and that was reason enough for HR to take the dismissal without delay. The whole floor had seen them.
It was precisely because Michael preferred to keep up appearances that he didn't show up to ratify Emma's verbal dismissal, so that was out of effect.
Liam laughed internally at this.
He had just kicked Michael's ass, not so loudly.
“Your future father-in-law is a danger,” commented William Sanders as he sipped a glass of whiskey.
They were gathered in Liam's office to discuss the next steps in Liam's demanding business plan that had taken a radical turn.
“Who says I'm marrying his daughter,” Liam raised one of his eyebrows. He was exasperated at the thought of Anna.
“Your relationship with her is based on securing her father's public votes for the Board, but he wants to control the company and doesn't want you to be CEO”
“So let's see who controls it first! And when I have the power, I'll make sure I don't need any more of his votes. He's a manipulator to be reckoned with who pretends to be on my side, but underneath he's doing his best to ruin me”
“You can't publicly rebuke him; you still need his votes for the Board”
“Do you think I don't know? but I'll come up with an idea to get rid of that jerk”
At that moment, the door opened and Emma came in with several folders to put them on the table.
“I have finished these drafts, Mr. Van Dyke. I'll leave them for your review and signature”
Liam looked at his secretary, though careful not to be so expressive. And for William to see through him.
“All right, leave them there”
Emma quickly left and both men were left alone again.
"Are you allowing her to make sketches yet?" asked William.
Liam wasn't stupid, he saw everything she did for him even when a probable dismissal was hanging over her.
“She's legit....”
“And you decided that in a couple of weeks?”
Liam was serious. Even if William made those comments out of instinct for legal protection of their plans together, it bothered him that he said that for Emma.
“She stopped a sabotage and was able to deduce my plan. What wasn't that why you hired her? we were looking for a loyal person for our team”
William was a little surprised at his defense of her.
“Yes, I don't deny it, but you know that the search was more focused on hiring a secretary who was as far away as possible from the resemblance that the others had and... you know it,” replied William, throwing a stick on that shameful matter of making out with all his assistants, that when the last one reported him for sexual harassment, they didn't believe him right away, especially with his tremendous track record.
Liam looked at the folders, all arranged in alphabetical order, where the private offers addressed to each shareholder of FINANCIAL were. She wrote them down one by one.
"I owe it to her"
“What do you mean, you owe it to her?” It was William's turn to wonder, though he immediately adopted a rictus of suspicion. "What in heaven's name have you done?"
But Liam remained calm.
“I didn't do anything,” he clarified. “She's someone from my school days in Cheyenne. We got to know each other well back then...and it doesn't seem to have gone well for her over the years”
William knew Liam very well because they had known each other since they were little kids.
There was virtually nothing he didn't know about him, except for that year of exile to Cheyenne when Harlock Van Dyke sent his son as a form of punishment and repression.
Liam never spoke of that time and was very serious when he did.
William didn't plan to stir the hornet's nest. They all had issues in their past that they didn't want to talk about, although he was amazed at the coincidences that led him to hire probably the only person who knew an unknown part of Liam's past.
"Okay, I believe you," William said and then looked at the folders, "Do you want me to take a look at them? I can take the folders to my office to read them," he started to take the group that was on the table, but Liam put his hand on it.
“No, leave them. I'll do it”
William walked out. As he left, he thought about the turn of events.
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Liam read each note.
Polished and well written, as if a college graduate had written them, but Liam knew that Emma had no college education, which was why she worked as a secretary for others.
He had been so angry and embarrassed in turn that he had never dared to look at Emma Darby's file and how she had ended up in New York.
He remembered receiving an email from William, which he never opened with that attachment.
He looked it up, curious, and when he read it, the part of him that tended to get sentimental came to the surface.
Emma had worked for a law firm in Cheyenne for ten years. According to the dates, she had only recently come to New York.
She vaguely remembered that she was from a well-to-do Cheyenne family
How could she have ended up that way?
She was a wasted talent. If she had been able or wanted to go to college, she would have been a great graduate. Still, he didn't dare ask her why, it wasn't his place anyway.
Besides, only since the day before, he had broken the barrier of distrust, but he didn't expect her to do the same, and it was well deserved. Just remembering the humiliating situations, he put her through during high school caused her some embarrassment.
Yes, he was still a jerk, but he wanted her to see it and compare it to that time in Cheyenne that was such a challenge for him at the time.
Rich New York heir who had to shut himself away in that town, living with people who usually wouldn't be part of his circle. And in the midst of it all, there was her, the unattractive, overweight girl who looked at him with her big dark eyes, who didn't seem to fall into his seductive boyish nets. She was humoring him with her Dorothy games, a joke he started in order to converse with the young girl. Silly excuse, but it was the only one that worked for him to get closer to the brainy girl.
In spite of the fact that, in front of the gallery, he was still behaving like a seductive lout, it was she who caused him a strange attraction, one that he kept deep inside him because they were not compatible at all and besides, she was not the kind of girl he expected to be with someone like him.
He touched a key on his MAC, where the program that allowed him to access the cameras in the hallway, where the girl had her desk, was located.
When he opened it, he was not surprised. She was working with eagerness and diligence.
A confused nostalgia came over him. He closed the MAC quickly.
He felt stupid to remember all this again.
It was inconvenient and also ridiculous. He was no longer a teenager.
She was now his employee and he had to learn to separate that hidden affection he had for her that threatened to rebound with his dignity and coldness as her boss.