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Oh my God. I was going to kill him. We weren’t going to make it to the year mark to get a divorce. Nope, he’d be dead by June. And I’d be in prison for the rest of my life.
“This sounds important. You should pay attention,” he said quietly.
My knee slammed into the bottom of the table as I turned, my hands in fists. I wanted to punch him, wanted to drag him outside and tear him a new asshole, but I couldn’t. We were a happy, married couple after all. We were so in love it was sickening.
I wasn’t going to let him get away with this. If anything, it set a new fire under my ass and gave me a reason to get through it. I’d get my forty-nine percent before we divorced come hell or high water. I’d walk away with more than I started with. I had to. If I respected myself at all, I’d fight tooth and fucking nail for it.
Chapter 31
Hunter
“For the last time, Eric, the company isn’t going under,” I snapped. “The handover will be smooth and there will be no hiccups. Can you please just listen to me instead of the bullshit you’ve been fed from an outside source?”
“They seemed credible, though,” Eric said, his lilting southern accent starting to grate on me. I glanced at the phone to see how long I’d been on the call—over forty minutes. I still had so many people to call, so many more minds to change, and yet Eric fucking Aster had to test my patience after a morning spent putting out fires just like this one.
I tried not to think about how this was likely the fault of my legal wife.
The light flashed on my office phone, indicating a call waiting. “Give me one second, Eric. I’ve got another call.” I didn’t wait for his approval before I moved over to line two, fully expecting it to be another angry client that I’d need to put on hold. “Hunter Harris speaking.”
“Can you come down to meeting room three?”
The voice on the phone was one I’d heard a million times in my life, but never with that tone of voice. “Why? What’s up, Fred?”
“Dad’s called a shareholder meeting. I don’t know what’s happening.”
Shit. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a shareholder meeting, two years ago, maybe? This was either incredibly positive or horrendously negative. “Alright. Give me ten.”
“We need you here now.”
For fucks sake.
————
My phone rang for the eighteenth time as I walked down the hall toward meeting room three. Irritated and stressed, I answered without checking the number.
“Hello?”
“Hunter, do you have a moment to speak about the Keelings Group purchasing the Harris Agricultural Empire? I’d like to take a statement for The Denver Post.”
I stopped in front of the frosted glass door, my suit suddenly feeling too tight around my body. They were the same ones that had released an article about my relationship with Lottie being an arrangement. Sure, they’d been correct, but I had half a mind to fucking sue them for it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Reportedly they’ll be taking on your debt.”
“That’s not happening. No comment. Get rid of my fucking phone number.” I hit the end call button before they could spit a response at me. I didn’t have the patience for this right now, not with whatever chaos was going on behind the conference room door.
My stomach churned at the idea that maybe the call was telling me exactly what I’d be walking into. With my hand on the door handle, I actually considered suing them for printing a false report, that and the article about Lottie.
It still made me sick to think about how everything had gone down with her.
The door clicked as I pushed it open. My father sat at the head of the table, his dark gray suit neatly pressed and complementing the gray in his hair, his eyebrows, and the bit of stubble on his cheeks. His lips twitched up at the corners as the room went silent, every other man and woman in suits around the table turning their heads to me.
“Hunter,” Dad said, his hand outstretched, motioning to the empty seat at the other end of the long table, directly opposite him. “Please, sit down.”
My brother sat next to the empty chair, his mouth pressed together in a thin line as he stared straight down at the wooden table. What the fuck is happening?
I stepped toward the other end of the table and pulled out the black leather office chair. “Dad?—”
“Sit down,” he said again, more sternly.
