"Call her Aunt." That was how my ex-fiancé found out I married his uncle. novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Vote

Dessa's POV

The Bexley Hotels boardroom was on the nineteenth floor in Charlotte, and it had a table that sat twenty.

I wore my good navy dress and the one pair of heels I owned.

Ford had offered to come in with me.

I had told him to wait in the lobby, and for once he had listened.

Nine directors sat along both sides of the table.

Lowell sat at the head, and Preston sat two chairs down from him with his jaw set.

Gwendolyn was not there.

A woman from the general counsel's office checked my name against the proxy, read the blue seal, and said, "Ms. Holm holds the full vote of the Augustus Bexley Trust."

Nobody said anything.

I took the chair at the foot, where the directors could all see me.

A folder lay at every place.

I opened mine.

The first item on the agenda was a letter of intent to sell Bexley Hotels' eleven lake properties to a hotel group out of Atlanta.

It was dated three weeks ago.

It had Lowell's signature on it.

"You signed this before the anniversary," I said.

"I signed it as chief executive," Lowell said. "The offer expires today."

"You didn't tell the board the vote wasn't yours."

He looked at me over his reading glasses.

"I did not know it wasn't," he said, evenly. "I told you what I thought of my brother."

"I remember."

"I haven't changed my mind."

"I know," I said. "I'm not asking you to."

I turned the page.

Page four held the buyer's terms.

I had read them in the car, twice, with a pen.

"This says the buyer keeps the lodge and the Lakeside and closes the other nine," I said. "It says the purchase price assumes a workforce reduction of four hundred."

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