Gilded Revenge: The Ex-Wife's Billion-Dollar Empire novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Chair

The Throckmorton Group boardroom had a table forty feet long.

Lucinda had been in this room twice as a child, sitting under it with a coloring book while her father argued over her head.

Now fourteen men and women in dark suits sat around that table, staring at her.

She stood at the far end, where her father used to sit.

She did not sit down yet.

Gordon came in last, smiling, with Pierce a step behind him.

"Everyone," Gordon said warmly. "You've all seen the news. My niece is alive. A miracle. I'd like to welcome her home."

Nobody clapped.

Gordon took the chair at the center of the long side and folded his hands.

"But she has been gone three years," he said, and his voice turned sorrowful. "She has been living under a false name. She hasn't answered one letter from this family. Now she walks into the courthouse, then the boardroom, with no explanation."

He looked around the table.

"I move that Miss Throckmorton's shares be held in trust, and her voting rights suspended, until she has been examined by a doctor."

A silver-haired director at the corner cleared his throat.

"Second," said a man near Pierce.

Pierce was watching her with a small, tight smile.

Lucinda put a single folder on the table.

"May I speak before you vote?"

"Of course, sweetheart," Gordon said. "Be brief. You must be tired."

"My father's will," she said. "Page nine."

The lawyer opened his own copy and read aloud in a dry steady voice.

"Upon the death or disappearance of the testator, fifty-one percent of the voting shares of Throckmorton Group pass to his daughter, Lucinda Anne Throckmorton, to vote in person, and not by proxy, trustee or guardian, on her appearing before the board."

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