Chapter 17: Thirty-Four Percent

Annabel's POV

The annual meeting of the Draper Group was held on the fortieth floor, at a table that seated twenty-two.

I walked in at five past ten, and the room was already full.

Jonas held the door for me and stayed beside it, with his hands folded in front of him.

Lawson sat at the head of the table in a gray suit, and he looked up and did not smile.

His uncle sat halfway down the left side with a legal pad, watching him.

Every board member in the room had seen the video from the gala at least twice.

"Mrs. Draper," Lawson's lawyer said, rising. "This is a closed shareholders' meeting."

"I'm a shareholder," I said.

"You are here by proxy. Your husband has your vote on file, and there is no need to trouble yourself."

He said it kindly and slowly.

I took the empty chair at the foot of the table, the one nobody had planned for.

"I'm not Mrs. Draper in this room," I said. "My name is Annabel Wyndham."

"I am the trustee of the Wyndham Family Trust, and the trust holds thirty-four percent of this company."

Nobody spoke.

The lawyer's mouth opened and closed.

"That's impossible," Lawson said quietly. "Your family went bankrupt."

"My family's company went bankrupt," I said. "My father's shares were never in it."

"He left them in a trust with my name on it, and you have been voting them every quarter at breakfast."

I looked down the table at him.

"You turned the pages over so I wouldn't see the top. I saw the backs of them for three years."

His uncle put down his pen.

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