He Paid Half My Mother’s Surgery, Now I Own Half His Company Chapter 04
The car pulled up outside Aventis Innovations.
Selena hopped out first. Antony automatically held the car door for her.
The receptionists at the front desk greeted us brightly. “Good afternoon, Mr. Fleming. Selena.”
Nobody acknowledged me climbing out of the backseat. A beat of awkward silence hung in the air.
Someone whispered just loud enough for me to hear, “Why is she here too? Is she still chasing after Mr. Fleming? Selena’s so classy about it, putting up with her.”
I kept my gaze lowered and walked straight toward the elevators.
Selena called my name. “Jessie.”
“The staff here don’t know you and Mr. Fleming know each other. That’s the only reason for the confusion.” Her smile stayed gentle. “Would you like me to clear everything up for you?”
I shook my head. “Don’t bother.”
If she publicly announced I was Antony’s legal wife, everyone would write off all my hard work. I’d be reduced to nothing more than a nepotism hire.
A bystander scoffed nearby. “She’s not even his real girlfriend, yet she acts so high-and-mighty.”
Antony heard every word, but he said absolutely nothing.
He had always hated attention on his private life. And in his eyes, I was not someone worth defending.
I gathered my files and joined Linda for the client meeting.
Knowing I was new to the role, the client pushed my contract draft back across the table dismissively. “Is Fleming Group just hiring anyone off the street these days? You can’t even get us any cost reductions.”
I walked him through my reasoning twice.
Suddenly he slammed his fist on the table, knocking over his mug of water. Hot liquid spilled across the back of my hand.
He glared at me. “Clean that up and redo this.”
Hot liquid burned my skin. The back of my hand turned bright red instantly.
I blotted my documents with tissues and slid my backup proposal across to him. “I’ve addressed all three points you raised in this revised draft. But we cannot cut costs any further. If we go lower, delivery guarantees fall apart, and you will lose valuable time.”
The client narrowed his eyes at me. “Aren’t you angry?”
I tucked my scalded hand under the table, out of sight. “Anger won’t solve business problems. You’re welcome to critique my proposal. But if you resort to physical intimidation again, I will terminate this partnership and pursue legal action.”
Linda watched me, but didn’t step in.
The client finally signed the contract.
Once we exited the conference room, I rushed to the restroom and held my hand under cold running water.
When I first started here, I was nothing like this.
The first time a client tore into me, I locked myself in a bathroom stall and cried for half an hour. A tiny spreadsheet mistake would keep me tossing and turning all night. When coworkers whispered I only got hired through connections, I would argue back defensively.
With time, I learned: I could explain what I hadn’t done. Mistakes I made, I owned. Whether others chose to believe me was beyond my control.
Linda got me burn ointment. As she dabbed it onto my burn, she scolded me. “Are you out of your mind? Why didn’t you pull your hand away?”
I gave a tired little smile. “It all happened so fast I didn’t react.”
Linda fell quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Don’t let the office gossip get under your skin.”
“At first I bought into the rumor that you were chasing someone else’s man.”
I stared down at the floor.
“But you show up earliest, leave latest. When you mess up spreadsheets, you redo them three times without complaining. You ask questions when you don’t know something, and you learn from every reprimand.”
“People can lie with their words. But effort leaves proof no one can fake.”
My throat stung with sudden emotion.
Antony had always insisted I couldn’t handle hardship. I’d believed that too. But here was someone who actually saw how much I’d changed.
Linda patted my shoulder. “You’re still young. Don’t waste yourself tangled up with a man who belongs to someone else. You deserve a far better future.”
My chest felt tight. I only managed a quiet “I know.”
When I stepped out of the restroom, Antony was waiting right outside the door.
His eyes zeroed in on my burned hand. “Jessie, is this why you took this miserable job? To let people humiliate you?”
I spoke softly, “What exactly should I have done? Pull out my ‘Mrs. Fleming’ card and demand he apologize?”
Antony’s expression darkened. “You could have called me.”
I laughed hollowly.
I had called him when Mom needed emergency surgery money. I had called him when Selena insulted me. His answer was always the same: “Don’t bother me with trivial nonsense.”
I tried to walk past him, but he grabbed my burned wrist.
His gaze fixed on the angry red skin. “I’ll have a doctor come to the house tonight.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
His grip tightened. “Jessie, I am not asking for your permission.”
Just then, alarmed voices erupted from the main office.
Our high-stakes project quote had been sent out with drastically wrong figures. The miscalculated quote was thirty percent below our rock-bottom price. If the client enforced it, Aventis Innovations would face at least a two-million-dollar loss.
The quote had been sent from my account.