Page 22 of The Acquisition

Jana stood on the side of the room listening while her father complained she wasn't useful to him because of her gender. At least when my father told me I wasn't good for anything it was because I'd been actively trying to piss him off. Unlike how I'd reacted, she stood stoically, showing no reaction to the garbage spilling out of her father's mouth.

I leaned forward watching Maxwell when Fitz got to the part about him signing over his shares to Anderson Global to Jana. It was an added bit of salt rubbed into the wound caused by losing the chance to take over Beck's company to make him hand it over to his daughter.

"And if I don't?" he asked.

Fitz smiled. "I haven't undertaken a hostile takeover in a very long time, but I'm up to the task. I bet after you let an imbecile plan the launch of your company's most important product, your board members might be inclined to sell their shares. I wager it wouldn't even be hard."

He was right, which I knew because I'd already started contacting them after I read the report from my accountant. Fitz was concerned about preserving AG for their family. It wasn't his job to look after Jana. Not that it was mine either, but it damn well needed to be somebody's.

"If I sign over those shares, you'll leave me and my company alone?" Maxwell asked Fitz.

Jana took a step away from the wall, and whatever Fitz was going to say was forgotten. "Like you don't exist," she promised her father, speaking for Fitz.

She wasn't speaking for me though. I had no intentions of forgetting what he'd done to her, or the lost look on her face the night I found her in the rain locked out of her home. I wasn't actually an Anderson, therefore I chose to believe the promise to leave Easton alone didn't extend to me.

Jana pushed the paperwork Beckett and Fitz had drawn up toward her father and placed a pen on top of the pile.

He sat stunned for a moment, then he grabbed the pen. Jana turned away from him, and I could see a tear run down her face. Everyone thought she was so strong, but I saw past her façade.

After he signed the papers, he pushed away from the table. "So I save my company and lose my daughter?"

I stared him straight in the eyes. The man was delusional. He honestly didn't know he lost her the night he threw her out onto the street.

Evie moved over to Jana and took her hand. My daughter had the same fire her mother had when she was younger. "I'd say you lost her the moment you showed her how replaceable you thought she was. At least you've still got Chad."

* * *

After the meeting we sat around the table. Beckett sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I can't believe there won't be a board to appease or investors to answer to any longer. The company belongs completely in the family again."

Jana was still quiet, and I was worried the exchange with her father was going to affect her for a long time.

"I'm not family," she muttered, looking mostly at the table.

Evie stared at her until she looked up. "You will always be my family. You were there beside me when I had no one, and I'll be next to you now. Besides, someone has to keep my father on his toes. I'm going to be a bit busy." She rubbed her expanding stomach, as if we had forgotten. Jana reminded me regularly I was going to be a grandfather.

Jana looked at me and rolled her eyes. Some of the sadness seemed to slip away, but I was starting to see beyond the surface she preferred to show. "I will be working very closely with him."

"You'll be working under me. We could get started now, if you want." She was challenging me and needed to know I would always rise to the occasion.

Evie pretended to gag. "Gross, I'm working with her you know."

Beckett wrapped his arms around her and spun her around. I promptly began to ignore them, because he tended to be a bit descriptive even while I was standing nearby. There were boundaries to our friendship. Hearing the ways he planned to violate my daughter was definitely a hard limit.

Luckily, I had a perfect distraction right in front of me. "I can't watch them when they're like this. C'mon, Jana, let's go get a drink and discuss your position."

"Whatever you say, daddy," she teased as I guided her out of the room.

Beckett was getting the look that told me he forgot we were in the room, and as far as I was aware you couldn't bleach your eyeballs.

We made it as far as the hallway, where Fitz stood waiting. He held a folder in one hand and gestured with the other for us to go into Beck's office.

"Jana," he pulled out a chair for her. "I've got some paperwork to go over with you."

I pulled out the chair next to her and waited for him to go over the standard legal jargon for her to accept the transfer of stock.

"As you know, my intention is to transition Anderson Global back into a private family-run company."

Jana nodded and leaned back in the chair. "I completely understand, Mr. Anderson. I wasn't expecting to actually get stock in the company. You needed to push my father off the board. He's toxic and destroys everything he touches."

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