Page 41 of Seductive Nights

She opened Logan's door, which she hadn't opened since he'd died. She was pleased to see that it was in great order. Addison called out, "I straightened up a week ago. I didn't know what to do, and I was feeling kind of sad, so any files that were closed for a while that he had stacked on the corner of the desk, I just filed them away. I hope that's okay. I can get you a list of them."

Margo shook her head and smiled at her loyal assistant. "It's not necessary. Thank you for taking the initiative, Addison."

Carley stepped in and looked around. "Wow, this is...this is amazing, Margo. Thank you so much. I'm so excited about starting working with you. And to have my own office, which is very nice, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and so frigging excited. I can't wait to tell Holly and Josseline."

Margo chuckled. "I'm glad to hear that. So why don't you get yourself situated? If you need to rearrange the drawers and put things where you want them, feel free to do so. In the meantime, I'll have Addison set you up with a username and password so you can log into our system, and then we will show you how to use it. While you're doing that, I'm going to go call Grant. I'm right next door if you need anything, and Addison knows everything you need to know, so you should feel free to ask her."

"Thank you, Margo." Carley hugged her, and Margo's heart felt so good to help her sister. Plus, she loved Carley, and it was wonderful having someone you love working with you.

She moved down the hall to Addison's desk. "Can you help her get set up and issue her a username and password for the software? Then, if you don't mind, can you walk her through the software?"

Addison smiled brightly. It had likely been rather quiet in the office recently, and she was most likely pleased to have something to do. "Sure, thank you so much. I'm happy to do that."

Margo smiled and nodded. "Thank you so much for everything, Addison."

She turned and strode into her office. Sitting in her desk chair, she took a deep breath before picking up her desk phone.

As Grant answered, she grinned. "Good morning."

"Good morning. How are you, Margo?"

"I'm managing. How are you?"

"I'm fine. I just wanted to give you the news. Logan did not have proper authority to give away any shares in your company. It was not done appropriately. We have your record book here, as you know, and we drafted your annual minutes. There's nothing in the minutes that states that anything was brought up for a vote and voted on. Which is the procedure. I will be calling Sierra Stigler's attorney today and letting him know that she doesn't have any shares in the company and is not entitled to any."

Margo took a deep breath. It felt like a weight had been lifted, even though she knew this was the case, from her perspective. To have Grant confirm, made her feel more comfortable. "I can't even tell you how happy I am to hear that. Not even for the money, but just to know that Logan's last little knife in my back didn't amount to anything. I also got a text from Sierra this morning saying she wanted to work here, and Logan had promised her a Miami location of Price Realty."

Grant huffed out a breath. "Well, good luck to her. I'll tell you that she can't incorporate as Price Realty Inc. in Miami if she wants to because you already have that incorporation in the state of Florida. She'll have to come up with another name if she wants to start her own company."

Margo smiled. She leaned back in her chair and let her back rest. "I wanted to talk to you about one other thing. Money. We didn't get to that in your office the other day when you talked about Logan's will. We were both so stunned by what he had done that we didn't talk about money. So, any money that came through the real estate company is mine, as you just confirmed. We had a trust set up with money in it, and I believe he was not able to transfer anything out of the trust. I'm the trustee and I didn't transfer anything out. Am I clear on that? Any money we have in the trust is all mine now?"

Grant responded quickly, "You're right on that. All the money is yours. Do you know how much there is in there?"

Margo shook the mouse on her computer and called up their financial planning website. "Let me look here. Hang on." She logged in and waited a moment while it loaded. She read the columns and balances for the various stocks their portfolio was invested in. She scrolled down to the bottom and saw the final total. "It looks like we have close to ten million dollars in this account."

Her heart hammered in her chest. She had no idea it had grown to that amount.

Grant laughed. It was unexpected, but it made her so happy. "Good for you, Margo. And that is all yours."

She chuckled right along with him. Her heart felt happy once again, and it had nothing to do with the money. It had to do with the fact she was winning.

23

Jace was in a great mood. It had been a great night. Although he ended it differently than he would have liked to, he really meant it. He was gonna woo her. She'd been through a tough time recently. Betrayal was a hard thing to get over, and even though he had told her, and he felt she believed him, he was nothing like Logan. There would always be those niggly doubts until they got to know each other a little bit better, and he wanted to get to know her better.

Hanna came in and brought fresh cinnamon rolls for everyone. That always made his staff happy. The mood in the kitchen was lively today. It usually was, but now they were all on a sugar high. The closing on the thrift shop was in two days. There was excitement within the company about the expansion. Everyone felt like this place had a great future.

And it did. He was happy that he'd made the decision when he first bought this place to hire only veterans. These folks served their country, and a lot of them needed the help. They yearned to feel needed. It was also a reprieve from feeling like they didn't exactly belong. That was the hard part about getting out of the military. You felt like you didn't belong anywhere. Veterans who saw battle witnessed things many could not comprehend. It changed a person. It altered your brain. As a result, you didn't feel like a regular person anymore. But you were. It was just that others didn't understand you and what you'd been through. Here, they all understood each other.

Everywhere he went, people would ask him where he served or if he served, and when he said that he did, they would say, 'Oh yeah, I was gonna go in the service too, but I decided...whatever.' He was so sick of hearing people say how they were gonna do that too, but they didn't for whatever reason. If you didn't, you didn't. Don't tell a veteran that you thought about it. It's like they were just trying to ride on their coattails or something. It was fucking annoying. It was hard enough dealing with everyday life without all that bullshit.

So, when he bought this place, he made the decision to hire only veterans. That was the rule he told everyone when he hired them. You don't tell anybody, 'Oh yeah, I was gonna go in that branch of the service, but the food sucks.' or 'I was gonna go in that branch of service because of whatever. You didn't.' You didn't go to that branch of service.

You went in the branch of service you were with. Be happy about that. Be proud of it. Proud of your service. Proud of your fellow co-workers because they had done it too. That was it. It made for a better environment here.

He finished setting up the tables outside. Theresa was out raking the sand. Mason had the bar all set up and ready to go for lunch, and he had a moment. He pulled his phone out and texted Margo his address. Then he called her.

"Well, hello there," she said.

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