Page 71 of Inevitable Inheritance

* * *

Taylor was completely engrossedin a design plan when Derrick arrived, only noticing him when he knocked his hand against the boardroom table.

“I’m not ready, Derrick,” she said when she saw him walk in. She really wasn’t. She wanted to finish going over the plans she had set in motion today. She felt inspired and full of life and energy, something she had been missing for a long time. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever feeling this inspired, empowered, alive.

“You need to pack it up, Taylor, you have a lot of days ahead of you, and you can’t burn yourself on day one,” Derrick said to her.

“I’m keeping business hours,” she informed him.

“Taylor, it’s 8:30,” Derrick said to her, his eyebrows raised.

“No!” Taylor said in complete shock, turning her head here and there to look for a clock to prove him wrong, and when she set eyes on a huge one across the room, she sputtered, “Holy cow, I’ve been here for …”

“Over twelve hours. Time to pack it up,” Derrick said.

Taylor shifted her eyes to the design plan sitting on her desk. “I want to look that over—”“I am willing to bet you have already reviewed it thoroughly more than once,” Derrick challenged.

Taylor bit her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes at him. “So?”

Derrick shook his head. “Thorough is awesome, but you are coming back tomorrow to do the same thing,” he said.

“He is right, Taylor. Please don’t exhaust yourself,” Charlie said, entering the boardroom. He walked over to Taylor, smiling like a proud parent. “You did wonderfully today, dear, so natural. I knew it was in you,” he said. “I just sent Henry to get the car ready.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Taylor said, looking embarrassed by the praise. “Okay, well, I just need to sign—”

“No!” Charlie shouted.

Taylor jumped like hot pokers were being stuck into her. “Geez, Charlie, you totally scared me,” she said, looking at him like he was crazy. “What is the problem?”

Derrick looked equally perplexed at the outburst.

“It won’t be legal, Taylor. You have to be married,” Charlie reminded her in a hushed whisper.

Well, didn’t that just burst all of her elation and excitement? This was a problem. How was she going to look into a loophole and fix the company when she couldn’t move forward with fixing the company unless she was married? She had been given the decree yesterday as she had requested, but it wasn’t one of those things you could just glance at, and she had been working on more pressing things.

She took a deep breath, but it didn’t relax her. If anything, the extra consumption of oxygen made her increasingly more aware of the problem.

“So you are telling me that all the progress I have made today is for nothing?”

“No, of course not,” Charlie reassured.

“Well, sort of,” Todd said from out of nowhere, shutting the boardroom door behind him as he joined them.

Taylor scowled at him, and he just laughed at her. “You did a lot of great things today, Taylor. You have really empowered and inspired a lot of people, but none of it can proceed and grow until you marry him,” Todd said, pointing at Derrick.

A weight like lead fell onto Taylor’s shoulders. She felt anxious and stressed, and she was hating this stupid lie all over again. All the vibrant feelings she had just had were gone.

“You are a natural at this, Taylor. You rolled with it and said yes where it worked and nowhere it didn’t. You didn’t even blink an eye. You belong here,” Todd said.

But Taylor couldn’t have a victory lap in her head from the compliment. Now what? How should she proceed? She should not have come here until she found a loophole. But it was too late now; she had hundreds of people running in different directions to make changes, and she couldn’t stop the ball rolling now. Or could she? But then would they lose their faith?

Taylor went on and on, arguing in her head, looking over the sea of paperwork that she had spread over the table, some in piles on the floor, looking for a solution or an escape until finally Derrick interjected.

“She gets it. Leave her alone. She has worked herself silly all day, and she needs to eat,” he said.

“She needs—”

“Enough,” Derrick said loudly to Todd, and Taylor was grateful.

---