Page 37 of Secret Baby for Mr. Grump

I still wasn’t sure I totally bought his excuse, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed the money.

So, I asked him, “What do I need to sign?”

He started pulling out a bunch of papers, and I skimmed through them, making sure I wasn’t selling my soul or something before I wrote my name on the dotted line.

He asked me to come back the next day to start, and as I was about to leave, he called out.

“I don’t think you did it, by the way,” he said. “Beat that man to death, I mean. You’re too in control for that, almost too much for your own good. Do you ever let loose?”

I didn’t answer before I walked away. I let loose once in my life, and it cost me.

I wasn’t about to do it again.

It turned out that the man, Deitrich Leverman, was right. I did end up making the company a lot of money.

It started with a few changes.

I first learned that Leverman was using sub-par materials that could cost him in the long run and compromise the safety of his buildings. I made him change his supplier, threatening to quit if he didn’t. They were short-staffed as it was and frankly couldn’t afford to lose me, so he reluctantly relented.

The next thing was increasing the workers’ salaries and enforcing stricter conditions. He couldn’t maintain good workers because his pay was far too low and could only attract people who slacked off all the time and were otherwise wrong for the job. I told him that he needed to learn how to retain workers to increase their efficiency, and the first thing he needed to do was to raise their pay.

The cheap bastard fought me hard on that one. He protested, saying the company was barely breaking even as it was, competing for big government contracts. But I insisted, telling him that he would never even smell those government contracts until he had a solid team to work with. It took time and a lot more talking on my end than I would have liked, but eventually, after he lost out on yet another contract to our rival, I brought it up again.

And it finally struck a nerve.

“Fine, damn you,” he exploded that night in his office. “I’ll do it. Damn. Are you happy now?”

I merely nodded.

He shook his head like he didn’t know whether to laugh or yell.

“Rude bastard,” he muttered. “You know people would be less likely to think you murdered someone if you smiled every once in a while.”

Not the people where I’m from, I thought.If they saw me smile, they’d probably think I turned full-on psycho.

Except her.

Allie once told me I had a great smile after I cracked one in her presence. I brushed off the comment and pretended like it didn’t affect me, but it did.

Leverman Construction grew exponentially over those years, and as it did, so did my position. I went from Construction Worker to Construction Supervisor to Project Manager, and eventually, when the man died in a car crash, I was surprised to find that he left everything to me in his will.

The company is yours,it said in a letter attached to the will.You were the one who built up the damn company in the first place. Just try to take care of my boy if you can. And don’t murder him, please.

JK. I know you don’t kill people.

I cracked my final smile then and made sure he had a fitting funeral.

At that point, we were doing pretty well, raking in a few million dollars a year, but I wasn’t satisfied with that. I wanted more.

And so, I turned Leverman Construction into a billion-dollar success using the tricks I learned from all the titans of the industry. One of those tricks included learning how to be a ruthless bastard when need be.

Which was what brought us to today.

Because it turned out that the old man’s estranged son was starting to claim ownership of the company and trying to contest the will or increase the percentage of his share. He wouldn’t win, of course, but he was throwing his weight around and continuing to be more of a nuisance. Which just meant that I needed to teach him a lesson at this point.

By the time I got back into town, I was exhausted.

I went to the grocery store to pick up a meal only to be standing at the back of a long line where some asshole in front was giving the bagger a tough time.

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