Page 2 of Insufferable Boss

“I’m goingto assume your sudden desire to speak to me is about my share of Standard Rock, but I’m afraid I'm not in the mood to talk about any of it, so speak to my brother or something. I don't give a damn.”

His piercing grayeyes narrowed with displeasure, but I didn’t care. I started to walk away. To my surprise though, his hand closed around my arm, and the very strength of it stopped me in my tracks. I looked down at his tanned hand. It was a beautiful hand, sculptured like some Greek marble statue, but warm on my skin. For some reason the impeccable beauty and wonderful warmth of it irritated me even more. The hand of an jerk should be cold and claw-like.

“Excuse me?”I muttered between gritted teeth.

“I understandyou want to leave the city immediately, but this will only take a few minutes,” he said calmly, as he removed his hand.

The factthat he was forcefully demanding my attention did nothing to make me more tolerant of him, but he did run the company, and as an equity owner myself and to be respectful of my father and his life's work, I forced myself to calm down.

“Go ahead,”I instructed coldly.

“I'll getstraight to the point then,” he said. “I want to buy you out. I don’t think you have much interest in running the company, so I’m more than willing to take it off your hands. You're not allowed to sell now, not until two years after you've worked at the company, but…."

His words fadedinto the background as I stared at him, angry he was bringing this up now. Even so, I understood him since I ran a company myself. Plus, the company was worth over a billion dollars, so of course, he couldn't be considerate of my current emotional state.

Givenmy past experience with him, though, I didn't expect him to behave any better, so this immediately drained whatever patience I might have had for him.

"I've not read the will,”I said impatiently. “So I can't make a decision yet.”

I turned away to leave,but he stopped me again. “Can I contact you in the future for an update?”

“No,”I replied. “My father just passed away. Please leave me alone. When and if I'm interested, I'll give you a call.” My words sounded relatively calm, but I felt as if I was screaming into the wind.

Thankfully,this time he didn't try to stop me. I couldn't wait to get out of New York for all the pain, shock, and hurt it had brought me the past few days. Maybe things would change for the better soon.

1

Lena

"So let me get this straight," Diana said. "You're going to sell your company to them, but you're also going to keep being in charge of it and also use their money to expand it?"

"Yes," I replied as I brought out two blazers from my closet and held them up before her. She considered the choices between the stripe and pattern and went with the pattern.

"I don't know," she said. "That seems... extremely favorable?"

"Yes," I said, smiling.

“Hm,” she said. “And if I feel this way, then there's no way the other equity owners will feel any different right? Especially since you all aren't close, right?"

"Yeah," I replied, all the worries that had plagued me earlier now coming to mind.

“Hm,” she said again, and I sighed.

"We have to figure it out. At least I have to figure it out. It's my dad's company, after all, and I don't want to ignore it the way I ignored our relationship."

"That's unfair to yourself," she said. "He understood you. He was a businessman himself, and you both were constantly busy and didn't always find the time to spend together."

"Yeah," I said and tried to focus on packing, but she kept going.

"So now since you can't sell your equity before two years lapse, you're going to work there till then?"

"Don't know if I'm going to sell or not even after the two years elapses," I told her. "My original plan was to remain as uninvolved as possible, and since I never had the intention to sell, then I didn't need to work there, but now that he's made this offer to buy my company, I have a reason to consider moving to New York."

"Ah," she nodded. "It's clear to me now."

"Hm," I replied. "What will forever be unclear to me, though, is why my dad gave equity to my brother as well. I mean, he could have just handed the properties over to him instead. He knows Dylan has no interest in it or the ability to run a business. Or even contributing for that matter."

"He's graduated college, right?" Diana asked, and I nodded.

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