I'm offering you a chance at redemption, a chance to be part of Lily's life someday. But it comes with conditions. You don't get to hurt her the way you hurt Victoria. You don't get to manipulate her or control her or make her feel like she's not good enough. If you can't accept that, then sell your shares to Hargrove and burn in hell.
He turned and walked toward the door. "Mr. Carter." Daniel stopped but didn't turn around. "We'll vote with you," Edward said quietly. "But we want to see her at least once. We want to see our granddaughter's face." Daniel turned.
Edward looked older, suddenly smaller. Margaret's hands were shaking. "Why?" "Because Victoria was our daughter." Edward's voice cracked. And we never got to say goodbye. We never got to tell her we were sorry.
He looked at his wife, then back at Daniel. We made a terrible mistake. We know that now. We've known it for years. But we were too proud to admit it.
Too stubborn to reach out. And then it was too late. Victoria died thinking you didn't love her, Daniel said. Victoria died knowing exactly how much we loved her. Margaret whispered.
"That's what made it worse." Daniel stood in the doorway, looking at these two broken people, the architects of Victoria's pain, the villains of her story. They deserved nothing from him. They deserve to lose their shares, their granddaughter, everything. But he thought about Lily, about the questions she would ask as she got older, about the family she had a right to know, even if that family was flawed and damaged and full of regret. One visit," he said finally.
"After the takeover is blocked, and if you do anything, anything to hurt her, you'll never see her again." Edward nodded. "Agreed." Daniel walked out into the Arizona sunshine, already dreading what he'd promised. The shareholder vote took place on a rainy Thursday in April. Daniel sat at the head of the boardroom table, flanked by Bradford and a team of lawyers. Across from him, Victor Hargrove's smiled like a man who'd already won.
This is a formality, Carter. Hargrove was 63, silver-haired with the kind of tan that only money could buy. You've lost. Accept it gracefully. The vote hasn't happened yet.
The vote is irrelevant. I have 43% of the shares locked up. You have what? 38, 39. The math doesn't lie.
We'll see. The votes came in one by one. Daniel watched the numbers tick up on the display screen, his heart pounding in his chest. Hargrove 43.2%. Carter 38.7%.
Uncommitted 18.1%. The uncommitted votes began to fall. Some went to Hargrove, some went to Daniel. The gap narrowed, widened, narrowed again. Then Edward Hayes's vote came in.
Carter 42.7%. Hargrove 43.2%. It wasn't enough. Daniel felt his stomach sink. But the votes kept coming.
Small shareholders, pension funds, individual investors who'd received letters from Daniel explaining what Victoria had built and why it mattered. Carter 44.1%. Hargrove 43.8%. The gap widened 45.3% to 43.9%. Then 47.2% to 44.1%.