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Continue from Episode 18
Her grandfather’s grin faded. He sat up straighter and cleared his throat, indicating enough small talk, let’s get down to business.
Calista said, “Harry will be taking over more of my duties for the foreseeable future.” She ran a proud hand over what Lauren now realized was the slightest swell of her stomach. It had been hidden underneath all the flowing Grecian layers. “I’m expecting a baby.”
“Congratulations,” Granddaddy said without the least amount of interest or enthusiasm.
“If it’s a boy, Trevor and I are planning to name him after my father. That’s why I called this meeting,” Calista said. “I’m bringing Harry up to speed, and I wanted to review every one of our shared assets.”
“Aw, hell. And here I thought you’d finally come to your senses and decided to sell.”
“Never,” Calista leaned back in her chair calmly. “You are never going to get your hands on so much as another brick of my father’s property. It’s bad enough you’ve been allowed to keep what you stole. Bad enough we have to continue dealing with you, instead of watching you rot penniless in prison. I am never voluntarily handing over another… what?”
Calista noticed a new discomfort on Jeremiah Briggs’ face that’d never previously been there whenever she’d leveled the decades-old charges against him. Her eyes drifted towards where his were anxiously sneaking. She fully noticed Lauren for the first time. “And whom do we have here?”
“My granddaughter, name’s Lauren,” Granddaddy mumbled and stood up, suddenly in a hurry, or at least the facsimile of one. “I’ll round up specs for those holdings you’re looking for. Start filling Harry in.”
Both Harrison siblings seemed surprised at the unexpected use of Harry’s preferred name. But not so surprised that it threw Calista off enough to keep her from leaning over Lauren’s way, a new and definitely unfriendly gleam in her eyes.
Lauren wanted to push her wheelie chair away from the conference table. She forced herself to remain still and look unafraid. She didn’t want Granddaddy to feel ashamed of her.
“Learning the family business, are you?” Calista inquired. “I was the same with my father. I’d beg for him to let me come to the office. He let me, of course. He spoiled me rotten. That’s when I learned all about how Jeremiah Briggs – a man my father trusted like a brother – swindled him out of property that should have been theirs together. But, that wasn’t enough for your grandaddy. Oh, no. He couldn’t settle for just some of my father’s property. He wanted all of it. After my father died, Jeremiah Briggs went to court to have his will overturned. When that didn’t work, he tried to have my father declared mentally incompetent to have written it up in the first place. And when that didn’t work – your granddaddy is no quitter, I’ll give him that – he set out to prove that Harry and I, our parents’ legal heirs, weren’t really his children in the first place.”
Calista snuck a peek at Granddaddy to see how he was reacting to her little performance. Lauren, on the other hand, refused to look his way. Calista Harrison may have been an adult, but Lauren knew a bully when she saw one. She was no different from girls at school who whispered behind your back, pretending they didn’t know you could hear them, then waited till you started crying to flounce off, mission accomplished. Lauren never let those girls see that they’d gotten to her. And she wasn’t about to let Calista Harrison do it either.
Calista seemed somewhat taken aback by that. She smiled sweetly and changed tactics, telling Lauren. “You pay close attention to your granddaddy. You’ll be surprised by what you’ll learn.”
Continue to Episode 20
About the Author
Alina Adams wrote the “As the World Turns” tie-ins, “Oakdale Confidential” and “The Man From Oakdale,” and co-wrote “Guiding Light’s” “Jonathan’s Story.” She was the Creative Content Producer for “Another World Today,” and worked on the 2013 relaunches of “All My Children” and “One Life To Live.” Her books include romance novels, figure skating murder mysteries, and the historical family saga, “The Nesting Dolls,” from HarperCollins. Read more at: AlinaAdams.com
