Grabbing Hold (The Motorcycle Kid #1)

67. The Wrong Daniels

Charlotte typed away on her laptop on as she stretched her back in the soft, yet uncomfortable chair the motel provided, her phone on speaker as it sat on the small coffee table, next to a chilled glass of orange juice. She ran a hand through her greying locks, letting out a frustrated sigh as Derek's ranting continued.

"-I mean, seriously, Charlie? This woman was going to marry me, she was really going to stand up in front of all these people and say I do, then walk away what, a year later with half of everything I've worked for? Everything I built? Everything I fought for?"

"Did you sign a prenup?" Charlotte questioned her seething ex-husband.

"I wasn't going to..." Derek trailed off. "I love...I loved her."

"You're also a millionaire, Derek. It would've been the smartest thing to do," reasoned Charlotte, pausing in her typing as she scanned the meeting minutes on the screen, fully knowing how hypocritical she sounded. Even so, the two situations were vastly different. For one, Charlotte and Derek had gotten married way before money was something worth drawing up an agreement about. Now though, with a multi-million dollar company under his care, a prenup should've been a given for Derek. And years of dodging Arthur Greslin's underhanded business tactics should've made it even more obvious that his daughter was probably not to be trusted either.

Damn Derek and that heart of his.

"Yeah, but I'm glad I didn't. I was so stupid, I was so ready to sign over half my life because I thought she'd stay forever-" he cut himself off, a choking sound crossing the line.

"Derek, are you crying?"

"She was going to leave me, Charlie. After everything, she was just going to play daddy's little pawn and leave."

Charlotte released a sigh, closing the laptop lid, concentration gone. "Derek, hun, calm down, okay?" she told her ex-husband in a soothing tone, the way she'd talk to a child who'd fallen and gotten injured. "You're just going to work yourself up even more than you already are, and right now you need to relax so you can think straight."

Derek murmured to himself. "Yeah, yeah. You're right."

"Tell me what the plan was."

On the other side of the line, Derek fumbled through the pages of the drafted version of the prenuptial agreement he and Audrey had discussed about a month before, trying to summarize just how screwed he'd almost been. He gave Charlotte a slightly more detailed version of what he'd told her earlier that evening when he'd first called, sounding more distressed than he had in a very long time.

"According to the prenup? If we broke up, she'd get half my shares in the company and any associated profits. My guess is Arthur would've tried to buy out the private shares and then come after your forty percent," Derek explained. 

"They'd have forty percent of OptiTec's shares under their control," Charlotte realized. "They're trying to crowd you out, or at the very least, make you nothing but a minority shareholder. And dear God...if I'd actually sold even some of my shares..." she trailed off.

Derek felt anger bubble to the surface once more.

"They'd take the company right out of our hands before we even noticed. And Arthur's got his friends in high places. All it would take is the right number of zeroes and Charlie...we'd lose practically everything. That wrinkled, underhanded, disgusting son of a bitc-"

Charlotte paused before speaking again. "I have to say, it's a very well-thought out plan. Technically we can't even call the police. Legally speaking, they're all in the clear."