After Dad Forgot He Married In, I Sent Him Farming

1: 1

The day I flew out to close a partnership deal, my best friend sent me a photo of my father with his arm around a young woman, her belly heavily pregnant.

Babe, your dad's moral compass has taken a nosedive. Watch out or he'll hand you a little brother to fight over the inheritance!

I glanced at it and didn't even bother to open the photo.

Everything the family owned was my mother's premarital property, and it had all been notarized.

My father had married into the family. His food and clothes, everything, depended on the money I brought in. What could his illegitimate kid possibly get?

If he were smart, he'd have that woman keep her head down and stay quiet.

But I never expected her to march into my company after I got back, belly out, ready to put me in my place.

"A little girl like you, what right do you have running a company this big? All of this is going to be my son's someday. Step aside, now!"

I said nothing. I looked at my father, waiting for him to speak.

But gone was the humble, doting man I knew. He produced a share-transfer document.

"Iris Fox, you're a woman. You'll marry eventually. You're really not suited to be out in the world, in the public eye."

"Look at your mother. It was all that time in the spotlight that put her flat on her back, gravely ill. You mustn't follow in her footsteps!"

"Sign the transfer. Think of it as a gift for your unborn brother. He'll take care of you in your old age and see you off when the time comes."

I let out a cold laugh and tore the agreement to pieces.

And the very next day I called an emergency board meeting and announced that he was stripped of every position he held.

How should I put it.

Like my mother said.

Some men simply have no sense of their place. Give them no lesson and they'll climb right up your nose.

Since he'd never once learned to be a proper son-in-law in this family, he could take his illegitimate child back to the countryside and farm.

...

My father married into our family.

So the moment my mother was diagnosed with cancer, the first thing she did was transfer everything in her name over to me.

Apart from the dead-end salary he drew every month, my father couldn't touch a single asset.

Back then I didn't quite understand.

"Mom, Dad's been good to you all these years. Giving him nothing at all, isn't that a bit much?"

My mother let out a cold laugh.

"Too much?"

"Iris, you listen to me. Go soft on a man and you'll pay dearly for it."

"You see how meek your father is now, bringing me tea, waiting on me hand and foot, doting on you like a little princess. You think that's love?"

"No. It's self-interest."

"Your father hides deeper than anyone, and he's more calculating than anyone."

"Think back. I was just out in the countryside inspecting a plot of land the Fox family had bought. Your father found his chance and threw himself in front of my car, offering himself up as a son-in-law, begging me to take him with me."

"Your mother is plain-looking, and I needed someone to improve the gene pool. I figured his family had no power, no connections, easy to keep in line. So I agreed."

"But later I looked into it, and I found out that long before the company bought that land, your father had already had people digging around, finding out which company was buying, who held the power behind it, when I would arrive..."

"He's always been ambitious. All these years he's been quietly cozying up to certain shareholders. If your mother hadn't kept the shares locked down tight and hadn't been able to hold him down, do you think you'd still be his only daughter by now?"

She coughed a few times, without meaning to.

I gripped her hand, tense.

"Mom, I'll go get the doctor right now."

"No need."

She squeezed my hand back and went on.

"Iris, my good girl. You've been gifted since you were small, quicker at business than I ever was. Handing you the company, I have no worries. But your father, him I can't be easy about. My health is worse by the day, and he's bound to give in to his nature, find a new woman, have a son, carry on the family line."

"If that day really comes, don't ever go soft. With people who have no sense of their place, softness only lets them climb up your nose. Do you understand?"

Two years ago, I nodded and gave her my word.

After I took over the company, I followed my mother's plan, sweeping out the parasites and expanding the business as I went.

Two years of work, and the company really did triple. My heart grew harder too.

It was only my father. In those two years, I never once saw him step out of line.

For a while I wondered whether my mother had simply been prejudiced against him.

Until my best friend sent that photo of him with a young, heavily pregnant woman.

Then I knew what my mother had said was true.

My father really had been pretending. Pretending to love her, all these years.

Now my mother was only gravely ill and comatose, and already he couldn't hold himself back.

Not only had he found a second spring, but with a woman more than a decade younger than him.

And a secret illegitimate child on top of that.

Still, I didn't take it much to heart.

Everything I owned now was my mother's premarital property. He'd married in. So what if he had an illegitimate child? He couldn't take a thing of mine.

The most he could split was his twenty-thousand-a-month salary.

And I wouldn't be giving him any money or property either.

If he had any sense, he'd take that woman and the illegitimate child in her belly, keep his head down, and stay out of my sight.

2: 2

I had overestimated how much sense they had.

I'd barely reached the office when Adrian Lawrence started to say something, then stopped.

I pressed my fingers to my temples.

"What's with all the hemming and hawing? Say it."

He lifted his chin toward my office.

"Ms. Fox, there's a young woman at your office door calling herself your stepmother, making a scene. We won't let her in, but we can't just drag her out either."

She stressed the point.

"She's pregnant. We didn't dare lay a hand on her."

The woman from the photo came back to me at once.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Where's Noel Lambert?"

It took Adrian a moment to work out that the man I'd called by his full name was my father.

"I've already contacted your fa"

He read my expression and corrected himself on the spot.

"No, Manager Lambert. He's signing a contract today. He's already on his way back."

I nodded.

"Fine. When he gets here, let him clean up his own mess."

"For now, take me to the spare office. I need to rest."

Three days running nonstop had worn me down to nothing, and right now I badly needed sleep.

But the second I reached the office door, a shrill voice went off behind me.

"Iris Fox, where do you think you're going!"

I didn't slow down. I pushed the door open and went in.

A clown like that wasn't worth a second of my time.

The woman wouldn't let it go and came after me.

Adrian blocked her and said something I couldn't hear, and she went quiet.

Once it was silent outside, I sank into a deep sleep.

The nap lasted a full half hour.

When I woke, Adrian's call came through.

"Chairwoman, Manager Lambert is here with Ms. Millicent Lawrence. They'd like to see you. Do you have time?"

I turned him down without thinking.

"No."

"Have Noel Lambert take her straight"

Before I could finish, the office door was shoved open.

Millicent Lawrence came in with her big belly out front, my father trailing meekly behind her.

Adrian wiped the sweat from his forehead and apologized to me.

"I'm sorry, Chairwoman. I couldn't stop her."

I waved a hand.

"It's fine. You can go."

The door closed, and Millicent slapped a hand down on my desk.

"You're Iris Fox, aren't you. I'm your stepmother!"

"I came here to tell you that a little girl like you isn't fit to run a company this big. All of this is going to be my son's from now on, so get out of the company, now!"

I twirled my pen. For the first time, I found something genuinely novel.

All my life, no one had ever dared call me unfit.

My mother was a genius. My grandfather took her under his wing to study at eight; by fifteen she was working on the company's projects, and by twenty she'd won over the company's old guard by sheer force and built it into something big and strong.

And I had surpassed her.

Perfect marks on every test from childhood, abroad by fifteen, a business PhD from a top-tier university by eighteen, and by twenty-two, when I took over, I'd doubled the company's size and quintupled its profits.

Not one of those uncles ever spoke of me without a thumbs-up. No one had ever put me and the word unfit in the same breath.

Today was novel indeed, that someone should call me unfit just because she was about to birth a boy, and order me out of my own company on top of it.

I said nothing. I only smiled and looked at my father, waiting for him to show his hand.

My mother had warned me plainly while she was still lucid.

The moment my father's outside woman came making trouble, I was to watch his attitude.

If he'd already lost all sense of right and wrong and sided with the outsiders, then I was to strip him of every duty and send him back to the countryside.

My father met my eyes and gave me a little smile.

"Iris."

Just as I thought he was on my side, he dropped his usual humble, doting act and produced a share-transfer document.

"Iris, your aunt here is right. You're a woman. You'll have to marry someday, and it really isn't proper for you to be out in the world showing your face."

"Look at your mother. It was all that exposure, too much yin and not enough yang, that turned on her, and now she's bedridden with a grave illness. You can't follow the same path she did!"

He pushed the document a little further toward me.

"Listen to your father and sign the share-transfer papers. Think of it as a gift for your unborn little brother. He'll thank you for it one day, and he'll be the one to care for you in your old age and see you off when the time comes."

3: 3

I stared at the share-transfer agreement, and all at once I was eight years old again, the day I came home from elementary school with a perfect test score.

My father was happy about the perfect score, and then he let out a long sigh.

"Ah, Iris. If only you'd been a boy."

Back then I didn't really understand what he meant. I'd grown up modeling myself after my mother, after all.

Now I understood.

In my father's mind, only a son could carry on the family line.

But if he wanted to carry on his line, he should go back to the countryside and tend those few acres of his family's land. What business did he have reaching for my mother's premarital property?

I pushed the share-transfer agreement back across the desk.

"Dad, if I remember right, the company is my mother's premarital property. You married into her family. What right do you have to anything of hers?"

At the words married in, his face darkened.

"Married in? Your mother forced herself on me, she took everything I had!"

"I'm a grown man, two hands, two feet. You think I'd just move into a woman's household on a whim? Your mother made me do it!"

And then, right on cue, he started fake-crying.

"Iris, you have no idea how much I've suffered all these years. Always second to your mother, living in her shadow. It was worse than death. There were times I wanted to jump off a building and end it."

"But I thought of you, and I changed my mind. Thank God you're grown now, old enough to tell right from wrong."

When I didn't react, he suddenly grabbed my hand.

"Sweetheart, I'm not asking you to sign the company over to me because I'm greedy for it. I'm truly afraid you'll end up like your mother, backlash and all, struck down by some terrible illness and taken from me. And I promise you, even after you transfer every share, I will never push you out of the company."

The clammy warmth of his grip made me want to be sick.

If my mother hadn't lifted him out of the life he came from, he'd still be scratching a living out of the countryside, barely able to feed himself.

And now, while she lay dying and couldn't speak up for herself, he was calling her a woman who took everything from him.

Disgusting.

I slid my hand free without a word and wiped it with a tissue.

"I've heard what you have to say. Give me some time to think it over."

His face soured further, but he arranged it into a show of trust.

"Good. Dad knows you're a good girl. You'll make the right choice, you won't disappoint me!"

I said nothing.

Millicent looked like she wanted to add something, but my father pulled her out.

Once the door shut, I looked at the transfer agreement on the desk and let out a cold laugh.

Won't disappoint him?

Then he'd guessed very wrong.

Guilt trips don't work on me.

I tore the agreement up, dropped it in the trash, and called Adrian in.

"Go and set it up. I want to hold a board meeting tomorrow."

Adrian asked,

"And the agenda?"

"Put down: a report on the company's recent projects and a change to management personnel."

Adrian paused.

"Do you need me to name specific people?"

"Yes. Regarding Noel Lambert."

Once the internal email went out, copied to all of management, a message from my father popped up.

He thought I meant to sign over the shares in front of everyone, and he was in a wonderful mood.

My good girl, I always knew you were different from your mother. Tomorrow you're announcing that the shares go to Dad, aren't you?

I didn't reply, so he sent a 4D ultrasound image from a prenatal checkup.

Look, isn't your baby brother adorable? Once he's born, the two of you should get close.

Truly unbearable.

I muted him.

Then last night, all of this. The housekeeper, Stephanie Lambert, called.

"Miss, there's trouble. A woman named Millicent Lawrence insists she's your stepmother and forced her way to the estate. When we wouldn't let her in, she stood outside shrieking."

"We were afraid she'd keep it up and embarrass you, so we brought her inside. Now she won't leave. She went straight into your wardrobe room, saying all the clothes and bags in there are hers. What do we do?"

I didn't hesitate.

"Call the police."

"Tell them there's a burglar in the house and to come catch the thief."

Before I hung up, I added a few more things.

"Oh, and when you get a moment, pack up all of Noel Lambert's personal clothing."

"And from now on, he is not allowed to set foot in the estate. Not just this one, but every property the Fox family owns."

4: 4

Stephanie froze for a second, then caught up fast.

"Of course, Miss. I'll see to it right away."

After the call ended, I stood and reached for my coat, meaning to head to the hospital and check on my mother.

Passing the sales department, I noticed my father wasn't at his desk.

"Where is he?"

Beside me, Adrian pushed his glasses up.

"His people say Millicent called him, and he left for the day."

"And it's happened several times this month."

I gave a cold laugh.

"If he wants to be here that little, then get someone to clear out his desk."

Adrian moved quickly.

By the time I stepped into the elevator, three people were already packing his things into boxes, every box stuffed full.

At the hospital entrance, I ran straight into my father and Millicent.

The moment she saw me, Millicent bared her teeth and lunged as if to hit me.

But my father said something in her ear, and she went quiet, gave a cold snort, and walked off.

He, on the other hand, sidled up to me with a grin.

"Iris, are you here to see your mother?"

I said nothing and kept walking. He followed.

"I haven't seen Lorraine in a while either. I'll come with you."

I stopped.

For the first time, my eyes turned sharp.

"No need."

The look on my face froze him in place.

By the time he came to his senses, I was already in the elevator.

As the doors slid shut, I heard him muttering and cursing.

"Fine, don't let me. You think I care to look at that dying old woman?"

My fists clenched, and I called Adrian right away.

"Get people on overtime. Audit every project Noel Lambert has touched over the years, tonight."

My mother was the same as before, eyes still shut, lying there quietly.

I told her a little about how the company was doing, gave a few instructions to the bodyguard and nurse posted at the door, and only then left.

At nine the next morning, the board meeting convened right on schedule.

Every director was already seated in the conference room.

I pushed the door open, and they rose.

"Good morning, Chairwoman."

I nodded and took the seat at the head of the table.

My father sat on the right.

Seeing me come in, he spoke up with a smile, trying to smooth things over.

"Iris, that thing your dad said yesterday, have you thought it over?"

Several directors turned to look, frowning.

I opened the file without lifting my head.

"This is a board meeting. We don't discuss personal matters."

The smile on my father's face stiffened, his mouth pressing into a flat line.

But he quickly slipped back into his obliging manner.

"All right, all right, Dad will listen to you. Business first."

The meeting went on.

After each department finished its report,

half an hour later, all the business was done.

I closed the file.

"Now for a personnel change, regarding Mr. Noel Lambert."

My father's hand, just reaching for his teacup, went still, and pure delight rose on his face.

I didn't look at him. I looked at Adrian.

"Hand out the documents."

Adrian nodded and passed a copy to each director.

My father rubbed his hands in excitement. Then he saw the words on the page, "Regarding the Dismissal of Noel Lambert,"

and his face changed completely. He didn't even call me daughter anymore.

"Iris Fox, you're removing me from my position?"

"Yes."

I said it flatly, no room for argument.

"And starting today, there's no place for you in the Fox family. Go back to the countryside and farm."