"Bellamy, you're only 20 and haven't even graduated college yet. What do you know about running a company?"
"Exactly! Handing Hawkins Corp over to you is just plain reckless."
"We should call a family meeting and pick someone actually qualified."
"Yeah, if this company ends up in your hands, we might as well sell off our shares and start fresh."
"Seriously, Bellamy, just let this go. Be that carefree rich girl, no stress, no pressure."
Carefree... rich girl?
Bellamy, sitting quietly on the couch, gave an internal cold laugh. The calm mask she'd forced on finally started to crack. Her eyes slowly swept across the people in front of her one by one.
These so-called relatives, putting on airs of concern, acting all high and mighty.
Her dad had just passed away, not even buried yet, and all they could talk about was the company and who should inherit what.
"You were never officially part of the Hawkins family. You're not in the family registry, which means you have no right to inherit my son's shares, let alone sit in the chairman's seat."
That line came from him-her grandfather. Thomas Hawkins' own father.
But he'd never treated her like family, never once showed warmth.
As the most senior figure in the Hawkins family, not a trace of grief could be found on his face. His sharp eyes sparkled with shrewdness, not sadness.
He kept staring at Bellamy, who looked so quiet and seemingly fragile, his voice gentle but full of hidden threats.
When she didn't respond, he added in an almost kind tone, "If you give it up, I'll make sure you're taken care of for life. No worries."
Taken care of?
Bellamy gave a small laugh, bitter and distant, the corners of her lips lifting with sarcasm.
Yeah right, the moment she handed everything over, they'd chew her up and spit her out. Not even a basic, normal life would be safe in their hands. For the first time, she truly understood why her dad insisted on leaving Hawkins Corp to her.
He knew she wasn't a business person, knew she just loved to paint, yet still he wrote that kind of will.
Dad just wanted to protect her.
Without that will, forget being the chairperson–they would've kicked her out of the house by now.
Her dad was gone. Bellamy didn't care about staying anymore, but Hawkins Corp was what he worked his whole life to protect. It was the only thing he could leave her.
That thought made her straighten her back. Her youthful face hardened, a cold edge creeping in. She turned to look at the lawyer standing behind her.
The lawyer, who clearly wasn't new to messes like this, got her signal and took out the will.
Black and white, clear as day-Thomas left his 49% of the shares to Bellamy. She was named the new chairperson.
No room to argue.
The lawyer laid the document on the table for everyone to examine. But when it got to the old man, he flat-out yanked it over and tore it to shreds.
The look of smug satisfaction on the relatives' faces said it all.
Following a subtle glance from the old man, a couple of uncles moved in-one blocked the lawyer, the other tried dragging Bellamy upstairs to lock her away.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
She tried to fight them off, but with that many hands on her, things quickly turned chaotic. If the lawyer ended up bribed too, she knew that'd be the end of the line for her.
Just then, right in the middle of the chaos, a man in a custom brown suit appeared at the top of the grand staircase. He walked down with elegance, like a scene straight from a movie.
"Well... things sure are lively down here."