Chapter 12
The ride back passed in relative silence. Janet was still trying to compose herself and she could only assume that Fang was working hard to get them back home safely. Janet checked her clothes. They were dirtied and worse for wear. She knew that there were scrapes across her skin and she frowned in quiet, personal disapproval. She looked over herself again. She knew that she had just been through hell but she had a meeting to get to.
She fished into her purse, which Fang had retrieved, and had a quick look at the time. Her phone was still out of range, but according to her clock, she still had time to make it to the meeting.
She had a realization, sharp and curt in her mind. She wouldn’t let this define her. There would be time to rest later, time to rest very soon, to move on and make everything right again. There would be time to cry and grieve and process the horror of the attempts on her life.
But right now. Janet had a meeting to attend. She had a deal to close, a company to save. She wasn’t going to lay down and die. She looked towards Fang as the car pulled into the city itself, “Take me to a clothing shop.”
There was a finality to her words that surprised even her. She was sure about this. Fang looked at her with an air of surprise and Janet smiled, “I’m not going to the meeting dressed like this.”
Fang laughed as he returned his eyes to the road, shaking his head, He sounded surprised, but this time, he didn’t argue with her, didn’t resist or tell her to stop. This time, he seemed surer of her than he had before, “Okay.”
He turned off into the nearest mall, shifting the car into park. Janet smiled and jumped out of the car. It didn’t take her long to find something that was suitable. She didn’t want anything fancy. She opted for pants and a neat blouse, with a fitted jacket. Formal, attractive, but perfect for kicking butt in if anyone tried something again. She stepped into the bathroom, hastily fixing her hair and straightening her clothes. She didn’t care about looking pretty, she cared about getting things done. Although, even if she did say so herself, she was looking pretty good for a woman who had tangled with death twice and gotten out both times.
As they slid into the car, Fang glanced over with a smirk, “Where to?”
“Where do you think?” She answered easily. Fang didn’t say another word, but his smile grew as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed towards the offices. Janet didn’t feel the normal nervousness in her stomach. She didn’t feel the shaky discomfort that she was used to feeling, didn’t feel the uncertainty, the fear and the worry. Instead, she felt sure of herself, felt confident in herself.
She didn’t care if they thought she wasn’t skilled. She didn’t care if they thought that she was too young, or that she couldn’t do it. Janet didn’t give a damn. She had proved to herself that she could overcome almost anything that she could get through a life or death experience and walk away.
What was one business meeting to her now? Her boyfriend was a dragon, she’d been thrown out of a window and lived, thrown to the ground with a gun at the back of her neck. She almost laughed out loud. It sounded insane. It was insane! Everything that she had been through didn’t seem like it could be real, didn’t seem like something that belonged in her life, and yet, here she was. She shook her head as they approached the buildings and Fang drew the car to a stop.
She had done the impossible, believed the impossible, lived through the impossible. She wasn’t going to let a meeting with a few old men scare her. Not anymore. Janet knew who she was, knew what she was capable of and it was a lot. She knew what she was worth and she knew what her company was worth.
It was no longer a burden that her father had left her with. It was a gift, a blessing, it was something special, something empowering and something that she was lucky to have. She was going to make a success of this and nothing was going to stop her. She was going to succeed and she was going to take this company to new heights.
And as she glanced at Fang, who stepped out of the car with her, Janet felt surer than ever. This time, she had his support and that, on top of everything else, made all the difference in the world.
Janet grabbed her bag, straightened up tall and made her way to the front desk. Fang stepped back as she made her way to the desk. The woman looked up at her with a snooty expression on her face and Janet couldn’t help but smile in response, the challenge clear as day.
“I’m here for the 12 o’clock meeting.”
The woman glanced at the clock above her desk, sniffing. The clock read 12:10.
“I’ll have to see if they are still available…we are on a tight schedule, and since you’re so late…”
Janet leaned forward, pressing her hands onto the desk. She met the woman’s eye and smiled, “They will see me. If they want the deal to go through, they will see me and they will see me now. Understood?” There was a cool bite to her tone that Janet was unfamiliar with, but she found that she liked.
There was no need to be rude or cool towards someone who was polite and professional, but Janet was finished with letting people push her around and treat her as less. She was absolutely finished with it and she was making that known, not only to the world, but to herself. And it felt good. It felt very, very good.
The woman’s eyes grew wide, her cheeks flushing with indignation. She stood and turned without saying and word, walking towards the back of the office. A few moments later, she returned, the flush still very much present on her cheeks, but there was an air of resignation about her, “Come through.”
“Thank you.” Janet smiled and nodded to Fang, who was looking on with an amused expression on his face. He followed her into the office. The woman looked hesitant, but Janet simply smiled, “He’s coming in.”
It wasn’t a question. Fang had saved her and so he was not going to be excluded. Besides that, she had just had two attempts on her life. She was in no mood for a third. If a third did happen, she wanted to be properly prepared and having Fang there was a good way of making sure that she was safe and out of harm’s way. She wasn’t going to take any chances.
Janet stepped into the office and had a seat, “Thank you for seeing me.”
Fang declined a seat, stepping back and keeping watch instead. Janet felt confident knowing that he had her back like this. She wasn’t great when her life was threatened, but she was great in business and she was about to prove it.
The man directly across from her, with dark grey hair, nodded slowly, “I understand that you have a proposal for us?”
He skipped the formalities entirely and, right now, Janet couldn’t have been happier about that. She just wanted to move on and make sure that she finished this in one piece. She was driven, determined but still exhausted after the hell of a day that she had been put through.
“Yes, yes, I do.” She leaned forward against the table, pressing her palms against the wood, “I think you’ll like what I have to say.”