around me.
“My brilliant girl!”
I didn’t hug her back.
She slowly stepped away.
“We had no idea.”
“I know.”
Dad glanced toward the reporters.
“Fifteen billion?”
“Company valuation,” I corrected.
Vanessa looked from Julian to the nearby security detail.
“You own Asteron?”
“Yes.”
She went pale.
Six months earlier, Vanessa had mocked my “little computer job” at Christmas dinner.
Worse, Dad had spent years complaining about Asteron’s expensive enterprise software.
Now he understood something even more uncomfortable.
For three years, his company had indirectly been paying mine.
Mom recovered
