His Naughty Lessons
Chapter 82: Shining Fortune

Chapter 82: Shining Fortune

** Harper **

It was hard to keep the constant grin off of her face when Harper arrived at work on Monday. The weekend had been full of checklist completions, everything moving so fast and effortlessly that she could barely believe it. Her seduction game was coming to fruition ... How long before she could graduate to a level matching what was in May’s books?

Not to mention that the actual game at work was about to take off to new heights as well. The official announcement for the investment partnership should be coming any day now, and she wondered how much shock the final results would bring to the entire team.

The answer, as it turned out, was immediately obvious the moment she stepped out of the elevator.

Monday morning was usually a quiet time at Miracles, with most people still in weekend mode and slow to settle back into the work routine. But today, the room was buzzing, crackling with energy and filled with murmurs of conversations in every corner. As Harper made her way down the hallway toward her cubicle, she noticed a few too many heads pausing in their chatters and turning her direction. Each of those faces looked ... a bit overly excited, and one of the guys from the software team even gestured a tip-of-the-hat to her with a flourish.

Then she rounded the corner and was almost run over by her boss, who was hurrying into a meeting room with such obvious enthusiasm that his whole person looked jittery.

"Oh, morning, Harper." He stopped for a brief second, just enough to recognize Harper and greet her with a pat on the shoulder. "Great job. We’ll talk more in an hour?" He didn’t give any more context or leave any time for a response before quickly disappearing into the packed meeting room.

Harper had yet to process that odd greeting when the marketing director Fred followed from down the hall, doing a double take when he saw her and almost spilling the cup of hot coffee in his hand.

"Oh, morning, Harper," he said in the exact same tone — surprised, pleased, and a little ... awed? He nodded importantly at her before proceeding into the same meeting room and closed the door behind him.

Hmm. Obviously, some version of The Big News must’ve already been going around, and this was quite a dramatic response from the crowd.

"Harper!" Lindsey’s ecstatic cry was next as Harper finally made it into their shared cubicle. "Oh girl, you can’t seriously look this calm. It should be criminal that you’re still able to function normally after all the crazy news that’s going down!"

... Alright, this was the last straw that broke through Harper’s carefully harnessed curiosity. "What news?" she asked. What did she miss out on that could make even Lindsey so beyond herself?

"Wait, you haven’t read your emails yet?" Lindsey stared with wide eyes behind her glasses. "Hah, that means I get to be the one to break it to you! Come over there." She rolled her chair aside to make room for Harper, nodding at her monitor. "Company-wide announcement, just came out half an hour ago. We got the deal with the investors, of course, as the rumor already told us. But here’s the surprise — it’s not a project-based, fixed budget deal like we all thought it would be. They’re in for a full partnership, so guess who has just bought half of our company’s shares?"

Harper’s mouth fell open.

"My reaction exactly." Lindsey grinned. "But here’s another catch — they bought just a teeny tiny percentage less than fifty, so technically, it’s not a take over. We are still our own company, only now with a massive gold mine sitting in the boardroom ready to throw tons of money and resources into the ’market-defining deep space VR project’." She nudged Harper with her shoulder. "This is some serious, huge deal. You, Harper McKenzie, are about to become the absolute superstar of the company. Heck, maybe even the whole industry if this all goes the way we hope it would."

Harper was speechless. Having already received leaked intel from Eli over the weekend, she hadn’t actually expected breaking news today. She thought she’d simply join the merry crowd and cheer for the increased budget that would allow for some extended features of her game. But this? This level of involvement from Sterling Trust, which meant practically unlimited access to not only budget but also connections and resources that a startup like Miracles could never dream of before? Lindsey was right — this was life changing.

"No wonder Brandon was so excited that he almost knocked me over in the hallway when I came in," Harper muttered.

"’Excited’ is an understatement." Lindsey grinned again and clicked on a different email from her inbox. "Look at this one, from the CEO. He’s calling a meeting in an hour with all the leads involved in the investors presentation last week — you, Brandon, Fred, Naomi, Wallace. It says there’s even more good news to discuss. I wouldn’t be shocked by anything else that comes at this point ... Who knows, maybe everyone is getting a big promotion!"

Ah, at least this time, Harper knew precisely what the extra news would be. But she played along, finding no trouble sharing that jittery excitement. "Or maybe this is the beginning of a new secret cult," she joked. Then a particular detail hit her. "Wait, and you were copied on this email?"

Lindsey winked. "Mm-hmm, I was waiting for you to ask that question. Guess who asked last week to join this new secret cult and got an approval?"

Harper gasped. All this news was coming too fast. Miracles was getting a makeover. Her new project had officially become the star focus of the whole team. And Lindsey, her favorite person to work with and bounce ideas off of, was going to work under her lead? What else could she possibly hope for?

"Now, that’s a better face I expected to see on you this morning. All dazed and lost in happiness." Lindsey chuckled. "This is clearly the day when all the fortunes in the world are shining upon you! What do you say about buying some lottery tickets after lunch?"