Chapter 576: Chapter 576: Proposal
Ian could tell that Mina did not understand what he had just offered her. He told her that he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her, but to Mina, those words meant something entirely different, and by the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. The woman had already drawn her own conclusion, and Ian did not bother to clarify.
"If you genuinely want to make it up to me then help me make a name for myself. It is wrong of me to expect you to pay for a mistake I helped to make possible for the rest of your life, so I will not ask that of you. Besides, when you get married, I don't want the trouble of having to explain." Mina forced out a smile that Ian knew was meant to take her mind off the awkwardness of their conversation.
"Then tell me what you need from me."
"I already told you; I want to use your family name." Ian rubbed his face.
"Mina, how would that look?" The woman raised an eyebrow.
"President Lee, what are you talking about? I want you to throw a party and hire Olivia and Willow to organize it." Ian's face fell. He did not consider that to fall under the category of 'using his family name' and he had assumed incorrectly.
"You and I have very different definitions of using a person's name."
----
Mina was sitting behind President Lee's desk working on two business proposals, a truck heist, and preparing the mission statement for the first event to be hosted by Free, the name Miss Meagan had chosen for the non-profit.
She had been awake all night, and she was beginning to feel a headache coming on when President Lee brought her a cup of coffee. He asked what she was working on, and she handed him the written strategy for how she planned to catch whoever was stealing from his company and how. The man read it and laughed at her.
"This will never work."
"Okay," Mina shrugged, snatched back the paper, and sipped on her coffee, surprised that it was perfect. "Is your nan here?"
"No, but if she were, she would be scaring you off to bed by now." Mina chuckled and yawned. President Lee was right, and the thought of the old woman pulling her into her room made her smile.
"I will get to bed shortly. I just have a few more details to add to this proposal." Ian walked around the desk and looked over at Mina's handwritten business proposal. She had beautiful handwriting, something that people in upper class society lacked, because they mostly took notes on laptops and tablets while in school.
"What is this?" Ian snatched the paper off the desk, and Mina reached up to pull it back. The man held it above his head, not allowing her to retrieve the paper.
"Stop. I worked hard on that."
"I want twenty percent ownership." Mina's face scrunched into a look of bewilderment.
"Five percent; only because I used your resources and having you as a shareholder might help." Ian looked back down at the business plan Mina had laid out and saw a few obvious flaws in it, but it was not altogether bad. He pointed them out to her, and unlike what he believed, she was not at all offended. She actively listened, and then handed him a pen to add his suggestions. "Ten percent with the potential to buy additional shares after five years."
"Forget it," Ian handed Mina back the paper, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
"You better not steal my idea."
"I have considered it." Mina gasped.
"President Lee, please. I worked hard on that proposal."
"Give me twenty percent with the potential to buy in after five years and I will not." Mina's mouth hung open before she drew back her fist and punched the man in the shoulder. His tickled laughter only fueled her anger.
"You are a horrible person. You do not need money the way I do." Mina crossed her arms over her chest and stormed out of the study. Ian did not follow her, instead he went back to his desk where he read the other things she was working on.
Picking up his phone, Ian called Zane, and read Mina's 'truck heist' to him. The men shared in laughter, thinking that what Mina proposed was too juvenile to catch someone who had been smart enough, bold enough and savvy enough to steal from the Lee Group for years.
"Why don't we just try it to humor her? It can't hurt anything."
----
When Mina awoke, she took care of her waking routine, and angrily walked into President Lee's office. The man was sitting behind his desk and she snatched her files from the top of it, still upset that he was cheating her out of her own hard work. He smiled at her, and once again she hated how handsome he was when he did.
"Did you think about my offer?" Mina's eyes turned to slits as she stared at the man.
"You haven't really given me a choice." The man's smile never left his face and he handed Mina a folder that contained one of the most detailed business plans she had ever seen.
"Your model was good, but I have been doing this a long time." Mina did not speak, she sat in what had become her new favorite chair and curled up, reading the plan that President Lee had put together. Hours went by and Mina was still reading the plan, completely ignoring the man who had gone back to working on whatever he was doing before she came back into the room. When she finally looked away from the paper, she felt a sense of heaviness overtake her. "Do you not like it?" Mina shook her head. As far as she could tell, the plan was perfect. Her problem was her insecurity.
"President Lee, why did it take you three weeks to let me out of that room?" The man's cocky smirk faded into a frown, and Mina looked down, not wanting to make and keep eye contact with him for too long.
"Do you want the truth or a version of it?" Mina did not know what she wanted; so she stayed silent, letting the man decide what was best. "Aside from the fact that we couldn't figure out anything about you, I was angry with you for turning me into the type of man that I hate most."
"But you said that-" Ian cut Mina off.
"I know that now, but like you, I also did not remember what happened. I tried to show you the video that helped trigger my memories, but you destroyed it." Mina shuddered at the thought of seeing herself being taken advantage of in any way. "Like I said before, it was just audio. The camera was facing the door of the room.
"Who else has seen or listened to it?" Mina asked, feeling embarrassed.
"No one. I am not proud of what happened between us, and while Zane knows the whole truth, few other people do." Ian waited to see if Mina would have a follow up question, but she said nothing. "Why are you bringing this up now?" he questioned, finding himself mirroring Mina's discomfort when he had taken her to visit Dr. Bell.
"It doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it never made sense to me, and since you and I are about to start a business together, I want to clear up things that still concern me." Ian stood up and walked over to where Mina was sitting. She looked up at him and her eyes scanned his face, trying to see whether he was angry or not.
"The Lee family isn't what it once was. Technology is catching up to us, and it is getting harder for us to do what we usually do. When you showed up, I felt like it was beyond coincidental. I had seen you before, and I felt like someone sent you to blackmail me."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone