Who knows, if I never showed up what could’ve been
There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen
I had a marvelous time ruining everything
I had a marvelous time
Ruining everything

---

August 24, 2020

Miller & Associates: Waiting Room

Elizabeth checked her watch, then wrinkled her nose, and took a seat. She only had about two hours before she was supposed to clock in for a night shift, and she really hoped this wouldn’t take long.

She should have just signed the paperwork to revoke the power of attorney three weeks earlier when she’d had the chance outside Jason’s hospital room. But it really wasn’t her fault — if Carly hadn’t acted like an insane person, Elizabeth wouldn’t have had the impulse to irritate her.

Then again, Jason had obviously felt the same way about his best friend since he hadn’t signed his paperwork either. When he’d called her to set up today’s appointment, he’d admitted that Carly thought he’d been joking and had signed the revocation, so for now—their secret was still safe.

Elizabeth looked up when the double doors to Diane’s office opened, and Jason stepped inside. He scanned the waiting room, looking for her, then came over to sit next to her. “Hey. Thanks for meeting me today.”

“No problem.” She winced, looking at the scar on the side of his head. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Jason admitted. He leaned back. “Uh, I heard about the scholarship Nikolas set up for you. I mean, in your name. That’s—that’s really great.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth sighed. “Yeah, I thought so.” She stared at her chipped nail polish. “I’m sure it’ll help a lot of people.” She looked up at him. “Diane’s receptionist said she’s running a little late.”

“That’s—fine—” Jason squinted, tipped his head. “You don’t look happy about the scholarship—”

“It’s nothing—” Elizabeth did not want to discuss her marriage problems with Jason — she was not in the mood for another round of I told you so. Not today. Her attention was grabbed by something on the television—a banner spreading across the bottom of a newscast. “What—”

Jason’s phone began to ring, and Elizabeth’s beeped with a notification. Jason frowned, pulled it out as Elizabeth looked at the media alert—

“Oh my God—” Elizabeth met Jason’s stunned eyes—it was clear from the shrieking on the other end of the line that someone had just delivered the news that she’d seen on her phone—

NEW ELQ CEO FIRES QUARTERMAINE FAMILY

Michael and Ned were both out of a job—Elizabeth’s eyes bulged as she brought up the news reports, and Jason went over to the corner to listen to Carly on the other line. Apparently, Valentin hadn’t just fired Michael and Ned—he’d begun raiding ELQ subsidiaries and had already sold off a quarter of the company’s holdings —

“I’m listening, Carly,” Jason snapped, and Elizabeth looked up at his worried expression. “I—I know—I’m—what?” he demanded, his tone sharp and irritated. “How—that’s not—Damn it—Okay. Okay. I don’t know what—” He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed the back of his neck. “How is that possible?” he bit out. “That house belongs to Monica, not the company—”

Elizabeth shot to her feet but stayed silent.

“Okay,” Jason repeated. “Carly—there’s nothing I can—I’m actually waiting to talk to Diane right now—what?” he demanded. “No. Tell Michael—tell Michael not to—let me talk to Diane. Okay.” He shoved the phone in his pocket, met her eyes. “Valentin seized the mansion.”

“The mansion,” Elizabeth repeated. “But—but—”

“And Valentin doesn’t just control fifty percent of the company—he owns Danny and Scout’s shares.” Jason’s scowl deepened. “The proxy Sam gave him—the paperwork—”

“Oh, no—” Elizabeth closed her eyes.

“She didn’t read it. She sold the shares to him—” Jason’s face twisted, and he looked down at the phone again. It was ringing—even from here, she could see Sam’s name flashing. “According to Michael, Valentin has already started dismantling ELQ—”

Elizabeth swallowed hard as Jason sat back down, put his head in his hands. He tossed his phone next to him. “He must have known the Quartermaines would get the company back,” she said softly. “I bet if you look into the companies he’s selling to—”

“He probably owns them,” Jason muttered. “Yeah. By the end of the week, ELQ will be bankrupt, Michael and Monica will be homeless, and there won’t be anything left but the trust funds. Unless he figures out how to raid them, too.”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “There has to be a way to stop him, isn’t there? I mean—you’re—we’re shareholders. Don’t we have some kind of rights? ELQ means so much to Michael—and—”

Diane rushed out of her office. “Oh, thank God, you’re here—” The lawyer gestured for them to come inside. “I just saw the media alert—this—how is this possible?”

Jason went into Diane’s office, and without thinking, Elizabeth grabbed the phone he left behind—the notifications screen filled with missed calls from Carly, Sam, Sonny, and Michael.

“How can we stop this?” Jason bit out as Elizabeth handed him the phone. “Michael and Ned still control fifty percent—Valentin doesn’t have the majority—”

“He doesn’t—unless he found another shareholder to sell him something—” Diane looked at Elizabeth. “You didn’t—”

“No, of course not. Michael has Jake’s proxy,” Elizabeth said, defensively. “I’d never sell Jake’s inheritance—” Then she winced as Jason’s expression turned thunderous. “You know, I should go—we can do this POA thing some other time—”

“No—” Jason shook his head. “No, I’m sorry—I’m not mad at you. I’m just—” He scrubbed his hand down his face. “I should have—” Then his hand dropped to his side as he looked at Diane. “Diane, when we were going through all the paperwork when I came back—I don’t remember signing anything from ELQ getting my shares back from Drew’s legal control.”

“You—” Diane pursed her lips. “Oh. Oh, God.” She went to the doorway. “Janet! Janet—”

She disappeared in her lobby as Elizabeth blinked, looked at Jason. “Wait—If you didn’t get your shares back legally from Drew—I don’t understand—haven’t you been voting them—”

“No, I signed them over to Michael—but—” Jason shook his head. “But if they weren’t mine—”

“Then Scout didn’t inherit just Drew’s ten percent, but—”

Diane came back in with a thick folder, started to shove her way through the paperwork. “I know we drew it up,” she muttered. “There was so much to do with all of that—the divorce, the finances—I can’t believe we would have—” She ripped a contract out of the file—then her face paled.

“Valentin must have looked over the paperwork more closely and realized he owned sixty—” Jason sat down in a desk in front of the chair. “How is that—How did we not—”

“Everyone thought it had been signed and filed,” Elizabeth murmured. “So you all acted that way. Even Drew. But—”

“But it got clipped to the custody papers that weren’t signed,” Diane said. “Sam—she’d originally asked you to terminate your rights to Danny—”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she looked at Jason. “What—”

“But she backed down—” Jason cleared his throat. “Diane—”

“I—I can challenge it in court,” Diane said slowly. “I can do that. You legally inherited ten percent of the company when Edward died. You weren’t declared dead until after he passed away. The ELQ shares have been a mess ever since.”

“Diane, how soon can you challenge this?” Elizabeth asked. “I mean—what if the other shareholders—can I do anything? Jake only has five percent, but that has to mean something—”

“By the time we get an injunction, Valentin will have stripped the company of any value,” Jason muttered. “Damn it, Diane.”

“I didn’t—” Diane sat down heavily behind the desk. “I’m sorry,” she said faintly. “I’ll put together a lawsuit. On behalf of any shareholders who want to fight Valentin—we might be able to get a civil injunction—Elizabeth—” She looked at her. “I mean, you’re right. He has a duty to protect the company—and I can file for Jason’s shares, but—”

“It’s a long shot.” Elizabeth looked at Jason with sorrow. “I’m so sorry, Jason. For Monica and Michael. This must be breaking their hearts.”

“Yeah.” Jason picked up his phone as it rang again. He pressed the green button and put it to his ear. “What, Sam?” he bit out. “Yeah, obviously you didn’t read the paperwork. You needed to sit next to me while I was unconscious for twelve hours, so you sold out my family without reading the fine—” He scowled, then pressed the red button, hanging up the phone.

Extremely uncomfortable with her front-row seat, Elizabeth shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Um, I should go,” she repeated. She reached for the door.

“I’ll go with you,” Jason said. “Diane, file the injunction anyway. We might not be able to save everything, but it’s our best shot.”

“Yeah, file on Jake’s behalf, too,” Elizabeth said, watching Jason warily. “I’m sure Michael will want to as well.”

“I’ll get started. Jason, I’m so sorry—”

“I keep hearing that,” Jason bit out. “But my mother’s being thrown out of the house, my nephew is out of a job—my kids are being screwed over—” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Come on,” he told Elizabeth. “I need some air.”

They were out on the sidewalk before Elizabeth winced. “We didn’t sign the revocation papers again,” she told him as they walked towards the parking lot.

Jason sighed, looked back. “Damn it—” He met her eyes. “I’m sorry. This keeps—”

“It’s fine. Let’s just—let’s just do it another day. This is more important. I’m so sorry about all of this, Jason—”

“What do you have to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything.” Jason stopped next to his bike. “The ELQ paperwork—I never thought about it back then,” he admitted. “I don’t know if I even knew how big it was in Michael’s life. Not then.”

“Jason, you were going through a lot,” Elizabeth assured him, putting a hand on his arm. “And you should have been able to depend on Diane to handle that. And the ELQ lawyers should have seen the problem. That’s what we pay them for—”

“Twelve hours,” Jason said slowly. “That’s how long I was unconscious. She signed away everything so she could sit next to me for twelve hours.”

“You know Sam never meant for any of this to happen,” Elizabeth said, weakly. “She was just—” Desperate.

“And I was dealing with that. I forgave her for that. Just like I—” Jason took a deep breath. “I know she was desperate. But she had time to talk it through, didn’t she? She talked to you.”

“And I could have said something to Michael or Ned. Or even you,” she told him. “But I didn’t—”

“They were clipped to those custody papers,” Jason said quietly. “If she hadn’t wanted me to terminate my rights to Danny, those papers wouldn’t exist.”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Well, yeah, and if you didn’t answer your phone all of the time, you might not have gone off the pier in 2012. Don’t blame Sam for things that aren’t related to this—”

“Twelve hours. Michael and Monica have lost everything so that she could—” Jason clenched his hand into a fist, then swung at the brick wall his bike was parked next to. She grabbed his fist in both hands, stopping him.

“You’re angry,” Elizabeth said. “You have every right to be angry. But being angry isn’t going to solve this. Okay? Let’s give Diane a chance to fix this. She’s never let you down before. Except—well, except that one time,” she added when he glared her. “Hey—not the bad guy here. Not this time anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. His face relaxed—slightly. “You’re just—I don’t care about the money. I have enough. I just—”

“I get it, Jason. Michael loves ELQ. And Monica loves that house. Alan gave it to her. Emily grew up there. Lila’s gardens—I get it, Jason. But breaking your hand on a brick wall isn’t going to change anything.”

“No.” Jason leaned against the wall. He met her eyes, and she released his hand, satisfied he wasn’t going to lose it again. “No. It won’t.”

“And the Quartermaines have been down before. Didn’t we just talk about that?” she reminded. “When you were a kid—you don’t remember this, but they lived above Kelly’s. I remember Gram visiting with Lila there one summer when I was staying there. Lila saved the company back then. And Jax nearly took the company before.  AJ embezzled most of the operating cash. The Feds froze the assets, and Nikolas actually managed to wrest control for a while.” When Jason frowned, she sighed. “You were dead for those last two.”

“Right.”

“Michael has a long-line of ruthless people in his blood—and I’m talking about Carly here.And he has your patience and eye for detail. You’ll go meet with him, you’ll sort this out, and when he gets ELQ back—which he will—you’ll do whatever he needs to make it strong again.”

“You’re right.” Jason nodded, and he looked less angry than he’d been before. He straightened. “You’re right,” he repeated. “Michael will be okay.” He sighed. “I’m sorry about the power of attorney paperwork. I know you need to get that done before—” His face tightened, and he looked away.

“You know,” Elizabeth said slowly, “it’s for the best. I think—if you don’t mind—we’ll let it sit. I—” She bit her lip. “It’s not important,” she said when he frowned at her. “Call Michael—”

“Elizabeth.” Jason narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you having problems with Franco? Because you know—”

“I know. And if I need him to disappear, I know who to call.” She glanced at her watch. “An hour before she had to be at work. “It’s not that serious. It’s just—you know, you make one mistake ten years ago, and somehow it makes you chronically unfaithful,” she bit out.

Jason raised his browns as his mouth tightened. “Who the hell—”

“Ava Jerome,” Elizabeth said, wishing she’d never said anything. “No one else even remembers it, which means either my oldest friend or my husband is saying that about me—” Her chest tightened because she hadn’t let herself say that out loud. “And I’m not sure which one of those is worse—”

“Elizabeth—”

“It’s fine—no, it’s fine—” She said as he stepped towards her. “It’s not important—”

“The hell it’s not. No one has any right to talk about you like that—you weren’t even married when all of that happened—you and Lucky were barely back together—”

“Funny,” Elizabeth managed as tears stung her eyes. “You’re the only one who remembers that.” She pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “I’m just tired. The last time I was married to someone who was convinced I was having an affair, it was to cover his own infidelity. Remember?”

“Yeah.” Jason exhaled slowly. “Lucky.”

“He screamed at me for months about Patrick, and he was the one having an affair—” She looked away. “And then a year later, he was sure you and I—but it was just to cover his affair with Sam. At least—” She sighed. “At least he wasn’t wrong then. But it’s just—it’s bringing back bad memories.”

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” He put an arm around her shoulder, and she let him hug her for just a minute before drawing back. “What can I do?”

“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “Really. Just—if you don’t mind—let’s keep the POA the way it is now. If we end up needing it, well—I trust you.” She took a deep breath. “I need to get to work. Call me if I can help with ELQ, okay? Let Michael know I’m in his corner.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks. And you—you call me if anything happens with Franco. Or Nikolas,” Jason said she started towards her car. “I’m in the mood to punch someone. I don’t care who.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

← All My What Ifs |